Hipster bears

[muckefuck]

So, the weekend! It began early with a brief taste of boho Chicago. We went to Lokal in Wicker Park for Polish food from a Mexican chef who trained in a Japanese restaurant. There were one or two missteps--too much red pepper on an otherwise flawless grilled calamari salad with żurek-inspired dressing, at least one too many ingredients in the signature martini--but a good solid meal overall. I could down nearly anything if you covered it in the date-bourbon sauce that accompanied the cumulous pierogi and seeing cabbage rolls done up as maki was actually more clever than gimmicky.

But the real standout of the meal was our server, Thomas. Normally I'm not one for garrulous waitronation, and his patter would've been almost servile if he hadn't delivered it with such winning sincerity. (As they say, once you can fake that you've got it made.) As it was, we just wanted to kiss him to the tops of his fiery ringlets. And if we come back for the brunch with bottomless mimosas, we might just end up doing that!

Afterwards, we stopped in at the gallery opening of my buddy Joey. (Gawd, just typing those words makes me feel indescribably urbane.) His "Lush Life" show runs to the end of the month, and I would recommend it wholeheartedly even if I didn't fancy the artist. (Pics galore in mikiedoggie's latest post. See me flitting among the glitterati!) I was happy to see several red dots on the walls, although it did make me a bit sad to see how priced to sell some of the pieces were. Oh, well; no one makes art in order to get rich, do they?

It would've been fun to stay out at least for another cocktail, but I wanted to be fully rested for the Met simulcast of Simon Boccanegra the next day. The production deserves a full post of its own (which I'll doubtless never get around to) so I'll just say I enjoyed it in spite of its flaws. In general, it was a much better audience than at Evanston, but we had the misfortune to sit right in front of some brassy Russian ladies who despite two half-hour intermissions and two extended scene changes still found themselves compelled to eat from rustly plastic bags during the performance. Некультурное! (No, I didn't call them that, though I was sorely tempted.)

Four hours of Verdi left us ravenous, so at Nuphy's insistence we checked out the French Market. Fortunately, a friend had warned me that there was "Nothing French about it", so my expectations were scaled down to what we got, which was a mediocre crepe (though plus points for buckwheat!), an excellent espresso, and some fine gelato. In short, worth stopping in at if you find yourself near the Northwest Metra Station but don't go out of your way.

We walked off our excesses with a stroll down to Greek Islands, where we proceeded to pile on new excesses. In particular, Nuphy flirted outrageously with our Bulgarian waiter in at least two languages (neither of them Bulgarian, о госроди!). When I suggested asking him what he thought of Azis, Nuphy said, "Make sure you warn me before you do; I want to be able to see his face." This is how we wormed out the tidbit that Ustata was our man's school chum in Nova Zagora. Now I'm within two degrees of the glambear idol myself!

After that, it was cocktails chez moi and then Bear Night chez Touché. The highlight of this was meeting a total sweetheart from Charlotte who actually used the line, "Would you like to come back to my place and see my propeller?" (He works at O'Hare and collects flight memorabilia.) SO CUTE! I so regretted not having a trick card to give him that I demanded some of monshu that very night and he wizarded some up for me before I'd even dragged myself from my bed.

Comments

[areia.livejournal.com]

The better options at the French Market seem to be the macaroons that several of the vendors sell, and the cheese and salads at Pastoral.