Chicago, Day 5

With check out at 11am, and a flight at 9:30pm, I had a buttload of time to kill today.

So I started with breakfast. I went to the highly-recommended Bongo Room and got the highly recommended breakfast burrito. I highly recommend it.

Afterwards, I wandered. Here are pictures.

You can’t go three blocks in this town without seeing a grinning Ozzie Guillen with a giant skewer of meat. It’s a little disconcerting.

Gotta love a construction site with a sense of humor.

(Is it just me, or does this look like a smiley face?)

Lunch was at a place called Carnivale. It has an amazing atmosphere. It’s kind of Pazo-y, but more festive in the décor.

Immediately after taking this picture, the manager came over to my table and told me that photographing the restaurant is prohibited unless you are approved for a shoot through the house photographer. This is in order to “protect the space.”

Protect it from what, I’m not entirely sure.

Perhaps it is to protect it from people putting it on their website and doing this to the pictures.

Anyway, despite my bitterness, the food was pretty darn tasty.

I started with the Arepa. Which is some sort of corn cake thingy topped with carmelized onions and mushrooms and served with greens.

Main course was Arroz con pollo. It was essentially paella. I’m not sure what the difference is. This didn’t have sausage or shrimp. It had chicken and peas and onions and peppers. You say potato, I say potato.

Dessert was an espresso flan with a Pringle on top.

After lunch, I walked around the West Loop. The West Loop is boring. There are some nice looking restaurants and bars there, but not much else. Although it is home to Harpo productions, Oprah’s production house.