Taste of Chicago

It’s the world’s biggest food festival held annually at Grant Park here in Chicago. Restaurants from around Chicago are given small booths, which they set up around the park. Admission is free but visitors can buy stubs, which they can use to buy food from these restaurant booths. The menus are condensed and each restaurant booth has one or two “tasting” sizes, which you can opt for if you just want to try a certain item.

Jaye and I went to the event to see what the fuss was all about. The event took almost all of Grant Park which is amazing considering how big Grant Park is.

The lineup for this year’s festival had a wide range of dishes from around the US and around the globe. They had the classic hotdogs from Chicago, soul food from Louisiana, BBQ’s from er… everywhere, they had Chinese food, Mexican food, Indian food and the list just goes on and on. Sadly, there are no Filipino restaurants and I’m guessing it’s because there are no good Filipino restaurants around Chicago.

First turn into the booths and we ran into Carlos, Mady, Bruce and Ethel. They recommended the huge turkey leg from Manny’s which Jaye and I immediately placed in our to-do list.

Jaye and I decided to just get the tasting sizes from various restaurants so we can maximize our food experience. After walking around, we tried on some churros:

The Good: it was fresh so it was crispy good.
The Bad: the filling was hot!

Jaye took a small bite then before I took my share, I asked Jaye something about work. For the next 15 minutes, she talked about work while I nodded and nodded and finished the churros without her noticing. Man, I’m smart.

Next we tried some samosas from this Indian restaurant:

The Good: The sauces were good and they poured 4 different ones so we were able to sample each one of them.
The Bad: The wrapper was too thick and the spoon that they gave was too soft. The spoon couldn’t cut open the samosa and I ended up gnawing on it just to cut it up.

Next we went to this Pepsi booth to check out what Pepsi tasted like.

Yup, still Pepsi.

With my first visit to the Taste of Chicago came my first stomachache from the taste of Chicago. The chocolate from the churros combined with the spicy sauces from the Samosa mixed in with bubbly Pepsi did not sit well with my stomach. Jaye and I decided to just finish up our stubs and start heading home. I said I couldn’t eat anything anymore but when I saw this cheesecake from Eli’s, I just couldn’t resist. Eating cheesecake with an already upset tummy was just pouring gasoline over an open flame. With that cheesecake, I was officially done for the day.

Overall the Taste of Chicago was a nice experience. There are a couple of booths that I wished existed:

The Jewel Chicken booth – not that it tastes exceptionally great but at least it would be something I could walk by and genuinely say, “I eat there a lot!”.

Jollibee booth – I miss chickenjoy. =(

KFC booth – yeah, they have KFC here but I miss the gravy. =(

The Pinoy booth – serves sweet spaghetti, adobo and balut.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

I’d rather call it “Transformers: The One That Doesn’t Have Megan Fox”.

It’s better than the second Transformers film (Revenge of the Fallen), but without Fox it couldn’t be better than the first one. Without Megan, the film lacked those unintentional comedy scenes where for some reason she either:

- Needs to take off her clothes to switch costumes DURING the film.

- Works on a motorbike or a car engine with the most unusual poses.

- Gets a lot of camera close ups… even if the conversation is not even about her.

I’ll place a spoiler alert here. If you haven’t watched the movie, I might mention some details about the ending below. Come to think of it, how can I really spoil the ending? We all know there will be robots fighting, the Decepticons will appear to have the upper hand and then (sarcastic shock) the Autobots regroup and kick their butts. It’s just a matter of knowing who gets killed off.

Short review: I liked the movie. It was action packed, had some new CG action scenes and I didn’t even realize that the movie run time was 255 minutes. The main battle scene was in downtown Chicago and so I enjoyed naming the buildings and the streets that I saw. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (who we’ll probably call “the actress who replaced Megan Fox in Transformers” for the next couple of years) was terrible, the plot was just confusing but hey, it had enough action and quirky one-liners to make the movie watchable. I’d recommend this movie to anyone but do note that this has “Michael Bay” written all over it.

