Cherry Circle Room, a new restaurant at the Chicago Athletic Hotel, was named one of the best new restaurants in Chicago for 2015 by Time Out Chicago and Chicagoist, so I decided to give their lunch a try during Restaurant Week. The restaurant is tucked away in the very back of the second floor at the Chicago Athletic Hotel, on the other end of winding wooden hallways. Continue reading
I’ve made no secret of the fact that Boka is one of my favorite restaurants in Chicago or the fact that, at $44 for four courses at a Michelin-starred restaurant, it’s one of the best deals in all of Restaurant Week. Boka is, in fact, the restaurant by which I judge restaurants during Restaurant Week – whether or not I would have rather been at Boka instead. Therefore, I’ve decided to visit Boka three times this year during Restaurant Week in order to sample as much of the menu as possible. For this, my first visit of the year, I’ve chosen a seafood-focused meal progression. Continue reading
NoMI Kitchen at the Park Hyatt offers a three-course lunch for $22 during Restaurant Week, which is a terrific deal – compared to their regular menu prices, it’s similar to getting a first course and dessert for free. Compared to my previous lunches for Restaurant Week 2015 and Chef’s Week 2015, my main course fell a bit short, but the dessert was distinctly better. The service was also more attentive. Continue reading
For the start of this year’s Restaurant Week, I travelled all the way to The Duck Inn, recipient of a 2016 Bib Gourmand, in Bridgeport. Unlike many restaurants, The Duck Inn doesn’t provide multiple options for most of their Restaurant Week courses – only for the third course. And although the menu seemed rather standard (soup, green salad, pork or chicken for the main course, and crème brûlée for dessert), the food turned out to be interesting and well-executed. The service is also excellent, competent yet warm and welcoming. Continue reading
My New Year’s resolution for 2015 was to see more theatre, and given that I went to 326 shows in 2015, I think it’s safe to say that I succeeded. On average, I went to 27 shows a month (32 in both April and July, 31 in August). 47% of shows were plays; 32% were musicals; 10% were readings; 3% were operas; 3% were concerts; and the last 5% were other kinds of shows (puppet, magic, dance, etc.).
I saw 153 plays, and although nearly all of them were separate plays, I did see the Hypocrites’ 12-hour-long Greek play festival All Our Tragic twice. I saw 104 musicals, though only 70 different shows (I tend to return to musicals). I made my first trip back to Broadway since 2006 – over two weekends, I saw nine shows, including the 2015 Best Musical Tony Award winner Fun Home and the presumptive 2016 Best Musical Tony Award winner Hamilton. And since Broadway shows like Hamilton rather skew the results, I will limit my 2015 list of favorite shows to Chicago productions. Continue reading
On the outside, Fulton Market Kitchen doesn’t look like much, nestled among warehouses and loading trucks, farther off the beaten path from their neighbors The Publican and Next, only a block or two away. Inside, however, is a different story entirely, as the restaurant is filled with bold colors and a rotating art collection. The menu, too, is interesting, although it perhaps not as successful as the decor.
I love good food almost as much as I love good theatre. Well, perhaps that’s a bit of hyperbole, but delicious food can certainly put a smile on my face. Luckily, Chicago is a terrific city for both food and theatre, which is a significant portion of the reason why I love living here.
In no particular order, these are my favorite 15 dishes of 2015:
Fried Chicken Sandwich – Frontier
Fried Chicken Sandwich – Fried Chicken Thigh, Hook’s Maple Jack Cheese, Molasses Mustard, Pickled Banana Peppers, Brioche Bun, served with rosemary fries ($13)
ShawChicago continues their 2015-2016 season of readings with Private Lives, a play by Noel Coward about a divorced couple who, on honeymoon with their respective new spouses, reunite and fall in love again. While the play never goes very deep, the dialogue-heavy play is perfect for a reading, and the actors shine.
Mary Michell, Doug MacKechnie, Leslie Ann Handelman (photography by Janine Pixley)
The 4th Graders Present an Unnamed Love-Suicide is a play written by All Our Tragic adaptor Sean Graney and produced by The Hypocrites in special collaboration with The Yard at Senn Arts Magnet High School. Between All Our Tragic and this, though wildly different at first glance (the former a 12-hour adaptation of Greek tragedies, the latter an original play about a group of children reenacting a play a fellow classmate left behind as a suicide note), Graney demonstrates an unmistakable talent for combining comedy and tragedy in a way that is both thoroughly entertaining and deeply moving. Continue reading
Photography by Dylan Stuckey
ShawChicago’s concert readings of mainly George Bernard Shaw plays remind me just how entertaining a reading can be in the hands of talented playwrights and actors. Their most recent production is Shaw’s Geneva, a satirical look at parodies of Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco (Battler, Bombardone, and General Flanco, respectively) being brought before the International Court of the League of Nations in order to be held accountable for their crimes against humanity.
Night Out Reviews 