Epic Chinese Dinner

I've been a terrible poster lately. I kind of just feel blah and like I don't have a lot to say. Unless you want to talk about Harry Potter, in which case I'm there. 

So instead, I thought I would just post about 10 pictures of the insane chinese dinner we had in Toronto. I just embraced my white girl-ness and just took pictures of everything. Everyone at my table thought this was funny. Along with my accent.

 First up is the random meat course! There were like 4 types of meat. I didn't know what any of them were. Also, you know that Coke and wine are mine! I was so psyched for coke and alcohol, y'all don't even understand. I started stealing cokes from other tables by the end.

Course 2: Shrimp/Crab? Poof! There was rice in there. It was not terrible.

Course 3: scallops and some veggies. That is a little fried rice noodle nest and is actually really tasty!  

 

Course 4: Shark Fin Soup

I tried this b/c it is a delicacy and super expensive and special occasion food(for example the last time my MIL had this was at her wedding 40 yrs ago!) but I felt really terrible about it. I find the fishing of shark fins to be pretty unnecessary and cruel. I know I also eat meat and dairy, so it isn't like I am being un-hypocritical here. I just had a moral/ethical problem with it.

For the record, it wasn't very good. It tasted like ham/chicken broth but with a gelatinous texture. The texture really grossed me out and I am not someone bothered by mouthfeel (which is a totally gross and awesome word used in my cooking classes that I try to use all the time.) 

Course 5: mushrooms. I don't even know. A lot of these courses that look like they have this kind of clear/shiny sauce taste the same to me. I am not a huge fan of the sauce flavor, so it all tasted kind of vaguely the same. 

At one point during this course one of my table mates turns to me and says "Do you know what you are eating?" Me: "Oh, God. What? Don't tell me!" Her: "Fungus!" Oh, yeah that's fine. I knew that. 

Course 6: Duck

Yes, we are still eating.

Course 7: Lobster and crab. 

Tasty, but let me tell you how difficult it is to crack a lobster claw WITH CHOPSTICKS! The entire table was entertained by my efforts. Finally they told me you are allowed to just pick it up and eat it that way. 

Courses 8,9,10

Cake-which was amazing and I started looking around at other tables to eat theirs

In the background you can see rice in a lotus leaf and noodles.

Then it was the traditional Chinese dessert of bean paste. It is like a black bean soup with sugar. It is fine, but it is not dessert!

It took roughly 5 hours to eat all this!! I was exhausted from eating. I took pics of everything b/c I find it so interesting and SO different from my regular life. I just embrace not knowing what is going on or what I'm eating.  I've learned what to eat and what not to eat! 

Anyone had a crazy dinner like this? Have you ever eaten for 5-6 hours?? What is the weirdest food you have ever tried? 

ETA-I took pictures of the food for the entire table (10ish people.) So each plate for each course was a very small amount of food. One shrimp, 2 small pieces of duck, etc. Each course was about the size of 1/2 my fist or so. Christina asked how we could eat so much! It is a looooot of food, but spread out over hours (and hours and hours) and in small increments. It is like going to a party and just snacking the entire time. It was still quite a bit of food and I was pretty over it by course 3!

Last Chicago

So our last full day in Chicago happened to be M's bday! So we actually managed to spend some time together just the two of us.

We had Lou Malnati's. Yum Chicago pizza. All cheese. Tiny individual ones.So cute!

Then we walked around the park and saw The Bean. I'm in love with the Bean. It was way too cold to go last time.

 Self portraits in the bean are required.

How cute is that? 

Not as cute as this Bean!

When she was a little Beanie puppy. Look at that face!

The view inside the bean

 

Beautiful Spring!

We went to Navy Pier after. It was kind of meh. Mostly just a pier with various fried foods (thumbs up!) but they were largely still closed for winter (thumbs down.)

We did ride the ferris wheel. I had a couple almost freakouts, but largely held it together. I am not a big fan of heights if I feel like I could fall. At one point I became convinced the only thing holding the ferris wheel on was a 6 inch rail rolling over a wheel-thus if it went right or left we would just fall off and roll into the lake. M tried to convince me that there were probably more safety measures in place. 

