In the circles we run in, I think Dan and I are cool-ish. He's a great musician with a voice like an angel and can code stuff. I am creative and can make just about anything with my hands to cuddle on or to eat with joy. We're both nice and smart and decent in most conversations. People like knowing us.
But in a crowd of gorgeous gastropub hotties, swinging socialites, and gingham summer suit dandies. . . we don't exactly stand out or attract interest. So, we were, as a couple, an island. The good news is that I love our island and Dan is really cute and funny and we were a little fun-having rock in the stream of fancy fancy fancies.
The open bar and the free eats didn't hurt either.
Three stand-outs from the evening were--surprise, surprise--food-related:
1. We kept seeing another couple that looked similar to us, wandering around together looking sweet and nice and a bit out of place. We vowed to say Hi to them at some point and finally cornered them on a couch in the "Emirates Airlines VIP Lounge" (seriously? If you know me, just from the name of that room, you know how out of place I was. . . ). He was there representing Little Goat Diner--a diner we will now go to because the couple was so nice to us (Ryan and Georgia?) and so earnest about how great the place is.
But the whole time we were talking to these sweet sweet young people, an Emirates airlines commercial was looped on a giant screen behind their heads--a woman taking a shower in-flight, people dripping in money eating gourmet meals and mingling at the free standing bar in the center of the plane. And at the terminus of the flight in Dubai? Attending polo matches. Um. . . totally surreal.
2. Honey-glazed donuts from Endgrain. Holy crap. Those donuts were a life-changing experience. I have a huge chip on my shoulder about donuts--always whining that the best donuts in the world are made by Busken's in Cincinnati and isn't it shameful that Chicago, as big as it is, can't make a donut at least as good as the donuts from my hometown. Well Endgrain, dear sweet Endgrain, has stepped up with the most ridiculously unbearadelicious donut I've ever eaten.
Honey glazed, but then in the center is this thin layer of an incredibly light slightly sour cream--a bit like cheese cake--and it's texture matches so perfectly with the texture of the donut that at first bite, I knew something magical was happening, but I couldn't tell there was a cream involved. I HATE filled donuts. Hate them. With a white hot blinding passion of hate. But these were heaven.
Dearest Endgrain, we will be visiting you. But we will call ahead to make sure my new donut boyfriend is in stock before we come. (in the picture above, I think my beau is the blurry one in the background. . . )
3. The Chop Shop sliders? What? Shut up. We'll be back to eat you, too, and to try out your charcuterie buddies. You reminded us just the tiniest bit of a fancied up Olympic Provisions in Portland--high praise indeed.
So, all in all, a successful evening was had. And we were home by 9:08 PM and asleep by 9:30. Sexy. sexy. sexy.
Dan will always be on my Best of Chicago list.
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