Brunch in Uptown

When one of my friends, Roman, suggested doing brunch today wayyy north (in Uptown) today, I was a bit put off. It was going to take a lot to impress me if I have to trek way up to Sheridan and Argyle for a simple Sunday morning brunch. However, Roman has spoken pretty highly of his past experiences at Tweet so I figured I'd approach this with a (fairly) open mind.

I arrived a little early but quickly fell in love with the place. Tweet just has so much CHARACTER... from the decor to the FREE COFFEE while you are waiting to the BOARD GAMES that are available while you are waiting for a table.

I had no problems getting settled on a cozy little stool to wait for my friends while sipping my free cup of coffee (okay, I may have had approximately three cups of free coffee but whatever) and admiring the old-school board games that were just ready and WAITING for players.

Once my friends arrived, we got seated in a back corner and... well, proceeded to get overwhelmed with the menu. I wish I'd snapped a picture of the menu - it was simply ridiculous. Each menu even had an ADDITIONAL menu embedded in it (with Velcro, of all things).

The really interesting (to me) thing about Tweet was how many gluten-free options there were. Not that I require gluten-free items, but it's just nice to know that the option is available.

Anyway, we ended up starting off with these mini-doughnut things that Roman had raved about in the past.

I have to say - I'm not the biggest doughnut-person at ALL, but I fell in love with these things. They were just so warm and delicious (and not overly sweet on their own). While the plate of mini-doughnuts came with a side of like syrup or something, I found that the doughnuts, themselves, satisfied my sweet tooth in and of itself.

After THAT lovely little starter, our server actually brought us complimentary dishes of fruit to enjoy before our actual meal!

I cannot emphasize enough how much I loved this aspect of brunch. We NEVER get free fruit with brunch in Chicago... and this fruit was just so darn fresh and delicious (it's been a while since I've ingested anything from that food group...) and a GREAT way to fill up just a touch before gorging on breakfast itself.

Soon after the fruit was devoured (I was already full by that point), our meals came out...

Holy food. The portions were QUITE generous, to put it mildly.

And SO DELICIOUS. I ended up going with Tweet's gluten-free pumpkin pancakes (helloo!) and... well, yum. Just plain yum. The pancakes were the perfect balance of sweet and (pumpkin) spice and everything nice... and I wouldn't have known that they were gluten-free at all. Unless I"m missing something, gluten-free pumpkin pancakes taste just how I would imagine "normal" pumpkin pancakes to taste.

Roman ended up going with a Danske omelette (he revisited an old favorite of his) while Purvi ended up going with a breakfast burrito and hash browns. I'm not a food critic by any means, but their plates LOOKED quite tasty and both were QUITE pleased with their meals as well.

All in all - today's brunch? A sweet success. Great food, lovely conversation (including a wonderful little blog idea, c/o Roman's creative ingenuity) and... well, FREE COFFEE! Hello! (Clearly, I have my priorities in check.)

Needless to say, I would DEFINITELY make a trip up north to re-visit this eclectic, delicious hidden gem... anytime at all.

Pritesh!!!!!!!! (Plus a Few Other Favorites)

Well, weekend number four of staying up past midnight on the weekends was a semi-success. I say a semi-success, because I didn't exactly stay awake til midnight on either Friday or Saturday night. However, the amount of fun I had on both evenings supercedes the whole midnight goal thing.

This past Friday was the day of our firm's Chicago market's All Hands meeting - this is essentially a large all-day meeting for all people in the Chicago Advisory (consulting) practice at our firm. Unfortunately, I couldn't make it to the meeting because of other client commitments I had during the day. However, I was able to make it just in time for the networking event that was lined up at Navy Pier immediately following the official business.

If you know me at all, you know I live for networking events - I feel totally in my element during these kinds of things. I knew this particular networking event was going to be especially fun, since a group of us had already planned to go out together afterwards, to celebrate Pritesh's visit to Chicago.

Pritesh is a co-worker from one of my old projects last year and... well, simply put, he QUICKLY escalated to Favorite status in my book He is honestly just one of the GREATEST (read: nicest, chillest, funniest, etc.) people I know... I could literally go on and on about his greatness. Honestly though, as I've said before, you know how you can just pick out the "good people" based on instinct alone? That's Pritesh for you. Given how fantastic he is, it's no wonder that his former teammates "Chicago following" was so excited to reunite with him and take him out for his Friday night in Chicago.

The evening started off innocently enough - after taking FULL advantage of that PwC-sponsored open bar networking event (and/or being the last people to leave the networking event), we decided it was time to move onto the next stop. After a bit of debate, it was settled that we would head to Durkin's (a bar in Lincoln Park)... all you can eat pizza and drinks for $20 on a Friday?! You better believe it - it's times like this that you realize how much it pays to have someone like Sandeep K (read: frugality personified... and another Favorite) around.

How to get there, you ask? Well, why not an impromptu little limo ride?

(It's times like this that you realize how much it pays to have someone like Neha K (another Favorite) around to negotiate those limo rates...)