 But it was a pretty view!

And then we ate dinner. And then we went home. The end to Chicago!

Chicago even more

Fancy dinner time!

So, one of the residents knew a drug rep who wanted to take us to dinner. Drug rep dinners are stuff of legends. They are pretty rare due to rules (boo!), economy, and the fact that these kids are radiologists and thus have nothing to prescribe. Drug reps pay for dinner-anything, anywhere. Someone suggested Chicago Chop House...because it was crazy expensive. I'm going to be super tacky and talk money, only b/c it was so insane and SO not the norm for us. We cheap. I'm only talking about money b/c it was so mind boggling. And we ate a lot.



Hello, beautiful. This is a dry aged ribeye. Y'all, this steak was everything that is good and right in the world. Cartoon birds starting flying around my head. You could cut it with a fork.








all for a mere $99. A bargain.

Usually I'm too embarrassed to take a pic of my food, but I was straight up like "I'm taking a pic of this $100 steak. I don't even care. once my phone came out, so did everyone's.

We also had these amazing giant scallops with ahi tuna for an appetizer. And like 9 bottles of wine (for 15 people. not all for me, sadly.) The thing about fancy expensive places is they never let you run out of wine. I have quickly become accustomed to this level of service and opulence. I think my steak was the best. A lot of the boys got kobe steaks and they weren't amazing. They were tasty, but for $100 that steak better make me see the face of God imo. Everything was crazy delicious, but I would neeeevvvveeer pay that for food.

Then we went out to Moe's for many margaritas. I have pictures, but apparently after 5 glasses of wine and 2 margaritas, I decided I didn't need to use the flash anymore. So if you want to see pitch black, blurry pictures let me know.

Thursday I think
M went to conference, then a riverboat casino. Seriously. I don't like to just throw money away, so I went shopping ; ) At least I get something in return for my money. Made it all the way up and back down Miracle Mile and felt like I was going to die. Even comfy shoes aren't comfy after that much time on your feet.

It is really hard to get a pic of the back of your own foot/achilles tendon. This is the fricking bruise I got from my shoes (cankles also pictured.) These are from comfy, broken in Clarks that I wore all during my internship. wow this is a weird picture.

All the flowers on Michigan ave were blooming. Each block had these amazing planters. They even smelled good!

Then we had dinner at Shaw's where I had some kind of lobster cheese pasta. No pics b/c I inhaled it. 

We walked around Hubbard St. and went into a few bars for Cinco de Mayo. I was super tired for shopping and the night before, so I folded early. Mostly going out made me be really, really happy to be married. Boys are brutal, even the nice ones, it seems. 

Posting for now b/c my laptop is overheating and burning me.

Chicago continued

Onward with more Chicago! I know this happened last week, but I swear I can't keep my days straight. I'm looking at pictures like 'when did this happen? was I there?'

Wednesday (?)

Lincoln Park Zoo! We love zoos. Zoos are our thing-we go in every city if there is a decent one. We wanted to go last visit, but I just wasn't up for a zoo visit in 25 degree weather. Princess, that's me. It was a beautiful day. That cold but crystal clear and sunny kind of weather. It had been pretty cool earlier in the week, but it started to warm up finally into the upper 50's. So it was perfect zoo weather.


We went to Rockit Bar for lunch first. This is the home of, maybe, my favorite hamburger on the planet. And I'm a connoisseur of cheeseburgers. I take my food very seriously.
Burger with brie, wild mushroom mix, and truffle aioli. and sweet potato fries. M had truffle oil fries which were pretty rad as well. This burger is truth, justice, and the american way. Sorry to my veg/vegan readers for the beef porn.









Walked around for a bit before catching a cab

Onward to the zoo!

How pretty is this little area? Everything in Chicago was blooming. It was Spring part 2. 

This tiger was stalking back and forth at this window for like 30 mins. Michael made me stand here for 10 of them trying to take a picture. This is that picture. I didn't feel like a goober standing there with a fake smile plastered to my face for 10 mins at all. 

