Once we cleared the interview process, we headed in to M&Ms new house in Ravenswood. We dropped our things, chatted a bit, hopped on our bikes, and headed down to Revival Food Hall to try out a hot dog pop-up joint that S found there. Duck Inn Dogs was the destination, and I had (of course) the The Original Chicago-style dog. I say "of course," but I did give some serious thought to the cheese curds. I would have gotten both, but we were only a couple of hours from dinner. For his part, S had the K-Pop dog, and we each got a cocktail from the bar, although S ordered so he would have to tell you what the drinks were. (Revival Food Hall, I learned, is a bit like a tiny and non-grocery version of Eataly in the Flatiron District, if that means anything to you -- and in looking for that link I also found out that there is an Eataly in Chicago. Next time!)
After our delicious dogs, we headed back up north to catch up with M&M at the Square Roots Festival for some local beer. The "admissions" people are way too aggressive, given that's it's a festival on a public street, and basically demand money from you. Also, the ticket tent which promises "credit cards accepted" does not take credit cards. But we did eventually get the beer, which was quite satisfying after all the trouble.
Dinner that evening was fetched my S and me from nearby Dante's Pizzeria -- big, NY-style slices, albeit a little cold by the time we got them back to the house and ate them. But we washed them down with -- act surprised! -- even more delicious beer! Then M and I engaged in some light crafting in an effort to create a construction barricade out of a sawhorse and some construction paper for their 3-year-old's birthday party the following morning. It was entertaining, as was the el which runs through their backyard, and which S waved enthusiastically at every time it went by.
Our initial plan the following morning was yoga and beer (for charity!), but the tickets were sold out, so we stuck around and helped with party prep. About the time the kids started arriving, though, we headed out, off to a great find of S's called Mortar & Pestle. (We actually first went to Batter and Berries, but the line was ridiculously long and the interior of the restaurant was looooouuud. So we picked a different place from the list he had put together, scooted over there on our bikes (which were basically our mode of transport for the weekend -- I love Chicago!) and got a great seat with no waiting, outside on a lovely side patio. It did drizzle on us a bit at one point, and the waitress hurried out to see if she could move us to a table inside. "No thanks," S politely said, informing her that the rain cooled things off a bit and was hardly reaching us anyway because of the trees overhead. She admired our tenacity, delivered our breakfast cocktails (Bloody Mary for me, Old Fashioned for S), and left us to enjoy them. And enjoy them we did! Bloody Marys can be risky if it's a restaurant whose recipe you're not familiar with, but M&P nailed it. Breakfast, which we split, was the decadent grilled cheese and the foie gras and eggs.
We perused the goods at Pastoral before heading off to the Southport Art Festival. Though the skies looked ominous for most of the day on Saturday, aside from the brief drizzle at brunch, our time at the art festival was the only time it rained with any intention (which is not to be confused with intensity). It was a fairly small festival, but about the right size to spend 45 minutes to an hour poking around. By that time, I had caught up with L, and we made plans to meet at the zoo, where she had never been.
S and I beat her there (again, yay bikes!), so we spend a lovely 15 minutes or so gazing at the beautiful gardens in Lincoln Park.
We didn't have a lot of time to spend at the zoo because we also heard back from S's aunt, who was on her way up to meet us at Navy Pier (another place L had never been), and since she was on foot, it was going to be about an hour walk to get there. We got to see (again) the lake shore from the bike path, and that in the summer is such a wonderful place to be. Plus, I had enough time to snap a pic of one of the classic hotels in such an iconic spot:
Once we got to the pier, and on the advice of Aunt K, we pushed out past the crowds and stalls hawking cheap junk to the end of the pier, where you get the lovely lake breezes in your face and have a wonderful view back up the shoreline towards E-Town. Our plan for that evening had been to hit up the Red Stars game, but by the time we realized that we needed to get moving, it was too late. Instead, we grabbed early dinner at Al's Beef, followed by a worth-the-$10-but-not-much-more comedy show at the Under the Gun.
Second dinner that night was carry out pizza at Spacca Napoli, recommended by L. The pizza was good, the quiet evening patio was good (although they were closing up as we were eating -- we barely got our order in before closing time), and the bike ride there on the largely deserted streets was lovely. After that it was off to see L and J's new apartment (they are recent transplants from the NYC area), and then to bed.
Sunday morning breakfast was at Quiote in Logan Square. We had planned to go to somewhere else, but L insisted that this place was delicious. My pork belly chilaquiles speak to the truth of her statement. It really should have been two meals, especially since I ate about a third of S's yogurt and granola and one of his Rajas tacos. Okay, now that I think about it, it probably should have been three meals. But we were getting ready to head home and I hated to let all that deliciousness go to waste. Plus, we had done so much bike riding! I'm sure I burned off all those calories, right? Right?
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