as you and my many japanese stalkers know, i love take the cake (read my post and a bunch of weird japanese porn links here). well guess what... that damn place somehow just got even better. they are now open for brunch!
from a facebook message from @geekjames:
"Looking for a great Sunday brunch? Starting this coming Sunday, Take the Cake will open from 9am-2pm to serve a fresh blackboard brunch menu!
Tuesday's fresh lunch menu at Take the Cake:
• Autumn French Onion Soup,
• Brazilian Black Bean Soup (veggie),
• Vietnamese Hoagie (Banh mi, veggie),
• Flank Steak Hoagie w Red Pepper Aioli,
• Spicy Amish Chicken Salad,
• Broccoli Cheddar Quiche
Tuesday's secret word is "LOCAL". Say the word "LOCAL" when you place your order & we'll give you $1 off your fresh Tuesday lunch entree!)
Don't forget to think about cakes & pies you'll be needing for the holidays!
We also cater anything from boxed lunches to multi-course dinners, on or off-site, always fresh & flavorful!"
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Monday, November 02, 2009
dancing wasabi is now 1/2 off every night
i just wanted to let you guys know that right now dancing wasabi in mt. lookout is offering their 1/2 off sushi special (normally available wed and thurs from 5 pm-close and fri and sat nights from 10 pm-2 am) every night mon-sat. how long will this deal last? beth and i went last week and they told her it was going to be for "at least a month" and "probably until we shut down ichiban." so get your cheap sushi while it lasts!
Saturday, October 31, 2009
my name is liz and i am a roast chickenaholic
happy halloween readers! i'm back, at least for the moment. what have i been doing, your inquiring minds ask? roasting chickens. my friends and i are currently all obsessed with roasting chickens. i have eaten a shitload of roast chicken in the past month, all delicious.
we are all fixated on ina garten's roast chicken recipes in her various cookbooks. we have experimented with ingredients, roasting times, putting bacon on top, etc. everything comes out delicious. before this month, i had never roasted a chicken in my life and now i am completely obsessed. it is so damn easy and awesome.
one of the many amazing chickens (pre-roasting) i have eaten this month, this one made by maggie and ryan
here is the template for my roast chicken, taken from here:
Lemon and Garlic Roast Chicken
Copyright, 2004, Ina Garten, All Rights Reserved
Prep Time: 20 min
Inactive Prep Time: --
Cook Time: 1 hr 35 min Level: Easy Serves: 3 to 4 servings
Ingredients
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
Remove the chicken giblets. Rinse the chicken inside and out. Remove any excess fat and leftover pinfeathers and pat the outside dry. Place the chicken in a large roasting pan. Liberally salt and pepper the inside of the chicken. Stuff the cavity with the thyme, reserving enough thyme to garnish the chicken dish, 1 lemon, halved, and 2 halves of the garlic. Brush the outside of the chicken with the butter and sprinkle again with salt and pepper. Tie the legs together with kitchen string and tuck the wing tips under the body of the chicken. Cut 2 of the lemons in quarters and scatter the quarters and remaining garlic around the chicken. Lay the bacon slices over the chicken to cover.
Roast the chicken for 1 hour. Remove the bacon slices from the top of the chicken and set aside. Continue roasting the chicken for an additional 1/2 hour, or until the juices run clear when you cut between a leg and thigh. Remove to a platter and cover with aluminum foil while you prepare the gravy.
Remove all but 2 tablespoons of the fat from the bottom of the pan. Add the wine and chicken stock and bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat, and simmer for 5 minutes, or until reduced by half.
Slice the chicken on a platter. Garnish the chicken platter with the bacon slices, roasted garlic, reserved thyme and 1 lemon, sliced. Serve with the gravy.
maggie and ryan's chicken post-roasting
here are my tips:
we are all fixated on ina garten's roast chicken recipes in her various cookbooks. we have experimented with ingredients, roasting times, putting bacon on top, etc. everything comes out delicious. before this month, i had never roasted a chicken in my life and now i am completely obsessed. it is so damn easy and awesome.
