Chicago: Day 1 - Czerwone Jabluszko Polish Buffet

[This post actually written on Saturday 10/3 while in the Lobby of this waterpark hellhole in Wisconsin Dells. Can't wait to get back to Chicago tomorrow!]

This will be quick and I'll add more commentary later... [update 10/15....extra comments added!]

This was dinner our first night in Chicago, Czerwone Jabluszko, also known as the Red Apple Polish Buffet! See the yelp reviews here and a post by local Chicago foodblogger, the lovely Joelen from What's Cookin' Chicago? (Joelen's Culinary Adventures with Friends and Food). By the way, I had the opportunity to exchange emails with Joelen prior to our Chicago trip and we were able to meet her for dinner. That will be a separate post in a few days!

After pondering our many dinner choices in Chicago, we decided on a cuisine we hardly ever see in San Diego, Polish...And after reading about Joelen's recommendation, we had to go here. Bert is all about meat and potatoes. Check out the waitress on the left hand side...She was in her 50's, Polish, and a total riot! She also had on some sort of "outfit" or perhaps national costume...A really short skirt with a vest and white blouse. I wanted to see her carrying to huge beer steins in each hand. Seriously though, it's like the Polish Hooters here.
There were a lot of locals there, as well as people speaking in different languages. Some of them, I presume, were Polish because they were conversing with the waitresses. This is the bar area. One of the waitresses (seen below) was a cute young girl with a pixie haircut. The flat screen was showing some sort of Polish soap opera.
The buffet was quite extensive..I actually took these pix after dinner (not before getting dinner) and also when no one was in line. I felt so self-conscious with my camera. The reddish glow comes from the heatlamps. There was a lot of meat and fried stuff. I mean A WHOLE LOT OF MEAT! AND STARCH! AND MORE STARCH!

The middle row had (from the top) broccoli, then beets, and dumplings in a white sauce. The row on the left (from the top) had Pork Stew (the sauce was really something else! Loved the seasonings in there) and then you had Fried Liver with onions (which I had and liked). The row on the right had "schnitzel" (bread and fried ground pork) and I don't really remember what was below that. I wanted to try everything but exercised restraint because I wanted to sample just a little bit of what I'd never tried before. One thing I did notice, there's a lot of "brown, beige and white" food here! Everything is stewed, fried, or boiled until it is (colorless) rendered colorless.
There were some Polish sausages (middle left), then chicken wings (is that Polish?), at 5 o'clock were meatballs in sauce and at 7 o'clock, sauerkraut.
More of the buffet line. They also had a salad bar but I didn't get anything because the vegetable selection was kind of small and the produce didn't look that great to be honest. There was also a fruit bar, ditto on the fruit selection and quality. I think the heatlamps pretty much kill the "fresh" factor. Their "Hawaiian" salad looked a bit gross - it was marshmallows over pineapple and it was pink and green. Think of preppy Izod shirts from the 80's with the collar up. Or better yet, Le Tigre!
This photo was taken by TC - I had her doing some of my dirty work. The buffet actually continued in another room. They had the potato pancakes there as well as apple fritters, cheese blintzes, and some other items that I can't recall.
Remember the waitress earlier? She asked Bert (in her Polish accent), "You like draft or bottle"?" and without waiting for a response, she said, "I get you bottle". And off she went! She brought him Okocim, a Polish beer (pronounced "Oh-Koh-Cheem", accent on the last syllable). She leaned in closely toward's Bert and emphatically declared, "Okocim!"
Our super nice waitress started us off with soup. There were two kinds - the first was Ukrainian Borscht (beet soup)...this was really tasty on a cold day. The soup had bits of beets, onions, and red beans and was quite hearty. The other soup was your standard chicken noodle soup (this was TC's).
My plate - clockwise at 10 o'clock, Liver & Onions, Stuffed Cabbage, Pierogis (cheese and meat), mushroom gravy, mashed potatoes, in the middle was a piece of broccoli (duh) and at 6 o'clock was one meatball with white sauce and then a piece of salmon.
Another plate of mine had the pork schnitzel, a potato pancake (I loved these! Very thin and crisp and flavorful!) and a cheese blintz.
Bert's plate - at 9 o'clock we have Pork stew, then pierogis, some breaded thing (not a schnitzel), I don't know what was below that (but it was delicious), and mashed potatoes.
My 2nd plate - See? Another potato pancake! Then beets, mushroom gravy, a piece of pork from the pork stew and a meat piergo at 6 0'clock. Not sure what was on top of the beets though. I didn't grow up eating beets so I try to eat them whenever I see it. The beets actually had a sweet quality to them and were grated.
We sat next to the dessert case...Lots of mini pieces of cakes with creamy fillings. There was also a gritty jello dessert with fruit inside. Another type of dessert was cake with cherries in the middle. Since I only had one piece, I can't really tell you about the other desserts. Sadly though, my one tiny piece of cake was too dry.
This was my cake bite - coffee'ish cake layers with caramel and cream...Here's a list of the other Polish beers offered...
Posters near the entrance. Oh yeah, Bert told the waitress that he liked the "Okocim" and she said, "See? I told you!"! She was like a kindly and slightly pushy mother! Everyone here was very nice and friendly...
Here I am under the Red Apple sign! I wish we had a joint featuring this kind of Polish comfort food in San Diego!
That's it! Our first day in 3 parts...More to come!

