What A Weekend

Man, this was a good weekend! H & my bro were in town...and we did it right! They stayed at The Drake (fancy!) and that hotel is just impressive. It's old and beautiful and there are so many chandeliers! It's supposedly haunted but I didn't see any ghosts while I was there and they said that none were hovering over there bed at night...so that's disappointing but the hotel? Gorgeous! Stay there if you ever get the chance.
On to what we did...we ate. A lot. Not that that should be surprising. We went to La Scarola, my favorite mob-connected (maybe?) Italian restaurant on Saturday evening. La Scarola is always a fun experience - reservations? We had them...but they don't do you much good. We sat down about 45 minutes past our reservation time but the host was kind enough to give us a free tequila shot for our inconvenience. *shudder* We had our standard grilled octopus followed by soup - Pasta e fagioli for me, escarole for Kevin and an asparagus salad for H. Then our main meal...I ordered the gnocchi with portabellos and sausage. There was enough on my plate to feed all three of us. H's risotto could've fed the next table over. So much food....so good! We went back to The Drake for a drink and dessert.
Sunday morning? Let's start all over again! Brunch....I'll write up brunch in a moment since it is part of brunchquest but let me just tell you - I fell in love - with a girl, some juice and french toast. Yes, it was that good.
Last night we went to David Burke's Primehouse for dinner. Now this was my first experience at a Chicago steakhouse. Go. Now. It was so worth it. So what makes David Burke's cool? He has his own bull. I tend to think anyone who owns their own livestock is awesome. He also has a Himalayan salt lined aging cellar on site. I want my own salt-lined aging cellar. I opted for the 40 day old ribeye and man was it good! It was beefy and in the extra good bites and it tasted like I'd eaten this big bite of beefy earth....and I liked it. The flavor in the dry-aged beef was so concentrated that I'm pretty sure I could go bite a live cow and it wouldn't be that flavorful. The term beefnebriated got coined last night - I'm fairly certain I was drunk. on beef. Oh but I almost forgot about my pre-dinner drink!! A poison-berry cobbler. It was like drinking blueberry cobbler in a glass. Delicious. Now that my tastebuds are full of berries and beefy earth...I don't think eating will ever be quite as satisfying as it was last night.