one of the many amazing chickens (pre-roasting) i have eaten this month, this one made by maggie and ryanhere is the template for my roast chicken, taken from here:
Lemon and Garlic Roast Chicken
Copyright, 2004, Ina Garten, All Rights Reserved
Prep Time: 20 min
Inactive Prep Time: --
Cook Time: 1 hr 35 min Level: Easy Serves: 3 to 4 servings
Ingredients
- 1 (5 to 6-pound) roasting chicken
- Kosher salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 1 large bunch fresh thyme
- 4 lemons
- 3 heads garlic, cut in 1/2 crosswise
- 2 tablespoons butter, melted
- 1/2 pound sliced bacon
- 1 cup white wine
- 1/2 cup chicken stock
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
Remove the chicken giblets. Rinse the chicken inside and out. Remove any excess fat and leftover pinfeathers and pat the outside dry. Place the chicken in a large roasting pan. Liberally salt and pepper the inside of the chicken. Stuff the cavity with the thyme, reserving enough thyme to garnish the chicken dish, 1 lemon, halved, and 2 halves of the garlic. Brush the outside of the chicken with the butter and sprinkle again with salt and pepper. Tie the legs together with kitchen string and tuck the wing tips under the body of the chicken. Cut 2 of the lemons in quarters and scatter the quarters and remaining garlic around the chicken. Lay the bacon slices over the chicken to cover.
Roast the chicken for 1 hour. Remove the bacon slices from the top of the chicken and set aside. Continue roasting the chicken for an additional 1/2 hour, or until the juices run clear when you cut between a leg and thigh. Remove to a platter and cover with aluminum foil while you prepare the gravy.
Remove all but 2 tablespoons of the fat from the bottom of the pan. Add the wine and chicken stock and bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat, and simmer for 5 minutes, or until reduced by half.
Slice the chicken on a platter. Garnish the chicken platter with the bacon slices, roasted garlic, reserved thyme and 1 lemon, sliced. Serve with the gravy.
maggie and ryan's chicken post-roastinghere are my tips:
- don't rinse the chicken. all that happens when you do that is that you are getting nasty ass germs and bacteria all in your sink. who cares, don't rinse.
- don't over-roast. just roast it until it is about 140 degrees internal temp. then put foil over it and let it sit for about 20 min. we live in america, you are more likely to die of salmonella from spinach than chicken.
- experiment with ingredients. i love using an herb mix of rosemary and thyme. holly made a chicken with grapefruit instead of lemons and substituted olive oil for butter. maggie and ryan stuffed one with apples and then crisscrossed bacon above and under the skin, and they injected it with squirts of ground up garlic mashed with limoncello. every chicken has been unique and delicious.
- try roasting it uncovered until the last half hour. i did this by accident once and it came out really good.
- you don't need a roasting pan and can do this in a casserole dish or whatever you want.
- put lots of vegetables under the chicken while it roasts. onions, potatoes, carrots, leeks, more garlic heads, etc.
Sunday, October 04, 2009
if it wasn't already clear...
...i just don't feel like blogging, and i don't know when i will again. nothing is wrong, i'm just not feeling it. i haven't even been reading any blogs lately. sorry to any disappointed readers. i may or may not be back at some undetermined point in the future.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
publican chicken and roasted brussels sprouts
i haven't had much to blog about lately. i have been either eating out at places i have already blogged about, or else devouring all the delicious heirloom tomatoes i can get my hands on. my basil plant is going crazy so i'm going to need to make pesto soon. and i got the craving for caesar salad the other day so i whipped up a batch of my caesar dressing and some homemade garlic croutons and ate yummy salads for days.
i literally cannot get enough heirloom tomatoes
today i was on my way home from work and i was in the mood to cook. all of a sudden i was hit with a craving... the sweet and salty, crunchy, juicy chicken that i ate at the publican with lavine while i was in chicago over labor day. but i didn't have a recipe. what to do... i decided to hit the store and see what i could figure out.
i ate caesar salad for five days in a row and did not get sick of it
lavine and i had discussed the issue of ingredients in depth while i was visiting her and we had decided that we thought it was a brined chicken. we were pretty sure there was brown sugar and thyme involved. and it was crispy as hell on the outside and perfectly tender and juicy on the inside, so there had to be some sort of high heat/low heat thing going on.
once i got to the store it was time to do some improvising. no way in hell was i going to have time to cook a chicken whole so i got some mix of parts called "pick of the chick" which turned out to be two legs, two thighs, and two breasts (all bone in). of course, there would be no time to brine so i thought maybe i could marinate it for a bit in lemon to get the same effect (tender + juicy). light brown or dark brown sugar? i guessed and chose light brown. i also wanted some garlic although i couldn't really remember that flavor in the chicken at the restaurant.
