Chicago Blizzard

Hey, it's Superbowl Sunday, not like I give a flying FK.  We interrupt the regularly scheduled SF Day 3 posts with photos of my cousin's place in Morton Grove near Chicago. This is the same cousin that we visited back in October 2009 (Chicago posts here). He and his wife were gracious hosts and let us stay at their place for a few days.

Look at that snow!!! Well, after he emailed me these pix yesterday , I sent him pix of our place. I guess I shouldn't complain that it was 64 degrees that morning! We're such Southern California pussies!

"That blizzard was so scary especialy that night during the snow. The thunder was so loud with matching 50 mph winds. The whole front door and windows were covered with snow about 6 ft. high. Luckily, the back door was only about 2 feet. The backyard is full of snow with a mountain of snow about 6 ft high. I cleared the snow around the house. Now.. my whole body is aching. A snow truck plowed the long driveway and I did the front and sides of the house." (my cousin's words)

TC saw these pix and was totally envious of the weather. Me, on the other hand, totally not! I'd hate to have to deal with this every winter!

Chicago: Day 7 - Superdawg & O'Hare

[Update 10/28 - Okay, my last 3 Chicago posts are finally done! Scroll down and enjoy...or not]

Today was our last day in Chicago. We had to go to Chicago foodie landmark Superdawg before we left. Superdawg is one of those must try places if you are ever in Chicago. Plus I promised my brother (who'd be picking us up later tonight) to get a Superdawg for him. After the 10th Wonder of the Cheesy World that was the Leaning Tower of Niles, we headed straight to SuperDawg in the Norwood Park. Check out the yelp reviews here.
The statues actually have names: Flaurie (the female one) and Maurie (the caveman one). They are named after the owners who opened Superdawg (and still operate it today) in 1948.

I love how their eyes are a glowing evil and Satanic red. They must look even better at night!

There are these order windows at each car port. You don't even have to get out of your car to order your food here. Plus, someone from inside brings out your order once it's down. Perfect for lazyasses. Actually, you could also go to the restaurant and order there, but it's pretty small inside.

I was having a hard time photographing this. Both the box and napkin were on my lap and the light kept changing. Plus the car was moving....

The "Dawg" is buried underneath the fries. I really don't like the pickle spear!

The box against the brick backdrop of my cousin's house. After getting the dawgs, we went back to my cousin's to get our luggage and eat a quick lunch. TC and I had already eaten a bit earlier at Super H-Mart...so Bert was the lucky one who got to consume this last Chicago style dog.
This was Bert's dog, or shall I say "dawg". The other one was for my brother. Okay, it was around 11:30 am when we bought these. Our flight left at 4:25 pm (it was eventually delayed 45 minutes) so we didn't get back in to San Diego until 7:45'ish. I don't know how good it tasted since I just recently found out he didn't even eat it that same night! He ate it the next day! Gross!!!

Because I'm a worrywart, we got to O'Hare waaay early. Like more than 2 hours early. Even though my cousin only lives less than 10 minutes away from O'Hare, I didn't want to take any chances with any unforseen accidents or traffic holdups. Anyways, here we are back at O'Hare. We noticed that airport workers were unceremoniously tearing down the plastic coverings on the pillars, the ones that said "Chicago- Olympic Bid 2016". And before we left Chicago, I had to take a photo of their amazing self-cleaning toilet seat covers. Here is a sign on how to use this contraption...

The first time I encountered one of these was back in 1998 when we had a stopover at O'Hare en route to NYC for N & L's wedding. I tripped out over this dealie here. So yeah, I took a photo and lucky for me, no one else was in the bathroom hearing me snap away. What kind of sucked about this (or at least this stall) toilet's mechanism was that it didn't really work. I waved my hand over the sensor, yet the plastic did not automatically circle around the lid to be replaced by a fresh, ass-germ-less sheath of plastic. Needless to say, I did not entirely press my glutueal region (aka: nalgas, ass, arse, pwet, bum) on this when doing my business. Despite this modern contraption, I still felt like I couldn't trust it and had to maintain a "safe" hovering distance. Anyways, how do we know this plastic stuff isn't being recycled and is just going 'round and 'round, teeming with ass germs???? Here is someone else's video of this mechanical device in action. Luckily there wasn't anything "floating" around...

And that's all she wrote folks. Hope you enjoyed these Chicago posts! Until our next trip or odd excursion!

