Fatty and I went for our annual (2 years now) trip to Chicago on Sat. and Sun. This time we decided to stay for 2 days instead of trying to cram everything into 1 day like last year. We got to Chicago at about 11am Chicago time and headed to Smoques BBQ it was featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. It was great, large portions and it tasted amazing I got the Brisket platter with BBQ baked beans and fries. The Brisket was juicy and fallen apart, in a good way, and the baked beans were amazing there were so many fries that I couldn't even finish. Fatty had the pulled pork platter with mac & cheese and BBQ beans, he really enjoyed his too, it looked really good. From there we messed around for a little while in that area of Chicago until we decided to see if Hard Rock Hotel would let us check in early, they did.
We headed back towards the hotel and got valet'd for the first time, we then checked in and the concierge took our bags to our room. We had a deluxe king bed and a good size room, the Bowie room, and we were on the 17th floor! We had an excellent view of Millennium Park from our room and could see some of downtown too. We chilled in the room for a little while still somewhat tired from the drive, we decided to go to ESPN Zone before meeting my Dad and his gf for dinner at Hard Rock Cafe (My Dad and his gf were going to be in Chicago the same weekend we were there and we had no idea until a few weeks before we left). ESPN Zone was fun like usual, for those that don't know it's a restaurant and an arcade, we just played the arcade. Basketball, Football, Air Hockey, Racing, Madden on a huge screen, it was fun!
We then walked to HRC to meet up and have dinner, my Dad and E were already there and we got seated pretty quick thanks to Fatty's HRC card. I had my usual, HRC bacon cheeseburger with fries, it was good as usual and my dad said his burger was most likely the best burger he has ever had. To my surprise my dad paid for our meal, he then asked if we wanted to go to the Hancock Observatory, 94 floors above Chicago in a giant room of windows. It was dark and the view of the city from up there was amazing, and my dad paid for that as well. We then went down to see how long the wait at the Cheesecake factory was, 1 hour, so we went to the Lux and the wait there was 2 hours. We decided to head back to my Dad's hotel and see if there was a wait for the restaurant there, none!, we got dessert and just talked for a while before heading to their room to hang out before we headed back to our hotel. Dad and E paid for our whole night, Thanks Guys!
Fatty has been sick so we grabbed a cab back to our hotel and Fatty and I ordered Giordano's small pizza and cheese bread and sprite about an hour or so later. We played cards ate pizza and just relaxed til we fell asleep. The next morning we got up and checked out of the hotel, but we checked in our bags and grabbed a taxi to Ditka's restaurant for my Birthday present from Fatty, thanks again! I've been there before but just to buy souvenirs, the ambiance was great sports memorabilia on all the walls. The food was great I had The Fridge Burger with Ditka Fries, it was the best burger I have ever had it trumps the HRC burger and the fries had a little spice and we good as well. From there we grabbed a taxi back to the hotel and got our bags and had the valet get our car.
We headed to Navy Pier and started our shopping extravaganza, we spent the rest of the day walking and shopping and taking pictures of the water and the city from the Pier. We had McDonalds ice cream cones and large pops, walking gets tiring, before walking around and shopping some more. I got a lot of Bears and Chicago memorabilia and some random little stuff, Chicago golf balls, ping pong balls, shot glasses. I bought Fatty a Chicago shirt, Bears shorts, and a Chicago baseball. We ate at the Twizted Lizard I had nachos and fatty had two chicken tacos, it was good and my nachos were huge I only ate about 2/3 of them. We then decided to go see Watchmen in IMAX since the shops all closed at 7pm and we weren't ready to leave yet. The movie was good and seeing anything in IMAX is always better. After that we paid for our parking and headed home, we got home at about 1:30 am our time.
We had a great weekend, Chicago is always a blast oh and I forgot to mention that it being St. Patty's weekend they turned the Chicago River green that was a cool site to see (I'll post pictures up later when I get home).
We had a great weekend, Chicago is always a blast oh and I forgot to mention that it being St. Patty's weekend they turned the Chicago River green that was a cool site to see (I'll post pictures up later when I get home).