here is a picture of how it looked at the restaurant...
at home i knew i had some dried thyme and fresh rosemary that i wanted to use. i knew there was no rosemary in the publican's chicken, but when i was eating it i remembered wishing it was there. i also have a big fat awesome rosemary plant that i do not use enough so i was looking for an excuse.
i got home and decided to google the recipe, just a shot in the dark. and guess what... it's on the ny times! clearly this was a sign. one of the keys to this recipe is the espelette pepper. i do not have that on hand (i had never even heard of it before) but i did happen to have some spanish paprika and i found that plus a pinch of cayenne to be a perfectly acceptable substitute. here is the recipe with my modifications in italics:
publican chicken a la liz
Time: 40 minutes, plus at least 1 hour’s marinating
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
this. came. out. awesome. oh my god. dare i say it? i think it was better than at the publican (i am waiting to get struck down as we speak). it was just even more flavorful and delicious than theirs. i know i sound full of myself but this chicken was crazy good. i think i am going to go pick on some out of the fridge right now.
ok i'm back. oh my GOD that was good. damn.
...and here is how it looked in my kitchen
to go with my chicken, i made some trader joe's garlic fries. yum. i also decided i had to have some roasted brussels sprouts. i have been messing around with recipes on this one for a while... it's really hard because i have an ornery old oven that refuses to stay at one temperature which is kind of necessary to the caramelization process of those thin little leaves that love to burn.
after lots of tries, i think i have perfected it. or as much as my oven will allow me to anyway. here you go. good luck.
liz's it's not crack it's brussels sprouts yo
1 lb. brussels sprouts
4 T. extra virgin olive oil
2 T. peanut oil
6 cloves of garlic, smashed
1 T. sherry vinegar
grated parmesan cheese to taste
salt and pepper to taste
rinse the brussels sprouts and chop off the little brown bit on the stem. soak them in cold, salty water for about 20 min. dry them off. slice them in half lengthwise.
heat up your oven to 400 degrees. meanwhile, heat up the oil in a cast iron skillet. when it is hot throw in the brussels sprouts and then the garlic. you will probably get splashed with little flecks of hot oil. sorry about that. cook the sprouts until they start to get brown, then mix them up and keep cooking. this will take about 7 minutes i'm guessing.
once they are browned on both sides, add some salt and pepper. then put the whole pan in the oven for about 10-15 minutes until they are really soft and caramelized. you will need to stir them a few times while they are in there. take the pan out and leave it on the stove for a few minutes until the sprouts cool off a bit, then add the sherry vinegar and mix and then grate the parmesan on top. you can also add more salt and pepper if you want. try not to eat all of the sprouts out of the pan immediately. serve.
i literally cannot get enough heirloom tomatoestoday i was on my way home from work and i was in the mood to cook. all of a sudden i was hit with a craving... the sweet and salty, crunchy, juicy chicken that i ate at the publican with lavine while i was in chicago over labor day. but i didn't have a recipe. what to do... i decided to hit the store and see what i could figure out.
i ate caesar salad for five days in a row and did not get sick of itlavine and i had discussed the issue of ingredients in depth while i was visiting her and we had decided that we thought it was a brined chicken. we were pretty sure there was brown sugar and thyme involved. and it was crispy as hell on the outside and perfectly tender and juicy on the inside, so there had to be some sort of high heat/low heat thing going on.
once i got to the store it was time to do some improvising. no way in hell was i going to have time to cook a chicken whole so i got some mix of parts called "pick of the chick" which turned out to be two legs, two thighs, and two breasts (all bone in). of course, there would be no time to brine so i thought maybe i could marinate it for a bit in lemon to get the same effect (tender + juicy). light brown or dark brown sugar? i guessed and chose light brown. i also wanted some garlic although i couldn't really remember that flavor in the chicken at the restaurant.
here is a picture of how it looked at the restaurant...at home i knew i had some dried thyme and fresh rosemary that i wanted to use. i knew there was no rosemary in the publican's chicken, but when i was eating it i remembered wishing it was there. i also have a big fat awesome rosemary plant that i do not use enough so i was looking for an excuse.
