Careful, They Might Steal Your Mushrooms

It wasn't my first time seeing Book of Mormon, but the show didn't loose anything by seeing it for a second time.  This particular musical is so well thought out and clever.  It is not one for the easily offended, but if you can overlook all of the profanity and extreme blasphemy, you can really appreciate the humor of Matt Stone and Trey Parker.  It's one of those musicals that is hard to describe without giving away much of the plot twists that add to the overall comedic level of the show.

The acting and singing is absolutely spot on and if someone wanted to go see it again, I would definitely be inclined to go.  My first time seeing Book of Mormon I laughed myself into tears.  This time was more of the same.  The singing, dancing and acting is completely spot on and it is a really fun show to watch.

For dinner that night I would eat at HUB51.  I chose it because it is a Lettuce Entertain You Restaurant and I did have to use some extra cash to use here.  Unfortunately, I left my card at home with my membership number on it and there is no way to easily retrieve that information online.  As a result I would end up paying the full price in the end.  Ah well I still have the extra bucks to use at a later date so it's really not a big deal.

That aside, it should be noted that this was an establishment for ages 21 and up at the time that we went.  It definitely had more of a club type of atmosphere to it, keeping a youthful vibe by blasting hip hop.  For some strange reason, I've decided that I'm temporarily a vegan, so I wanted to hold up to that even though I was eating out.  The two cocktails that I ended up having were pretty good.  I was feeling adventurous as always so I went with the Chipotle Margarita.  I'm not immune to lots of spice so for me personally it could have been a tad bit spicier.  Also, I didn't notice this until after I ordered the drink but it is made with a chipotle vodka and not tequila.  The effect of this leaves you wanting a little bit more of the strong bitter notes that distilled agave provides to the palate.  Overall the drink is good, but it could have been slightly better, again as a disclaimer I like really bold flavors.

The other drink that I had was a Cucumber Cuatro.  It tasted very much like a day at the spa.  The bit of ginger was used with a very light hand.  I will say the overall technique used by the bartenders seems to be to hide the flavor of the alcohol rather than accentuate it.  That's not necessarily a bad thing for most but it's not the particular flavor profile that I desire in a mixed drink.  I find that sort of thing akin to putting on jeans and a T-shirt to go to a wedding.  Yeah it keeps you comfortable but you are totally out of place.

I had the Garden Roll.  It was very bright and light roll.  It was also my first foray into a vegetarian version of sushi.  The presentation was lovely and the rice in the roll was a perfect texture.  You get  the nice cool mild flavor of the cucumber along with the earthiness of the beets.  The hot appetizer we had was the Three Bean Trio.   I loved the tempura green beans.  They were nice and crisp and tasted very fresh.  The blistered padron peppers weren't exactly great yo me but they were still pretty decent.  Rounding out the trio was some edamame, or as I like to call it, a good way to charge you more money for soy beans.

For my entree, I would have the vegetarian tacos.  It was one of those times I could have sworn that menu read peppers, portobello mushrooms and butternut squash.  Somehow my portobello  mushrooms were absent. I convinced myself that looking at the menu, I must have been mistaking it for some other dish on the menu and that there were no portobello mushrooms served with the tacos.  I mean after all there were black beans present.  Now in the comfort of my how reading the menu online I realized I was robbed of mushrooms.  The sad part is I think these somewhat bland tacos could have benefited from the addition of the earthy mushrooms.  I wondered why the meal only felt somewhat satisfying in the end.

My friend ended up getting the the meatloaf sandwich.  It looked a little unwieldy to be a pick up and eat type of sandwich so she managed it fork and knife style.  I can't vouch for how it tasted personally but she said it was pretty  good.  It is something that I would personally never order though because of all the wonderful ground meat options there are in the world, I find turkey completely abysmal.  It's pretty strange because I do like turkey  in general, but as a rule I'm pretty much against it.  I personally think that Turkey is a one way ticket to bland town.  I did enjoy the french fries they served alongside her burger as I thought they were well seasoned and crisp.

For dessert she would enjoy a few bites of a carrot cake that was honestly so big that it could have probably been shared by about three people.  It had a classic cream cheese icing and looked pretty well put together. As an added bonus it was comped since it was her birthday.  All and all I have to say that HUB51 is a pretty nice place and I would try it again, but it definitely isn't quite on the level of the many Chicago restaurants that I will go out of my way to search for.

American Idiot

I'm a pretty big fan of Green Day.  I own all their albums and listen to them all.  I don't know what I was expecting to get out of American Idiot the Musical, but I thought that it couldn't be bad.  I thought completely wrong.  Punk Rock doesn't exactly work in a theatrical setting.  Picture yourself at a Green Day Concert sitting down and listening to the music rather than being in a  pit or something getting into the music.  Then imagine that the band is replaced with a mediocre cover band.  There you have it folks, that's American Idiot in a nutshell.

Not to say that the dancing and singing wasn't good because it was.  The whole thing just came across as a poorly done version of Rock of Ages.  I guess I had too high of expectations for the show, but when the curtain closed, I was glad that it was not an intermission.  The plot was pretty much nonexistent.  A short bit of profanities in-between every song.  I walked in thinking "How could this be bad?" and walked out thinking "How could I think that this would be good?"

Carpaccio

Anyhow I decided to cheer myself up from this overwhelmingly mediocre performance with not just a good meal but a great meal.  I had been wanting a good steak ever since I had my well overpriced and just decent steak at Morton's in Miami.  Smith and Wollensky is where I decided to make up for it.  I usually decide to go with a seafood based appetizer whenever I'm going to have a great steak dinner, I don't know why.  If my good friend Doug was around I would have definitely done the Calamari along with the Carpaccio that I ended up going with.  Served on a Himalayan Salt Block I was sold by it.  My only complaint about it was that the crostini served along side it were slightly thick for my taste.

Rather than enjoy just one steak I got the Tenderloin Trio.  It was a good value in I would be able to try out three different sauces for the steak.   The steak in general was just slightly over the Medium Rare that I requested but not so overdone that I would send it back.  The Roasted Chipollini onion sauce was very sweet and just slightly earthy.  I will be the first to claim to be a person that likes things on the salty side, but the bacon on the Gorgonzola crusted steak almost made the steak a little too salty (I'm nitpicking here though, the steaks were excellent).  The third in the trio was the Foie Gras and Mushroom Ragout.  The delicate fatty Foie Gras gets lost among the boldness of the dry aged steak.

Coconut Cake

The sides were just not disappointing.  The green beans I had were cooked to perfection and I kind of wish that the server would have pointed out that there was Gorgonzola on the green beans as well because I would have ordered a different side as I like to avoid overlapping flavors.  Had I known this I would have probably went with the Asparagus as a veg.  The Truffle Mac and Cheese in my opinion lacked a little bit of both truffle and salt.  Should have been called Mac and Cheese with a hint of Truffle rather than Truffle Mac and Cheese.

Desserts are big enough for two to share and my Coconut cake was huge.  The cake was moist and perfectly sweet and I love the fresh coconut strips that garnish the top of the cake.  It's nothing like my Great Grandma's coconut cake with the lemon filling, but it's still pretty tasty.