Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Chicago Recap!
I wanted to recap our trip, especially the food. It was heavenly. This is especially for Rock n Voll, my fellow foodie!
We had lunch at Xoco on Friday and waited about 30 minutes for our to go order. We both had tortas and were swooning over them. I had a chorizo with poblano peppers and jack cheese and T had a chicken tinga. Seriously amazing.
Deep dish pizza at lou Malnatis was gooey and delicious!
The center piece of our trip was dinner at The Girl and The Goat. We booked it three months ago and I was afraid it wouldn't live up to what I had built it up to be. The chef is a former Top Chef winner. T and I talked long and hard about it afterwards and decided that it is the best meal we've ever had. Amazing. The atmosphere was fun and loud, the staff was friendly and happy and the food. OMG, the food. We shared 5 small plates.
Seared scallops . brown butter XO . bok choy . shiitakes . white asparagus
Oysters, wood fired tomahawk . horseradish . bacon . preserved lemon
Goat ribs. These were to die for.
Goat sugo. I wanted to dive into this bowl. It was fresh pasta in the most amazing lamb, goat, beef and pork sauce. The was hardly any actual meat in it, but the flavor was orgasmic. I really wish I had better words to explain just how delicious this was.
Sauteed green beans in the most ridiculously fabulous sauce with cashews.
And for dessert (which they brought with a candle for our anniversary!) Goat cheese bavarois . brown sugar cake . citrus blueberries . marcona caramel.
Clearly I'm off the vegetarian bandwagon. 
This meal was seriously amazing. Definitely worth waiting for and worth a trip back!
We did some sightseeing and really just had a blast together. We ate and drank and laughed a lot. It was an even better weekend than I had hoped it would be.
This was waiting for us in our room! My parents spoil us rotten.
Re: Chicago Recap!
Donate to My Pancreatic Cancer Research Page
That sounds amazing! I'm so glad the 2 of you had such a good time...You deserve it!! I'm still bummed I couldn't figure out a way to meet you when I was out East. We were GO GO GO all the time until NH then we finally got to do some lakeside relaxing.
I've heard of the Girl and the Goat-which Top Chef contestant was it??
I am so glad you had such a fantastic trip! I like Chicago more and more every time I go back. I am sooooo jealous about your meal at Girl and the Goat but am happy to hear that it lived up to the hype! I haven't been able to go yet because my last few trips back have been work-related and what free time I have is spent with my college roommate and her new baby. Plus I feel a little bad about going without DH...but, let's be honest, if it came down to it I'd do it without him
I'm salivating over your review...
Happy, happy anniversary to you guys! Yay for great celebration trips!
ETA: Oh and, Tory, the restaurant is Stephanie Izard's.
Did you manage to fly to Chicago and back for the weekend without taking any time off?
I'm totally wanting to do some fine dining now. Sounds like a blast. I'm glad you had a good time. You needed it.
Thank you!! I loved Stephanie!
It's hard when you're visiting family...I feel the same way when I'm in CA. It's hard to squeeze it all in! One of these days we'll meet up.
I'm glad you had such a great time on your east coast adventure! I loved seeing your status updates!
T and I talked about how much you and the hubs would have loved the meal.
You should definitely make time for it, with or without W. You could always go back with him! I absolutely love Chicago. It's a fantastic city. If I could stomach the winters, I may be inclined to move out there.
We took Friday off and left first thing in the morning. We could have done it in two days but it would have been really rushed. It's only a 2 hour flight so we were at the hotel at 10:30 on Friday morning.
We so have to eat in NYC together. Unfortunately we don't currently have plans to get back down there, but maybe we'll try for something in the fall. We don't really have any vacations planned for this year and it's bumming me out.
I have the same issue with the idea of living in Chicago. It's totally a "me" city with all its great restaurants, culture, and things to do (none of which I was aware of before the last couple of years). But the cons are their winters and their kinda sucky Chinatown. Not that you or I have great winters in our cities but for some reason I always imagine it being worse in Chi-town
Cooking Blog
Definitely! I have a lot of restaurants that I've been wanting to try. You guys should check out priceline and book a hotel for a weekend.
and we can do a food tour weekend. 
We got super lucky with the weather. There is a gross humid heatwave that rolled in after we left. Luckily you can eat Garrett's popcorn in any weather. I polished off the whole bag by the time we made it home from the airport.
I am starving all of a sudden!!!!!
Sounds like a great trip.
That is my kind of vacation! Unfortunately, most of the restaurants I want to try are the obvious (re: $$$$$) ones so hopefully you'll have some more reasonable alternative ideas
I Pricelined our hotel last time and accidentally ended up in Brooklyn--oops. It wasn't so bad though; luckily DH is a very good navigator and figured out how to use the trains pretty quickly. I was totally intimidated by NYC subways the first time I went there. Doesn't help that there are all these changes to the lines on nights/weekends for construction work.
Ha! I had to buy 2 extra bags just so I could give one to B when he picked me up. That other bag did not survive the plane ride back home.