i got home and decided to google the recipe, just a shot in the dark. and guess what... it's on the ny times! clearly this was a sign. one of the keys to this recipe is the espelette pepper. i do not have that on hand (i had never even heard of it before) but i did happen to have some spanish paprika and i found that plus a pinch of cayenne to be a perfectly acceptable substitute. here is the recipe with my modifications in italics:
publican chicken a la liz
Time: 40 minutes, plus at least 1 hour’s marinating
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (i probably used 4 T. because i wanted it to tenderize quickly)
1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon Espelette pepper or Spanish smoked hot paprika (i used the paprika plus maybe 1/4 t. of cayenne)
1 tablespoon dried oregano (i don't care what this recipe says, it was thyme at the restaurant. i don't really like oregano so i used approximately 1 t. dried thyme and 1 T. chopped fresh rosemary)
2 cloves garlic, sliced (i used 5 cloves, smashed and roughly chopped)
1/2 teaspoon salt (i substituted with about 1/4 t. salt and 1/2 t. lawry's)
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 3-pound chicken, backbone removed. (like i said i used "pick of the chick," aka 2 legs, 2 thighs, and 2 breasts, all bone in)
1. In a large mixing bowl, combine oil, lemon juice, brown sugar, Espelette pepper or hot paprika, oregano, garlic and salt and pepper. Mix well.
2. Flatten chicken and add to marinade, turning it until coated. Cover and refrigerate for at least one hour or overnight. (i marinated one hour and it was soooo flavorful. overnight would be amazing i'm guessing.)
3. Prepare a grill, arranging coals or gas flame so it is hot on only one side. Place chicken skin-side down on unheated side of grill (so it will cook by indirect heat). Grill, basting every 5 minutes and turning chicken once about halfway through, until juices run clear when chicken is pierced near joint of thigh, about 30 minutes. (ok so what i had to do was actually turn on the unheated side of my grill to low for about 5 minutes total, about 10 min in, because i was scared it was not going to cook fully for hours. this worked fine. the skin was a little charred but i like it that way. you will need to mess with cooking times and temperatures based on your grill.)
4. Remove chicken from grill and allow to rest 5 minutes. Carve as desired, and serve.
Yield: 2 servings. (uh, more like 4 i would say)this. came. out. awesome. oh my god. dare i say it? i think it was better than at the publican (i am waiting to get struck down as we speak). it was just even more flavorful and delicious than theirs. i know i sound full of myself but this chicken was crazy good. i think i am going to go pick on some out of the fridge right now.
ok i'm back. oh my GOD that was good. damn.
...and here is how it looked in my kitchento go with my chicken, i made some trader joe's garlic fries. yum. i also decided i had to have some roasted brussels sprouts. i have been messing around with recipes on this one for a while... it's really hard because i have an ornery old oven that refuses to stay at one temperature which is kind of necessary to the caramelization process of those thin little leaves that love to burn.
after lots of tries, i think i have perfected it. or as much as my oven will allow me to anyway. here you go. good luck.
liz's it's not crack it's brussels sprouts yo
1 lb. brussels sprouts
4 T. extra virgin olive oil
2 T. peanut oil
6 cloves of garlic, smashed
1 T. sherry vinegar
grated parmesan cheese to taste
salt and pepper to taste
rinse the brussels sprouts and chop off the little brown bit on the stem. soak them in cold, salty water for about 20 min. dry them off. slice them in half lengthwise.
heat up your oven to 400 degrees. meanwhile, heat up the oil in a cast iron skillet. when it is hot throw in the brussels sprouts and then the garlic. you will probably get splashed with little flecks of hot oil. sorry about that. cook the sprouts until they start to get brown, then mix them up and keep cooking. this will take about 7 minutes i'm guessing.
once they are browned on both sides, add some salt and pepper. then put the whole pan in the oven for about 10-15 minutes until they are really soft and caramelized. you will need to stir them a few times while they are in there. take the pan out and leave it on the stove for a few minutes until the sprouts cool off a bit, then add the sherry vinegar and mix and then grate the parmesan on top. you can also add more salt and pepper if you want. try not to eat all of the sprouts out of the pan immediately. serve.