Chicago: Day 1 - Buckingham Fountain & Cloud Gate

[it's actually Saturday, October 3rd and I'm posting from the lobby of the Wildnerness Resort in Wis-fucking-consin Dells. Although Wi-Fi is free in all of their hotel rooms, we do NOT have a hotel room. Instead, we have a 4 bedroom Cabin out in the boonies where there is no reception. So yeah, I'm here by myself in a hallway in the lobby furiously posting my Chicago pix.]

[update 10/15---informational links now added!]

After lunch at Hot Doug's we headed over to our Hotel room in the South Loop...Here's a partial view of downtown's Sky Line from the 1-90.
This is the Sears Tower(actually now called the "Willis" Tower)...this is the tallest building in the U.S. You can barely see it at the top, but there are 3 glass cubicles that they just added for their Skydeck Ledge experience which juts out 103 stories above street level.
The glare you see is the flash's reflection on the car windshield. There's some sort of mesh thing in there as well (the defroster?). This is the Chicago Stock Exchange building. You can't see it but trains run THROUGH it and cars travel UNDER it.
These sculptures are on each corner of the Harold Washington Library, the largest library in the U.S., holding over 2 million volumes! It's named after the first African American mayor of Chicago.
Partial view iew of the Chicago skyline while crossing a bridge in Grant Park):
We came to check out the Fountain here...
Bert and I were making "eye" with our shadows.

OMFG!!! I didn't realize that the Buckingham Fountain is the same one featured in the first few seconds of "Married with Children"!!!! Remember that show? That so damn funny. I loved Katey Sagal- she's great as the one eyed alien Turanga Leela in "Futurama"

Buckingham Fountain in the afternoon...very pretty here! Huge park but kind of deserted.
More of the fountain...
I used the "sunset" setting on the camera for this shot...looks too dark still.
There was actually sunshine our first day in Chicago...We felt we had to check out the parks along S. Michigan Avenue...After Grant Park, we headed over to the recently developed Millenium Park. The lattice like beams cover a humongous grass area...the cool metal planed roof you see is designed by Frank Gehry. This is the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millenium Park, home to the city's free music concerts. Must be cool sitting on the grass listening to musical performances. Here's me underneath the pavilion beams.
Also in Millenium Park is this huge iconic sculpture "Cloud Gate" by Indian born British sculptor Anish Kapoor. This is also affectionally known as "The Bean" for obvious reasons.
View from beneath the bean. This underside area is also called the "omphalos" which means "navel" in Greek. The reflections in this concave chamber are really quite freaky. You'd expect your own reflection to be directly above you, but the way this is made, the reflections are fantastically distorted and multiplied, kind of like a demented fun house mirror.
We had a lot of fun checking out the Bean and it's mind bending optical illusions. That's TC (with the red blotch on her face - thanks to my "editing" skillz) taking a photo of me.
One of our reflections on the Bean...
Here's Bert pretending to be Atlas). I love how the Bean reflects the skyline.
More to come!

