On The Town

...Continued from Friday:   

    So, we arrived in Chicago last Thursday evening.  (See 9/25/14 post).
    On Friday morning Claire walked from her Bucktown apartment to our hostel, and from there we walked to Wicker Park, the next neighborhood over from Bucktown...

...for breakfast at a local eatery called The Bongo Room.  It was 'way crowded for a Friday morning...

....which led us to wonder why weren't all these people at work instead of at this restaurant where we were trying to get a seat?
    It was probably because the Bongo Room breakfast is soooo good.
    Now, it's kind of unusual to find a breakfast place that does eggs, toast, and potatoes any better than any other breakfast place does eggs, toast, and potatoes.
    But, believe me,  the Bongo room does the very best eggs, toast and potatoes.
    The fried potatoes were a hugely generous portion of big-cut, deliciously seasoned chunks that raise the art of breakfast potatoes to a new level.  The multi-grain toast was also thick-cut and buttered, and everybody's eggs were just really good.  Tom had his scrambled with crispy bacon on the side:

   
    Claire had hers over medium in a croissant sandwich with sprouts, spinach, avocado, tomatoes, and pesto mayo:

    Which she described as amazing.


    And I had my old standard, sunny side up:

    Which were likewise amazing.

    After breakfast, feeling full and fine, we headed to a lovely little tea boutique nearby also in Wicker Park called David's Teas...

    ...where the friendly tea specialist replenished Claire and Miguel's dwindled supply of their favorite tea, Quangzhou Milk Oolong.  At David's Teas one brings in the empty tea can and has it refilled with whatever tea one would like.

    Claire and Miguel's "teamergency" taken care of, we then hopped the train to downtown Chicago where we spent the day walking around and seeing some sights:

                                        My clock nightmare, exponentially expanded.

  
   Later in the afternoon we took the train to Logan Square, an up-and-coming neighborhood a few neighborhoods over from Bucktown, to see the condo loft that Miguel and Claire have just signed a contract for.  It's in an old rehabed factory  built in the 1920's.

 

---

    After the grand tour of their hopefully future new home we went back to Claire and Miguel's apartment to wait for MIguel to get home from work...

    ...and to hang with my grandkitties Cubo and Sassy.
    After Miguel got home we all hopped a bus from their apartment to the Ukranian Village neighborhood for an Italian restaurant called Paisanos'...

...that serves the best pizza on the planet, which Miguel,  Claire, and I ordered, not to mention fantastic ravioli, which Tom ordered:

    A good meal was had by all. 8)

Continued tomorrow....