Loathe as I am to wallow in odious cliches regarding roller coasters and wildly swinging emotions, our recent visit to Chicago was one such experience that perhaps warrants such authorial deviancy. Indeed, in three and a bit days we managed to accumulate a vast bill from the state authorities and a certain restaurant, saw Otto robbed for the second time, and had several authentic grungy local hipster experiences.
First, however, we had to finish getting there from Memphis, where we had bravely sought out the Kookamunga burger from Man vs. Food. When faced, however, with the grim 12,000 calorie reality of it and a bun the size of a dinner plate, wall-of-fame and stained t-shirt dreams of glory faded in the harsh light of the rational mind. Thus we shamefully left Memphis via the Gibson factory, tails between our legs. St Louis was next as another MVF stop - Crown's Candy and their malt shakes. Bravado once again gave way to sensible wussiness, as the 5 32 ounce malt shakes as thick as concrete were certainly too much for any one Kip.
Once we made it to Chicago we met up with our friend Victoria from New Orleans at a bar a few miles from our hostel for some big band Jazz at her friend's birthday. Having mistakenly chosen to pinch pennies and walk there, we soon found ourselves in a fairly industrial and seedy area.
Why such penny pinching?
Despite a cab fare only being about $10 between the three of us, we had just emerged from Alinea, one of the fancier restaurants in Chicago, where, unbeknownst to us, on top of an already abundantly large dinner and matching wine fee - an indulgence we thought we could afford at the time - was a 29% loading of tax and gratuity, essentially a fourth dinner. It would be vulgar of me to labor too long on the nuts and bolts of pounds and pence, but take only my euphemistic whimsy as the indication of truly shocking pecuniary strife.
One the other hand, Alinea also provided me with one of the most memorable meals I've had, and not only because of the dizzying bill. Fanciful and imaginative yet not at all over wrought and always fundamentally delicious, it spanned 15 courses of unforeseeable delight, one no doubt enhanced by the variety of fancy wines after two of which Otto was reduced to a giggling mess.
Particularly memorable was the dessert, a sweeping tapestry of variously styled and textured chocolate, cherry, marshmallow, and vanilla that was artfully arranged before us on a special table cloth by sous chefs from the kitchen. With each design unique to the table, it was then up to us to gleefully scoop it up, grinning like kids on Christmas. There was also a very clever three part rabbit dish, served in a special three tiered bowl, layered vertically. Thus the eating motion through it mirrored the descent down a rabbit hole to the bottom layer's intensely flavoured rabbit broth, heated by a single river stone.
The city of Chicago itself was like returning to civilisation after the abandoned city scapes of Memphis, Little Rock and St. Louis along the way. Each of which, while possessing a fairly intimidating built up area was basically empty, the streets barely populated. Chicago on the other hand was abuzz with people, our hostel in the University area near De Paul and three other smaller campuses.
The following day we met up with Victoria again for an authentically Chicagoan Jibarito, a Puerto Rican sandwich where bread is replaced with deep fried plantains, a sort of starchier banana. Taking us to the alleged birthplace of this arterial time bomb was pleasure enough, but one made all the sweeter by the knowledge that had we tried to make it here ourselves we would no doubt have been shot by resident gangbangers as we were in the heart of gang territory.
We were then given the distinguished honour of a 'hood tour, one made terrifying by not only Victoria's enthusiastic driving style, but also her warning that we ought forsake photography lest yet more gangbangers take offense to our actions or think we are up to no good. Wary but intrigued we moseyed around innocuous looking areas as well as the dilapidated, the street reality like an episode of The Wire to our painfully white eyes.
To cap off such an authentic evening we ended up at one of her friend's houses for a good ol' hipster house party where the men had beards, the women scary senses of humour, and thick rimmed glasses were handed out at the door. Marlboro Reds and craft beer the only acceptable auxiliary accessories. Even the house itself seemed like it was trying to be difficult, staircases mid balcony that went down to the kitchen and lop sided roofs giving a gloriously hip feel.
