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.