Tag: Chicago

On Sunday morning, Scott and Deb started back on their drive back up to Wisconsin and kindly dropped me off at Goose Island where I was going on a brewery tour later on in the day. However, the brewery didn’t open for around an hour and so I went to Metric Coffee as there’s not much else to do in an industrial estate in Chicago. This is very on-trend, impeccably well reviewed and also bloody expensive. They’ve even got little hanging baskets to add decoration and excitement to the whole arrangement.

There was no inside seating area, but there were a couple of outside tables free and so I sat there merrily with my laptop. I must admit to positioning it so that no-one could come by on a bike and pinch it, this felt like a high-risk strategy effectively sitting in the middle of the road with little protection from fly-by motorbike. I’ve never really got the hang of sitting outdoors and have little idea why people do it when there’s the option of a lovely nice indoors with no insects and usually lots of power points. I think they like the sun and nature or something.

I think this coffee cost about £5 which was partly down to the exchange rate I must have complained about 25 times on this blog, as well as being a quality establishment which seemed to have some decadent ways of making the coffee. Although I notice someone else queried the pricing (not me), which let to the coffee shop replying:

“As for your comment about price- if you value (like we do) company sponsored health insurance and a living wage for some of the most passionate and dedicated coffee professionals- even 5 dollars is barely enough to cover our expenses- specially with how expensive the cost of every single line item in the value chain.”

There’s a danger of rating a coffee or beer higher highly because it cost more, that feeling of getting what you pay for. However, this one did have a richness of flavour and depth of taste, and my hour or so here did pass quickly so I felt that the value met my expectations. I rather liked the whole experience and if I come back to Goose Island again, which I hope will happen at some point, then I might pop in once more.

It was a little odd that there were so many people getting a coffee to takeaway when there didn’t seem much else going on in the area, but I think some customers were coming out of their way to visit here such is its reputation. And, what else could be expected given that this coffee shop is near to one of the best breweries in the world, the brewery visit that I had been so much looking forwards to…..

It’s not the easiest of treks back from central Chicago on the BNSF railway line as there’s just one train in each direction every two hours at weekends. It’s not ideal. Although I was fortunate that I couldn’t buy a public transport pass at O’Hare when I got there as this service isn’t included. This is outside Western Avenue railway station and the skyline of Chicago is in the background.

A pigeon and it wasn’t clear what I could do to help it, if indeed anything. I should have saved some of my McDonald’s if I had known.

Buying tickets for this service in advance is impossible if you don’t have a US phone as for reasons unknown to me (and indeed the Chicago public transport authority who run the service) they’ve blocked access to the app to foreigners. At the same time, they’ve shifted the ticket purchase system for BNSF to the Ventra app which is blocked, including putting all of the special offers on it. Great planning as they also advertise these offers to visitors to the city from around the world. For those who haven’t been able to pay on-line, tickets for the BNSF line need to be purchased at the station itself if ticket facilities are available, but they weren’t here as this station was hardly packed with anything of use. Although there was a bin on each platform, so it could have been worse.

It wasn’t exactly packed with passengers either.

I liked the double decker train when it arrived though, although I’ve been on this some years ago so it wasn’t entirely new. Usually trains in the United States are operated by Amtrak, but this is one of the relatively few exceptions and it’s run by the same company who own the rail lines.

The Burlington reference is a throwback to the Burlington Northern Railroad and the line itself is named after the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway.

I like double decker trains and I headed upstairs. The conductor walks through the middle on the lower section and does the ticketing for both levels from there. After reaching up to give me my change and ticket, the conductor wished me a pleasant time in Chicago, it was all rather convivial. My bag needs some repairs incidentally.

It’s shiny and quite lovely. I do like these great behemoth trains, they sound like a proper piece of engineering on rails to me. And there’s a big step to the platform to add just a little more excitement to proceedings, although I’d note that there are disabled access carriages as well across all rail services in Chicago.

And off it goes having set me down at Brookfield railway station. The line runs from Chicago Union station all the way to Aurora transportation centre, which is just to the west of Naperville.

Scott, Deb and I were refreshed with gossip, food and drink and so were planning to do something in the afternoon around Chicago. I had no specific ideas, but thought it might be rather lovely to go somewhere that I couldn’t usually reach with public transport. Then I saw that Waterfall Glen was well reviewed as a nature reserve, so I expected something like the above photo, which is Niagara Falls.

We were able to park for free in the large car park and so we set off, with me promising that this was genuinely a short walk and not 100 miles. Have I mentioned that I walked 100 miles?

I tried to make it look as though I had been walking through woodlands, although I obviously wasn’t as I imagine that this was packed with snakes ready to jump out at me. I’ve been watching TikTok videos of a snake catcher in Australia and I feel that I’m getting more ready to tackle any snake that surprises me, but I don’t feel ready yet to go hunting them.

This wasn’t quite the thundering tributary that I had been expecting.

Some trees. I don’t know what they are and this isn’t a nature blog anyway.

