And starring Jesus as himself…

Jesus Christ Superstar at Broadway in Chicago

Broadway in Chicago Jesus Christ Superstar

Saturday morning I met up with Emily and we shared some microwaveable eggplant and watched a part of Planet of the Apes. Is it sad that we both got “Dr. Zaius Dr. Zaius…Dr. Zaius Dr. Zaius…Dr. Zaius Dr. Zaius…Dr. Zaius” sung to the tune of the song “Amadeus” in our heads all day?

No, but it’s sad if you don’t know what that’s from.

After bumming around for a bit we hopped on over to the Loop to meet up with Joe and Alina, freshly back from their honeymoon and Josh, freshly back from babysitting a junior high lock in all night to see Jesus Christ Superstar.

I’ve always loved the music from the musical, so we bought up some cheap seats to see it. We caught up on all the honeymoon goodness and squeezed into the tiniest seats ever of the Cadillac Palace. The musical was alright. The songs, as always, were really good, but I think I’ll stick to the movie. The stage was pretty sparse and the movie, being shot out in the desert was at least somewhat more visually appealing. We did, however, get to see the real Jesus. OK, so not the real real Jesus, but the real guy who played Jesus in the movie. Apparently he has made a career out of playing this Jesus. Why the hell not? I mean, he has the perfect Jesus scream. (You really need to know the soundtrack to know quite what that means). Seriously, when I go to heaven I expect for Jesus to be standing there and for him to let out a 70’s rock yell. That would be awesome.

At the end of the show Jesus got hoisted into the air. I was kind of hoping he’d fly out over the audience like they do in Peter Pan. No such luck though 🙁 Ohwellz.

 

Aria for Restaurant Week

So, it’s apparently Chicago Restaurant Week (which I never would have known about if Andy hadn’t sent me the link). So since we were going out to the theater, I decided to make reservations for Aria because it looked awesome and was pretty close to the theater.

After wandering about, losing the street, thinking we were somehow on top of the street, we finally found it and headed in. We got there about 45 minutes before the reservation and 15 minutes before they opened but they said we could sit at the bar and they’d let us in early.

At the bar I tried a pomegranate cucumber mojito which was good and definitely one of the most interesting flavor-combinations for a drink I’ve ever had. After sipping some drinks we were seated and ordered up. Me, Joe, and Emily got the restaurant-week special and Alina and Josh decided to create their own specials.

First, let me tell you, the restaurant had the most insanely long silverware you will ever see. Second, their food was pretty damn good.

We started out with some complimentary naan bread (not to be confused with non-bread) with a bunch of dipping sauces. The “white stuff” was the best.

The first course was the farmer’s market organic salad, (organic greens, herb crusted Montrachet, shaved fennel, oven roasted tomatoes, marcona almonds, green goddess dressing) which was pretty spicy but really yummy. The goat cheese slices were creamy and delicious.

Our entree was the pan seared fillet of walleye pike with herbed gnocchi and brown butter sauce. I’ve never had pike before and for that matter I have never had a crispy-skin fish before and it was amazingly good.

They also gave us some complimentary potatoes: roasted with a white sauce, sliced with cheddar, sweet with whipped cream (some of the best tasting sweet potatoes ever). YUM.

I was happy when I saw the dessert would be carrot cake. I would say that carrot cake is one of my all-time favorite desserts, but who am I kidding? Carrot cake frosting is my favorite dessert, in fact, one of my all time favorite desserts and the carrot cake is really just a means to an end. So I was kind of disappointed when it was just a little round of carrot cake with a honey drizzle. It was OK, but I really crave that frosting.

But enough about my dessert, let’s talk about Alina and Josh’s dessert. We spotted it across the room and Alina knew she had to have it. It was what they dubbed Chicago’s “best” chocolate cake and says it serves two but would really feed a developing African country for a year. No joke. This thing was huge. And they ate almost all of it…and made sure to take the leftovers home 🙂

 

Time Machine

The bus Emily and I took back to her place was a time machine. No joke.

Now the question…did it take us back in time to 1988 or to the future of 2088??? You may never know!

 

Glasscutters Polar Plunge Benefit

In preparation for our big swim Polar Plunge in Lake Michigan next weekend, Emily organized a fundraiser at Redmond’s where for $20 a person you got well drinks, sodas, wine, and beer from 9 to 12 and $5 would be donated back. Awe-some.

So we headed over and got to drinking. OK, so everyone else got to drinking and I decided to stick to Sprites after an amaretto and after a red headed slut when i determined that drinking too much after pounding down cough medicine all day way pretty much a stupid idea.

So we partied it up, I met Liss who is also polar plunging with us, and Sean who kept trying to grind on me while I wasn’t looking and offered to buy Alina and I drinks (I called him out that it’s easy to offer when they are free) and Josh#563 who is a cameraman (so I picked his brain for advise on my new videography job…he said to just push the red button) and who stole my Sprite (the waitress thought I had ordered it for him and not moi, and he thought the waitress was just giving it to him…then I sipped it and told him he better not drink it anymore because I was sick…)

I rocked out to Bon Jovi even though I suppose I could have been at a Bon Jovi concert at that very moment. I dunno though, he is the best singer ever to rock out to in a bar, or in my car, or in my underwear in my bedroom, but I dunno if it would be the same in concert…

Anyways, Around 1ish I decided to call it a night since my cough was starting to bother me. I was going to sleep over at Em’s but instead decided to go back home and sleep in my own bed. So I stole her spare set of keys to get break into her apartment and grab my stuff I left there and shared a cab back with Joe and Alina.

We had another crazy lost something moment when Alina couldn’t find her keys. We basically tore apart everyone’s coats looking for it. They turned up in her armpit. No joke.

So…yeah…it was a looooong day (especially when you count out trip back to the future) but it was tons of funfunfun. This, of course, left me to a lazy lazy Sunday of finishing the first season of 24.