You ever just find yourself doing spontaneous stuff just because? This is the main focus of this blog. Sometimes I will just look for somewhere to go for a day, and experience a couple things and head back home. I wouldn't think of Chicago when thinking of fine dining and cuisines from around the world, but in this case I was proven wrong thanks to the homies Jenn and Rich. They talked me into flying to Chicago to check out a food experience at Alinea, this was also my very first time visiting Chicago.
Day 1
Leaving Austin and heading to Chicago, is not such a bad trip especially with no layovers. I booked a direct flight at 11AM and arrived in Chicago at about 2PM. I had an hour drive to The Whitehall Hotel where I chose to stay for my short visit. Once I was done with checking in, I headed to Millennium Park to meet up with Jenn. Millenium park is pretty cool, and you may know it for The Bean, or it's actual name Cloud Gate located there, so a great place to start for a first time visit. Millenium park is full of things to experience and is worth the visit, you will find things like: art, fountains, gardens, rock climbing, and much more. We spent a couple of hours walking around the park and site seeing, came upon the Buckingham Fountain, one of the largest fountains in the world, and of course getting a Chicago dog from a local vendor. Next we took a quick drive over to Navy Pier, which is the 3,300 foot long pier on the Lake Michigan shore. We didn't do much here but walk around and also relaxed a bit on the huge wooden beach like chairs and enjoyed the view of the water. You can enjoy things such as restaurants, ferris wheel, rides, boat trips, shopping, fireworks, and much more at Navy Pier. Around 6 PM I headed back to my hotel to get ready for this experience at Alinea.
Dinner was at 8:45 PM so I had plenty of time to get ready. I met up with Jenn and Rich about 30 minutes before dinner and we all headed there together. Now for those who know me, know I love small hole in the wall places and street food, so going to this dinner experience was something new to me. You can expect to pay anywhere between $300 and about $485 depending on the size of your party, and it seems like it is a lot, but it is worth the experience for a 16 to 18 course meal. This part is vary hard to explain but I will have some videos posted of it as well, because it truly is one of those things you need to experience for yourself. There is a bit of a set menu for this experience but they will accomodate for those of us who have food allergies so you don't feel left out. In my experience there were many shell fish dishes I could not eat, but they still brought things I could eat out as a substitute. This was a very nice gesture, because some of the courses are brought out in a specific way and it makes it so no one is feeling left out.
During the 18 courses we had, I didn't have anything that I didn't like at all, and 18 courses sounds like a lot, but the dishes are very small portions, but satisfying to the taste buds no doubt. To give you an idea of some of the things that happen here, we were able to walk back into the kitchen and see a few dishes and drinks made right before our eyes that we could enjoy while being told about the process and ingredients. At one point during dinner they literally pulled down ceiling tiles and decorated them with sweets for one of our desserts. All in all the experience is definitely worth the price, but I will be honest I was still hungry after all the courses. After dinner we headed back to our hotel to get some rest for our early flights back to Texas.
*Have you even been, or want to go to Chicago? If so let me know what are some of your favorite places, or what places you want to see in the comments below.
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Useful Links for Chicago Travel:
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