Early Birthday Dinner [#1] at Omakase Takeya

Dallas heard about a new omakase sushi restaurant called Omakase Takaya. It JUST opened and only had 7 seats in the whole restaurant. Dallas somehow got a reservation and surprised me for my birthday. Because he got a reservation for 4, Marty and Todd joined us for dinner.


Omakase Takaya was opened by the owners of Wasabi and is located in the basement level of Ramen Takeya, their ramen restaurant. We’d been to Wasabi many times, but these places are way different. Located in Fulton Market, Ramen Takeya is styled like an izakaya. Downstairs, Omakase Takeya is TINY. A counter with 7 seats, a sushi chef, an assistant chef, and a few servers. That’s it.

Sushi chef Hiromichi Sasaki was so cute. Very old, he could speak very little English. It was fun just watching him do his thing.

 AMUSE BOUCHE: octopus, root vegetable

CHAWAN MUSHI: white fish, mitsuba, shiitake, lemon

KINME DAI: golden eye, snapper, nigiri

SHIMA AJI: striped horse mackerel, nigiri

AWABI: abalone, nigiri

IWASHI: sardine, nigiri

BLACK COD SAIKYO, NASU NIBITASHI, NADAI SASHIMI: pickled lotus, finger lime, fresh ginger

AKAMI & FOIE GRAS: lean bluefin, nigiri

CHU TORO: medium fatty bluefin, nigiri

O TORO: grand fatty bluefin, nigiri

JAPANESE A5 WAGYU FILET: dashi ponzu, yuzu, wasabi

UNI & IKURA: sea urchin, salmon roe, sushi rice

AKADASHI: little neck clam, red miso, chive

ANAGO: sea eel, nigiri

TEMAKI ZUSHI: seaweed, sushi rice

TAMAGO: tiger shrimp, yamaimo


DESSERT: matcha ice cream, crisp rice

We had 15 courses, plus the amuse bouche in the beginning and dessert at the end. Everything was as amazing as the photos look. I LOVED the black cod, the tuna with foie gras and the wagyu, but everything was so good. Best sushi in Chicago. Great experience. Nothing tops Sukiyabashi Jiro, but this was the closest we’ve had to that experience.

Shedd Aquarium with Stephanie

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On Saturday I opened up tabs in Firefox of all the places Steph might be interested in visiting. Then I had her look at all the websites and choose. We decided to go to the Sears Tower then to the Shedd Aquarium. Bad news: When we got to the Sears Tower we were told that visibility was ZERO PERCENT. So we decided to just go to the Shedd Aquarium. Bad news: There was an hour-long line just to get into the building. Oh well. We didn’t go all that way not to do something and Steph really wanted to go to the aquarium, to see the things we didn’t see last time*, so we stood. In line. Forever.

We were excited to see the komodo dragon, and while the whole lizard exhibit was cool, the dragon was a let down. Wow. A big dragon. Next! I mean, it’s cool, but we were pretty psyched and then it was just.. like.. there. We did really like the Wild Reef exhibit, though. There were a few other things we wanted to see that we’d already seen before, but for the most part, we skipped the rest of the aquarium. I was getting so tired! Maybe I’m just old or maybe I’m just not used to a 10-year-old kid’s pace and being responsible for someone else, but I was exhausted! Plus, why does she have to keep asking me questions like “What if we get to our stop and you step out but I get caught on the train and can’t get off?” and “What would happen if like a bomb was on the train tracks and the train couldn’t stop in time?” Jeez! Way to stress me out!

We had a good day, though. Later on we went to the movie, filled up on popcorn and then went to dinner at Robey Pizza, a new favorite in our new neighborhood.

* The photos of Steph here are cute, but I liked my animal photos better last time.