nsxtasy

I still remember their TV commercials: "B - O - N - O - M - O! Bonomo! Oh oh oh! It's Bonomo's!!!

Unfortunately, there isn't any time where the wait at Hot Doug's is minimal. It's not like Frontera where you get there right before the doors open and you walk right in. Xoco is okay, but I don't think it's all that unusual. Whereas at some of the more creative provincial Mexican restaurants around town - not only Topolobampo/Frontera, but also Mixteco Grill, Mundial Cocina Mestiza, and Mexique - you can enjoy food that's way beyond what you can find in most Mexican restaurants in most cities this side of the border.

An hour and a half standing in a line outdoors is not "nothing". Hot Doug's is in my personal file under "big deal, not worth it".

The other day the Chicago Tribune published two articles on new creative ice cream makers around town: 1. The rebirth of the cool 2. 5 new Chicago ice cream makers worth seeking out

Lula incurred damage from last night's storms and is temporarily closed. Check their website at www.lulacafe.com for updates.

I agree. Some restaurants always get more PR than others - sometimes deservedly so, sometimes not. Curtis Duffy is keeping up the high standards at Avenues since taking over a couple of years ago.

As you note, Vie is really not a place for "molecular gastronomy"; it's a contemporary American restaurant, and a very good one. If you're willing to take the Metra commuter train (or drive) to the 'burbs, there are two other restaurants where I have had some of the very best meals in recent years (yes, even better than Vie, IMHO). One is Michael, in Winnetka, a block from the Indian Hill station on Metra's Union Pacific - North line. I ate there again a few weeks ago and it was just amazing, the best dinner I've had in a very long time. The other is Inovasi, in Lake Bluff, a block from the Lake Bluff station on the same line.

If your goal is to experience ultra-modern/molecular, I would take Avenues over L2O. But you might also consider Moto, which leans even further in that direction towards molecular gastronomy (although it does not provide the kind of high-end experience you'll find at Avenues).

There are two CTA buses that go past North Pond on Stockton Drive and operate throughout the day and evening: the #151, which runs along Michigan Avenue downtown, and the #156, which runs along LaSalle Street downtown. North Pond (the pond) is visible from Stockton, but North Pond (the restaurant) is NOT visible from Stockton. The nearest posted stop on Stockton is at Roslyn and you can walk around the pond to the restaurant. If you're walking around the neighborhood, the closest entrance to the park and the restaurant is at Deming and Lakeview, which is also where you can find cabs and, for dinner and Sunday brunch, a valet parking stand. North Pond is a very special place and a very special restaurant; it's a great choice for your itinerary.

I think you mean the CTA Blue Line. The CTA #134 bus is an express bus and only operates during the morning and evening rush hours, not around lunchtime. You can find CTA information on their website here. Portillo's is good for Chicago-style hot dogs. If you want a place that has exotic sausages a la Hot Doug's but without the lines, as noted above, consider Franks 'n' Dawgs. (Personally, I would go for the deep dish over the dogs, any day, any time.) Of those two, I would take Avenues. But I would take Everest, TRU, or Trotter's over either one.

Do the server/staff really drink what's left in the bottle? (Not trying to criticize, just curious.)

I ate at Hot Doug's on a Friday a couple of weeks ago. I arrived at 1 pm and I reached the front of the line to place my order 80 minutes later. Yes, 1 hour and 20 minutes. When I left around 2:30, the line was even longer than when I arrived, so the wait must have been approaching two hours. (And after waiting all that time, I wasn't impressed.) As for our wonderful deep-dish pizza, I think it's terrific, absolutely delicious. It's also a local specialty you can get here and, for the most part, nowhere else. If you've never had it, this is your opportunity to try it! You can't go wrong with any of the places in which the Malnati family was instrumental - the original Uno and Due in River North, Lou Malnati's (31 locations), or Pizano's (3 locations). I think creative provincial Mexican food is something Chicago does extremely well but it's difficult to find in other cities this side of the border. Of course Topolobampo and Frontera Grill are the most famous and still lead the pack. Other great places include Mixteco Grill, Mundial Cocina Mestiza, Rustico Grill, Fuego, and Mexique. Check out the menus on their websites; we're not talking your plain old everyday enchiladas and tacos!