And, well, I mean, obviously the early evening (it was way too early to be considered "night") deserved a pit stop at a liquor store for... some champagne. Naturally.

I mean, Pritesh WAS in town - we clearly had a lot to celebrate!

After spilling like the majority of champagne throughout the limo and circling around the block a couple of times (we wanted to get our money's worth!), we finally tumbled on outta that limo and into Durkin's.

You better believe we got straight to work with that all you can eat and drink special. God, it's been so long since I've had Domino's pizza... and as much as I love pizza of all kinds (gourmet or otherwise), there is just something so tantalizingly delicious about good, ol' fashioned Domino's.

Okay, I may have gotten a bit carried away with the pizza gorging love that night, but... well, damn. It is just that good.

And... well, in all fairness, I think the rest of the pictures can just speak for themselves. The night was filled with...

Some serious socializing (and consumption of Domino's pizza)...

Some (past and present) roommates of PwC'ers...

Deepti is an old favorite of mine (Neha's former roommate) and Narayan is a new favorite of mine (Pritesh's current roommate)

Some... props, I guess...

What the...

What the... take 2

What the... take 3.

And, most importantly, some seriously legit FAVORITES OF MINE...

THE ONE AND ONLY PRITESHKLDAJFKLSDJFLKDSJLJ!!!!!!

Neha and Deepti (and Garrett's popcorn... and Pritesh's hat...) are seriously just some of the greatest things. Ever.

There's a whole lotta awesome-ness enveloped in this picture.

OMG! KARINA!!! Karina and Sandeep seriously define the term "happiness".

Deepti R (legitimately, the COOLEST person I KNOWWWW)

Two favorites (in case you weren't already sensing the general theme of this blog section)

Hugging it out!

Legitimately two of the GREATEST people you will EVER meet. Ever.

All in all... pretty much a perfect night.

Birthdays Galore

This weekend was such a sweet success in my endeavors to stay up past midnight on weekends, I can barely stand it.

Fridays are always a bit of a challenge for me - it's the end of a (typically) long week and all I really want to do is hang out with people for a bit but still go to bed by like 10 PM (which is what happened last weekend). I figured that kind of mentality wasn't going to fly this Friday, since I had two birthday parties lined up.

I just love celebrating people's birthdays - it's just so festive and guaranteed to be a good time (and sure, the cake aspect of things certainly doesn't hurt...). And I was especially excited for these two birthdays - for the people and the vastly different venue choices.

My first stop on this Friday birthday tour was for my friend (Arpana)'s husband (Kaushik)'s birthday. The venue? A bar filled with... arcade games! I love exploring "different" kinds of bars, and Headquarters Beercade was no exception. It's kind of tucked on a quiet little side street in Lincoln Park / Lakeview and it's fairly small, so the whole "cozy" feel is totally there. Also, while the bar doesn't serve food, you can totally order food in, which I also think is such a great idea for a chill bar.

But most importantly - the arcade games!! It was a TOTAL blast from the past! While I didn't have a chance to actually PLAY any of the games (I got a little caught up with socializing), I just loved the whole idea... and don't think PacMan tucked in the corner didn't catch my eye!

Overall, I have to say that stop #1 was a sweet success - arcade games, Pequod's pizza ordered in (nice choice, Kaushik and Arpana!), a Sugar Bliss cupcake (or two... Vimmi and I are apparently the definition of "enabler") and of course, some pretty great (mostly Ohio-based, holler) company!

My second stop on this Friday birthday tour was for one of my best friends in Chicago - Alma. (You have likely seen her name referenced throughout this blog...) Alma's husband, Doug, had arranged this birthday extravaganza at this place called Northside Bar and Grill, out in Wicker Park. It had been SO long since I had been to Wicker Park and since I'd seen Alma (and a few others at her party), so I was quite excited for some reunions galore.

I'd never been to Northside Bar, but as soon as I walked in, I was just so darn pleased. This place was actually pretty big, but still retained a fairly chill vibe. Once I spotted Alma's crew, I made a beeline for the birthday girl and totally bear hugged it out.

(Picture courtesy of Alma: http://www.almasphotography.com/)

Unfortunately, I'd arrived a little late (I guess that was the theme of the night) so I had JUST missed the big birthday singing / birthday cake candle blowing extravaganza, but I managed to snag a picture from Alma's Facebook page... (I love this picture, primarily because it captures both Alma and Doug... and Alma's gorgeous necklace - but that's just an aside).

And, let's just have a minute here to... check out that CAKE. Doug - all I have to say is... well done. (I would applaud at my computer but I think that's a little weird).

Overall, though, it was such a fun time - to be expected, since I always love hanging out with Alma and Doug... they are just so FUNNY together (and individually).

(Picture courtesy of Alma: http://www.almasphotography.com/)

And it certainly didn't hurt that I got the chance to reunite with some old favorites of mine..

(Picture courtesy of Alma: http://www.almasphotography.com/)

Overall, such a great night. Happy birthdays, Alma and Kaushik! I hope you both had wonderful ones :) Cheers to another sweet, sweet year.