Rosie Hunting… who? She’s a Victoria Secret model. She’s British. She’s a Victoria Secret model. She has no acting resume. She’s a Victoria Secret model. She speaks with a heavy British accent. She did appear on that special Victoria Secret ad directed by Michael Bay (look that up in Youtube) but I wouldn’t really call that “acting”. Why did she get the role? Oh, right she’s a Victoria Secret model. In the first scene of the movie with Shia Labeouf, they were having a conversation, I’m guessing Michael Bay didn’t like the way she delivered her lines and just told her “You know what, just lose the pants.” and so she was in bed in her undies. Everyone’s happy.

I don’t get the character she played though (Carly Spencer). Obviously, they gave her some lines so she doesn’t end up modeling only in the background but what was she doing in the film other than for guys to drool at? It was amazing that her clothes never get dirty, her hair never gets messed up, she runs around the battle scenes in heels, she gets to have numerous wardrobe changes (like it would appear in a VS catalog next week) but other than that, it felt like they had to force her to be in the plot which was already confusing in the first place.

By the way, if you’re a Transformers fan from way back, yes Carly Spencer eventually became Carly Witwicky and they had a son named Daniel. Sam Witwicky is actually “Spike” Witwicky but they changed it in the film to make it more appealing to the target audience.

The plot made no sense especially for the Chicago battle scenes. Yes, there was an overall story, an objective and a plan but the scenes felt like it was cut and pasted together. The Decepticons have arrived and are scattered around the Globe. The Autobots were sneaking into Chicago, then a separate group of humans (with Tyrese, who sadly didn’t have a memorable one-liner) went up this building to shoot the control pillar. Then the Autobots were now under fire and was shooting it out with the Decepticons. Then the building comes down and Prime saves them. Then Prime gets tangled on some wires. Then the Autobots are now hiding again. More soldiers arrive and they fly on wingsuits around Chicago. Where’s Megatron and why was he wearing a cloak? Then the Autobots are now captives and the Decepticons kill off one. Prime is still tangled, apparently. The humans with supersniping abilities shoot off the Decepticons’ eyes. They get Prime off the wires. A Decepticon transport ship crashes and the Autobots fight back. There’s another battle scene with Optimus Prime, Sentinel Prime and Megatron. Rosie Hunton… Rosie Hunter… the Victoria Secret chick is now somehow talking to Megatron. Shots fire, robots transform back and forth (I lost track on who was who since they all looked the same). Megatron is dead. Sam and the Victoria Secret chick kiss. End scene, fade to black and roll the credits.

Eh?

So… was the war over?

What happened to the other Decepticons?

Did Michael Bay run out of funds to end the movie?

Why do some of the Autobots have Scottish accents?

The way it ended, does it mean there’s no more Transformers 4?

On the plus side, I loved the characters played by John Malkovich (Sam’s boss) and Ken Jeong (Jerry Wang). John Torturro had some funny moments (“That means goodbye!”). Shia was Shia, kept his place between a geek and a jock. Sam Witwicky’s parents were also there but…. again… why?

The action scenes were just mesmerizing especially the one with the car chase and Bumblebee had to eject Sam, transform, transform back then retrieve Sam in one sequence.

After the movie, we waited for the credits to end and… nothing. There was just an ad for a free consultation at a nearby psychiatrist’s office. Darn, I just waited 10 minutes of my life.

It was a good movie overall. Will I buy the Blu-Ray when it comes out? Hmmm, maybe when it goes on sale. Will I buy the video game? Probably not. When it comes out on HBO though, I’ll clear my schedule and watch the movie with a bag of chips. Once.

… or maybe twice. It was THAT good.

The Amazing Race: Chicago Edition

“Amazing Race” team buildings are very hard to pull off. It hinges on the ability of the organizing committee to (1) set specific rules, (2) come up with interesting clues and challenges and (3) execute the race properly. Do it right and you end up with a budget friendly event where everybody enjoys, camaraderie is built and people fill their Facebook pages with photos from the race. Mess it up and it’s a disaster, like when I told Jaye we don’t need to read the manual to install our home theater system.