First of all, the best local place to get a sweet treat is Garrett's Popcorn. They have caramel popcorn (with or without cashews or pecans), cheese popcorn, or a mix of the two. Several locations in the Loop and one on Michigan Avenue, also at O'Hare. For pastries, here are my favorites. Fox & Obel is our premier gourmet food store, and has some of the best baked goods in the city, including breads as well as pastries. Don't miss their rich cinnamon swirl rolls. Vanille has terrific entremets and also great croissants. Their bakery on Clybourn may be inconvenient from downtown, but they also have a booth at the new French Market in the train station on the west side of the Loop. Two other great places for pastry are on the north side in Andersonville, just down the block from each other. Swedish Bakery has great Swedish pastries (I love their marzariners, and they do nice things with marzipan like their roll cakes, available in individual slices too). Pasticceria Natalina has great Sicilian pastries. There are two other dessert "experiences" I recommend. The Lobby in the Peninsula has their "Chocolate Bar", an all-you-can-eat buffet of chocolate-based desserts, but it's Friday and Saturday nights so unfortunately you missed it for this visit. TRU offers a dessert tasting that's pretty special. If you're not having dinner there and you would prefer not to wear the business attire (e.g. jackets for gentlemen) required in the dining room, you can be seated in the lounge and get the dessert tasting; if you do this, make your reservation by phone, not on Opentable. For artisanal chocolates, the best in the area is up in Evanston, at Belgian Chocolatier Piron. More convenient to downtown is Canady le Chocolatier, with its main shop in the South Loop and a booth in the French Market. And Vosges Chocolate has a couple of shops and is pretty darn good too.

I had dinner at Publican a couple of months ago. I thought the savory dishes (including meat items as well as seafood items) were excellent, but the desserts were absolutely awful. They had three on the menu, and we tried all of them. One was their waffle dish, which was thoroughly unremarkable and bland, worse than I've had at IHOP. The second was a dry, bland, tasteless lemon poppyseed cake. The third was a chocolate sorbet that allegedly had some sea salt and caramel flavorings which were undetectable, and as a result was disappointing, just blah in every way. I'm so glad to hear that they've hired a new pastry chef. There's no better way to turn around the dessert situation there. (However, even with the potential of improvement in the dessert offerings, I'm not sure if I could convince my dining companions into a return visit, as their main objection to doing so was the HIGH NOISE LEVEL.)

Thanks for the report! FWIW, your description of Bongo Room is not at all consistent with my own experience. I've had their pretzel pancakes, and they were delicious. The pretzel pieces were properly dry and crunchy, and the pancakes themselves were properly cooked, too. Yes, they do use a lot of sauce on their pancakes; I like them that way! However, if you think that might be a problem, you can always ask them to serve the sauce on the side. As for Publican, you didn't miss anything by skipping dessert there.

Getting a reservation at Alinea is not like doing so at the French Laundry, where you get only busy signals the minute they start accepting reservations, and when you get through an hour later, they're full. I do recommend making the reservation the first day they accept them, just to be sure, but often they still have them available for the first week or two for Saturdays, and another couple of weeks later than that for other days of the week. Also note that they are open for dinner on Sundays, if that works for your plans. They are closed Mondays and Tuesdays.

