January 2, 2005
Vermilion evening
Here is the timeline for what was perhaps my most interesting New Years Eve so far:
12:00 noon MST: Arrive at Albuquerque International Airport for 1:55 pm flight back to Chicago.
12:15 pm MST: See that my flight has been delayed until 2:50. Start stressing out because Mike and I have a dinner reservation at Vermilion, a new Indian-Latin fusion restaurant, for 9:30 pm. In the time between my scheduled landing (at 6:30 pm) and dinner, I must get my checked luggage, travel back to my apartment (about a 1.5-2.0 hour El ride), change and meet up with Mike, then take the El back downtown to the restaurant. Now, I will have even less time to do all of this.
12:30 pm MST: See that my flight has been delayed until 3:00.
1:00 pm MST: See that my flight has been delayed until 3:20 pm. Find out that flight is now scheduled to arrive about 1 hour late, at 7:30. I will now have only two hours to make dinner. To complicate things, Mike's flight back to Chicago is also delayed, and he will be arriving at O'Hare, the other Chicago airport.
3:00 pm MST: Board aircraft.
6:20 pm CST: Arrive in Kansas City for a short layover. I call Mike and he has (thankfully!) arrived in Chicago, and will drive to pick me up at Midway so I don't have to take the El home.
7:40 pm CST: Arrive in Chicago. I call Mike and he has already arrived at the airport. Surprisingly, traffic in Chicago is great.
8:10 pm CST: Finally, my luggage arrives on the baggage carousel.
8:45 pm CST: Arrive at home.
9:35 pm CST: After catching a cab at 9:20, the cabbie, apparently trained in New York City, drives like a maniac (we never mention that we are in a hurry, though) and gets us to Vermilion only 5 minutes late. As we enter the restaurant, we are asked whether we are there for the party or for dinner. Party? Hmmm. The cabbie's crazy driving is to no avail, since the restaurant is behind schedule and we aren't seated until after 10:00 pm. As we wait for our table, we have drinks, and notice that a turban-ed DJ is setting up his turntables. Having not eaten since noon, I am STARVING. Once we do start eating, the food is marvelous and the wine pairings are really wonderful, too. On the prix fixe menu:
1. an amuse bouche of lychee stuffed with mango2. raw oysters with saffron, white wine, and avocado jelly toppings, with a sparkling white
3. Brazilian seafood stew (this was really amazing, and was paired with a super-tasty riesling)
4. the main course: baby back ribs brushed with a tamarind sauce for me; plantain-crusted mahi-mahi with a curry sauce for Mike; with an American zinfandel
5. a warm, melty chocolately chocolate dessert, with a sparkling rosé
11:20 pm CST: We start on the main course, and they hand out noisemakers. Because the wine pours are so large, a very drunk diner is making extremely loud noises with his roll-up blow toy. The atmosphere in this fairly pricey restaurant starts to go downhill.
11:30 pm CST: The DJ starts playing Indian dance music. All over the restaurant, people start dancing. In the past two hours, people have filled the front area of the restaurant, waiting for the party. Over the next 20 minutes, the music slowly gets louder until Mike and I cannot even hear each other when screaming. The food is getting very difficult to enjoy, but I am fairly buzzed from the wine and care less than I normally would.
11:50 pm CST: The music stops for a bit, we presume until midnight. They've brought us our dessert by now, along with the sparkling rosé, and a separate champagne toast, which we never drink.
12:00 midnight CST: As we enjoy our dessert and brace ourselves for midnight, the hostess comes to our table and yells "YOU NEED TO LEAVE. THE FIRE MARSHALL IS COMING TO CLOSE THE PLACE DOWN." And again, in response to confused looks from Mike and myself: "JUST LEAVE. HERE IS A CARD." She hands us a business card for the restaurant for reasons we still don't understand. As we stand up, the crowd counts down to midnight, so we pick up our rosé in a hurry, toast, kiss, and down it. The dessert and champagne go unfinished. While I am getting our coats from the coat check, our waiter, apparently uninformed of what is going on, hands Mike our bill, even though the hostess has made it clear that we should leave without paying. Mike crams some cash in our server's hand for tip, and we wade out through the crowd. As we exit, we see 15-30 people waiting outside to get in. Once in a cab, the prevailing sentiment is "What the hell just happened?!"
Luckily, the rest of the night was laid back--we played Cranium with Yang, Nate, Shara, Mark (back from Switzerland!), Joanna, and Dan. But the evening was pretty surreal. We are going to call Vermilion tomorrow and get some closure; hopefully they can provide a bit more explanation!
Happy New Year, everyone!
I've had a few inquiries about what we learned after calling back the next day. The answer is: we never called back. We just decided we would accept our free meal as a reward for the restaurant's poor planning. Thanks Vermilion! (Hee hee.)
Posted by Nate on January 25, 2005 3:41 PMthis provided a much-needed chuckle. probably one of the most memorable New Year's I'll ever have.
Posted by mpc on March 31, 2005 1:08 AM«Post a comment»
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January 6, 2005
Winter ritual
Yesterday, I worked from home, and it snowed all day. Today, when I went to drive to school, I was confronted by this:
That is, indeed, nearly a foot of snow you see here enrobing my car. Clearing it off took a good half hour, and provided quite the workout. I guess I don't have to go to the gym today!
Ah, the Chicago winter.
Someone told me that the most disgusting thing about Chicago winters is that people let their dogs poop in the snow and don't pick it up. Then in the spring when all the snow melts, there's all this old dog poop everywhere. Is that true?
Posted by Sha Sha on January 6, 2005 5:19 PMIt may be, but I didn't really see that in my neighborhood last spring...
Posted by Nate on January 6, 2005 7:11 PMOkay, now this entry looks stupid. Clearly this mere 10 inches of snow was nothing compared to the inch of solid ice fellow Rice alum Ilana had to chip off of her car (in Columbus, OH), nothing compared to the much heavier snow fall here in Chicago last weekend, and certainly nothing compared to the TWO feet of snow that fell on the northeastern United States earlier this week. Sheepishly, I revoke my whining.
Posted by Nate on January 25, 2005 3:39 PM«Post a comment»
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