Not familiar with Amazing Race? It’s a TV reality show where teams are given clues to reach specific places anywhere on the globe. When they reach that place, they need to complete a challenge before they can get the clue to the next place (or they get the clue outright). It goes on and on until they get the final clue to the final destination. First team to reach the finish line wins. Easy right?

In this version of Amazing Race, the committee decided to have a race around downtown Chicago… literally. The stops were purposely set at the north, east, south and west sides of Chicago.

I was assigned to be a member of the organizing committee because of my familiarity with the city, my familiarity with the Amazing Race series, my ability to come up with clever clues and well, I couldn’t join the race with a bum knee so it wasn’t really much of a choice.

Wait, didn’t I already resign from the company last year?

Actually, they made Jaye an organizer then she pulled that puss in boots big eyes look at me to help out (and I could never say no to that).

Since we live on the north end of Chicago, we were assigned the Lincoln Park area. I had to create a clue going to Lincoln Park and a challenge that they need to complete while at Lincoln Park.

Lincoln Park is a huge park that has a zoo in it. Admission is free, the place is packed during weekends and it has lots of information available inside. This was the clue I made for the teams to reach Lincoln Park:

Ulysses S. GRANT was a military commander during the US Civil War and the 18th President of the United States.

Find the statue of GRANT riding a horse in a PARK. This was created by Louis Rebisso in 1891 and currently overlooks Cannon Drive

It’s a straight up curveball. Interesting trivia: there’s a statue of President Lincoln at Grant park and a statue of President Grant at Lincoln Park. Teams will probably end up in Grant Park if they didn’t confirm where Cannon Drive was (there’s no Cannon Drive in Grant Park). The clue is basically telling the teams to go to Lincoln Park and head to the Grant Statue.

Why the curveball clue? Amazing Race rewards the team who picks the most efficient way of solving clues and challenges. Each team was not allowed a phone or an iPod but they can ask strangers for information. True enough, the team that reached Lincoln Park first did so by asking a bus driver where Cannon drive was and asked him to take them there. If you want to answer it THAT badly, there’s always a way.

The challenge in the park Jaye and l concocted was better. Again, I wanted one that can be done by brute force but can be done really fast if you strategize properly. Once they arrive at the Grant Statue in Lincoln Park, each team was given a table that had 10 animals with their habitat, range, diet, weight and offspring. Some of the boxes were empty and they need to fill in the blanks.

Oh, and we only gave the scientific names (they need to figure out the common name).

… oh, and each team needs to take a picture of everyone with the animal.

Each animal habitat in the zoo had a placard that contained all these information. The brute force way was to go around the zoo and look for the scientific names then once found, you can write down the information and take the picture. If you do that, we estimated them to complete it in an hour. Jaye did the challenge before the actual race to test it and she finished hers in 30 minutes.

The strategic way was to engage the information desk and/or the information people. They can translate the scientific names to common names, grab a zoo map within the park and waltz to each habitat.

They can also split up temporarily so they can cover more ground and once found, they can meet up again to take the picture.

In the end, three teams completed the challenge. One team bailed out early. One team bailed out at the last minute. The last team we begged to bail out since we were already at the park manning the Amazing Race carpet since 8:30am and at 3:00pm, they were still in the zoo.

Overall it was a fun experience but it would have been better if there were more people in the organizing teams. We needed more people to man more stations so teams can perform easier tasks but with more stops. Waiting for teams to arrive though was as boring as watching paint dry. In the end, the organizers were all drained since it was a very chilly day and Jaye is not built like a polar bear like I am. We had to skip lunch and only managed to survive on 200 bars of Quaker oatmeal bars. I had sore feet and sore legs from standing all day and the most exciting part was running back and forth to the bathroom to make sure no one arrives while you’re peeing.

One last thing (I didn’t want to end this entry with the word “peeing”), kudos to the other organizers who printed the clues and the envelopes. They look just like the real thing!