quote:

Originally posted by jon-nyc:
I worked right next door to you, my office was at 100 S Wacker from 1990 until 1995.

You shoulda called; we could have grabbed a bite to eat.

Ever go to J&C's? Or Lou Mitchell's? Stage Door Deli on the second floor of the Lyric?

I really miss all the great lunch places we used to go to...

Ah... Lou Mitchell's for breakfast! Took the family there a few years ago to experience it all over again.

Get into the city much?

What would be your ideal meal?

quote:

Originally posted by rontuner:
Ah... Lou Mitchell's for breakfast! Took the family there a few years ago to experience it all over again.

Get into the city much?

What would be your ideal meal?

Lou's -- nothing like a three egg omelette and real heavy cream (in those little pitchers) to recharge depleted cholesterol! And I happen to like stewed prunes, so I always wolf those down.

I almost never get into the city anymore. I've never really been a city person, though I do have to say that working downtown and commuting by train was pretty nice. I made lots of friends, and got a lot of reading and needlework done.

As for ideal meal, I love food, and there aren't many cuisines I don't like. Chinese, Indian, Italian and Japanese are probably the top four on my list, but Polish, German and Wisconsin are pretty darn good, too. We were up in the land of Cheddar last week and went to our favorite supper club for the seafood special: deep fried shrimp, scallops, whitefish and lake perch. Tossed salad with homemade 1000 Island dressing and seasoned potato wedges. The restaurant was built in 1929 and I think hasn't been redecorated since.

Do you live in the Chicago area, ron? If so, where are your favorite places to eat? We love to watch Check, Please, the restaurant review show on WTTW/PBS.

quote:

Originally posted by well-tempered gardener:
You shoulda called; we could have grabbed a bite to eat.

Ever go to J&C's? Or Lou Mitchell's? Stage Door Deli on the second floor of the Lyric?

Yep to Lou Mitchells and Stage Door Deli.

Whats the place further north on Wacker with the awesome chili?

quote:

Originally posted by jon-nyc:

quote:

Originally posted by well-tempered gardener:
You shoulda called; we could have grabbed a bite to eat.

Ever go to J&C's? Or Lou Mitchell's? Stage Door Deli on the second floor of the Lyric?

Yep to Lou Mitchells and Stage Door Deli.

Whats the place further north on Wacker with the awesome chili?

Not sure. Was it an Irish pub kind of place on the river? Cooper's or something like that?

Heaven on Seven for Cajun grub was also excellent. It was so strange to walk into the Garland Building (which had mostly jewelers and offices), ride up to the seventh floor, and there was a diner serving really great food. Lines of people waiting to get in.

BTW, J&C's was actually Bombacigno's J&C's. It's on Van Buren, west of the river. Neighborhood bar with a kitchen in the back run by the family. Great Italian food. You picked up your food at the counter, and had to walk up a set of rickety, sloping stairs to get to the second floor eating area.

I'm a big fan of cheap eats!

quote:

Do you live in the Chicago area, ron? If so, where are your favorite places to eat? We love to watch Check, Please, the restaurant review show on WTTW/PBS.

I was ON Check please once... a little Korean Buddist vegan place now relocated to the northwest side. They showed my chopstick prowess...

We spend Waaaay too much eating out - but there's so many good places to try and favorites to visit! We live west, but not as far west as Matt.

Our favorite Thai - Thai Classic on Clark in Wrigleyville. Good sushi in Westmont, of all places... Found a new favorite Mexican family run place in Northlake. But we're not above hitting the local bar for $2 burgers and beers!

quote:

Originally posted by rontuner:

quote:

Do you live in the Chicago area, ron? If so, where are your favorite places to eat? We love to watch Check, Please, the restaurant review show on WTTW/PBS.

I was ON Check please once... a little Korean Buddist vegan place now relocated to the northwest side. They showed my chopstick prowess...

We spend Waaaay too much eating out - but there's so many good places to try and favorites to visit! We live west, but not as far west as Matt.

Our favorite Thai - Thai Classic on Clark in Wrigleyville. Good sushi in Westmont, of all places... Found a new favorite Mexican family run place in Northlake. But we're not above hitting the local bar for $2 burgers and beers!

Big "duh". I just saw your location is chicagoland!

Well, I'm impressed! How was it being on Check, Please? Were you on with Alpana Singh or Amanda Puck?

We've been on an Indian/Pakistani/Nepalese kick for a while. Love the lunch buffet at a place called the Himalayan Restaurant in Niles. I think they may also have a location in Bloomingdale, but we haven't been to that one.

Ooops! My bad - different food critic show. I was eating there when the filming was going on - and they zoomed in on me eating - I even managed to hit my mouth!

Indian/Pakistani/Nepalese - that's outside our regular menu! We've been searching Vietnamese - have you tried Dong Gia in Desplaines yet?

