puck's at the MCA

date: july 14, 2005
bet: whose apartment is closer to intonation
stakes: lunch
winner: mason
loser: olive
destination: puck's at the MCA (220 east chicago)
cost: $31

mason: looking back on our history of lunches, this one definitely stands out as one of my favorites for several reasons. first and foremost, i won. this was my first win, and therefore, one of my sweetest (though, as you'll see in posts to come, certainly not my last).

in defense of olive, i do believe she made this bet in the midst of at least a couple sheets to the wind, a practice that may or may not repeat itself in future bets (as you'll also see in posts to come). to expand on the post-colon 'bet' qualifier above, the wager came about when we were deciding whose house we should leave from to go to the intonation music festival that took place the weekend following this lunch. turns out my house was closer, though not by much.

a brief aside: items of note at intonation include go! team, broken social scene and vodka gatorades (aka v&gs, vatorades, bentleys, etc.). items not of note include douchebags and excessive heat.

anyway, upon arriving at puck's, we were quickly greeted and offered a choice between indoor and outdoor seating. i, for one, am not a fan of eating outside when it's higher than 85 degrees out, or if the humidity is spreading its moistness around like it's going out of style, but on this particular day, it was pretty nice out. accordingly, we chose to eat outside.

one of the great things about this particular lunch, other than the fact that i didn't have to pay, is that we were both in disguise. not that any of our coworkers would eat there, but at this stage in the game we weren't taking any risks.

there are several little things that impressed me about the service at this place, like how frequently they refilled our water and how unfrozen the butter was, but one not so tiny thing that kept the lunch from being pretty much perfect. but before i get into that, i should get into what i ordered.

upon reviewing the menu online before we left (i was really hungry and semi-bored at work), i had pretty much decided on the shrimp BLT with spicy pesto sauce on sourdough bread. once there, our waiter confirmed that it was an excellent choice. and speaking of our waiter, not only did he not flirt with olive in front of me, but i don't think he even tried to secretly check her out when i wasn't looking (although I was looking the entire time). weird, cause even in disguise, olive is pretty deserving of at least a once-over. but i digress...

to make a long story short (too late), the food was great, the atmosphere was pleasant and the service was near impeccable. i say near because it took them about 13 minutes to bring us our check after we had finished (our waiter may have been lurking in the courtyard with some binoculars trying to get that once-over without me knowing). regardless, if we had a scoring system, i'd give this a pretty high score. please note, though, that this joint was not cheap for lunch (most of the meals were in the $15 range), but well worth the cost nonetheless.

hmm, did someone say something about a scoring system? penny for you thoughts, olive?

olive: first off, i'm not quite ready to consider or commit to a scoring system. i am ready to deliver my review, however, so here goes. i also selected my desired meal from puck's online menu prior to the actual lunch. my heart was set on the turkey club with smoked gouda and avocado, but when we arrived, this item was nowhere to be seen on the menu. foiled by a poorly updated website!!! luckily, i am a sucker for feta cheese and decided without hesitation to order the traditional greek salad. it was very yummy and quite the perfect size for a lunch salad.

i disagree with mason about the service. i recall doing quite a bit of waiting at this place, and while our waters stayed full, our waiter disappeared for eons at a time. i venture to say that mason forgot about this because he was easily distracted by the delicious bread served in the meantime. they had two pieces each of three different varieties -- plated like some contemporary crazy bread sculpture.

i agree that the atmosphere was quite pleasant. and the table included a set of super cool, stainless steal salt and pepper shakers that proved quite entertaining while awaiting our food. i'd also like to note that we had a reservation, as recommended by Puck's staff.

anyway, this lunch ranks as one of my favorites, plus it was where the idea of our nicknames originated.