Wednesday, September 29. Chicago Arrival On Time. An Old-Time Department Store Dining Room. A Great Italian Family Feed. On most of my forty trips by train from New Orleans to Chicago, the first thing I saw outside the window in the morning was a trackside corn elevator in a small community called Pesotum. I was on the wrong side of the train to see it this time, but that's where we were when the sun and I rose at the same time.
I dawdled a bit over coffee (the sleeping cars have their own coffee urns, and our stalwart attendant Terry had it waiting for us) before wobbling down the train to the diner for breakfast. A lot of Eat Clubbers were there already. I knew what Topic A would be: how badly most people slept. One claimed not to have slept at all. The incessant honking of the locomotive's horn was the big issue. But the two people I thought would complain most on this score both said that they slept comfortably all night.
A young couple traveling with us allowed me to share their table. He's tall and athletic, and clearly too big for the bunks in the sleeper. He said he curled up and got it done. His girlfriend said she did all right. The two of them seem to be enjoying each other's company. In Chicago, we'd hardly see them at all. They came with their own set of plans. That's music to my ears. The folks who want me to lead them around are the hardest to please.
I had a breakfast quiche and some truly terrible hash browns for breakfast. The latter would be the only unsatisfactory food I'd eat on the rails through the entire trip.
Then back to the sleeper. I took a shower. I think I do this as much because of the incongruity of taking a shower on a train as for the need. But it's very refreshing, and cleans up one's hair, which gets dirty because of the dust the train kicks up and static electricity. A shower also fixes pillow hair.
I looked over the Champaign newspaper for awhile. And then we were there. The train went through it familiar maneuver into Chicago Union Station, passing underneath Chicago's McCormick Convention Center, going through a wye (that's how trains make a U-turn), and backing up three miles to track's end. At the gate a few minutes after nine--close enough to on time for me.
We were in no hurry. Few of us would be able to get our rooms at the Hotel Monaco until after lunch, and just unloaded our bags there. Our first meal in Chicago was set for eleven-thirty, three blocks from the hotel, in the perfect place to start a visit to this city: Marshall Field's classic downtown department store.
Which is now Macy's. Why Macy's would change the name of that venerable Chicago shopping institution defies logic. It's in the same league of stupidity with Rite-Aid's ditching the K&B name when it bought that iconic New Orleans drugstore chain.
Marshall Field's State Street store in the Loop is one of the most magnificent department stores in the world. Its architecture, inside and out, makes you stop and stare. I never saw it in its heyday in the 1940s and 1950s, but it was still very impressive when I arrived there in 1978. It sold everything you could imagine, from a chocolate bar to a refrigerator, on twelve floors.
Scattered throughout the building are many specialty restaurants, of which the most renowned is the Walnut Room. My girlfriend in the late 1970s grew up in Indiana, and often visited Chicago with her parents. Her memories of lunches in the Walnut Room were solid gold. Especially at Christmastime, when the tables that surround the enormous tree set up in the atrium still are booked long in advance.
It was the perfect first taste of Chicago. The waitresses--one of whom had worked in the Walnut Room for twenty years--had an unmistakable Midwestern twang. The menu had the same localism. The Walnut Room serves home cooking with only a bit of gilding. The best example of this was the chicken pot pie, ordered by quite a few of our travelers. It was more like a chicken stew topped with a thick, light pillows of puff pastry. It was as good as any such thing could possibly be. Better than the meatloaf--also popular with our group.
Adding to the possibilities was the special Oktoberfest menu. Many plates of pork jager schnitzel (panneed pork with a mushroom sauce, red cabbage, and spaetzle) came to our tables. I had a knockwurst plate with sauerkraut; the latter was better than the former. The dessert was German, too: apple strudel, the best part of this meal for me.
I was glad to see all this German stuff. On our first Eat Club Chicago train trip we started eating at the nearby Berghoff--an ancient German restaurant that was as much loved by as many generations of Chicagoans as Antoine's is in New Orleans. The Berghoff, however, has been much reduced in scale since we were last there. Chicago friends told me that if we went there we'd only be disappointed.
