Chicago Chillin'

It is officially 2017! This is my first post of the year, yes I know it's already 19 days into the new year but better late than never right? The most popular saying since the new year: new year, new me. I hope this happens to me, for the better of course. I'm about to start my second semester at NYU as a graduate student as well as interning 3 days a week so I'm hoping I can juggle both to really build up my resume as I pursue my master's. I can't wait to see what's in store for me this year and I hope it's a great year for me and you!

This year has already been pretty good for me. Rang in the new year with my close loved ones with no concrete plans but ended up having a great time, got a 3.94 GPA (so close yet so far to a 4.0), scored an internship at a well-known designer's corporate office as a press intern, and went on a trip with my best friend -- which is where these photos come in. 

I really wanted to have a mini getaway with just wendy, just wendy and me. We were initially planning to go to Boston, but having been there together already and due to pretty inexpensive flights we decided on: CHICAGO. Wendy had never been and I've been but when I was 12, which was a decade ago (o m g a decade) so I have almost no memory of it except that I don't like deep-dish pizza. We had such a great time in Chicago that we keep wanting to go back. Minus the cold everything was awesome. When we felt the crisp, cold air of Chicago, we realized NYC cold ain't shit.. we would stand outside for maybe 15 seconds and already feel our exposed body parts starting to get numb. It's no joke in Chicago. On our first night, during a trip to Walgreens it was 4 degrees but felt like -7.. insane. Which is why I wore AT LEAST 4 layers every day. 

I love being able to explore a new city. One that is quite similar to NYC in terms of a lot of skyscrapers and a lot of shopping; Chicago's Magnificent Mile is comparable to our 5th Ave. BUT it's a lot nicer walking through Chicago streets because there are about 19387598x more people walking the streets of NYC. We were contemplating on whether or not to rent a car but we found out that Uber is pretty inexpensive there, so we opted to just uber/lyft-ing around. Getting to try restaurants in a different city is so exciting to me. A few places I would recommend:

• Honey Butter Fried Chicken: BOMB fried chicken. I got the Original Fried Chicken Sandwich "The O.G" and O m G it was so good. The chicken was flavorful, tender, and juicy, the sauce was delicious.. just TRY IT. Wendy ordered the 2-piece honey butter fried chicken, which had 1 piece of white meat and 1 piece of dark meat and came with a side of butter that you're supposed to spread on the chicken. First we tried the white meat one, so obviously it was a bit dry so I thought it was eh. But then the second one was dark meat and MM yes, dark meat is the way to go. Also super juicy and tender and with the butter.. well MO BUTTA MO BETTA (hi5 if you know who says this.) We also got a side of the pimento mac n' cheese, it was interesting but it wasn't really up my alley. I don't remember if we ordered cornbread or if it was given but it was whatever, just tasted like any ol' cornbread.
• Mortar & Pestle: Alaskan King Crab Benedict. Delicious. I don't believe we have anything like this in NYC; I know we have lump crab at Sarabeth's but it doesn't compare to the alaskan king crab. I love king crab and I love benedict so it was so good. Chicago also does their eggs really well. All four of our poached eggs were perfectly poached, which is a must in this dish. The price was also very affordable considering the ingredient used - $17! I can imagine it being about $25 if it were elsewhere. We also ordered the fruity pebble funnel cake to share and it was good as well! Not much of a fruity pebble taste though if you ask me, but you can never go wrong with funnel cake.
• RPM: This was a random spot we yelped since the place we initially wanted to go was booked for the night. We learned that in Chicago it's important to call before going to a restaurant, so we did and they told us the next table available would be 11PM but we could sit at the bar. We just agreed since we were hungry and wanted Italian. When we arrived, expecting to sit at the bar, we actually got a bar table which was pretty much our own little hightop table. We didn't mind at all! We ordered the Maine lobster ravioli, the spicy crab squid ink spaghetti, with a side of broccolini because us Chinese girls need our veggies. EVERYTHING WAS SO GOOD! It was so good that we ordered 2 spicy crab squid ink pastas to go, hehe. I recommend this place if you're in Chicago! It's right off of Magnificent Mile so quite convenient if you're in the area. 

There are a few places that we went to that were recommended to us or had a lot of reviews but we didn't find that spectacular. 

• Wildberry: A brunch spot that supposedly gets really busy on the weekends. We got super lucky only having to wait about 5 minutes on a Friday at around 1:30. They're one of those restaurants that close at 2:30 then open later again. The one perk was that it was pretty inexpensive for the amount of food that they give you. It's a lot. But the food itself was okay. Wendy got some kind of mexican skillet and I got the benedict with chorizo. Both were okay. Maybe we didn't order the right items.
• The Purple Pig: If you ain't a meat, or PORK lover, this is not the place for you. This is supposed to be a tapas/small plates restaurant but holy pig the portions were HUGE. Each 'tapa' resembled a regular entree dish size. Our waitress told us to order 2 each and we could barely finish 2.. I LOVE salty food, but the food was pretty salty. I'm also not a food critic, but in my opinion things were a little over-seasoned. The dishes seemed to have too many flavors going on in one dish, to the point where it was quite overwhelming. 

I could go into more detail but don't want to make this a crazy long review but if you have any questions you can drop a comment or email me! 

I seriously had such a great time with just my bestie ^_^ I can't wait until our next vacation together! We need to make this an annual thing before we get married and have kids!!