Lines have been running 30-60 minutes at just about any hour, even on weekdays. Bring a friend or a book. I'm not a big fan of Kahan's restaurants. They're all REALLY LOUD, for one thing. The communal seating at Avec and the Publican is an abomination if you ask me, but at least at the Publican you have a good chance of avoiding it if you request a private table on your reservation. Avec's no-reservations policy and uncomfortable seats are another irritation. The food at Blackbird is outstanding, but the last time I ate there the portion sizes were too small and I left hungry. I also loved the savory items at the Publican but the few desserts were dreadful. There are so many other great places in Chicago, I just don't get why people laud them; every time I eat at one of his places, I leave with no desire to return. Vie is indeed very good, but it's hardly "out of town"; it's in a suburb, a block from a train station served by Metra commuter trains that take less than half an hour from downtown Chicago. And it is not the only great restaurant in the Chicago suburbs. Tallgrass, Robert Burcenski's place in southwest suburban Lockport, continues to be outstanding. You'll need to drive, though, because the trains there don't run late enough to catch one back downtown. Inovasi, a block from the Metra station in north suburban Lake Bluff, is a wonderful new restaurant with amazing food from John Des Rosiers, and is also shockingly inexpensive for the level of quality. Michael Lachowicz continues to work his culinary magic at his namesake restaurant in Winnetka, a block from the Indian Hill Metra station.

One more: I have a friend who refuses to go there because of when they closed for months with no advance warning a year or two ago, leaving in the lurch all the diners holding reservations at that time.

As a frequent visitor to Indianapolis over the years, it's amusing to read six-year-old comments about the lack of dining choices. I've found that the dining scene in Indy has dramatically improved over the past twenty years, and is now vibrant and impressive for a city its size. As little as ten years ago you would be hard-pressed to find anything creative (unless you went to an out-of-the-way restaurant called Something Different, where you'd find a young chef named Stephen Oakley). Now, you can find a panoply of creative, contemporary American, chef-driven restaurants, including Oakley's Bistro, R Bistro, Recess, Euphoria, and Zing, as well as great restaurants for steaks and seafood like St. Elmo's, the Oceanaire, Z's Oyster Bar, and Peterson's. Choices for ethnic foods and specialty restaurants (e.g. Cafe Patachou) have also dramatically improved. And if you enjoy a really good bakery (for breads as well as pastry), don't miss Rene's Bakery in Broad Ripple; among other things, they have the perfect eclair, and a couple of months ago I got the most amazing small one-inch squares of almond pastry there.

Sounds like quite a plan! Assuming you can eat that much, though; that's a lot of food each day. Specific comments... >> THURSDAY dinner : Purple Pig (Is aiming for 8:30 late enough? Go later?) I don't know. You can call them (i.e. now) to ask when to arrive to avoid long waits. (Another poster recently encountered a 45-minute wait at 6:20 on a weekday.) >> FRIDAY >> - morning 1: Mercat De La Planxa (I'm not sure this is necessary to smash in?) >> - morning 2: Blackbird >> - afternoon snack: Hot Doug's (aiming to be there at 2:30/3p) First, I recommend skipping Mercat a la Planxa. I've only eaten there for dinner, and it was very good, but another poster mentioned that it's not as good at lunch as at dinner, and I would imagine the same would apply for breakfast, if that was your intention. If you want to go out for breakfast, I'd recommend Bongo Room, a few blocks south of Mercat. Blackbird is a good place for lunch. I would recommend playing the afternoon by ear; if you don't feel like another meal two hours after lunch (on top of breakfast), then you could skip Hot Doug's. After all, it's not like there's a reservation you'll need to cancel. (You can make a reservation for the Blackbird lunch on Opentable.com and I recommend doing so.) >> - early evening: The Publican (beer, light eats) >> - late night: TRU (dessert) That's a good combo, the best of both. Note that the Publican has about half communal seating and half private tables for 2-6, so if you have a seating preference, note it when making your reservation, either on Opentable or over the phone, and they will try to honor it. I assume you're aware that TRU is dressy, with gentlemen diners attired in jackets. >> SATURDAY >> - morning: XOCO (For churros and chocolate, couldn't get a res for Topolobampbo) Keep in mind that Frontera Grill serves brunch on Saturdays and is entirely walk-in. You might want to consider Frontera's brunch rather than XOCO. Check out the menus for both meals, at http://www.rickbayless.com/restaurants >> - Fox & Obel, then the French Market Both places are similar, in that both offer a variety of carry-out foods as well as informal seating if you want to eat there. Doing both may be fun if you're interested in observing what each has to offer, but for purposes of getting something to eat at that time, you could easily do one or the other, rather than both. >> - early evening: Avec How early? If you go at 4:00, you won't have to wait. But go at 6:30 on a Saturday, and you may encounter waits as long as 90 minutes or more. Also, one more thing to keep in mind, your itinerary has a large concentration of restaurants from one owner-chef (Paul Kahan owns Blackbird, the Publican, and Avec). - night: Moto (I'm #80 in the wait-list for Alinea...) TWO dinners that evening??? >> - evening: Cafe des Architects (that neighbourhood thing looks good) It is indeed! As well as being an excellent bargain too. Enjoy your visit!