Chicago: Day 7 - The Leaning Tower of Niles

Okay, since we saw the leaning tower only at night, we HAD to see it today before we left Chicago. The Leaning Tower of Niles is located on W. Touhy St. in a small suburb slightly NW of Chicago...We parked across the street at this food place...Papa Chris Place - a wierd hybrid of American, Greek and Italian fast food. The Leaning Tower YMCA is home to this urban tribute to one of the most famous towers in the world. It's just so random..You're driving along this really blah and ho hum street and bam! You see a fake Leaning Tower of Pisa ahead of you!

Built 75 years ago , the Leaning Tower of Niles is a half size replica of the one that stands in Pisa, which has been the sister city of Niles since 1991. The Tower was built by Chicago industrialist Robert A. Ilg to hide a water tower that serviced two swimming pools. When he died in 1964, he left the tower to the nearby YMCA which now bears its name. Check out this link to someone else's blog post about the tower here

Too bad people can no longer go inside and climb to the top. By the way, I noticed that I'm wearing the same damn jacket in nearly every photo of our Chicago trip. Believe me, it was pretty cold (well, not freezing) and poor old spoiled Southern Cal girl that I am, was not liking it. Normally my wardrobe varies more than this!

Last night when we drove by, there were several tourists taking pix of themselves. There was no one today except us. On a more morbid ntoe, I wonder if anyone ever tried jumping off this thing?

Plaque at the Tower...

Another view...you can see one of the side pools here.

This was one of the "junk" snacks TC bought at H-Mart, Kancho by Lotte, a South Korean sweets maker (known for their "crunky" chocolate bars). These are similar to these Japanese Koala cookies, except their box is shaped like an octagon. What's funny is the name, "Kancho", which is some sort of pranklike game that school children in Japan do to other people. To "Kancho" someone, you put your hands together Charlie's Angels style (with your index fingers pointing out), like you're pointing a gun, then you forcefully ram it up someone's ass, preferably when they're not looking. You heard that right. OMFG! What kind of fkg game is that? My friend C from the blog Life on Manitoulin used to be an English school teacher in Japan and said that kids did that a lot over there! Hopefully not to her!

To learn more about this questionable (but funny!) practice, click here! You may also observe the proper hand form here! Make sure to "do it right" okay? Their store also has several t-shirts on sale, like "Kancho University" or "I (heart) Kancho", and my all time favorite, "WWJK?" (Who Would Jesus Kancho?). I'd wear that to the Vatican and say, "Yo, what's up Pope Ben?"!

On to Superdawg!

Chicago: Day 7 - Dominick's and Super H-Mart

Okay, you may be wondering, why the hell is she blogging a grocery store? Well, because I can and it's my blog! But really, whenever we're in a different city, I like going to their regional grocery stores, like Uwajimaya in Seattle, or Andronico's in Berkeley or this place here, Dominick's, a grocery store chain found primarily in the Chicago area. It's like a Ralps/Vons/Albertson's place. We wanted to buy some fruit to eat as snacks at the airport or on the plane. We were looking for tangerines. It was drizzling that morning...I don't know about you, but I'd be depressed living in a place that was gray all the time.
We'd gone to Jewel-Osco the first day of our trip to buy a few supplies along with water. Jewel-Osco is like your regular drugstore a la Rite Aid/CVS/Long's Drugs, you get the picture. One store that I regret not checking out that Joelen recommended was Fox & Obel, which is a high end/chi-chi/"Oprah's favorite store" kind of place. Dominick's, on the other hand, wasn't really "high end". It's just like every other grocery store you've ever been to. One thing I should have bought was that neon green relish!!!!
They were also selling used books - the proceeds of which would go to breast cancer research, so TC and I picked out a few titles. I got a "Peanuts Christmas" book while she picked up a few mysteries. They were a dollar each.
So yeah, that was Dominick's. We didn't really stay too long because our morning was kind of tight. Bert and I were up late the previous night making sure our suitcases were ready to go. We also wanted to make sure that the room was clean. My cousin and his wife,who were kind enough to give up their masterbedroom for us), despite my initial misgivings about the waterpark, and his crappy grilling skills which resulted in Bert feeling nauseous, and his lack of telling us about needing the damn coins for the toll road, really treated us like royalty here. I felt guilty for thinking all that shit earlier. Although we didn't really go sightseeing with him, he let us stay in his house, gave us his best room, and they took us to some pretty good Filipino places to eat. The other night, they quickly showed us where this huge Korean supermarket was, Super H-Mart. Just picture Zion, Ranch 99, & Mitsuwa(but mostly Korean stuff) in a BIG FKG Costco sized store. That's H-Mart.
Here's the official site here (oops, most of it is in Korean) and this location here. Inside the store are several other businesses as well as eateries. There were several cuisines represented, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. There was also a Korean bakery. You could literally spend hours here looking at all of their stuff.
Their bakery was awesome. They had all these little pastries that were so (processed) soft and yummy! Wait, no hot dog thing like they have at Zion? Oh no, they had some other delectable offerings here...those pics will come up in a few seconds.
OMFG - it was so FKG SPACIOUS and LARGE MARGE here!

