La Madia

Before Ken’s high school reunion in Chicago, we went to dinner with some of his friends from high school at La Madia, a pizzeria in River North. His friends had been before and knew exactly what to order – we started with the pizza fondue:

The pizza dough is baked and puffed up and served with a side of the marinara sauce. A good side to start because everyone was able to pull apart the bread easily and get some of the tangy marinara.

We also started with mushroom bruschetta:

The salads were a bit on the plain side (two orders of the organic mixed greens mixed with vinaigrette):

For our pizzas, we ordered the triple Pepperoni – Tomato Sauce & Mozzarella Cheese, finished with White Truffle Oil:

Housemade Fennel Sausage & Sweet Onions – Tomato Sauce with Mozzarella Cheese:

And housemade Lamb Sausage – Fresno Peppers, Caciocavallo Cheese & Mint Salsa Verde:

The pizzas were all good but none of the crusts were really charred enough to have taste. The pizza fondue was actually much better than the pizzas; the crust of the pizza needed much more salt and flavor! We ordered another pie based off some online recommendations (the Taleggio and 3-Hour Roasted Grapes) but I don’t think anyone liked that one (except me!)

The restaurant was super busy that night because it was right around the corner from Ken’s high school reunion so a lot of people ended up going there beforehand. Ken wasn’t fully satisfied with the pizza at La Madia because after his reunion we ended up going to Pizzeria Due for even more pizza! Our original plan was to go to Portillo’s but we ended up getting the deep dish at La Madia because he wanted so much more pizza. Chicago’s thin crust pizza is good but they should definitely work on perfecting their crusts!

Rolf’s Bar & Restaurant

One of my coworkers told me about Rolf’s because he walked by the restaurant one night and walked inside because he wanted to see the decorations. When he walked in, he was surprised and amazed with how beautiful the decorations were and suggested I stop by since it’s so close to my apartment. He suggested I make a reservation since the restaurant was packed so I called for a reservation and went with Yuko last week! The restaurant is extremely tiny and the seats are almost like little sleighs (very tiny sleighs). The restaurant has a bar on the right hand side and seats for eating on the left and the ceilings are covered entirely with Christmas decorations:

There are also dolls everywhere (which is a little scary) but it’s so beautiful and festive inside:

The restaurant is on 22nd and Third and they even have a little street sign inside:

They initially didn’t want to seat us without the full party there (a huge pet peeve of mine) but let us sit down because we promised we’d order without everyone. The bread we started with was a bit on the stale side:

Yuko and Mark ended up ordering the same thing as me and Ken – the girls ordered the wiener schnitzel with green beans and spatzle:

And the boys ordered bratwurst with mashed potatoes and sauerkraut:

The food is definitely not great (the schnitzel was super flat and barely had any meat) and the ambiance was really beautiful and we had a lot of fun going to dinner with Yuko and Mark. I’d definitely return for a drink at their bar (if it’s not super busy) but definitely not again for food. It’s definitely beautiful enough to just walk into during the holidays – I wonder what it looks like during other holidays (Halloween, Valentine’s Day, and the 4th of July must be crazy!)

Shake Shack Concretes!

For Benny’s birthday on Wednesday, we were going to meet up for lunch but our team has a weekly lunch on Tuesdays/Wednesdays so Baxter, Christine and I couldn’t miss it. Instead, we decided to meet up for dessert (on a VERY very cold day). Initially I suggested Eataly but Benny was in the mood for concretes so we walked over to Shake Shack and got on the B line (surprisingly, no one was in line for burgers!)

Benny was in the mood for the hopscotch – Vanilla custard, hot caramel sauce, chocolate toffee and Valrhona chocolate chunks:

Baxter ordered the special – the pumpkin pie concrete with actual bits of pumpkin pie in the concrete:

And Christine and I decided to share the Shack attack – Chocolate custard, hot fudge, chocolate truffle cookie dough and Valrhona chocolate chunks, topped with chocolate sprinkles:

The Shack attack was a little too sweet for me (but the chunks of chocolate truffle cookie dough was good in small doses). My favorite was actually Baxter’s; it reminded me of the cake shake from Portillo’s in Chicago with the nice big chunks of pie mixed into the rich custard. We were freezing our butts off but they were so good I would definitely go back in the dead of winter for more custard!

How to Make Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

You’re probably thinking, wow, this is a lame post – who doesn’t know how to make grilled cheese? I’m not talking about Kraft singles grilled cheese in the toaster (although that always works in a pinch) – Ken and I made the most delicious grilled cheese sandwiches on Saturday night. On Thursday, I had the Milk Truck’s grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup and a McClure’s spicy pickle that was absolutely amazing and after I told Ken about the lunch, he was in the mood for grilled cheese, too. On Friday night, he made a grilled cheese sandwich with a slice of muenster and the toaster (not exactly satisfying, especially since he thought the bread was moldy.) We went grocery shopping on Saturday and bought really good bread and white truffle bread from Whole Foods Swiss and Gruyere cheese from Trader Joe’s.

First, place sliced bread on a baking sheet that is lined with foil:

Next, spread the white truffle butter on EVERY slice of bread (this is not a healthy sandwich):

Place the shredded cheese on every slice of bread until it’s uncomfortably high:

Put the baking sheet in the oven and switch the setting to broiler. Ours were in the oven for around 7 minutes and one of the ends got a little burnt:

While the slices of bread are in the oven, heat up a skillet on medium heat and melt lots of butter. After you take out the bread, the cheese and butter should be melted. You can spruce up the grilled cheese now (we added cherry jam to one of the grilled cheeses):

Next, put the sandwiches together and place them on the buttered skillet:

Turn over after the bread is browned. Our sandwiches:

Another shot:

We also heated up tomato soup, cut up some fresh pineapple and opened a bottle of wine to enjoy with our grilled cheese:

It was SO delicious! The best part: we were able to make seconds and continue to play with the different condiments we added to the grilled cheese (the second sandwich had more cheese, an egg over easy, and hot sauce!) Other recipe additions: caramelized onions, mustard, apricot jam, tomatoes, ham – the possibilities are endless and delicious!

The View

Last Thursday, me, Kristen, Christine and Nithya went to a taping of The View! I requested tickets some time last year (probably when my mom came to visit) and completely forgot about it because I hadn’t heard back in such a long time. We arrived at 8:30 and there was already a huge line of people that signed up for tickets (they tell you to arrive before 9:30 but it’s first come, first serve). We were let in around 9:30 and then finally got to the studio seating at 10 (they tape at 11am). The studio is really small and they share the space with One Life to Live (the soap opera that’s no longer on air). The studio:

We were there on a “lucky” day; Barbara Walters was actually there for the taping so it was a special occasion since she usually doesn’t appear that often anymore:

Before the show, there was a guy that was supposed to amp up the audience (the guy in the black shirt):

Everyone in the audience was SUPER excited to be there and lots of women were dancing and jumping out of their chairs! The guests were Dane Cook, Emily Watson and the cast of Godspell – everything went by super quickly (the interviews were only 2 minutes or so) and at the end, they gave everyone in the audience tickets to Godspell, a little Christmas tree and a DVD set for a show on ABC Family!

During the commercials, all of the ladies took questions from the audience – Sherri was definitely the most friendly (and the shortest!):

We want to get tickets to all of the shows in the city now: John Stewart, Rachael Ray, Martha Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert…every single show that tapes here!