Monday, September 14, 2009
labor day in chicago
i haven't really felt like writing about food lately. trust me readers, i have been eating it. i just have not been in the mood to blog about it for some reason. i know this is going to sound crazy but i just haven't felt like writing about food much lately, or even just blogging at all.
i think part of it is that i am just completely addicted to spending every free moment possible outside enjoying this amazing weather. why sit in front of a computer when it is so beautiful outside, and i know it's not going to last long? plus i have just been obsessed recently with cramming as much fun into my life as possible. blogging can be fun but not as much fun as like oh say going out, eating, drinking, and meeting an entire bar/restaurant/party full of new friends. which i have been doing a lot of lately.
one of the many things i have done for fun lately is go to chicago to visit my friends for labor day. we had an awesome weekend and of course it was totally food focused. here are some pictures and stories from my trip.
white sox game with mike and lavine. my dad and his brothers are crazy lifelong white sox fans and somehow i had never been to a game. mike happened to be in town for the weekend too so i gave him a call to see if he wanted to meet up and he was like "oh i'm on my way to the white sox game and i have two extra tickets behind home plate, do you guys want to come?" hell yes! it was awesome, although i have to say the food sucked. all they had were like hot dogs and corn on the cob. boring. but a totally fun time anyway.
lavine and i stopped by the most amazing whole foods ever to do a wine tasting and we saw these little pastries in the counter. i got excited because diego is in the process of creating a chicago pastry empire with eric the crazy french chef and renee, so i thought maybe they had hit the jackpot and gotten a contract with whole foods. but no, this is their competition. oh well.
dinner at the publican. from everything i was hearing and reading, it's one of the best new restaurants in chicago (and probably anywhere). we had ridiculous oysters, amazing mussels, unbelievable roast chicken, over the top summer sausage, and life altering belgian beers. seriously, if you are in chicago, eat here... unless you are a vegetarian.
lavine decided to make brunch for some of our friends so to go with her delicious spread, i had to make butter. we split it into two batches because there was so much of it. it's fascinating to me how different each cream i use comes out. this one was very rich and yellow and did not have much buttermilk. we used a gray salt with herbs to season it and it was the shit.
here is the awesome brunch. lavine is an amazing cook and you will never leave her house hungry. from top right: roasted potatoes with onions and thyme, chicken sausage, tomato/spinach/yellow pepper omelette, and a roasted poblano pepper salsa. the bread was from panera. she was going to bake her own but it was like midnight the night before and she was researching recipes and i told her not to be crazy.
after watching the us open all day we took a stroll over to pollo campero and brought home snacks which we ate out on the balcony with wine. yes, we are super klassy. now that i think about it, pollo campero was the perfect meal choice because the first time lavine had it was when we went back in 2005 when she came to visit me in new york and we went to the us open. we somehow managed to sneak a whole fried chicken meal for four with sides in and ate the entire thing while we watched roger federer kick people's asses.
whenever i go to chicago and we go to sam's, i always call my mom to see if she wants me to pick her up some grappa. i hate grappa but my mom loves it and she says the one i get there is the best. well so we went to sam's and i called my mom and she started laughing. "guess what, we are coming to chicago tomorrow!" so we met up with her and my stepdad for brunch at the bongo room. i had the blt benedict and it was damn tasty.
after spending most of my life in michigan and new york, it's really hard for me to live in a place where there are no large bodies of water around. i just really miss being able to hop in the car or on a train and be at a beach within an hour or two. my one request during this trip was to spend some time by the water so we hung out at the beach and at millennium park for most of monday.
it was weirdly foggy, almost like the clouds were falling out of the sky.
it was also really humid, so we got really sweaty even though it wasn't actually that hot out. fortunately we found this little place in the park to stick our feet in the water. lavine quickly got over her fear of foot fungus when she realized how good it felt. later on she began referring to it as "the best free pedicure of my life."
we went to check out the deck on the new addition to the art institute, which is free and you can just walk to from this bridge from the park. that chair/sculpture was way more comfortable than you would think and once lavine sat her ass down in it she wasn't getting up any time soon, so i took the opportunity to get some interesting photos, like this one...
...and this one...
