I haven’t written a review of the iPhone 4 since I got mine the day of release because, guess what? I’ve been too busy playing with it.
I think that, despite the newspaper and TV stories (and blogs) you’ve seen, this is the case for most iPhone 4 users. Very few of my friends have had the notorious “reception problem” that, I swear, every other person asks me about. No, I haven’t had the problem. Then again, I use a sleeve, as any smart user would. (Seriously, you trust the edges of your iPhone to the elements . . . naked? I wouldn’t.) I’m not doubting that other people have had issues, but from what I know, it isn’t anywhere close to the majority of users.
I’m also really tired about hearing people rag on Steve Jobs and Apple about the reception problem and dropped calls. I won’t deny that there’s a design flaw that contributes to the problem, but let’s not leave AT&T out of this. My mom uses a Blackberry, and she’s certainly experienced her share of dropped calls.
Perhaps I’m not the best person to comment on this, as I’ve been a resident of the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field for more than 20 years now. But I think it’s more than fair to ask everyone else to have a little perspective on the matter, as well.
By the way, that’s my iPhone up there, sporting a royal purple Belkin Shield Micra. If you haven’t already invested in a case for you iPhone, I highly recommend this over the official Apple bumpers, one of which I purchased with my iPhone and returned the next day. The Shield Micra is cheaper (I got mine at the Best Buy in the John Hancock building for $24.99 + Cook County’s ridiculous sales tax) and provides more surface protection for the phone. And, yes, that’s my “hockey boyfriend” Jonathan Toews on my wallpaper. (Don’t worry, I have a photo of Todd and me as my lock screen image. Ahh, OS 4.) I’m gonna go play with my phone now. :o)
This is gonna be a quick one, as there really isn’t much to XOCO’s breakfast menu. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t great. Along with our friends Leesa and Scott, we tried a couple of pastries (yum) and two of the hot entrees.
The empanada was nice and flaky on the outside, tasty on the inside. Nice if y0u’re looking for something small but savory.
The chorizo and egg torta was yummy. While I was slightly disappointed that the bread didn’t have that lovely crusty edge to it that the woodfired lunch tortas have, I thought the softer texture went well with the fillings. And speaking of fillings, the thin slices of avocado gave a really nice, creamy complement to the scrambled ingredients.
What’s also nice about breakfast is that you can get it to go, and there are fewer options, so things move a little more quickly.
I won’t lie: I love Top Chef Master Rick Bayless. If he cooked liver for dinner, I would probably eat it – but that’s because he could probably cook up a meaner liver than anyone else in the room. So needless to say, a trip to Chicago wouldn’t have been complete without a stop-in to at least one of his Clark Street restaurants – or, in this case, two.
XOCO
The latest of Bayless’ eateries, XOCO, opened last September, a few months after our last visit, and I’d heard so many rave reviews of the place that I had to go there the first opportunity I got. And I did. I was even willing to let lunch interfere with the opportunity to kiss the Stanley Cup (though, let’s face it, the Cup was probably nasty by that point in the day anyway).
The menu at XOCO is pretty straightforward: a few salads, an assortment of tortas and a half-dozen or so delectable desserts. Caldos are available after 3 p.m., but I’m not so much of a soup person during the summer, so I was fine with getting what I could get in the noon hour.
Ahh, yes, the woodburning oven. It exists!
When you manage to peel your eyes away from the thing of beauty, you also notice that the food prep area is also very cool and staffed with cheery faces, including the guy who photobombs you with a big grin:
If you like to watch food prep, that’s a good thing, because if you go at lunch (between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.), you’ll get to see a lot of it while you wait in the 20- to 25-minute line. Right now, they’re not doing takeout lunch at all, and the dining room only seats maybe 40 people, so the line moves forward for ordering as other diners move out.
