Lady T

I've encountered that "I, Robot" clerk on the phone as well. I take unholy pleasure in busting her chops out of that script -- easy to do, actually; all I've ever needed is to ask two or three questions about stuff I already knew from casing the CT website. While she's rebooting and trying to get answers, I tell her firmly that I would like to dine on (range of possible dates) at (contemplated time), party of one, and where does she have a table available, please? If she tries to get back to the drone about "being aware that my dining experience will take approximately three hours..." I answer to the effect of: yes, of course, and by the way I'll want the wine-pairings that go with that menu, and yes, I know that will add $$$ to the carte. After two or three such exchanges, I have my res and she's suffered systems crash: a fair exchange, really.

Count me in if I can make the schedule work. Gotta meet Tarka.

Gandhi India (another good 'un, yellow truffle!), noted above, is good fun, and another place you might enjoy (or at least I have) is Tiffin, along the same strip on Devon, at 2536, I believe.

In any case, ma'am: did you get to Pasteur? What did you think? And did anyone mention, on the subject of chocolate, that there's a Ghirardelli shop just west of Michigan by the Water Tower not far from you (at least, I think it's still there!), where the hot chocolate is very good -- not Valrhona, to be sure, but very good -- the loitering is easy, and the people-watching is outstanding?

Plus one American in Chicago.

The number of times I've wound up having to teach the checker the difference between Italian flat-leaf parsley and cilantro still astonishes me.

My new hero.

Everything on yellow truffle's list is golden, Tarka. I'd like to add Pasteur, on Broadway on the North Side, to the list: another place for impeccable Vietnamese. How'd you like NoMI? *Edited to correct hasty misspelling.*

Interesting: I read this title and popped in, expecting to see something about chefs tossing fattening butter, cheeses, and cream into dishes in dangerous amounts. It never even occurred to me to think about unsanitary preparation technique, which is supposed to be drummed out of foodservice professionals before they get to serve the public. I'm way too trusting, apparently.

Also the entire beer inventory from Hopleaf (for comparison and contrast), with plenty of those mussels steamed in beer!

And some of their blood sausage, their olives, their pickled garlic, their smoked salmon with green peppercorn sauce, their . . . Don't forget some of those great dry sherries, to drink with all the food!

Hema's Kitchen's got to have a big, big booth, and tables nearby so Hema can come schmooze with us as she does at her restaurant.

Since you're around and about Boul Mich (Michigan Avenue, that is), I'd recommend NoMI: Sandro Gamba does some of the best risotti in town and some of the tastiest presentations anywhere, with a mighty versatile wine list. If you grab a table by the big seventh-floor windows on a pretty day, you can't come away from that table in any mood but a good one. I've never had an unhappy experience at Trotter's, but I've seen some of the bad press too. I understand why you'd want to check out the cutting-edge places ahead of (or instead of) the reigning-diva places. (Edited to polish syntax)

Finest kind -- but Ronnie, resident in what 'hood? At what point can we all go play in the street with the lady? Details, man, details!

There, there...sit down, have a good cuppa, relax while one of us massages your shoulders and someone else picks out a wonderful book for you to read later. No worries, none at all, at all. After a while, we'll check back in and see about (drooooool) planning lunch or supper with you...

Let the Christians live...let 'em eat, even: my vote is for the Option 3 curry, please.

It's you and Lenny, I'm afraid...and Lenny just retired. I only know the idiom because I'm an editor, and I never use it. I handle the mess factor for shrimp-peeling meals by simply layering the dining room table with newspaper, and serving corn on the cob (and blueberry pie for dessert). The meal is at the table, by damn, not on the sofa or in the bedroom, or anywhere else...or other parties risk my wrath. In other words, the entire point of the meal is that Neatness Does Not Count for the duration, only the 'yum' of it all. Afterward, the (few) dishes go into the dishwasher, the newspaper goes with the shells and cobs straight into the trash (desperately needful: crustaceans' shells can smell really nasty really fast in hot weather) and out the door. Forgive me for the waste, St. Jacques...but I don't often use the shells for bisque afterward. Loving this blog!

