One of the things I love most about Chicago is that I can travel to another Chicago neighborhood, spend a day there and feel like I’m in another world. But then, when I’m exhausted and my feet hurt, I can hop on the El and step off one block from my apartment, come home, and crash in my own bed. It’s all the excitement of vacation with all the comforts of home.
That’s how I felt when Wendy and I spent half the day in Chinatown on Saturday. Once again, Chinatown was one of those zillion things I’d been meaning to get around to doing, but hadn’t managed to peel myself out of the doldrums of break-up residue long enough to do. It’s conveniently located right off the red line, and you can see the characteristic square archway from the platform. My appetite was outrageous on Saturday, perhaps because I was finally starting to get over my August head cold, and I knew that we were headed in the right direction to quell my hunger (mmmm, Chinese food…).
My advice to you if you’re headed to Chinatown—tread lightly, but don’t carry a big purse. The first, and by far the best, shop we walked into in Chinatown was chock full of breakables, with itty-bitty aisles. No, I didn’t bust anything, but my purse threatened to knock every rosewood Buddha and porcelain elephant off of its shelf. It wasn’t long before I felt quite closterphobic in the shop, and was ready to bolt out the door. We took our time moseying in and out of a number of other shops on Wentworth. Wendy introduced me to the wonderful world of lychees, and we got all sticky eating them on the way to dinner. We found a restaurant (take your pick!), and sat down to some hot tea, crab Rangoon, orange chicken, and assorted dim sum. I stuffed myself and I’m not in the least bit ashamed of it. It was thoroughly delicious.
Even though I wasn’t sure there was any room left in my stomach, we decided to head over to the lone, rather out-of-place Vietnamese restaurant for some Vietnamese coffee. I just remembered how delicious it was when Kim took me for pho and coffee in Minneapolis; I completely forgot that the coffee had dripped from the press pot for the whole meal. So, grabbing a cup of hot milk coffee turned into a nearly hour-long affair. Growing impatient, we started a coffee drip race, which I was bound to lose before it even began. Wendy’s coffee was ready ages before mine stopped dripping. But all that coffee and condensed milk tasted fabulously worth the wait.
After a set of very bad-teethed, unworldly men sat down next to us and made a spectacle of themselves, I promptly paid our check and we were off to purchase a few things before grabbing the El back northward. Wendy did an impressive job of haggling down the cost of my merchandise, and we both left feeling pretty darn happy about the items we'd purchased. We were also quite happy to hop off the El so close to my place, and veg out in front of Sex and the City before heading out for the night.
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