This past weekend saw two California residents and Iowa transplants, Ted and Vicki Schmitz, making a pit stop at the Hacienda, braving swirling snow and frigid temperatures, and in the process reminding them why they moved to California in the first place.
After greeting Mr. Schmitz with a awkward bro hug and a bottle of cold Hi Life, we engaged in a few quick games of FIFA soccer on the PS3 before heading downtown to meet our better halves for a pretentious but wholly satisfying dinner at the new tapas hotspot, Mercat La Planxa. We opted for the Chef's Tasting Menu, which consisted of three waves of courses served family style, as chosen by the chef. Some of the highlights included: smoked bacon and spinach flatbread, mushroom risotto, black Angus ribeye and a Spanish potato omelet. Falling under the 'best ever' category would have been the perfectly cooked and seasoned lamb shanks and the trio of ice cream (pistachio, peanut butter and chocolate) which led us to unintentionally recreate the sounds of the 'diner scene' in When Harry Met Sally. We also indulged ourselves with a couple of bottles of a very good Spanish red wine of which I can't recall the name, but that our waitress constantly referred to as 'verrrrry sexy' (which oddly enough, she said about the ice cream as well). By the end of the meal our bellies were full and our wallets were empty, but we were able to pool our change and scrounge up enough money for a nightcap at our favorite dive bar, Edgewater Lounge.
On Saturday, Ted and I woke up bright and early and headed to the Globe Pub, where we met our buddy Ken to catch a couple of EPL Soccer matches that were going on. I'm a soccer novice, but it was pretty cool to go to a crowded bar of enthusiastic Europeans and watch 'the Great Game' at the buttcrack of dawn. These fans don't mess around. The bar was packed, but at times you could hear a pin drop because every one's attention was directed squarely on the game. Ted has chosen Everton as his favorite team. I am currently weighing offers from a variety of different clubs and will make my decision in the coming weeks, although Aston Villa is the frontrunner since I like their uniforms and their name sounds like a James Bond car.
That night we went back to our old haunts in Wicker Park for some pizza and beer and Piece Pizza, and then made our way to Louie's Pub for karaoke. That place is no joke and some of those American Idol wannabees have some chops. I signed up to sing 'Every Rose Has It's Thorn', but apparently I've been blacklisted (they must have heard my stirring shower rendition of the Charles in Charge theme song) as my name wasn't called. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, because even with liquid courage, I was pretty intimidated. ("I'm not drunk enough for this.") We were sitting at a table reserved for a bachelorette party later in the night, so we made sure to sign up the lucky gal for a few embarrassing songs, much to her chagrin I'm sure.
As she usually does after she has a few libations, Katy suggested the extremely sketchy Asian speakeasy across from our place, Cafe Bong Ho, for afterhours. (When you're over 30, 'afterhours' means 'after 10pm') Most times cooler heads prevail and we end up skipping that option, but not this time. Smelling of Windex and fresh cat litter, Cafe Bong needs to be seen to be believed. That said, it's best seen only after you have copious amounts of booze in your system. There were about 7 or 8 other patrons there, all sitting at the bar (they only have one booth and it's an American travesty), singing karaoke. There is one TV in the corner showing Chinese game shows and the other one which has the karaoke has a rotating background of Chinese landscapes, tigers and fields of flowers. The words on the screen were egregiously misspelled and often times not even close to what the actual word was.
All of this made singing Patrick Swayze's "She's Like the Wind" even more surreal than it would have normally been. Vicki and Katy did a nice recreation of Clapton's "Lay Down Sally" (the key is to add a strategically placed, yet subtle f bomb in the chorus). We butchered a few more songs, ate some arsenic-laced peanuts and drank some expired Old Style. Finally we walked home, much past our bedtimes and worse for the wear.
Sunday we crawled out of bed and ate breakfast at 'A Taste of Heaven' (our bodies felt like 'A Taste of Hell') before zoning out on the couch to Rock of Love Bus and our DVR'ed episode of 'Lost'. Later in the afternoon, we bid farewell to our gracious guests, Vicki and the needlessly nervous Ted, who fretted over taxi cab etiquette and his mangled stomach lining. With that, we reflected on the great weekend before quickly falling into our normal Sunday routine: dreading Monday.
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