...and this one.
i just never get tired of the bean for some reason.
this face fountain thing though, i think i am tired of it. i get that kids like to run in it and all but let's be honest, it's kind of creepy.
we were meeting diego for dinner for his birthday so we decided to get him a card and a bag filled with cheap embarrassing drug store crap. but did you know that cheap embarrassing drug store crap is actually really not that cheap? we are poor so we decided to just take pictures of ourselves with cheap embarrassing drug store crap instead.
hahaha.
the birthday boy reacts to his gift.
diego's birthday dinner was an amazing spread of deliciousness from lao sze chuan. we actually had a bunch of dishes besides this but we already ate them by the time i remembered to take a picture. this meal was awesome and a great way to end the weekend.
i think part of it is that i am just completely addicted to spending every free moment possible outside enjoying this amazing weather. why sit in front of a computer when it is so beautiful outside, and i know it's not going to last long? plus i have just been obsessed recently with cramming as much fun into my life as possible. blogging can be fun but not as much fun as like oh say going out, eating, drinking, and meeting an entire bar/restaurant/party full of new friends. which i have been doing a lot of lately.
one of the many things i have done for fun lately is go to chicago to visit my friends for labor day. we had an awesome weekend and of course it was totally food focused. here are some pictures and stories from my trip.
white sox game with mike and lavine. my dad and his brothers are crazy lifelong white sox fans and somehow i had never been to a game. mike happened to be in town for the weekend too so i gave him a call to see if he wanted to meet up and he was like "oh i'm on my way to the white sox game and i have two extra tickets behind home plate, do you guys want to come?" hell yes! it was awesome, although i have to say the food sucked. all they had were like hot dogs and corn on the cob. boring. but a totally fun time anyway.
lavine and i stopped by the most amazing whole foods ever to do a wine tasting and we saw these little pastries in the counter. i got excited because diego is in the process of creating a chicago pastry empire with eric the crazy french chef and renee, so i thought maybe they had hit the jackpot and gotten a contract with whole foods. but no, this is their competition. oh well.
dinner at the publican. from everything i was hearing and reading, it's one of the best new restaurants in chicago (and probably anywhere). we had ridiculous oysters, amazing mussels, unbelievable roast chicken, over the top summer sausage, and life altering belgian beers. seriously, if you are in chicago, eat here... unless you are a vegetarian.
lavine decided to make brunch for some of our friends so to go with her delicious spread, i had to make butter. we split it into two batches because there was so much of it. it's fascinating to me how different each cream i use comes out. this one was very rich and yellow and did not have much buttermilk. we used a gray salt with herbs to season it and it was the shit.
here is the awesome brunch. lavine is an amazing cook and you will never leave her house hungry. from top right: roasted potatoes with onions and thyme, chicken sausage, tomato/spinach/yellow pepper omelette, and a roasted poblano pepper salsa. the bread was from panera. she was going to bake her own but it was like midnight the night before and she was researching recipes and i told her not to be crazy.
after watching the us open all day we took a stroll over to pollo campero and brought home snacks which we ate out on the balcony with wine. yes, we are super klassy. now that i think about it, pollo campero was the perfect meal choice because the first time lavine had it was when we went back in 2005 when she came to visit me in new york and we went to the us open. we somehow managed to sneak a whole fried chicken meal for four with sides in and ate the entire thing while we watched roger federer kick people's asses.
whenever i go to chicago and we go to sam's, i always call my mom to see if she wants me to pick her up some grappa. i hate grappa but my mom loves it and she says the one i get there is the best. well so we went to sam's and i called my mom and she started laughing. "guess what, we are coming to chicago tomorrow!" so we met up with her and my stepdad for brunch at the bongo room. i had the blt benedict and it was damn tasty.
after spending most of my life in michigan and new york, it's really hard for me to live in a place where there are no large bodies of water around. i just really miss being able to hop in the car or on a train and be at a beach within an hour or two. my one request during this trip was to spend some time by the water so we hung out at the beach and at millennium park for most of monday.
it was weirdly foggy, almost like the clouds were falling out of the sky.
it was also really humid, so we got really sweaty even though it wasn't actually that hot out. fortunately we found this little place in the park to stick our feet in the water. lavine quickly got over her fear of foot fungus when she realized how good it felt. later on she began referring to it as "the best free pedicure of my life."
we went to check out the deck on the new addition to the art institute, which is free and you can just walk to from this bridge from the park. that chair/sculpture was way more comfortable than you would think and once lavine sat her ass down in it she wasn't getting up any time soon, so i took the opportunity to get some interesting photos, like this one...
