Restaurant Week and Japonais

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It’s Restaurant Week in Chicago, which means that for $34 you can try a 3-course meal at some of the top restaurants in the city.  Reservations fill up quickly so I snagged a 9pm at Japonais, a japanese/euro fusion restaurant.  I’ve been wanting to go to Japonais since I moved to the city so I was really excited for Saturday night.  After a fashion consult from my friends Jillian (who told me point blank what I would wear) and Laura (who informed me that black denim is definitely in), Ryan and I cabbed it to this River North hotspot.

After checking in with the hostess, we went downstairs to a lounge-y area to have a drink.  Their signature Floating Orchid martini was fantastic and our table was ready in no time.  We took advantage of the Restaurant Week menu so we samples things we may not have tried otherwise.  My crab cakes and tuna/eel roll was amazing and Ryan loved his rib-like thing and kobe beef carpaccio.  We don’t usually order dessert out but the marscapone-chocolate cake thing was just sinful.  Sushi. steak and martinis…right up our alley.

We really had a great time and I definitely want to go back to order off their regular menu.  The only drawback for me was our waiter.  He reminded me of the pool boy from “The Bird Cage”, which is fine because I loved that movie but I didn’t love his demeanor.  Not very accommodating and a little too attitude-y for me.  All in all though, it was an excellent date night and introduction to Restaurant Week.

Lovie Dovie Day and Dirk’s Fish

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Busy weekend.  Ryan had a 2 day conference and I had a work event.  Since there would not be much downtime, I figured I’d get some good girlfriend brownie points and take care of Valentine’s Day.  “Honey, don’t worry about making plans, I’ll just do it.”  Which was super nice of me…until Friday night when I realized that no plans had been actioned.  I frantically texted my friend, who is referred to as Married Mike in Corey’s blog, asking where he gets fish to make sushi.  “Dirk’s Fish on Clybourn” was Married Mike’s reply.  So, after a call to Dirk at 5pm on Saturday making sure there was still fish,  I sprinted to Dirk’s Fish to put a Valentine’s date together.

Dirk’s Fish was fantastic.  Sushi grade fish, live lobster and crab, every kind of fish soup you can imagine and really, really nice fish connoisseurs that were very helpful as I explained my plight.  They set me up with this:

Yes, including that scaly guy on the right.  He was turned into sea bass I could roll into sushi right before my eyes.  With some tuna, salmon, sea bass, seaweed wrap, mango, cucumber, wasabi and pickled ginger in my hot little hands, I thanked Dirk for saving Valentine’s Day and sprinted home.

A few hours and a bottle of champagne later, Ryan and I had created this:

Dirk’s Fish has cooking classes that I definitely want to check out but for an in-home attempt, I don’t think we did too bad.

High Five of the Day: All of the amazing runners that showed up in frigid temps to run the 5k on Saturday!  With over 60 people and tons of goodies from Keihl’s, The Goddess and the Grocer, Element Bar, Vita Coco, Starbucks and Farmer Tom, the event was a huge success.  And super fun! Thanks to all the runners and a HUGE thanks to my friends who ran–I am so grateful for your support!