#kyamdone

Heyyyy, now. Lived my entire life in the 'burbs of Chicago, and when we travel we say we're from the city. We're not, but... We're also more than strip malls and bigotry. �� ... Elgin is a serious stretch though. �� What the hell-gin.

LOL! Honestly I have no problem with the burbs, or even people saying they’re from Chicago when they’re from the burbs -- my issue is more that I live in south loop and don’t have a car, so I can’t get to most of them. So the Trib will be like EIGHT PLACES IN CHICAGO YOU MUST EAT AT BEFORE YOU DIE and I can’t access them despite living literally in the middle of Chicago. If they just said Chicagoland instead I would not have such rage!

Well, that and any convention that calls itself the Chicago XYZ Convention and actually happens in Rosemont. No charging Chicago prices for Rosemont atmosphere.

arukou-arukou replied to your link “The 20 best Italian beefs in Chicago”

You've made me so curious about this sandwich I had to check and see if there were any Chicago ex-pats in my area selling this wonder sandwich, and sure enough, there are. I may have to make a Venture in the near future. (Or see if they're on DoorDash or something.)

Awesome, you’ll have to let me know what you think of it! 

Bear in mind that while I have held myself up as some kind of arbiter of Italian Beef, 90% of the time I buy one, take it home, take 2/3 of the meat off of it, eat it, and then eat the rest reheated on my own sandwich rolls over the next few days. There’s no shame in not being able to eat like a pound of shaved beef in a single sitting, and it browns really nicely when toasted or pan-fried. 

dbdatvic replied to your photo “only packing the essentials  Hen-dbag. ”

Well, I got ninjaed on my planned "shirley you mean only PECKING' the essentials?" but perusing the comments I saw "csibecsütörtök". I have NO clue of meaning or language, but I notice that chickens can almost certainly pronounce it.

ONLY PECKING THE ESSENTIALS. OMG. 

Apparently  csibecsütörtök translates to “Chick Thursday” which I think is probably like ladies’ night in Hungarian. HUNGARIANS, PLEASE ADVISE. 

kyamdone replied to your link “The 20 best Italian beefs in Chicago”

my question is why did they go to ELGIN??? its not even in the same county????? much less the actual city!!!

I’m guessing they have high circulation numbers in Elgin :D 

prairie-grass replied to your post “It’s coming up on time for my first yearly performance review at my...”

Ugh I just went from an org that had no perf revs, just 'personal development' which was never a critique just a conversation about what's going well vs not and how to help, back to the review style and I'm like 'wtf you want to see how MEASURE UP??? Get out of my face!!' I filled out my form running on pure spite and my manager was very confused.

LOL! At my old job, about eight years in -- so I’d done sixteen different forms of performance review, more or less -- they did an anonymous survey asking us how we felt about performance reviews in general and the process at our job in particular. I let them have it with both barrels: I thought that performance reviews were not very useful for anyone other than someone who needed to improve, that they were mainly there as an extra point for HR to justify its existence, that we should be developing and in contact with our managers as time passed rather than having high-stress-for-everyone twice-yearly checkins, and that it didn’t reflect well on HR that every time we had one we had to fill out a new and different form. 

Shortly thereafter we transitioned from twice-yearly to once-monthly performance reviews where there were no forms, metrics, or goals, but the managers were supposed to take notes on what was said and keep them in a hardcopy file. Literally no manager I knew, mine or others’, actually did this. Most didn’t even have the monthly review after 2-3 attempts at it. I know mine didn’t. 

mander-mouse replied to your post “I’ve been trying to explain the regional foodstuff known as Italian...”

I miss Portillo's!!! I recommend trying buns/rolls from S.Rosens and Turano too! Also, off topic, if you want to eat the BEST Chicago deep dish pizza in existence I recommend Bacino's of Lincoln Park (2204 N Lincoln Ave, Chicago, IL 60614), my soul misses that pizza....

Yeah, I eat S. Rosen rolls for preference, but sometimes Gonnella is on sale :D I didn’t care much for Bacino’s when I tried it, but I don’t like deep dish to start with so I’m biased....

bonnie131313 replied to your post “But Sam. All this discussion of pizza puffs ignores the actual best...”

Some places have it on their kid's menu but most people buy it at a grocery store (Dave's is the best) and a lot of mini-marts will have it too

Hi there. Unfortunately I don’t have experience with what it is like to grow up in that environment. I’m from Malaysia and I’ve only been to Vancouver, Canada. If you’re from a place where Chinese culture is not as accessible, then I can’t exactly help you there, as my only advice is to try to find a Chinatown to learn about the culture in some way.

Luckily you know your specific origin, which would hopefully make it easier. Guangzhou shares similarities with Hong Kong in that they’re both Cantonese. I don’t exactly know what you’re looking for in terms of what will help you reconnect, all I can say is that research helps, you can look up Cantonese culture. Most of the Western Chinese diaspora tends to be Cantonese in origin, so majority of English writing on Chinese culture tends to be Cantonese related.

I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful. If anyone out there has better advice please do share.

goldenmeme replied to your photo “Cover me. I'm going in. [description: the new Starbucks Reserve...”

