Back at It

A great deal of time has elapsed since my last post. Haven't had a ton of free time. Or maybe I have, but regardless, weather and scheduling has put a relative halt to my travels, until last week, when I spent six days in Chicago.

I had never been to Chicago before, and I had heard it was an awesome city with a lot of great sights, alot of great restaurants, and plenty to do. The plenty to do appraisal proved true from the get-go, as I spent Friday night in the Lincoln Park/ Wrigleyville area of the city, and my friend Trout and I painted the town red. Unfortunately, because of this fact, my first meal in exquisite Chicago was at a Taco Bell across the street from Wrigley Field at 2:30 am. Normally, I wouldn't lend more than a sentence to TBell (although it has more mentions on this blog than any other restaurant), but I will mention that Trout ordered the "Charles Barkley." This, of course is the NBA Box, the ad for which Sir Charles starred during the Super Bowl, and Trout gave it a pretty good bearclaw score if I do say so.

Next day, in an effort to start taking advantage of the city a bit more, we went out to lunch. At Buffalo Wild Wings. Another chain... There was some good college basketball on half the TVs, and trivia on the others, so lunch ran until about 4 pm. I personally am a huge fan of BW's, it has some of the best chicken wings, boneless chicken wings, sides, and sauces in the game. I know most of the people in Philly and DC who may be reading this may not have been, because they don't seem to be that big around here. Back in the Burgh, though, it was a staple of high school life, and the Chicago location was nothing short of equally delicious. Service was a bit slow, and beer specials weren't that special at all, but I'm still glad we went.
http://www.buffalowildwings.com/

Sunday wound up being the highlight of the weekend, as we followed up a relatively slow Saturday (the highlight of which was watching the 2009 Penguins Stanley Cup DVD and fighting back tears) with quite an eventful Sunday. We started out at a few bars, took some pictures at Wrigley Field and then decided, on a whim, to head to the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond, Indiana.
http://www.horseshoe-indiana.com/
To be quite frank, this place was more depressing than the first 1:45 of The Pursuit of Happyness, but even on a Sunday at 1 pm, it was PACKED. I guess atmopshere and look doesn't matter when the money they pay out is as real as the money they use in the Venetian, and bewteen the two of us, Trout and I left the place with about $1,000 of that money. (Of course he accounted for about 70%, but it sounded better that way.)

We left the Horseshoe with high spirits and big appetites. Luckily for us, it was restaurant week in Chicago as well. I lucked out hitting Buddakan during Philly Restaurant week, and we decided to take a different route for Chicago's. Trout's friends got reservations at a Brazilian Steakhouse called Texas de Brazil.
http://www.texasdebrazil.com/
I had been to one of these types of restaurants before, and I left feeling physically ill from the amount of food that I ate. This time around, it was no different. The premise at these places is simple: they stock the salad bar with the most gourmet salad items, soups, and sides that you can imagine: grilled provolone squares, shrimp salad, tuna tartare, hearts of palm, and more. Also, I must add that my aforementioned parmesan cheese addiction was fed by a half-sphere of solid parmesan, with an indentation chiseled into the middle, forming a bowl of parmesan chunks. I could have grabbed a spoon and eaten that all night, but I knew there was meat to be had, so I returned to my seat, flipped my coaster to "green", and it was on. They had flank steak, filet mignon, filet wrapped in bacon, chicken wrapped in bacon, top sirloin, and among many, many more, their signature meat, Picanha. All of them were cooked perfectly, seasoned perfectly, and came to the table in droves.

I won't say how much meat we all ate, because I think I blacked out after the first hour or 2,500 calories. Whichever came first. But I will say that places like Texas de Brazil and Fogo de Chao (and I'm sure any other three-word Brazilian steakhouses with the word "de" sandwiched in between) blow my mind as to how they can cook so much steak, and cook it so well. This meal was definitely a once-every-year-or-few type of excursion, and the price of $32 per head was a once-every-year-or-few type of deal (although I guess restaurant week is an annual thing). Despite missing out on the famous "Wiener's Circle" and their "Chocolate Milkshakes" right down the street from Trout's apartment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wieners_Circle), I think we made a great dinner choice, getting not only a meal, but an experience, and four days worth of food. 8 Bearclaws.