I might have uploaded this photo to Facebook to suggest that we had walked 6.5 miles which it’s fair to say would be a slight exaggeration.

I could almost heard the thundering waterfall now and I was pleased to have navigated us to the right spot. I was wondering whether there might be a cafe at this major tourist attraction.

I was sceptical that the waterfall was going to be quite as thundering as I had expected given that the river was mostly dried up.

Here’s the puddle that the waterfall was cascading down from.

I had expected more white water from the waterfall that was coming crashing down. There was no cafe.

And here is the waterfall. It’s not exactly Niagara Falls is it?

I did wonder whether it might be more appropriate to rename Waterfall Glen into Trickledown Glen.

The landscape after years of being bombarded by the trickle of water gently caressing the rock.

Here’s the information panel and I note that the creators of this site originally called it Rocky Glen. Yes, this is more bloody appropriate than Waterfall Glen. I didn’t say anything though, I wouldn’t want to upset the locals who might be proud of their collection of puddles.

Deb had heard good things about this chain, which I must admit that I hadn’t previously been aware of, despite them having over 600 locations across the United States. Note the recently tarmacked exterior, they’d been getting some complaints about trips and falls. One customer noted:

“That being said, it’s dangerous just to come here! There are Giant potholes EVERYWHERE. It’s litterally not safe for your car to come through the drive thru. And if the outside is this bad, it makes me question the integrity of the inside and it’s standards.”

I was a little disappointed to not actually see this showcase of potholes.

I’d note firstly that this was food for three of us, not just me. I had to look up the difference between a steakburger and a hamburger, with the latter being made up of minced beef rather than individual cuts of beef, although I’m unsure if there’s much differentiation here. Anyway, I really liked this, the beef was juicy and rich in flavour, the fries were thin and crispy and the Dr Pepper was bottomless. The prices were reasonable and there were plenty of special offers available, with the whole offering being better than McDonald’s in terms of quality and not much more expensive.

The environment was generally clean, although the floor was one of the stickiest that I had encountered which I think is down to the presence of lots of spilled drinks rather than some overly adhesive cleaning product. The service was friendly, with customers ordering via a self-service machine and then the staff member calls out the order number when it’s ready.

I’d definitely go back to this chain if I was in the United States and I see that they’re trying for an expansion into Europe. The real problem here is potentially their name. They don’t serve steaks, they’re a fast food burger restaurant, but that’s not what the company name suggests to a European market at least. They did open in Chester in the UK in 2016, but that restaurant closed after two years and I’m not sure that this concept is easily transferable. It also seems that the company have spent years battling their franchise holders, something which rather did for Quiznos, my favourite sub fast food chain.

I was pleased to try somewhere new though, a good choice from Deb ? This location is the one at 1520 Ogden Avenue, 60515.

For the evening meal, after our busy day chasing puddles on the waterfall trail, Scott and Deb chose Connie’s Family Restaurant which proved to be a very good choice. Established in 1944, it’s a well reviewed traditional American restaurant which is family owned and operated that is open relatively long hours, from 07.00 until 22.00 every day.

I can’t say that this is rare in the United States, but I did think that the menu was too large for the size of the restaurant. Although, having noted that, the food they served was excellent, but I do wonder whether they need such a breadth of dishes. I’m afraid that the name of the restaurant has escaped me, but when I was three (so just over 15 years ago….) I do know that I went to a restaurant chain in the United States and the whole stylistic element of this menu reminded me of that (I’d add that the menu must have come back with me from the United States, I don’t have an encyclopaedia memory of past menus). All very exciting.

As is common in these family restaurant style set-ups, there is a free soup provided to start with and also a heap of crackers and breads are carefully heaped up on the table. This is the United States, they can also pile up butter without people complaining that there’s not a clear calorie count available.

The bacon blue burger with, well, bacon and blue cheese, as well as the heap of fries and salad on the side. Incidentally, let me mention once again that the United States know what to do with bacon, it should be streaky, crispy with the fat nicely burnt. Delicious. Also, I liked the subtle gherkin at the back, this should be included with all burgers. Indeed, this burger meal is set out just as I would serve it, with the meat being cooked appropriately to medium. Note Scott’s heap of chicken in the background and they’re his vegetables, I would hardly ordered those.

The service was as expected in the United States, which was attentive, personable and welcoming. The surroundings were dated, but I think that’s part of the concept with a family restaurant, it’s about being homely rather than necessarily on-trend. Although the restaurant is located in a suburb of the enormous city that is Chicago, this still felt like a venue in a quiet backwater and retained its charm because of that.

I didn’t feel the need to go for a dessert, not least as the portion sizes of the starter and main had meant that unnecessary. But they were, of course, available in a cabinet near to the bar. I didn’t delve too deeply into the beer options here as I noticed the rather generic nature of the selection, with a limitless coke seeming more suitable in any event. I was also aware that the next morning I was embarking on a pilgrimage to the holy land of Goose Island.

A very good choice and if I was in the area again, I’d merrily return here.