Pretend there are giraffes behind us

This is taking a long time, so I'm posting. Next up: the most glorious and expensive meal I have ever had. 

Chicago

I love Chicgao! I'm really not a city vacation person. I would rather sit on a beach drinking. The sitting part is pretty non-negotiable. But this year has been all about the city vacations. We have actually gone more places this year than we have in the previous 7 yrs of our marriage.

I'm not going to do a day by day recap b/c I'm lazy and easily distracted. Mostly just pictures and commentary.

Monday
Flew out bright and early and got to Chicago at 11 am or so. Checked in, etc. M had to check into his conference and then had a resident meeting (where he did NOT win a free Ipad), so we had lunch and split up. We went to Billy Goat's Tavern which is under Michigan Ave in a sketchy parking garage. It is famous though because of the SNL skit

which you should really watch b/c it is classic and hysterical. The owner was exactly like this. I got the death glare and "No coke, PEPSI. No fries, cheeps." It was a fun experience, but not amazing. Just a good, greasy cheezeborger and cheeps.

 Then I went shopping and M went back to the hotel for the rest of the day. We went out to dinner with like 15 of us to an Italian place that I can't remember and didn't take a picture of. But it was good.

Tuesday
My husband is seriously adorable, y'all. He kills me. I swear, he was the Social Chair of this whole trip for all 20 or so residents. He picked where we were going, got tickets, arranged everything. He was on top of it. Which was huge for me b/c I HAAAATE doing things in groups where no one can make a decision and we stand around for an hour only to go to the first place.

During the day I went back to Michigan Ave to shop. I have my priorities. M went to the conference.

That night, M had planned and procured tickets for everyone to go to Second City. There were 24 or so of us. M kept calling and adding people-we got a group rate there were so many of us and Social Chair was on it. We had gone when we were there in Dec and had a great time, so he organized a second trip.

Another place we found last trip was Ra. Y'all. This place. We love it. They have a 3-7pm happy hour with sake for $2 (!!), $4 martinis, and so many half price appetizers and rolls. I can't emphasize how much we can eat and drink there for like $30. I drink the lemon drop martini and it is so tasty (and seemingly devoid of alcohol.)

Both of these are mine. Yes, I order them 2 at a time. there are a lot of us and we were on a time constraint. I took pictures of the entire group doing sake bombs, but it occurs to me that these doctors may not want sake bomb pics out there. The staff of this restaurant was awesome b/c we were loud and drinky.

Then Second City! It was great. They did a hysterical Obama skit to open. You can't take pictures of the show, but I took one:

I had to. Come on.

Michael and I at Second City. And an attending creeping on us, obvs. Fun story: this is the guy who did my CT guided SI joint injections (basically he puts needles in your spine, shoots you into the CT to see if they are in the right place and then adjusts. It is almost as fun as it sounds.) so this guy has just straight up seen my ass. Awkward. I was glad the injections had occurred before I saw how much fun this guy could have. He is hilarious.

We somehow ended up at a bar with karaoke.

Other guys started hitting on my husband.

they both would kill me if they saw me posting this. We won't tell them. No names are named, so it is fine.

Then things get a little fuzzy, so I'm sure we went back to the hotel and crashed.

This is long and I'm tired of typing-so posting for now!

PS-Checkout Janae's giveaway


Do you like city vacations? What is your favorite city to visit? Do you love Chicago? Been to Second City? Love lemondrops?

HOME

Home from Chicago! Had a great trip, but am exhausted. So much walking, so much eating! Happy to be home with my puppies. I tried to post on my trip, but my phone wouldn't let me for some reason. Can I just say that hotels that don't have free wifi are completely ludicrous. If you are a giant hotel that holds conventions, especially a RADIOLOGY convention which has the biggest computer nerds, it seems so stingy to charge $15/day for wifi. It is 2011 people, get on board.

I will be back soon with numerous pictures and recaps of amazing meals. Right after I sleep for the next 39 hours. I'm also super behind on everyone's blogs!