For reeeaaal. When ours first opened entire families would get dressed up in their Sunday best to go, like they were going to the ballet or something. (Do people still get dressed up for the ballet? I'm old and live in Seattle, where nowadays no one gets dressed up for anything ever. Which made the Starbucks Sunday Best phenomenon even more jarring.)

I’ve never dressed up for anything in my life unless my mother or social convention forced me, so I’m not a good judge :D I’ve gone to the ballet in jeans. But I kind of feel like getting up in a tuxedo or a ball gown and going to a Starbucks Reserve Roastery seems....like an appropriate commentary, somehow. 

kyamdone replied to your photoset “I HAD A VERY EVENTFUL EVENING. I get off work at 4:30 and I had an...”

thats in chicago????? we have that utterly and entirely cursed building In Chicago?????????

Well, it’s cursed now. Back when it was a Crate & Barrel it was...well, it was a Crate & Barrel, so it was faintly evil the way all Crate & Barrels are, but I don’t think it was actively accursed in the way it is presently. And I have nothing particularly against the Bux, I don’t drink coffee so I mostly just ignore it, but this particular Starbucks is Not Right. 

redsector-a replied to your photoset “I HAD A VERY EVENTFUL EVENING. I get off work at 4:30 and I had an...”

...I'm coming down to Chicago this weekend and now I feel like I must check out Asshole Daycare just for the experience.

Be prepared to wait in line. They have a literal Disney-style maze line set up with ribbon poles and a doorman who only lets you in when people leave, and there was a line (ish) on a Tuesday at 4:30pm, so I can only imagine what the weekends are like. 

justgot1 replied to your photoset “I HAD A VERY EVENTFUL EVENING. I get off work at 4:30 and I had an...”

Wait wait wait. You can’t start that strong and then just ... move on. I need more information wrt the evilness of this Starbucks. What is a daycare vibe. Who are these assholes. Let us live through you.

I mean, the assholes are just people who are clueless about how to behave in crowds -- you get that a LOT in Chicago, even amongst people who live in the urban area, because very few people who live in urban Chicago come from an urban space originally. Last year the city literally had to post signs teaching us how to stand on the right and walk on the left on escalators. 

So you have semi-clueless Chicagoans AND even more clueless tourists gawking at everything and stopping at the top of the escalator to fucking have a conversation. Nobody’s being an intentional asshole but everyone’s still behaving like one.  

The daycare vibe of the place is a little harder to explain. It’s kind of like...there’s no guiding force to the interior space, there’s no intentionality to how it’s laid out. There’s no signage, even. There’s just these random spaces within a larger space -- kiosks of merchandise with no cashiers or signs pointing to where you buy the stuff, islands where clearly you’re meant to buy food or beverages but no clear indication of where you order or what’s available at any given space. A woman walked past me carrying a slice of pizza and a coffee, but they weren’t on a tray or a plate or in her hands, they were on a wooden board. The employees wear tan aprons and white shirts so it’s very hard to pick them out from the customers, like visually they’re not distinguished by anything brightly colored. 

There’s just this sense that none of the customers know quite what they’re doing, and there’s no formalized activity, there’s just wandering around until something happens and then you engage with it, which is very daycare-kindergarten-y to me. It’s not helped by the seating areas, which are all weirdly shaped, super low-to-the-ground furniture arranged haphazardly, like children’s desks, and the insane number of high chairs dotted about. You can’t get a seat for love or money but there’s an army of high chairs lined up against one wall. 

algaegirl17 replied to your photo “Cover me. I'm going in. [description: the new Starbucks Reserve...”

My sister works for Starbucks in Seattle. The reserve stores are sooooooo extra. It was so stressful ordering anything but the food was good. And the fireplace made a long flight worth it. But the chairs make no sense. It's like someone who only reads modern design magazines but never tests the furniture.

YES THANK YOU EXACTLY. There is one fireplace in this one but it’s like...in a corner with no seats around it, next to a merch stand? I don’t know why it’s there. 

lololovescheese replied to your photo “Cover me. I'm going in. [description: the new Starbucks Reserve...”

Part of me is like jealous the other part of me is so anxious

Do not be jealous, you are missing nothing. It’s like a place designed to induce anxiety. The music is SO FUCKING LOUD and the space is incredibly poorly designed. It’s not an experience I intend to repeat. There’s apparently a bar where you can get nonalcoholic coffee drinks that taste boozy, but I don’t like the taste of alcohol or of coffee so who gives a shit, and there’s an ACTUAL bar but it’s a nightmare, and if I want a nice drink I can go to any one of ten thousand cooler bars in Chicago. You should not be jealous of anyone in the Chicago Starbucks Reserve Roastery, you should pity us.

memprime replied to your photo “Cover me. I'm going in. [description: the new Starbucks Reserve...”

No way! Last Friday morning the S.O. and I got in no problems. I thought the lines would have died down by now. (Also, let me know what you think about the first floor escalator.)

It’s still super crowded. I mean, I waited for like two minutes, it was exactly enough time to edit those photos and post them, but they definitely still have a doorman and will for a while, I suspect.

please dont write this but also do??? like im so conflicted. it would be so good but also my feelings oh my

we do live in the us, its that sunday that’s veterans day, also i dont remember where our seats are, nel is the one who actually bought the tickets lol