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.

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elephant & castle

date: july 7, 2005
bet: can't remember
stakes: lunch
winner: olive
loser: mason
destination: elephant & castle (160 east huron)
cost: $35

olive: more than a week since the original post. pathetic. so, this is a recap of the first lunch. we can't remember the bet, but i was the big winner. my prize? a delicious salad w/ grilled chicken and bruschetta off the summer menu at elephant & castle. i was trying to decide between several dishes, but one of the salads on the summer specials list had all the ingredients i desired. i also ordered a side of fries, which, if memory serves, were those big steak-cut pub fries. yum.

the atmosphere is pub-like and fairly pleasant. we sat in the back because we didn't want to get busted by co-workers. i was kinda nervous about this.

the service wasn't great and the food took awhile to show after ordering. negative points here because i was starving. also, the waiter was kinda weird. i think he was trying to be extra friendly, but if came off kinda creepy. mason, can you verify?

overall, this place was pretty good, but probably better for a casual dinner with drinks than a lunch during business hours.

mason: regarding the waiter's creepiness, i concur full stop. was he flirting with olive right in front of me? what did he think i was her brother or something? or perhaps her lunching coach? lucky i'm not a fighting man (but, rather, a man of science), cause that waiter was asking for it. and what he should have been asking for was our order, which we didn't get a chance to place until at least 10-15 minutes after we greeted our chairs with our wares.

at any rate, seeing as i was the loser of this, the inaugural bet, i thought why not treat myself to not only lunch, but also a nice bowl of soup. like most men of science, i love soup, and i like to think it loves me back. this hypothesis of mine was all but confirmed when our overly presumptuous and dangerously bold waiter arrived with a piping hot cup of their Irish French Onion soup. That's right, the flavors of two European countries mixed into one American bowl of delight. To this I say well done Elephant, and well done Castle.

i was not as pleased with my meal: the Buffalo Chicken Wrap. it was okay, i guess, but you can always tell how good any burrito, wrap, or similarly packaged food item is by how long it takes you to abandon the item's innards and concentrate solely on it's outer protective layer. in this particular case, i was eating pure tortilla before i reached the half-way point. as for the side salad, it needed more dressing. and maybe a crouton or two. a hard-boiled egg would have been nice too. man, a hard-boiled egg might have made this entire review a horse of a different color.

in summation, i agree with olive that E&C is a far better destination for boozing and cigaretting, and maybe even dinner. in fact, we've done that very thing several times since the meal we just reviewed, but without the dinner. and in olive's case, without the cigaretting. either way, if you do decide to check this place out, just try not to sit in the section with the creepy waiter. he'll be the one trying to distract you with some multi-cultural soup hybrid as he attempts to seduce your girlfriend.

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start!

mason: so today is my mom's birthday. it's also september 19th. what's more, today is a long time in the making. what is this, the making, you might ask? well, the making is this.

olive: several moons and many days ago, mason and i made a bet. the purpose of the bet was to determine who would buy lunch the following thursday. the winner would receive a free lunch, while the loser was granted authority to pick the lunching destination. now the original bet is long since forgotten, but the weekly bet placing and lunching has continued throughout the summer, and we've amassed several opinions about lunch spots in and around streeterville.

mason: there's also one more thing. and it's not a small thing or a thing to be considered secondary to the aforementioned. the thing is that olive and i work together. at an office. but the other thing, not to be confused with 'one more thing,' and also not to be considered secondary to the aforementioned, is that olive and i are currently engaged in the throws. the throws? yes, the throws. and at this point i'm pretty sure you want to know what the throws are. or else you're not reading anymore. regardless:

olive: well, i'm just not going to spell out exactly what the throws entail. let's boil it down to "dating." and not just dating, but dating in secret. yes, it appears that none of our office mates are aware of our relationship. not that it must be kept a secret or anything.

mason: but then again, it must. or else this blog will fail to live up to what its conception prophesized. not that prophesized is even a word. or a correctly-spelled word. at any rate, bets happen. lunches are eaten. destinations of lunches are reviewed. and they've been being reviewed for quite some time now. so for the purposes of getting this account of certain activities rolling, the following several posts will provide a brief recap of what's transpired thus far...

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