Back to lunch itself: It’s hard to pick just one torta when they all sound so good – well, at least for some people. Todd, not being a big adventurer, pretty easily narrowed his choices down to the Gunthrop Chicken Torta:
Although I was very tempted by the Special of the Day, which included guacamole, I couldn’t pry myself away from the idea of suckling pig between two slabs of woodburning oven toasted bread, so I went with the Cochinita Pibil:
By the way, that prominent pink stuff is the pickled onions, not the pork. Here’s a better picture with the pork, after I’d taken a bite:
:o) Say it with me, now: Mmmmm . . . Yes, it was that good. And that’s even without the habanero sauce. I can take some heat, but the idea of authentic Mexican habanero sauce kind of scared some sense into me, so I asked the cashier whether I’d be safe with it. While she assured me that the sauce came on the side (whew), she added that she always cautions customers to be careful with it because “they are not foolin’ around with that stuff.” Boy, you ain’t kiddin’. This stuff will linger in your oral cavity for a full minute after you drip a little bit onto your tongue. It looks harmless, but it is not. You have been warned.
Anyway. The Cochinita Pibil = awesome. If you don’t like pickled onions, you can take ‘em out and not really lose much of the essence of the torta (mostly because some of the flavor stays behind on the pork anyway, HA!). Suckling pig is, of course, one of the best ways to enjoy, well, pig, so naturally it’s delicious. And, ooh, that bread, all crusty and crunchy from time it spent toasting in that woodburning oven – that just makes all the difference. Don’t get a toasted torta if you’re one of those people who can’t take a little scrape on the roof of your mouth. Better yet, just don’t be one of those people: Have the freaking torta.
But you also need to save room for dessert. Two reasons:
1. Mexican hot chocolate:
2. Churros with soft serve for dipping:
The chocolate actually comes in several varieties, the most authentic of which is apparently just ground chocolate and hot water, but I wanted a little more, so I opted for the Aztec, which also includes some chile and allspice. Delicate perfection in a little cup, with just enough chocolatey goodness to put a smile on your face. Oh, and they grind the chocolate right on the premises, so it doesn’t get any fresher than that!
The churros are also fantastic. It’s interesting that a dessert so hackneyed in Mexican American cuisine that they sell it at the Costco food counter alongside faux Polish sausages, would be served here at XOCO. But these are not your mama’s airy churros. These have body, but are not super doughy. And while they’re yummy all by themselves, the chef doesn’t suggest soft serve for dipping just because it sounds cute.
Go. Go now. Not that there’s any chance XOCO will be going out of business any year soon, but the word is already out about how great it is (and at much lower prices than Frontera and Topolobampo), and you will have to stand in line for that torta. Rick Bayless’ creations will make that wait very worth your while!
Yes, it’s that time of year again: time for me to visit the Midwest and love it but not be able to resist complaining about how freaking HOT it is. Because it is. As cold as Chicago gets in the winter, it gets pretty damned hot in the summer. And I’m taking “what WINDY city?!” hot – because, let me tell you, as hot as Honolulu gets in July, at least you can usually feel a breeze.
But I’ll get over it . . . because you know how much I love this city. So moving on . . .
Todd and I have been to the Taste of Chicago a few times over the years. Yes, the vendors are usually the same, but since we don’t really stay close to Grant Park and since we walk there (i.e., instead of taking the train), we’ll usually only go for one day and really only visit a few booths each time. The only booth I make sure we go to is the Original Rainbow Cone booth – because they make the best sherbet in the world – but other than that, we never know what we’re going to sample. Here’s what we tried this time:
Mustard-fried catfish, BJ’s Market & Bakery (8734 S. Stony Island Ave.).
This was, hands down, the best catfish I have ever tasted. The crunch was delightful, and you would never believe such a nice taste could come from such an ugly animal. ;o)
Gazpacho with avocado and chopped chives, The Grill on the Alley (909 N. Michigan Ave.).
The gazpacho was cool and refreshing on a hot day, and the smidgen of avocado was a very nice touch. I wish I could make my gazpacho taste this good without looking as, well, dull orangey-brown as my gazpacho often turns out.
Steak taco, Carbón Live Fire Mexican Grill (300 W. 26th St.).
What can you say, it was a steak taco. Todd liked it. I appreciated that the tortilla was not overly dry.
Key lime pie, JR Dessert Bakery (2841 W. Howard St.).
