Chicago MMXII

Bristol was nice, only been there once for a beer/bourbon dinner.

You can avoid communal seating at Publican. Just ask for a booth when making your reservation. Once I made a reservation, then at the end asked if it would be possible to get a booth. They acted a little surprised and said, sure, we can note you down for a booth. After I hung up I wondered who in hell would prefer communal dining.

Once had reservations at GT Fish and Oyster, and when we got there the seat was at a communal table with a family of 6, including two kids. We were at to dinner to be away from the kids, let alone someone else's, so we said fuck it and sat at the bar, which was great.

jesse did they play mother of the world for an encore last night? i need to know!

sorry je55e

I shouldn't have to ask for a non-communal table.

When making a reservation.

Nightwood is one I really like for a nice-but-not-fancy dinner. I'm doing some work with Tr3nch3rmen and would very much recommend it for something that's innovative but not intellectual. Their brunch is really good, too. Publican I went to with someone who works there, and so they fed us a ridiculous amount of good things. Balsan, Embeya, T-men, and others are all starting to have Sunday-night multi-course prix-fixe dinners for around $30, which is a great deal at any of them.

But sometimes if conversation is good, I don't pay enough attention to the food for it to matter much, in which case I'm happy doing BYOB at 90 Miles or Penny's or Old Jerusalem. Maybe we-all should do one of those this fall or winter.

Publican brunch rocks because they actually take reservations.

Trenche ... er, Tr3nch3rmen is on our collective short list. Nightwood is an absolute safe bet year-round. I like L&E for weekday lunch, which is essentially brunch, minus the crowds, but plus the best Cuban in the city.

i have never been to any of these places

You should go to Nightwood ASAP. What an easy great meal. Publican, too. Those are two I always recommend to visitors, since they are awesome, local and take reservations that are actually easy to make.

I liked nightwood a lot but it was nearly impossible to catch a cab home from there.

I only remember making joke after joke about the name of Nightwood, but I guess I could eat there. Is it easy to park? I need to chauffeur my date most of the time.

It's in the middle of Pilsen, so parking is easy and hailing a random cab might not be.

Also, Publican Quality Meats has a burger night on Tuesdays that would be very worth trying.

Kr and I had our 1st anniversary dinner at T-men. E's take is good -- creative food, unusual flavor combos w/o any conceptual gimmickry. Cocktails were great, too.

I like Publican, but I'm less eager to return there than to check out their offshoot, Publican Quality Meats. Keep meaning to hit it up for a weekend lunch.

Was so-so on Bristol the first time I went (late 2009) but enjoyed it a lot more when Kr and I went on a whim a few months ago and sat at the bar. Seemed like the menu had changed a fair amount. (More pescatarian options, at least.)

I still don't mind communal seating, but I guess I haven't had any experiences that have been worsened by it.

xposts (Didn't see that PQM had been mentioned.)

Would like to try Nightwood again. The location sometimes feels like a hindrance, but I know that it also makes it easier to get into than a lot of comparable establishments.

I'm a broad broad so communal tables mean having to sit hunched up and curled in all through a meal to avoid encroaching on my neighbor. And that only works if the neighbor is equally as mindful, which never happens. I just hate it. I like to relax when I go out to eat, which means I want a constructive bubble around my table. Having someone else's knife on my napkin or elbow in my ribs shatters that illusion.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Btw, Lula is continuing its tradition of "dressing up as" another restaurant/bar for Halloween. This year's it's "The Violent Hour."

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/10/durhams-bridge-death-will-decapitate-any-tall-truck/3707/

I encourage you to watch the video of all the trucks trying to drive under the bridge.

the campers were my favorites

ahahahaa

The ones that just keep on going, leaving the top of their trucks behind, are my favorite.

Actually, no. The two hay trucks are my favorite.

The hay trucks are awesome.

great video.

we have nothing planned this weekend
i'm so excited

lol @ your display name

La Lachera (or any chilxors ?) hitting Afghan Whigs tomorrow ? Gotta highly recommend - good musicianship all around ... Now to gear up for Metro oversold BS...

Afghan Whigs were so good at Metro over the summer that I almost don't feel the need to ever see them again. Like, game-over level set.

metro wasn't as packed as usual for swans, i was pleasantly surprised. i have had a couple of claustrophobic issues at shows there.

I'll be there!

I hope they turn down the lights. SWANS were under some kind of blasting surgical lamp and it kinda distracted me from my full immersive experience.

Has anybody found out more about the various questions on the ballot for the upcoming election? Alderman Joe Moore's site (http://www.ward49.com/site/epage/138795_322.htm) has some pretty good recommendations, but I guess I'd like info from more than one source.

I posed the question about ballot initiatives on my fb and twitter, and this is the only response I got. I make no claims as to its veracity/nonpartisan-ness.

http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Illinois_Public_Pension_Amendment,_HJRCA_49_%282012%29

please tell me if i am on/off base wrt the pension question:

we are being asked to decide if we want to fulfill the state's obligations to pension funds first (at the expense of schools) or to funding schools efficiently and fairly (at the expense of pensions)?

why does it take a village to answer this question?!

I also saw this from a very pro-union friend.

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/420470_3899883381346_967843496_n.jpg

That doesn't really help because it seems awfully skewed toward favoring the pension over the funding of education.
Is my interpretation accurate or am I off base? I truly don't know.

I'm not voting on any of the referendums. Can't find enough information regarding them.

Oh yeah, it's completely skewed because it's put out by the firefighter's union.

I'm not sure how the pension question connects to schools, other than it all comes from the same pot of money?

I don't think it does directly connect, seems like it's being used as a wedge in this case.

I hope they turn down the lights. SWANS were under some kind of blasting surgical lamp and it kinda distracted me from my full immersive experience.

I figured that's Mr. Gira wanted it. Remember there was that guy climbing around on the lights? I can picture Gira sweating, screaming, and pointing furiously until the roadie got it right.

Oh, I was going to tell you, right after you left, he did that thing where he he spits straight up into the air.

My former union feels similarly about the pension question. It's something about how state employee pensions are governed by the constitution and if we open up the constitution for an amendment, it gives the gov a chance to really get in there and restructure or eliminate the whole pension system. Given the level of animosity between Quinn and AFSCME (girl, you should see the proposed contract provisions that man was putting I the table; he doesn't give a fuck about union endorsements anymore, which is a little scary for state workers) and the Midwestern trend of mauling public sector collective bargaining rights, that's a realistic fear.

The school thing is a distraction, IMO.

he spit the water into the air while i was there too
i saw some spitting

the lights though, i can't dig that
maybe he was trying to punish us
(i can dig that i guess)

also are you trying to say that the education thing is a complete red herring or ?

The wording of the pension question that's like "do you want to let us tinker with the constitution so we can reduce pension money and use it for education or are you some kind of a monster who hates children and murders kittens?" It's stacked and per AFSCME, not honest.

i'm be totally honest and say that this conversation has not really helped to clarify the issue for me
:(

Per unions: The people who wrote the question want you to vote yes so that legislators can gut state worker pensions, which will negatively impact state workers. Legislators might use some of the money they save in retirement benefits to state employees to fund schools. But more likely they will somehow manage to not do that.

I say "per unions" bc that's the bias. However as a former (yay) state employer who was privy to some of the less publicized pension tension, I think the unions are OTM.