Chicago: Day 1 - Hot Doug's and White Castle!

[Update - Hot Doug's closed as of October 2014]

It's Wednesday night and I can see the massive edifice that houses the ginormous Field Museum and the nearby dome of the Adler Planetarium from our hotel window. It was our first day in Chicago and we had some serious eating to do. I don't know about you, but when Bert and I make travel plans, we always arrange our sightseeing around our food! Ha ha. Although the temps were in the low 60's, it was actually not so bad. We were somewhat prepared but didn't want to overpack like we were going to Siberia or something.

Armed with one of our trusty guides "NFT"...as well as several recommendations from blog readers.
Cool artwork seen on telephone post located right outside of our lunch time destination, Hot Doug's, (see the yelp reviews of Hot Doug's here)!
We HAD to come here because Hot Doug's is only open until 4 pm and also, the business goes on vacation starting October 3! As briefly mentioned in my previous post, we are going to be in Chicago for a few days. I have a cousin that we were planning to visit and unbeknownst to us, his wife booked Friday AND Saturday at this waterpark in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, which is like the water park capitol of America. I shit you not.. No offense to people who live in Wisconsin, but this is probably one of the worst places for me (a hydrophobe) to be. I also despise outdoor activies, being cold and being subjected to crappy chain restaurants.

I felt like I couldn't say "No dude, sorry, we'll pass", but my cousin's wife had already paid for the rooms. I wish they would have asked us. I'm sure my cousin and his wife meant well, but I also think our "visit" was their ulterior motive in going to this Wilderness Resort place that they wanted to go to last month, but couldn't. Gee, thanks a whole fkg lot. Oh, and anti-social me also has to smile and be happy with this OTHER family they invited. Great...(makes "W" sign with both hands).

"Just smile and wave boys...smile and wave..." ("Penguins of Madagascar)

So, while Bert and TC and my cousin, his wife and teenage kid are out swimming and shit, I'll be holed up in my hotel room reading Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" (yes, I caved and bought it at Costco) or maybe exploring the town of Wisconsin Dells on my own. In 50 degree weather. In the land of mediocre eateries. Luckily, we leave Wisconsin on Sunday morning, leaving us with at least a day and a half to still enjoy Chicago and its neighboring suburbs.

So yeah, we had to try Hot Doug's place before they closed for vacation, and also because Kirk recommended it. I happened to look up an old Bourdain episode on Chicago (aired in early Feb this year) and Hot Doug's is one of the places he visits.