I can't believe I forgot to mention the Gage, the gastropub on Michigan Avenue right across the street from the park.

Aria is a restaurant in the Fairmont itself, and I like the restaurant as well as the bar. The food in the restaurant is primarily pan-Asian, although they also have some steaks and other American items on the menu. Last time I had dinner there I had an excellent smoked prime rib. As for Aria's bar area, it's a classy hotel bar type place in its own separate room(s), somewhat subdued rather than raucous, don't know if that's what you're looking for. If you're looking for a more festive type place with lots of young folks, Sunda is another pan-Asian restaurant with a lot of sushi on the menu, and you can go there for the bar too. It's about four blocks walk from the Fairmont. Also about four blocks walk from the Fairmont is Bin 36, the wine bar and restaurant in Marina City (the "corn cob buildings"). One more bar/restaurant recommendation is Park Grill, on Michigan Avenue at the entrance to Millennium Park, a couple blocks from the Fairmont. Good American food (straddling the fence between contemporary American and conventional comfort food) with good burgers, and the bar is a good place to meet for drinks (as are all these places).

Here's the deal if you want to shuffle Bayless into your itinerary on Tuesday. Topolobampo accepts reservations on Opentable. For dinner, they have been filling up as much as three months out. For lunch, you can often get reservations right up to the last minute, particularly on Tuesdays through Thursdays, but I recommend making a reservation in advance if you can. Frontera Grill accepts only a handful of reservations over the phone, and holds most of the dining room for walk-in traffic. Waits for tables can be lengthy, and locals often arrive 15 minutes before the doors open to avoid a wait. However, I was at Topolobampo for dinner a few months ago on a weeknight and the wait for Frontera was minimal. Also, if you eat at the bar at Frontera, you can order off either menu (Frontera or Topolo). Bottom line - if you can make a reservation in advance, do so; otherwise go to Frontera, and not at a peak time like a weekend evening.

I wouldn't do Trotter's or Graham Elliot. They're just too similar to Alinea and moto. Unless you're absolutely intent on eating only contemporary cuisine with an emphasis on molecular gastronomy. (I'm not sure I would recommend doing moto as well as Alinea, for the exact same reason.) I think the Rick Bayless restaurants are a great idea. Creative provincial Mexican cuisine is something Bayless and others in Chicago are doing very well, and it's rarely found elsewhere this side of the border. Would it be possible to work them into your itinerary for Tuesday July 6, perhaps lunch at Topolobampo? (If you want to try for dinner that day, you'll need to make reservations NOW, or else eat at Frontera.) Unfortunately they are closed on Sundays and Mondays, so they are out of the question for Monday July 5. So are Mado and Charlie Trotter's, which are both closed on Mondays as well. For dinner on Monday July 5, I'd recommend Mercat a la Planxa, the tapas restaurant. Jose Garces (a Chicagoan known for his restaurants in Philadelphia) is doing some great things there. If you want to take advantage of the big trend right now in pork and charcuterie, Josh's recommendation of Purple Pig is one option; another is the Publican from Paul Kahan. Both are open on Mondays too.

There are different ways to enjoy Sunday. Maxwell Street Market is one - street food at a flea market. Personally, I would choose Sunday brunch at North Pond over that, in a heartbeat. After brunch, walk around the pond, walk to the zoo, etc. That's the way Chicago is - it's always a matter of having too many good options!