When we woke up the next day, however, it was with bleary eyed disbelief that once again we found Otto's pockets picked - although this time quite literally. With the sort of wanton abandon only inebriation can induce, his casually strewn pants had been rifled through, his iPod and $200 pilfered. interestingly, the thoughtful thief, while taking his credit card, had left Otto's $1 bills and his rare $2 bill. Moreover, he also appeared to have taken the hoodie of one of our room mates as well as my can of deodorant.
As the police worked tirelessly with all available resources to solve this most puzzling of crimes, we went out in search of what was allegedly the best deep dish pizza in all of Chicago. Burt's Place, beloved of Anthony Bourdaine, was about 14 miles from our hostel, a distance not at all troublesome to three gentlemen with access to a car. As Kip went to collect our beloved pack horse, however, he found that it was not where we had parked it.
In some deep, dark corner of state writ there lies scrawled an addendum to the law of the road - thou shalt not park within 15 yards of a fire hydrant. Coming from a land bereft of such devices and with no signs alerting us to this fact of city life, we had committed this most egregious slight against our host city, and for this deviance had our car towed and festooned with tickets. The grand total of our crime rendered tangible in sponees? $280. Thanks Chicago.
Thus we had to try and make our way to Burt's using the Chicago public transport system, something which, given the efficiency of their buses, we thought wouldn't be too much of a task. When we arrived at the train station, however, and were met with an empty, seedy looking frigid platform that was almost deserted and had no timetable, our confidence began to wane. With the deep dish ETA drawing near and no sign of our train after an altogether too pleasant 45 minute wait in the wailing elements as Amtrak trains hurtled past, buffeting the unwary, we decided to try and get a cab.
As these things work, it was at this point that the train decided to arrive, so an all out sprint was required to heave ourselves back up to the elevated tracks and onto the train. We did make it to Burt's on time, though. Having had to call ahead to get our pizza to come out of the oven after its 45 minute cook time at a point close to our arrival, we found ourselves tucked away in the corner of a hole in the wall restaurant in the middle of Morton Grove. Festooned with arcana, fading photos and mismatched cutlery, Burt's unassuming decor was part of the charm that was only accented by its pizza. Here deep dish meant not inches of bowel clogging cheese and meat product, but plenty of luscious dough and just an appropriate amount of the bowel clogging materials. It's a matter of subtle refinement and restraint, you see.
Realising our train would not return for a good 90 minutes, we were forced to get a cab home, an episode hardly worthy of recollection if not for the fact that our cabbie claimed to have lived next door to Lebron James back in Akron, Ohio. Not only this, but he also claimed to have performed unspeakable acts with Lebron's dearest mother, detailing their explicitness with altogether too much colour.
For our final night in Chicago we went out again with Victoria after sampling the house vodka at a local near the hostel. Pizza flavoured and lip burningly intense, I would not recommend it. Once again led out into the grungy burbs, we found ourselves at a biker bar playing the all-American shot game with some of her friends who were all too excited to buy the foreigners some drinks. De-lightful. As Otto approached catatonia, we headed out for 6am tacos with the promise of driving to Indianapolis the next day after an 11am checkout hovering ominously.
This, however, was not all with which we had to contend. While my poetic license might have implied that Otto had already been to the police to collect a report for his travel insurance claim, he had actually planned to do it the morning we were to leave. Thus, while Kip and I headed downtown to pick up the gruel, he went in search of the po-po.
Wandering through the labyrinthine downtown bat man scenery and bureaucratic city paperwork, Kip and I collected our beloved car from the impound and emerged into daylight to find the satnav had given up on life after almost an entire month of faulty service. With no map or any means of guidance beyond the stars, wind direction, half recalled street names and my ever faulty pigeon crystals, we somehow made our ever growing concentric city driving circles intersect with the po-po station, finding a bored looking Otto after the passing of some hours.
After impassioned negotiations with variously incompetent employees at Radioshack, we had a replacement satnav and were finally on the road.
Again.
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