Growing out my rocker chick mullet!
We went directly from O'Hare and the rental car place to Hot Doug's in the Irving Park neighborhood of Chicago...The line was out the door, but thankfully, not around the block.
The lines moves fast so once you pass through the door, there is a small waiting area with another door that leads into the restaurant. I don't know if you can see it, but the words on the wall say, "There are no finer words in the English language than 'encased meats' my friend"---the quote is attributed to someone named "Secret Robbie". There are hot dog decorations and memorabilia everywhere. Even the "girls" bathroom has a tiled spoof of "American Gothic" with a hot doug couple. In the "boys" bathroom (they really do say 'girls' and 'boys' on their bathroom doors), it's a spoof of the Magritte painting of a man with a bowler hat and instead of a cloud for his face (I just found out from Wikipedia that is is called "The Son of Man"), it's the side view of a hot dog. Sorry, no photos of those masterpieces here. [update - will post the bathroom murals a few days later after our return to Hot Doug's]The place was packed but surprisingly, about 3 or 4 tables opened up once we moved up in line and placed our order...By the way, I was thinking of snagging a table while Bert was in line. I'm glad I didn't because when we were sitting down waiting for our food, an older lady tried to bogart an empty table but was (nicely) told by one of the workers that she needed to order her food first before sitting down. She didn't seem happy about it, but had not choice but to comply. Or else he would have bitch slapped her.
Although we didn't order any of these menu items, here's the specials. Bourdain had the hot dog with three slices of fois gras on it...Although Captain Jack recommended the duck fat fries (yes, they are really fried in rendered duck fat), these are only offered on Friday and Saturday. Today was a Wednesday. We'll see if we can go there on Friday on our way to my cousin's place in Morton Grove.
Hot dog memorabilia galore - and yes, that's a clock with hot dogs as the "hands". Not pictured, but on the same wall to the right is a "Timeline of Encased Meats"...The first drawing had a caveman holding a hotdog on a twig...Funny.
View from our table...The line was nonstop by the way. It never let up and it was still out the door when we left!
Here's what we got - the Cheese Fries ($2.25/small). These were okay but not that great. We really wanted the duck fat fries but those will have to wait. This kind of tasted like melted cheez whiz on top of fries which is not a good thing.
TC had the "So far still Just) The Charlie and James Sohn Mini bagel dogs and tater tots – the kids love’em." ($2.50). The bagel casing was kind of thick and didn't do much for the tiny dogs. I think they were those mini cocktail links you can get anywhere. Those were also the crispiest tater tots I've ever had. I kind of like mine to be crisp on the outside only and not all the way through.
Bert had the "The Salma Hayek (formerly the Madonna, the Raquel Welch and the Ann-Margret)Andouille Sausage: Mighty, mighty, mighty hot!"($4.00). This wasn't really "hot hot" but there was a kick to it. We liked the "snap" of the sausage and the slices of fresh tomatoes and grilled onions. Hmmm, when I think of Salma Hayek, I don't think of Hot Dogs. I'm thinking more of uh...big ole melons.

Muy grande.
And I had "The Dog Chicago-Style Hot Dog with all the trimmings: 'nuff said." ($1.75). For those that know me, eating mustard is a big deal. I normally don't even eat it at all unless it's a flavoring, like honey mustard potato chips. So, I didn't want to appear wussy like so I ordered this with everything on it and I ate it that way. I didn't eat the pickle spear though...
Look at that radioactive shade of relish! I've never seen relish this bright before! Their hot dog buns are also poppy seed, which is characteristic of a Chicago Style dog. In Chicago, they do not put ketchup on their hot dogs. Don't even ask for it here. As if all this food weren't enough (actually we didn't even order that much food at Hot Doug's), we had to have our very own Harold and Kumar moment, and make the obligatory trip to White Castle). This one happened to be on West Addison (see Yelp reviews of this location here). We don't have White Castle in San Diego, and I wanted to see if the real thing was better than frozen shit you can get in the freezer case at Ralph's or Vons.
I didn't know that White Castle is open 24 hours a day. It was pretty dead when we got there. What you see below is NOT the ordering counter. That was around the corner to the left. There were just a few scattered adults and a group of young African American teens. One of them almost started a fight with this older man who was walking to the bathroom. The man tripped over the teen's cell phone cord, which the kid had plugged into one of White Castle's outlets. Nice... hi-jacking White Castle's electricity there. So Ghetto!
So the teen starts raising his voice, getting belligerent by using profanities, and basically challenges the older man to a fight because he broke his phone. The man said, "You shouldn't have had it plugged in there in the first place". I really thought they were going to fight but luckily, one of the workers kicked out the teens. TC also heard a few "choice" words that day. I hope she doesn't remember them...Ha ha, days later, "Mommy, what does M-----fkr mean? Let's hope she doesn't ask me that!
Bert ordered the single White Castle burger for me (.61) and a Double one for him (forgot the price) and TC, but she only had a few bites...He also ordered onion rings. All of the items came in cute little boxes which I'm sure are bad for the environment. The burgers tasted just like the frozen version - which to me, isn't all that. It's very "soft" and "steamed". The burgers are very tiny and if we hadn't eaten at Hot Doug's, we could have eaten more than just two. More like ten or so. The buns are steamed and filled with grilled onions and a thin square beef patty. These were "appetizer" sized. As you can see, we didn't really get a lot of food, but just a little "taste" of real White Castle food at an actual White Castle location.
Here's a close up of those onion rings...so good!
Time to get to our hotel and check in!