Back from my quick 3-day trip to Chicago! As usual, my sister and I ended up fitting too many things in our itinerary. Poor Tomomi must have learned the hard way how difficult it is to travel with us. =P

Starting off our trip at Billy Bishop Airport, we took the ferry towards the terminal and waited in the Porter lounge until it was time for boarding. It was my first time flying via YTZ. Since it’s a lot smaller than Pearson, it was relatively easy going through security and customs (except I still got a big ‘X’ across my photo during the passport scan). The Porter lounge is also quite nice and it was a good area to wait in until we got called to board.

The flight itself to Chicago was pretty smooth and we gained an hour once we arrived in the city. Our first order of business was buying our Ventra cards to the trains downtown. We paid the $5 fee for the card, then bought a 3-day unlimited travel pass. It was fun taking the Loop during our time in Chicago. It felt very ER like travelling on the L. =P

After we got downtown we proceeded to our hotel to drop off our bags, then it was straight to Uno to grab lunch. Pizzeria Uno is one of the many spots to eat deep dish pizza in Chicago. We ordered a salad and chicken fingers for appetizers, then their Numero Uno deep dish pizza as the main. The pizza had sausage, pepperoni, onions, peppers, mushrooms and chunky tomato sauce. Our waitress recommended getting a medium pizza for the three of us, except when it came it was way too much food for us to finish.

The pizza itself was super yummy. I originally thought deep dish meant that the crust was thicker, but in fact it was the layer of meat at the bottom that made it so thick. We sat at the patio outside when we got to Uno, but by the time we left it started to spit outside. We made a quick getaway back to our hotel to drop off our leftovers, then it was straight to the Art Institute.

Once we got to the Art Institute, the first thing I noticed was the humongous line up outside the building. It was crazy the amount of people waiting to go in! Luckily we had our City Pass vouchers so we bypassed the main line and got into a shorter line to go into the building. Once we were inside, we spent the next three hours going through all the galleries.

One of the things I immediately noticed was how huge the Art Institute was. Even though we were there for more than the recommended 3 hours, we only saw about half of the museum. Luckily we followed the guide on our pamphlet, which listed the must-see pieces for those with only an hour to spend inside. I think I saw about 75% of the list. Unfortunately, American Gothic was on loan from the gallery, so that was one of the paintings I didn’t get a chance to see. We were also lucky to see the René Magritte exhibit. It was just unfortunate we were running out of time near the end, so it was a little bit rushed trying to fit everything in before the museum closed.

Afterwards we took a stroll through Millennium Park and took obligatory photos with the Bean. We also saw Crown Fountain, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion and Lurie Garden. Later we took the L over to Wicker Park to have dinner at a restaurant called Fat Rice. We sort of knew ahead of time that the restaurant would be popular, but I was astounded when we were told it would be a two hour wait. Luckily, I had a back up plan.

I left my name with them, then we backtracked over to Damen Station to try our luck at the newly opened Umami Burger. I’m not sure if we were lucky or not, but the wait time at Umami was only 1.25 hours. LOL. Umami is actually more of a gourmet burger restaurant than just a regular burger joint, and because they had only recently opened, they didn’t allow for take out. Since I really wanted to eat there, I decided to leave my name just in case we had enough time before heading back to Fat Rice.

For the next half an hour, we browsed around the shops at Wicker Park. Chicago is pretty similar to Toronto in ways that it has very distinctive neighbourhoods. I really enjoyed the area, even though most of the shops were closed by then. We were really lucky that I got a text back from Umami saying our table was ready after 30 minutes. Even though our timing was super tight, I was so happy we got to eat inside. (Granted, we were looking at our watches every 30 seconds, but the wait was so worth it.)

We quickly ordered one of their original burger with parmesan frico, shiitake mushrooms, roasted tomatoes and caramelized onions, and an order of their truffle cheese fondue fries to share between the three of us. Words cannot begin to describe how heavenly those truffle fries tasted! After eating at lightning speed, we dashed out of the restaurant and beelined for Fat Rice.

We got back to Fat Rice a little after the recommended time, but luckily they still gave us a table. Since we were already half full from eating at Umami, we only ordered a veggie dish and their namesake, the arroz gordo. Even though I’ve had Portuguese-Macanese food before, the taste was very unique. I really liked the food there and it was worth making the trek back to the restaurant.

After the longest first day in Chicago (and Tomomi was still jetlagged), we finally called it a night after we left Fat Rice. It was back to the hotel to get a good night’s sleep. =)