bistro 110

date: december 28, 2005
bet: will olive stay awake until all hours at mason's christmas party?
stakes: lunch
winner: mason
loser: olive
location: bistro 110 (110 east pearson)
cost: $60.00

mason: i say christmas instead of holidays because i expect people to assimilate to me, not the other way around. i guess it depends on the situation, but for the most part, i'd like to say ginerbread yuletide red-nosed reindeer fat white-bearded crucified spiked egg nog guilt-ridden greetings to each and every one of my fellow martyrs. frankly i'd like to put you all in a stocking and mail you to the north pole where the elves may or may not be as real as angels. and saints. and martyrs. and the third to the father's and son's first and second, respectively.

that said, for some reason olive thought that on one particular night she would be able to stay up until all hours, even though she's only accomplished this two times in her life, and one of them was the day she was born.

all hours: n. 1. remaining consistently awake until 4am local time regardless of sleep-inducing influence. 2. something that is very, very hard for olive to accomplish. 3. something that olive should never, ever bet on. 4. something easily managed in the presence of a blockhead.

olive: so, lesson learned. but to my credit, i have stayed up until all hours on more than two occasions, and i honestly felt if i made a bet about it again, i'd be able to do it. i even came close, but at 3:20 a.m., after all but a few christmas party guests had departed, i declared, "i don't care if i lose!" falling backward into peaceful slumber, still in party attire, beside a roaring fire. ahhh.

mason: but alas, there were no blockheads present, and thus olive succumbed to her slumber without even a thought to the documentation that would result:



i was on vacation the day i reaped my reward, and therefore awoke before noon from my well-deserved peaceful sloth for the first time since my impersonation of the unemployed began just one week earlier. i even missed the view.

since olive lost, she was granted the privilege of picking the venue. on this day, she made a bold choice. and by bold, i mean french.

now given the staunchness of my political affiliation (and by staunchness, i mean my blind ability to believe in elves), i've been against everything french for the past few years. i say few because it's been more than two (a couple). that's right, i was against the french before it was cool (i think i was wearing a north face jacket at the time).

but i swallowed my pride (to quote olive: gulp), put on my beret, flicked off the fashioning of george bush i placed atop my christmas eiffel tower (trees are for liberals to hug), and made my way across town on foot to the only french eatery in all of chicago downtown proper, which was conveniently located right across the street from the new hershey shop, which i can only imagine is doing quite well, given the amount of sexually deprived overweight people that visit said proper.

olive: so let's get to it then. we almost immediately started chowing down on the fresh french bread, which was especially tasty when dressed in roasted garlic (i mean a whole effing garlic just sitting there, roasted, and ready for smearing) and du buerre. following that, i ordered a mixed green salad with the addition of goat cheese. i had contemplated the endive and goat cheese salad, but my fondness for endives doesn't nearly match my fondness for cheese of the goat variety. our waiter suggested adding goat cheese to the green salad, and boy, what a dish. a light vinegar citrus dressing made the mix.

i wasn't in the mood for a meat dish as an entree, so i ordered the appetizer pizza featuring french and american cheeses. welcome to disappointment city. this so-called "pizza" was a paper thin flaky crust with a pound of greasy cheese on top. my ordering mistake was evident after a few bites. luckily, i was pretty full from the bread and salad (and a late breakfast), so that's all she wrote.

mason: disappointment city may be an understatement. it was more like disappointment nation, not to be confused with 120 disappointments (i just got chills remembering the first time i saw the video for pictures of you).

don't get me (us) wrong, though. with the exception of the decorative garland-entangled trumpet that was protruding from the mirror that was wall-mounted and perpendicularly hung above our table, this lunch started out great. the plentiful bread and mother-clove of garlic were well-complimented by a couple of amstels from the good part of europe (i hope my sarcasm is transparent enough by now).

it wasn't until the cage match that our experience at the good old one one oh took a turn for the worse/t (which is it? i'm sick of random googling tonight). the croque monsieur (translation: ham on soggy bread topped with greasy cheese) made olive's miserable excuse for a pizza look like a jack's naturally rising at the end of an all-hours nuit (with a self-readied vine-ripened tomato topliment and all).

i will say this: the french onion soup that made its way down the belly hatch (if you're going to click on one link in this entry, do so here) between the bread that got our hopes up and the title match that got our hopes down was perfect. it even rivaled the irish french hybrid at elephant and castle (though its trunk was notably shorter, and thus an inadequate receptacle/projector of peanuts, water and the like).

olive: anyway, i won't be making a repeat trip here anytime soon, despite my affinity for french culture and fare. our tale may have been different if we had worn our ordering caps (similar to thinking caps, but working in conjunction with the stomach) this day, but we didn't, and with the pricey menu and forgetful, albeit kind, waiter, bistro 110 is near the bottom of my o&m list.

mason: bottom indeed. nearly all the way down. as down as one can get. almost as down as hell, or china for that matter.

but there's one thing we forgot to mention. one very important thing. but it was for a good reason. without spelling out that r-e-a-s-o-n, i can say this: within the past 24 hours, i've heard two different coworkers say essentially the same thing:

coworker 1: "olive's probably told you this already, but..."

coworker 2: "how was your time off? what did you guys [you and olive] do?"

less than a month ago, these words wouldn't have even entered their minds. not that i (we) care, but regardless...

it's time we took it up a notch. it's time for some new characters. it's time for a new medium (okay, if you're going to click two links in this entry, do so here). it's time to show you what it's like to be olive and mason.

forgive us in advance for the forthcoming ramp-up. we promise it will be worth it.