Our first day in Chicago was filled with Chicago food and exploration.  I spent day two wandering around the city by myself, shopping, eating, and going to yoga while Mike was at a conference.

After my day exploring, Mike and I were headed to a nice dinner.  We walked from the hotel to Hub 51 for dinner.  Hub 51 was recommended to us by a friend of a friend as a restaurant with “a wide variety of high-quality food, great atmosphere.” That description is spot on.

There was a bit of a wait when we got there so we put our name in for a table and got a high-top table at the bar to have a drink and an appetizer while we waited.  Of course, we could’ve had our entire meal at this table but we wanted to stretch our night out as long as possible.

We started with a glass of white wine (me) and a rum and coke (Mike) and the hummus.

When we moved to our table we continued with more drinks, though I didn’t need a cocktail after my glass of wine (I’m such a light-weight). Mike had another rum and coke and I had a pomegranate mojito.  LOVE mojitos.  We both do.  We thought about having one as our signature drink at our wedding.  But I digress…

The menu was great, so many things to choose from and a wide-variety of options.  I thought the veggie burger sounded delicious, and the tacos looked and smelled amazing. Since we weren’t very hungry (and they gave the dessert menu with the regular menu), we decided to go light with some sushi.  Mike chose the spicy shrimp and king crab roll and I chose the garden roll (beets with sushi, yes please!).

I know, right?!  How good does that look?  The table next to us ooed when it came out, saying it looked amazing (and then commenting on how I was taking a picture of it…)

And then came the dessert.  Even though our server said we could share a dessert, we each got our own.  Mike had a brownie sundae.  And I had the chocolate pie (it was meant to be after I got the pear/apple/cran pie instead of the chocolate earlier in the day). When I asked the waitress about the chocolate pie, she said it was her favorite dessert on the menu, that I had to “smores” it and that she’d add some extras for me.  Look at this:

Oh. My. God.  This was so good.  On the side: snickers pieces and hot fudge.  YUM!

After dinner we just made our way back to the hotel.  Mike’s conference started at 8 am the next day.

Sunday morning, I went back to Argo Tea with my heart set on a lemon-poppy muffin and some quality writing/blogging time.  I was not inspired to write at all, so I made some notes for future posts, listened to Seinfeld’s Halloween bit, and packed it in after just an hour (maybe less).

I walked back to the hotel, changed into comfy clothes, took my leftover pie out of the mini-fridge, got in bed and watched the end of Casper on ABC family.  Though I felt like I should be out exploring the city, the Art Institute, or shopping, I gave myself time to just veg. It was really nice.

When the movie ended, I wandered a bit and made my way to the Gap.  I tried on a bunch of pants in hopes of finding a pair of skinny jeans but to no avail. Does anyone else have a problem with the top of skinny jeans?  Gap Curvy jeans fit. me. perfectly.  But the skinny jeans are just so so tight and the top.  I want to take the waist and pull it out a lot.  But I did find the best yoga pants ever (early b-day present, remember?).

Then I had to head back to the hotel to meet Mike and check out before lunch.

We seriously considered going back to Hub-51 for lunch (I still had the veggie burger and tacos on the brain) but we felt kinda awkward going back like 12 hours later.  Luckily we passed EATT on the way to Hub-51.

We took a look at the menu and when I saw gorgonzola on the list of toppings for create your own burger, I was like yep, let’s do it.

And then we sat down to order and I fully read the menu.  When I read the words “pretzel bun” I knew we’d made the right choice.  I had a burger with gorgonzola and caramelized onions.  The server asked if I wanted a side salad and I was like that’s exactly what I need actually.  I was so glad he suggested it. And then it came out and I was even more glad.

The salad wasn’t anything fancy but it was really light and nice.  And with that burger I needed it. Look at the pretzel bun:

This was a great meal to cap off a weekend of good food.

What a great weekend in a great city.  I highly recommend Chicago if you’re looking for a weekend away.