It may not look like much, but this was THE best key lime pie I have ever had. While it lacked that creamy consistency I tend to favor in the dessert, JR’s key lime pie struck the perfect balance between tangy and sweet, and the crust was nice and nutty.
Jerk chicken, Iyanze (4623 N. Broadway).
Holy cow. Good thing we only got the Taste portion of Iyanze’s jerk chicken, because not only was it generous (everything pictured above, with the exception of the key lime pie, was a Taste portion, btw), but it was SPICY. Flaming hot, actually, is how I would describe my tongue for a good five minutes after I insisted on gulping this down. I mean, it was good – and amazingly, you could still taste the spices through the heat – but man . . . Yowza.
Of course we had to finish off the evening with a Taste portion from the Original Rainbow Cone. It’s my favorite frozen thing in the world! I mean, come on: The pistachio and Palmer House (cherry/walnut) flavors alone make it worthwhile.
Shortly after we enjoyed our Rainbow Cone goodies, we, along with hundreds of others, were ushered out of Grant Park by a few dozen of Chicago’s finest (and about a half-dozen of their maned, four-legged friends), as the Taste and the park close at 9 p.m. – and thus we end this edition of The Kawamotos Take on The Taste. Tune in next time . . .
For over a decade, I have considered myself to be a loyal fan of Chicago’s WGN Radio. Those of you who have seen my car have seen the WGN/Cubs window stickers – heck, I even used to have one on my office window (back when I had an office with a window). ‘GN was one of the first radio stations in the country to have an Internet stream, and Todd and I have been taking advantage of that for ages. I remember listening in horror when the coroner’s office called into the station to confirm the death of then morning host Bob Collins. Todd and I have been to the station many times and were even on the John Williams Show live from the showcase studio during our honeymoon. And then, of course, there are Pat and Ron and the Cubs – and, this year, the Blackhawks. The stories are countless, and anyway, you get the picture: We loved WGN.
We’re making the trek to 435 N. Michigan Ave. for possibly the last time next week. Our friend John Williams, despite having done so much for this station during his 10+ years there, seems to be on his way out. ‘GN has been on hiring spree, bringing in personalities from out of town and totally being fine with them dropping hints about which time slots they’ll be taking over – like John’s. At least it seems like John has a plan for his future, and we of course wish him the best in everything he does – though his departure will surely be a loss socially and intellectually to Chicago talk radio. And after John goes, there will be very little left to listen to on this station other than the live sports coverage.
In the past 14 months, WGN has “lost” the Kathy & Judy Show, Sports Central (they kept Dave Kaplan, but in a very limited on-air capacity) and Steve Cochran. Before that, Spike O’Dell retired, and after some schedule-shifting, which included six months of morning shows for John, they brought in a guy from San Francisco. Even though I can’t say I was a big fan of every single one of those shows, I know each one had a big fan following. Excuse me if those fans are/were 50+ in age, but since when are those demographics not profitable commercially for advertisers in talk radio? Anyway, the point is, WGN is changing. Sure, change happens. But it doesn’t have to happen the way Tribune management is forcing it to – without class and without even so much as telling the truth about what’s going on.
If you want to catch a glimpse of how ugly things are getting under Kevin Metheny’s leadership at WGN, all you have to do is read the blog entries I’ve linked to above. All were penned by veteran Chicago media columnist Robert Feder, who clearly knows Chicago, its radio and its audiences better than anyone currently in management at Tribune Co. Yes, blogs are one-sided, but take a look at the WGN Radio fan page or any of the personalities’ pages on Facebook if you don’t believe how unhappy the WGN audience is with the recent moves.
I “unlike”d the WGN Radio fan page on Facebook today, and if I find any good Cubs-only (no WGN logo) window decals in the city next week, I’ll be removing the window stickers from my car, too. This isn’t the station I grew to love, and it’s clear that that station is so far gone, it’ll never come back. So goodbye, WGN. It was nice knowing you while you cared.
Here’s what the white board at work looked like as of 4:30 p.m. HST on Monday:
Haha, notice that no one is answering the gym question. Also, notice that if this poll were representative of my department as a whole, it would mean that the vast majority of the staff just must have terrible hygiene.
