Taste of Chicago


Taste of Chicago


Taste of Chicago Tickets


Taste of Chicago Tickets


Smoke Daddy at Taste of Chicago


Josh


Smoke Daddy’s Pulled Pork


Timothy O’Toole’s


Buckingham Fountain


Eli’s Cheesecake


Rainbow Cone


Adam and his Rainbow Cone


LM’s Pop-Up Restaurant


Watermelon Gazpacho


Illinois Lottery Attracts Bikinis?


Star of Siam


Star of Siam


Chicken Satay with Cucumber Salad


Bobak’s. Is Sausageology a real word!? 🙂

On Friday I went to Taste of Chicago with some of my coworkers for lunch. Our new office is pretty much right across the street and I hadn’t been to the festival for years, so it was fun to check out, even though it was 95 degrees and broiling.

Josh was working a Smoke Daddy tent at Taste of Chicago, so we made our way to his area first. He was gracious enough to hook us up with some great pulled pork, chicken and beans.

After that we wandered around the Taste and spent our tickets. I got some refreshing watermelon gazpacho from the LM‘s pop-up restaurant and some grilled chicken satay with cucumber salad from Star of Siam. both were really good. The chicken satay was more like a grilled chicken breast and not the skewers of meat that satay usually is, but it was still great. I wished it had a bit less peanut sauce, but whatever. The cucumber salad was nice and fresh and crisp on such a hot day. That’s the thing. It was SO hot, I barely wanted to eat anything, so my goal was light and healthy, hence the grilled chicken and watermelon and not deep dish pizza and fried things.

Oh, and here are two photos of the Taste of Chicago that were taken from my office window:

Last Meal at Singha

I met up with Paul Baker and Jess today to have lunch at Singha. They are closing in a few days, and I’m sure this will be my last lunch there. Paul Baker loves Singha so much that he went to dinner there last night, lunch today and has plans to have at least one more lunch before they close.

I have mixed feelings. When I worked at FeedBurner we used to always have Singha ordered in for all of our “important” meetings. After we moved into the Google offices, Singha was just a block away. Even though we famously got free lunch at Google, we’d sometimes go out for lunch at Singha for old times sakes. Mostly just the old FeedBurner crew working at Google. Even now, Singha is still just a block from me so I get together with the old FeedBurners for lunch there. I’ve had so many countless crab rangoon and lunches from Singha. It’s very nostalgic for me.

On the otherhand…. who is moving into the Singha space? Sola. I love Sola, have met Chef Wallack, and have kept in occasional contact with her online. I love dinner and brunch at Sola. The cuisine is delicious, with the Asian and Hawaiian influences. Now that we’re not living nearby the Sola, it would be nice to have it nearby work so I could at least lunch there.

On the otherhand… Singhaaaaaaaa… oh such mixed feelings :).

I guess we’re just going to have to try out Star of Siam after Singha closes and see if it’s as good. It could be the best Thai food in the world, though, and it still wouldn’t be Singha. One more note: The old Sola space will become Ohana, which means “family” in Hawaiian.