...and this one...
...and this one.
i just never get tired of the bean for some reason.
this face fountain thing though, i think i am tired of it. i get that kids like to run in it and all but let's be honest, it's kind of creepy.
we were meeting diego for dinner for his birthday so we decided to get him a card and a bag filled with cheap embarrassing drug store crap. but did you know that cheap embarrassing drug store crap is actually really not that cheap? we are poor so we decided to just take pictures of ourselves with cheap embarrassing drug store crap instead.
hahaha.
the birthday boy reacts to his gift.
diego's birthday dinner was an amazing spread of deliciousness from lao sze chuan. we actually had a bunch of dishes besides this but we already ate them by the time i remembered to take a picture. this meal was awesome and a great way to end the weekend.Wednesday, September 09, 2009
it's a bird... it's a plane... it's...
...the best fish and chips in cincinnati!
behold.
it's meaty and juicy and firm and flaky. it's crazy flavorful. it's crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, and steaming hot. i have tried a lot of fish and chips in this city, almost all of it disappointing. this readers is the real thing. the chips are nothing to write home about, but you will love them with the curry dipping sauce (see bonus tip #2 below).
"where can i get it?" you ask. rookwood pub. or anyway that is what i call it. i guess technically it is called the pub at rookwood mews. that name annoys me though because a) i have no clue what a "mew" is and b) whatever the hell it is, i am pretty sure there are none of them in rookwood.
another thing that bothers me about the name of this place is that people will always say "let's go to the pub" or "i'll meet you at the pub" or "we're having happy hour at the pub." and then i will be like "what pub" and they are like "THE pub" and i am like "WHAT pub???" and i am not doing that to be obnoxious. i really do not know what pub they are talking about. this happens to me a lot so you would think i would know but pubs just start flying around in my head (molly malone's pub? nicholson's pub? hap's pub? oakley pub?) and i get totally confused. and the person i am talking to thinks i am being annoying. it is a pain in my ass.
oh well, i will forgive the place for its stupid name since its fish and chips is so yummy.
bonus tip #1: this fish and chips (regularly $12.95) is half off on monday nights.
bonus tip #2: ask for curry dipping sauce on the side and you will be in total heaven. this is the curry sauce that normally comes with the fries when you order them as a side. it's tasty as hell in that yummy britishy curry way.
bonus tip #3: the pub has an awesome beer menu with a ridiculous number of beers on tap. i always get the old speckled hen, mostly because i like its name.
so to recap, you must eat this fish and chips. cheerio!
(photo courtesy of holly's iphone)
behold.it's meaty and juicy and firm and flaky. it's crazy flavorful. it's crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, and steaming hot. i have tried a lot of fish and chips in this city, almost all of it disappointing. this readers is the real thing. the chips are nothing to write home about, but you will love them with the curry dipping sauce (see bonus tip #2 below).
"where can i get it?" you ask. rookwood pub. or anyway that is what i call it. i guess technically it is called the pub at rookwood mews. that name annoys me though because a) i have no clue what a "mew" is and b) whatever the hell it is, i am pretty sure there are none of them in rookwood.
another thing that bothers me about the name of this place is that people will always say "let's go to the pub" or "i'll meet you at the pub" or "we're having happy hour at the pub." and then i will be like "what pub" and they are like "THE pub" and i am like "WHAT pub???" and i am not doing that to be obnoxious. i really do not know what pub they are talking about. this happens to me a lot so you would think i would know but pubs just start flying around in my head (molly malone's pub? nicholson's pub? hap's pub? oakley pub?) and i get totally confused. and the person i am talking to thinks i am being annoying. it is a pain in my ass.
oh well, i will forgive the place for its stupid name since its fish and chips is so yummy.
bonus tip #1: this fish and chips (regularly $12.95) is half off on monday nights.
bonus tip #2: ask for curry dipping sauce on the side and you will be in total heaven. this is the curry sauce that normally comes with the fries when you order them as a side. it's tasty as hell in that yummy britishy curry way.
bonus tip #3: the pub has an awesome beer menu with a ridiculous number of beers on tap. i always get the old speckled hen, mostly because i like its name.
so to recap, you must eat this fish and chips. cheerio!
(photo courtesy of holly's iphone)
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