After six months of preparation, French fine dining outfit Salut is now Salut: The Meeting Place, where there's an interactive theatre floor show for more adventurous diners. Expect the floor staff dressed in can-can outfits to perform a spirited dance during dinner, and mingle with guests. The French cuisine remains consistent.

To begin-
South: Flower crab pattie [sic] wafting forth magic Mughal spice, tomato-olive Provençal relish
North: Herbal dun4 tang1 with shui3 jiao3
West: Parsnip velouté abloom with froth, ikura
Center: Ditto

Next-
South: Braised lamb shank and mash
North: Prismatic mushroom risotto (parsley flecks, carrot confetti)
West: Chilean seabass, cannellini/flageolet/navy/white bean ragout
Center: "Attack of the Oil Spill" petrochemically-infused Chilean seabass

Last-
South: Lemon-vanilla soufflé
North: Apple prune vodka crumble, spice-cream
West: Jasmine tea crème brûlée, passionfruit sorbet
Center: Ditto

Unfortunately, only the bread, butter and dessert were consistent. Burgundy awnings? A hysterical gesture. One of the twins has vanished, as has half the clientele. Boccelli and Brightman...and then a composure-shattering shift into corny country line-dance stuff.

French theme restaurant and entertainment
Big Apple Amoy
Johanna father frog
Donald Pan Satanist
Aksi Mat Yo Yo
Donald duck paedophile
Malays eating their cats

My my, Maxwell char kway teow is very very nice.

NO You can't turn here! You'll SLOW me down
Why NOT, you don't have the LEGAL RIGHT to stop ME

Unless I am severely mistaken, Thanying's Pad Thai is very inferior to Spice's!

Gaetano continues to work his subtle sorcery hidden away in an obscure "print institute" along the river, overhanging plumbing-scaffolding exposed, denuded concrete floors. White asparagus and air-dried beef, squid ink linguine are exemplary. Too bad about the panfried banana-custard lor-bak-gou.

And at last, my three-month old craving for proper XLB has been sated. Not those pudgy pastegobs, like chewing a brick, those anaemic scallion pancakes. CJ bakes their chongyoubing, which makes all the difference. Crumbly and talcum-dry, not frazzled and greasy.

Finally, the disinterred gem that is Sushi Jyo, just a 10 min walk from Orchard and its sad long-queued Sakaes/Teis etc. All your manifold cravings attended to, cru ou cuit, grilled and steamed, deep-fried and hotpotted. Sukiyaki morsels brewing in sweet sauce, out of one bath and into another, this time a slick raw egg immersion. J's hamachi chin is unfortunately slightly overdone. Too many tentacular bits though: squid sashimi, squid tempura, baby octopus tempura.

First. Being accosted by salespersons in large flagships in downtown Chicago is not pleasant.
Second. Cheesecake factory is a huge sham. Go and eat somewhere else, you silly people! Interior is vaguely Gaudy, plastered with mosaic panels, well-hung with prodigious donuts and obese pretzel-shapes.
Third. Just before this week I lumped Korean food together with the other icky joke-cuisines of the world (English, Mexican, Russian). Now I take that all back. The mini smorgasbord of itsybitsy prickly pickly pieces of this and that, irresistable. Kimchi. Radish cubes in choudoufu sauce. Treated watercress. Dried cuttlefish strands/dessicated whitebait? Tangly candy-seaweed. And the dining room which is neither cosy nor homely, but comforting. In the same way that certain B-grade maudlin Chinese films and Japanese serials are. 10/10. 2659 W. Lawrence Ave., Chicago, IL 60625. Tel. 773.878.2095.
Fourth. FUCKS YEAH!
Fifth. I trust it is by now quite clear that any restaurant whose altitude is billed as its chief attraction must necessarily serve perfunctory food?
Sixth. Despite my reservations about contemporary and conceptual art, it's still perversely alluring. The defiant archness, the tenuous irony. Which I object to paying to view and hence did not.
Seventh. The facade of the Regenstein library rocks. As does Big Bird and Barney.
Eighth. At last, a drinking culture which is founded not on substance abuse but rather "substance enjoyment." Pina Kokomo-ladas in the dead of winter are fitting. As are tropical Singapore Slings in a fucking frigid city.
Ninth. What's a getaway without conspicuous consumption?
Tenth. Smoking weed in the yard at 3pm and then playing frisbeeeeeee while thus...influenced.