Ok, WTG:

How'd you meet your husband?

How long have you been married?

How did he (or you) propose?

quote:

Originally posted by jon-nyc:
Ok, WTG:

How'd you meet your husband?

How long have you been married?

How did he (or you) propose?

Mr WTG and I met in college. We traveled in the same circles and were friends for quite a while before we started dating.

We've been married for 31 and 1/2 years. We got married on the day of the big blizzard in Chicago in January, 1979. It started snowing the night before, and by morning things were looking pretty darn interesting weather-wise. Our wedding was scheduled for 11 a.m. and the reception for 1 p.m.

My roommate in college was a voice major, and we had several classical musicians doing the music for our wedding. We had a trumpeter, harpsichordist and two vocalists (one soprano, one tenor). By some miracle, all four of them showed up for the wedding despite the weather.

I think the early reception was the only reason 90 out of our 110 guests showed up; they didn't know how much it was going to snow. Our matron of honor and her five month old son rode to the reception in the limo with us, because we were worried that her VW Rabbit would get stuck in the snow. We left her hubby to fend for himself. The other bridesmaids helped push cars out of the parking lot.

The limo driver took us home, and a couple of university students were walking by with their cross country skis. The driver couldn't pull up to our apartment because the parking lot of our apartment building wasn't plowed. The students helped us carry our gifts and other stuff to our apartment, for which we rewarded them with a huge portion of wedding cake.

It was a memorable day in more ways than one.

As for the proposal....I'm embarrassed to admit that I don't really remember how it all transpired...I think we both knew we wanted to be together, and we just sort of decided to take the plunge.

Can't speak for Mr WTG, but it's the best decision I ever made.

Do you have kids? If so, are they of the human variety or feline/canine variety?


What's the best place you've ever visited?


What place would you most like to visit that you've not yet visited?

Wonderful story about your wedding. It actually sounds very romantic with all those musicians, the snow falling etc.

How did you decide where you wanted to live your lives?

I used to think I wanted to live 'somewhere else' but N E is home and the ocean is a must.

quote:

Originally posted by jon-nyc:
Do you have kids? If so, are they of the human variety or feline/canine variety?


What's the best place you've ever visited?


What place would you most like to visit that you've not yet visited?

The only dependents around here are of the four-footed variety. We've had a number of cats over the years (there were three here at one time, plus two dogs -- it was a houseful). The last cat died of old age maybe 8 or 10 years ago.

On the dog front, we've mostly been a "one Newfie, one Golden" household until recently, when we went all-Golden. We lost our longest-lived Newf, Mambo, late last summer. She was a few months shy of 14.



We currently have two Golden Retrievers, Maggie and Lucy, ages 4 1/2 and 2 1/2. For those of you in Massachusetts, Maggie's dad Bentley is from Stoneledge Goldens in MA. Some of the Mass. Stoneledge Goldens appeared in recent Abercrombie and Fitch catalogs, so we have some models in the family.

Maggie is the poor suffering soul on the bottom:



Best place I ever visited? I don't travel much, but I absolutely loved London both times I was there.

And Florence. We stayed with my mom's friends; they had a villa overlooking Fiesole. We were down the street from Bruno Bartoletti (former music director for Chicago's Lyric Opera) and missed having lunch with the President of Italy by just a few days. That was back in the late '70s.

quote:

Originally posted by lilylady:

How did you decide where you wanted to live your lives?

I used to think I wanted to live 'somewhere else' but N E is home and the ocean is a must.

LL, both my husband and I were born in the Chicago area, grew up here, and went to school here. I guess family ties have kept us here. As I think have mentioned before in another thread, my parents were from Eastern Europe and fled their home country during WWII. They spent the latter half of the 1940's in Germany as displaced persons, and came to the US in 1949 or 1950. They came to Chicago (both my mom and dad had relatives here who sponsored them), and just plopped down and stayed here. I think they had had enough moving around for a lifetime.

I love the water, too. We vacation quite often in Door County, Wisconsin, which is a peninsula surrounded by Green Bay and Lake Michigan.

Strange, though, when we're here in Chicago, we don't go to Lake Michigan at all. I guess it's just too populated and the public beaches aren't much of a draw when compared to the quiet area that we go to in Door County.

John Galt is a woman?

I'm really confused. Luckily you weren't around when I was pianolicious.

What country were your parents from? My piano teacher was from Hungary -- escaped in 1956 and settled in Evanston. I took lessons from her in her Hubbard Woods studio.

You work/live in Chicago? Why haven't we had lunch? Let's meet up some time at Bijan -- a nice little French Bistro in River North where MattG and Bernard and I went a while back.

I always thought you posted too nicely to be a man but I wasn't sure.

Love the dog pics by the way.

Love the thread.