as well as a place worthy of the attention of Galactus, Devourer of Worlds, or the lesser known, but equally as important, Omnipotus (from one of the greatest cartoon series of all time, The Tick).Korean snacks...
One of the many aisles there...
The Korean version of Cheetos - These bags were going to $3.00. I wonder what flavor they were? Spicy Kimchi?
This was the Korean place in the store...TC and I shared some Chapchae noodles, which was served with rice for some reason. Here's one of the pastries we bought at Bini Bakery. It looks like it could be a breadstick from Pat and Oscar's but hell to the no. The bread is soft and sweet with these crunch bits on the outside crust. The filling was a peanut butter mousse! I ended up buying another one after we practically inhaled the first one. This was $1.25. I think all these calories ended up on my hips.
The Tokidoki print featured is Famiglia which came out in Summer of 2007; the style is Campeggio, which is a bigger version of the Stellina messenger bag style. The pastry featured was a bun filled with almond cream and topped with thinly sliced almonds! We loved this one almost as much as the peanut butter pastry.
This was our lunch - Chapchae (sweet potato noodles) with beef and vegetables...
And because I love all toilet related items, here are some control buttons for these fancy toilets at one of the little side stores in H-Mart. You can wash your crusty nether regions and control the pressure of the water as it "cleanses" you - front and back! You can also press a button to air dry your crotchal region AND control the temperature of the water! I mean, performing your daily ablutions is so easy and fun and is literally at your fingertips! Actually, I've never tried one these, but Bert totally would.Here are a couple of the toilets on sale...Would you spend this much on a toilet?We spent more time than we thought we would at this place. You could also get lost in here! The checkout is waaaaaaay on the other side. Like one mile away.
The best thing about H-Mart? Their covered shopping cart returns!
How fkg awesome is that?

Chicago Day 6 - Edith's Place - Mount Prospect, IL

[Update - 10/23. Yet another MARATHON post. Actually I don't do this all at once, but I tend to post them all at once. Scroll down for the newest 5 posts]

Our last dinner for our Chicago trip was at another Filipino place. According to my cousin's wife, Edith's Place located in the village of Mount Prospect just recently opened up. It's located in in another nondescript strip mall (MP Plaza at Rand/Central). Their parking lot wasn't nearly as vast as the one that housed Filipiniana...This place is so new, they don't even have Yelp reviews yet. The interior of the restaurant was huuuuge! There was even a dance floor with a disco ball!
Besides us, there was only one other group there. Edith herself greeted us. Her husband (a Caucasian guy) took our order. Both were super nice!
Menu:
What shall we have?
Pork!
Edith chatting with my cousin's wife...
Poster advertising their grand opening...
Rangoons - This isn't really a Filipino item, but WTH, it was on the house by Edith! She over stuffed these as well but we weren't complaining! They were nice and crispy with fake crab meat and cream cheese.
Fried Squid with vinegar dipping sauce (vinegar, sliced onions, garlics and hot peppers):
Kare Kare - braised oxtail stew in peanut sauce with vegetables. I've never made this, but it tastes to good, especially if you like the unctuous texture of fatty oxtails.
Crispy Pata (Deep fried Pig's leg) - that's a pig's foot you see there along with part of it's leg!!! If you're vegetarian, don't even bother eating Filipino food. Just kidding. Look, they stuck a big knife in there too! Nice! I had to restrain myself from tearing off all of the skin! It was so crispy like a potato chip but with fat attached to it!!!
Pork Ribs Sinigang (sour soup flavored with tamarind):
Grilled Seafood - Shrimps, mussels, clams, and fish...
Here's a preview of the Leaning Tower of Niles, a half size replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Can you believe this thing was built nearly 76 years ago?
Tomorrow, we plan to check this monstrosity out in the daylight!