alinea, in chicago

you wouldn't know it if she were standing right here in front of you (the general gorgeousness tends to addle and distract), but dglass actually turned 45 this summer! to help celebrate this amazing event (our third dglass birthday together!) the two of us played jetsetters and went to chicago for a beautiful weekend filled with laughter and love, adventure and affection, walking walking walking walking, and quite possibly the most tastiest, most romantic, most creative, absolutely coolest meal of our lives, dinner at alinea.


now, i'm not going to go into a lot of detail here about our dinner--this was a three-and-a-half hour meal... and we got the 12-course "tasting" (plus two bonus courses!) rather than the 23-course "tour"---but just to give you an example of how things work, take the "hot potato/cold potato" dish, pictured, above. when coming up with his menu, chef grant achatz often works with designer/sculptor martin kastner, who creates the actual physical dishes required to make the food work. in this case, you pull out that toothpick-thingy and the cold potato, the black truffle and parmesan plop into the hot potato soup, and you immediately pour the whole thing into your mouth and you just feel like you've entered some kind of food heaven. truly spectacular stuff.

needless to say, alinea is a pretty hot ticket. i got our reservation--a saturday night at i think 8:45--six weeks in advance. but if you can do a little planning, and you've got a special occasion, and you're into creative, delicious food, then this is the place you want to be.

oh, and dglass? you are the best, babe. the absolute best.