Feeling indulgent I treated a friend to a luncheon (read: mid day meal consisting of tiny portions and unpronounceable ingredients that I'm not sure actually qualify as foodstuffs) at the opulent Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago. A couple of times a year they offer high tea with fashion shows from Bloomingdale's but this year it was a luncheon in celebration of Administrative Assistant's Day. While I am a glorified Admin Assistant, this wasn't the reason I went. I actually thought we were attending one of the high tea/fashion show combos. So while I was confused, it was fine that we were going to have lunch..until lunch arrived.
The menu offered a choice of soup, asparagus bisque, or a spring salad. I ordered the bisque (yes, I was truly feeling indulgent) and my companion ordered the salad. My soup was a watery, tasteless, greenish substance with asparagus tips floating aimlessly around the little cup. The salad was only slightly more appealing until my companion was picking out some of the more peculiar bits and setting them aside after she tasted them and grimaced...Apparently, spring means random bits of vegetation that happen to be growing right about now and salad means to mix the random items together under some dressing.
For the main course we were offered either cod in soy and palm sugar or Amish chicken over polenta. We both elected to have the chicken. It arrived, delivered by the most delicious man, Kevin (the only salivating I did during that meal was over that man..sigh...) who caught me drinking him in on several occasions....Anyway, I think the Amish are a bunch of haters...From what I could tell "Amish" means undercooked, unseasoned and hate-filled. At this point you must know that my friend and I are very experimental and open to new culinary experiences with very different palates...but this pushed both of our limits. We were good sports and ate some of the dish, avoiding each other's eyes for fear we'd burst out laughing and spew half chewed raw chicken all over the neatly dressed Administrative Assistants we were dining near....I'm really not sure what was being attempted with the entrée to be quite honest what little flavors there were, were less than tantalizing.
Now, we didn't get any choice for dessert - which was fine, it sounded interesting and neither of us was so put off by the meal to not keep trying - for what I paid for the meals by george we were going to like something!!!!!! And the dessert (no, it was not Kevin dressed only in a Redi-whip speedo), as it turned out, was the best part of the entire meal! It was a spongy organic carrot cake with sour cream sorbet drizzled with a pineapple sauce of some sort...Mmmmmm....I'm not always the biggest fan of carrot cake...or dessert for that matter (unless its Kevin + Redi-whip) but this was really good. Sour cream sorbet may not sound particularly appealing, and on its own, I think I might agree - but with the carrot cake, wow! I was very impressed...
The other thing that impressed me, as it always does, is the service. Aside from having things brought to us by His Hotness (Go Four Seasons HR!!!), the service is always fantastic - and often funny. They NEVER want to disagree with you. No matter how insane you might be sounding. As I said, I thought we were attending a tea and so when I was trying to find our reservations and where we were supposed to be I continued to say "tea" - confusing most of the staff but no one wanted to disagree with me and so we had these strange circular conversations - it was eventually sorted, obviously, but they were just so polite - almost to the point of frustrating me at times......sigh......I toyed with the idea of asking Kevin for a rendezvous of sorts and hoping they weren't allowed to say no to a guest....I'd have checked in right then and there (even if it were like a weeks pay - he'd be worth it, I'm sure).
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