You know how it sucks when your favorite team is on SportsCenter because they performed so atrociously poorly that ESPN would be remiss not to show the flub(s)? Yeah, today, guess who’s gonna make that reel? That’s right: the Cubs.
Ted Lilly, WTF. How is it possible that during your last start, you had a no-hitter through the 8th – and then, today, you give up four runs during the first inning?! The Cubs lost 12-0. At home.
Welcome to Wrigley Field, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
This morning at the office, I was chatting with my co-worker Tina about the weather, and I happened to make a comment about how, while I was getting into the shower this morning, I heard a loud noise and then all of a sudden, it was as if the sky had opened up and dumped all its moisture into the valley.
What did Tina get out of this, you ask?
“Wait, what?” she interrupted. “You shower in the morning?”
“Uhhh, yeah. And then?”
“What kind of Japanese are you?! Were you raised that way???”
“Uhhh . . . ”
“Is it because you went to college in Chicago?”
“No, Tina. In Chicago, I just didn’t shower.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
I didn’t realize that this was a cultural issue. In fact, I was pretty sure that when Tina broached the ethnic aspect, she was totally off-base, so I jokingly suggested that she use our kitchen white board to poll the office on the issue. (The white board is usually “reserved” for polls, puzzles and miscellaneous forms of entertainment. As of yesterday, it had been wiped clean and was waiting for a new idea.) She marched off to do just that. A few minutes later, the board was marked up with several questions:
Do you shower in the morning or at night?
If you shower in the morning, were you raised in Hawai‘i?
If you usually shower in the morning but go to the gym at night, do you still shower only in the morning?
Why do you shower when you do?
The gym thing: I live 7.6 miles from my gym. My car has air conditioning. By the time I get back from the gym, I’m no longer sweaty, and it’s not like I go to bed as soon as I get home, anyway. The point is, I’m not super gross by the time I go to bed – I’m sure that, if I were, my husband would be more than happy to let me know, just as he is always certain to point out when I have garlic breath.
Anyway. I still thought the whole thing was ridic. But an hour or so later, I asked my office neighbor, Jessica, whether she had voted in the poll. I told her the story behind it. Jess paused, then said that it was, indeed, strange that I would shower in the morning.
“Showering in the morning is kind of a haole thing,” affirmed Jess, who is half Japanese and half Caucasian.
What? First I sound like a haole (according to a total moke on the phone the other week), and now I shower like one? Not that I have anything against having common characteristics with white people, but wow, lau lau.
So anyway (again) . . . what say you? When do you shower, and why? If you’re from Hawai‘i, say so, and I’ll take your input back to the office. Leave your responses in the comments!
Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve updated. I’m still alive. Work has been hectic. The responses to our recruitment ads in the newspapers have been good, so we’re getting a lot of calls . . . so by the end of the day, I’m pretty tired. Also, we fumigated our house for termites over Memorial Day weekend, which meant days of prep (bagging food, etc.), followed by days of sleeping at my cousin’s house with Chloe, followed by days of cleaning pesticides off of dishes. In an age of organic foods and environmentally friendly products, we need to treat our entire house with lethal doses of pesticide, unless we want the termites to eat us out of house and home. Go figure.
On the personal front, I just found out that I have iron deficiency anemia. Yeah, again, go figure. Didn’t see that one coming, even though I was deferred from donating blood once for low hemoglobin (I thought I was just having a low iron day) and nearly deferred two other times recently. My doctor called to tell me that the normal range for iron saturation in the blood is 20-50% . . . and mine was 5%. In addition, my overall iron level was too low and my iron binding capacity was too high. Whoops. There goes my quest to save the world one pint at a time! So I’m on iron pills twice a day and on strict orders to avoid donating blood for a while. We’ll see if that works. So far, I’m still tired, but it’s good to know that I wasn’t just getting increasingly lazy with age. Not JUST, anyway.
You know how it sucks when your favorite team is on SportsCenter because they performed so atrociously poorly that ESPN would be remiss not to show the flub(s)? Yeah, today, guess who’s gonna make that reel? That’s right: the Cubs.