C-rolls like those (damn, they're gorgeous!) work superbly with a Swedish limpabrot recipe as a base, if you ever want to try another cardamom-scented variant. Yell if you want the recipe anytime. Ehhh...I kinda thought there'd be a crowd for the transit, but 900!? Yowzah. Glad to know you were the one working the 'scope with the view I saw on TV, though! Spooking in Speanerisms? By any chance, or maybe no chance whatever...are you a reader of Spider Robinson's Callahan's Crosstime Saloon series? A character in one of those books (the fifth or so, as I recall: Lady Slings the Booze) does indeed start speaning Spookerly at a particular point of stress. I recommend the series, in any case; mighty fine fun even for folks who don't normally do science fiction. Much fun in this blog!

All the best, Chef. If there's anything we can do to help -- a lot of eGullet Midwest folks are within easy reach! -- give a post.

Sounds as if I should stop in and say 'hello' at the Adler, when I go down to the Field to say 'boo' for free to my namesake, the T-rex Sue. Are you within public access, adoxograph, or are you one of those mysterious staff members nobody sees? Do I recall correctly, if vaguely, that crazy things are supposed to happen during a transit of Venus? Can you elaborate on the folklore, if any?

Heh. No catsup option, I notice. Your 'Chicago' is showing, Scott.

Me? Scare you? Gentle me? Nonviolent li'l ole oenophilic me? Surely you jest, Liz...why, I haven't broken down a T-rex into T-bones with my bare hands in just ages and ages! I haven't committed verbal warfare in -- gosh, it's gotta be at least 15 whole minutes...how could you say such a thing? (Edited to rearrange adjectives with fun aforethought)

Ronnie, Ronnie...you poor abused moderator, you haven't heard my rant on this event yet! Brace yourself, gentle soul. I have worked downtown in Chicago since 1978, and all of these jobs have been, for my sins, at various addresses on South Michigan Avenue, one very long block directly west of what I have come to call the Waste of Chicago. I went there, years ago, after work, for an evening of noshing and people watching, and was grossed out in the extreme; the tokens used to buy food were more expensive than I liked, the servings more thrown at customers than handed out, the paper plates were dangerously fragile for foods that were at all saucy or soupy, and in the brutal July heat some overserved soul barfed Dudweiser (no, that's not a typo)-plus-eight-kinds-of-dinner down the entire length of my right leg (This had an upside, however: the smell quickly became such that I had a four-foot buffer zone around me for the rest of the evening. NO one wanted to get within elbowing distance. No cab driver wanted to drive me home, either: they all thought I was the one who was drunk!) My jeans had to be bagged separately from the rest of the laundry; the right shoe was a total loss (The sock tried to walk away by itself. I discouraged this.). The next morning, I got to my twelfth-floor office early to finish off a project that had been threatening to finish me off instead, and glanced out the east windows at what usually was the joyous sight of the Art Institute nestled in its sweet green gardens. I saw that, to be sure...but I also saw the AI staff furiously sweeping up and hosing various organic messes off its walks, in counterpoint to the City's Streets and San brigade bulldozing -- yup, you read me right, bulldozing the accumulated crap, figurative and occasionally literal (The lines at the Port-A-Potties were astonishing, and many drunks were taking advantage of the bushes.), off the grounds from the previous night's collective debauch. If I want a turkey leg, dammit, I bone and stuff and roast my own, these days. The one place I won't ever go to get it is the Waste of Chicago. [/End of rant./]

Ehh. And here I thought Listeria was the nastiest thing one could encounter while preparing chicken.

I try, when I can, to go there for just one item, maybe two at the most, and do them in insane depth -- taste every variety of cinnamon in the place to find the one particular one I want to use for baking and the one particular one I want to blend with sugar and shake onto toast, and the one particular one I want to use as a part of a savory spice blend...you get the idea. I can't spend less than an hour in the place; I once spent an hour and forty-five minutes on a Saturday, Heaven help me, on peppercorns. It's just too much fun, and the people-watching is priceless.