Our timing at the Walnut Room was good in other ways. Today was half-price wine day. We drank many bottles of wine for prices like $15. The waitress with the twangiest Midwestern accent seemed to be ecstatic to announce to our group that this was also Free Coffee Day! Wow! I'll have some of that! I never got it. Nor did I get the mustard I asked for three times to go with the knockwurst.
I think the twangy waitress was miffed at me. When I arrived, I expressed disappointment that our tables were so far from the handsome center of the room. The section with the windows looking into the center of Chicago would have been nice, too. Instead, our section offered a view of an employees-only area and a bank of utilitarian elevators.
But with most entrees priced at about $12, half-price wine, and--what's that again? Free coffee?--the group was pleased. I left them to their wanderings and shopping, and returned to the hotel for a quick nap before radio showtime.
We stayed at the Hotel Monaco six years ago. I looked into other hotels this time around, just to see if anything better had come along. I will not bother next time. In its design, attitude, modest size, and especially its location, the Monaco is perfect. Most of the restaurants we would visit were within walking distance--if a healthy walk in some cases. When I asked the management whether they'd be interested in allowing me to broadcast from their lobby, they gave me all possible help.
It's a good place to do a radio show. The five-to-six free wine hours every afternoon made the lobby a party. Almost everybody in our group took advantage of this. A few guests who had no idea who I was stepped up and talked with me on the air. One of them was very surprised when I told him that the five-minute conversation we'd just finished had been broadcast live in New Orleans.
Off to dinner right after I signed off. Cabs in Chicago are cheap. Our rides to the restaurants usually worked out to three dollars a person or less, including tip. Tonight we went to Little Italy and the original location of Mia Francesca. It's now one of twenty-one locations, as the concept spreads nationwide. Everything in Chicago seems to be a chain.
Mia Francesca was the favorite dining venue of the people on our first Chicago adventure. It was a hit again tonight. In a spacious private room, our four tables of six got louder and louder as each cork was pulled. Five courses began with antipasto, cold lentils with spinach, Caprese salads, fried calamari, and marinated vegetables. The tenor of the meal took a big jump in the pasta course. Extraordinary double spinach (inside and outside) ravioli, in the orange cream sauce. Big bowls of rigatoni with eggplant, mushrooms, beans, carrots, and more vegetables and herbs, all tossed with an herbal olive oil sauce. Yum.
By entree time, we approached the gut-busting stage. The early courses were deceptively light. But not only was the food getting heavier, but the platters were growing. (We were serving family-style.) So here was a gigantic plate of Italian sausage with peppers, onions, and broccoli di rape. Each piece of sausage was a good four inches long. The other plate was filled with chunks--not medallions, but more like steaks--of braised veal, with interesting mushrooms, artichokes, and beans.
None of this was anything like the food you'd find in New Orleans Italian restaurants. But there was something familiar about it. The light came on days later: this stuff had a lot in common with the food at Mosca's. But that figures. The Mosca family came from Chicago, back in the 1930s.
When I assembled this menu a few weeks ago, I wondered why so few desserts were offered. Now I know. Where could anyone fit a dessert? The little squares on tiramisu, barely larger than petits fours, were all we could possibly eat.
Good as the food was, we were not served by the A-team here. We had to ask five times for wine glasses at the table where I began my meal. Each time, the server asked an idiotic question: How many glasses? Why, as many as we have people at the table, of course! And still they didn't bring them. The last failed attempt brought glasses, but to the empty table next to us. Whaaa? Things got better later--the word must have filtered back that we were not perfectly happy.
Well, the price was right. This surfeit of food was $45, plus plus. Except for the service glitch, it was a great night. Some of the Eat Clubbers were happy enough that they went out for nightcaps. But most succumbed to the fatigue brought on by a lack of sleep on the train. I didn't have that problem, but I went straight to bed anyway. I must be fresh for my TV appearance tomorrow.
Walnut Room. Chicago: Seventh floor, Macy's (formerly Marshall Field's), 111 N. State St.
Mia Francesca. Chicago: 1400 W. Taylor, 312-829-2828.
