Tag Archives: Saks

Chicago 2023 (all days)

Posted on by
Reply

First time in Chicago! Landed at ORD at 5pm. We ended up Ubering to the hotel (was $45), which took 50 minutes. The alternative was the train, but we wanted to look up thing on our laptop and sleep.

The hotel we’re staying at is at The Loop (The Chicago Athletic Association). It’s a Hyatt hotel. I like the older vibe they are trying to maintain. However, for next time, definitely gonna try and get the junior suite with two double beds. But I will say the hotel is conveniently located around all the major tourist spots, like beside Millennium Park and the Chicago River

For our first night out, we went towards the west loop to eat at Chicago Q. Details are here:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2023/09/01/chicago-q/

The area reminded me of church and Weasley apartments in Toronto.

After dinner, we stopped by watched a comedy show in The Second City. It was a mix of a scripted sketch and improv. Definitely recommend going again.

We then went to a rooftop bar nearby called Utopia. It’s a chill place to hang out. We played beer pong, connect 4, and bean bag toss.

After, we visited a place near the River North area called Celeste. It’s a four story club (but since it was a Wednesday only 2 floors were open). I would recommend going back (they also surprisingly had food).

On the second day, we first did some shopping on the Magnificent mile. We hit up the Nike store, as well as Saks.

We then went to get some Chicago deep dish pizza at Gino’s. Details can be found here:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2023/09/01/ginos-east/

After grabbing some food, we walked off the food by going to the Water Tower Place mall. It’s fairly large, clean, looks new with multiple levels and lots of store. Seems like a good place to shop.

We the did an architecture tour that is on a boat in the Chicago river (only 45 minutes for $27!). Some things I remember from the tour:

-river flows opposite direction forcefully because of pollution reasons (Lake Michigan is full of pollution)

-many buildings have water tanks in the top floors to help with wind

-there are several “adaptive reuse” building in Chicago (re-purposing old factories)

-there’s a building that you can pay $1000 to propose to your significant other and get champagne

-the former Sears Tower is the the tallest building in Chicago

-they mentioned the Apple Store (which is by the river, and similar to the NYC 5th st store since it is two stories) use to have its roof like a MacBook cover with an Apple logo on top. They were told to remove the Apple logo

After the tour, took a bit of a nap before heading out to a fancy dinner at Aviary. Details can be found here:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2023/09/01/aviary/

We then went to a speak easy underneath the restaurant, where our waiter at the Aviary helped us bypass the waitlist. It is called The Office (likely since they pretended it was an office to conceal it from being a speak easy). Details here:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2023/09/01/the-office-2/

The rest of the days in Chicago were spent at the Arc Music festival. Here are some key highlights and details:

-Taking the subway is probably the best way too and from the festival (5 min walk from the hotel, and 5 stops away). It can get crowded at night, but still fairly fast

-Security is better with VIP global (instead of GA) since you don’t get groped in case you want to sneak anything in (since you get to choose the person that you would want to search you, so obviously the member of the opposite sex). Also if you are VIP you are forced to use VIP line (can’t use GA).

-It is dusty at the expansion stage. Bring a mask, and shoes will definitely get wrecked

-Elrow stage is super fun with lots of inflatables, and oversized puppet things, plus tons of confetti!

-Day 1 we saw Sam Divine, Boris Brejcha, Adam Beyer, James Hype, Eric Prydz (Holo)

-Day 2 we saw Dombresky, Hot Since 82, Fisher b2b with Loco Dice, and John Summit

-Day 3 we saw Peggy Gu, Vintage Culture, and Tale of Us

-Radius is a great club. It’s fairly large. Easy to get drinks, and like the production set up overall. Only thing is they don’t have Redbull, only Ghost (which is disgusting)

-Eric Prydz and Adam Beyer’s after hours set at Radius was the best ones each of them have done (maybe because it was more dancey/clubby than their usual sets).

-John Summi my set (at least the part I catches) at the festival was better than the after party at Radius

-Radius has a second room. Need to check it out next time

-We saw Vintage culture at Concord Music Hall. Great venue, but his set was better at ARC

Lastly, here are the other restaurants we went to during the trip…

-The Dearborn: http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2023/09/01/the-dearborn/

-Cindy’s Rooftop: http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2023/09/06/cindy-rooftop/

New York City – Part 4

Posted on by
Reply

Fourth day in New York!

Started the day with lunch that was a 12 minute walk from our hotel at Midtown East (same area where I got the bagel from Pick a Bagel):

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2021/11/26/turkuaz/

Midtown East is a neighborhood I would consider living. It looks pretty clean, and close to Hell’s Kitchen. Only thing is that it doesn’t seem to have newer type buildings. Would want a place with high rises.

After brunch, made our way to the Rockefeller building to check out a bar that overlooks a skating rink. Unfortunately that was closed (likely due to COVID). Would try and check that out again, plus the Fao Shwarz toy store that is nearby (a giant toy store that seems very New York City-ish).

Since we were already close by, headed to 5th avenue to do some shopping at Saks. Got a $300 Uggs scarf. Gotta say shopping there was a great experience. Didn’t feel pressured or judged by the sales people, and the store was well lit. Would go back there to shop again. Saks also has a light festival musical showcase outside the building walls during the holidays. For shopping at 5th in general, next time would probably check out Bloomingdale’s and the Nike store.

After, had drinks near Grand Central called Park Avenue Tavern (see the review about the type of bar):

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2021/11/26/park-avenue-tavern/

After, headed over to get dinner at a really good italian restaurant called Carbone (recommended from a friend). Food was really good. The place was in Greenwich Village (didn’t really have time to assess the neighbourbood in terms of living, but it’s near West Village, so probably an ok area to live):

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2021/11/25/carbone/

New York City 2021 – Part 2

Posted on by
Reply

For the first 4 nights we stayed at the Warwick Hotel just south of Central Park. The location is great. You can walk to a Broadway play in 12 minutes, or shop at Saks on 5th avenue. Also very close to Central Park itself of course. Great location for visiting (but it is slightly touristy, so not sure if it would be a good place to live).

The second day of the trip we took it pretty easy because of the night before. Started off brunch by going to this Italian Restaurant near our hotel:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2021/11/26/pazzo-notte/

After, we decided to see if we can get last minute tickets for the Book of Mormon. We tried first at the ticketing section at the bottom of Times Square. They did not have anything (and they said they usually don’t for that show). So we then showed up at the ticketing office at the Eugene O’Neill theater (where the show was at). Basically we showed up at 6pm, and they said they had 2 mezzanine tickets for $199 each (and that they could release them at 6:30pm once they were confirmed they would be cancelled). Fortunately for us, we got them at 6:30pm (below you can see how great our spot was). Will say the play was good, but might have been super hyped up. (Haha Salta Laka City, Ootah, Neutrogena).

After the show we headed to West Village to try our luck to try and see a show at the comedy cellar. We basically stood in the stand by line at 11pm, and they confirmed at 11:30pm if we got in or not (and yea, we got in). Before entering, they did require that we seal our phones and watched in a bag (so we don’t record anything). Also a 2 drink minimum was required (they stamp your receipt on exit). Overall, would go back there, but I did like the ambience of The Stand better. (By the way, we went to a local bar, Minetta Tavern, near by while waiting for 11pm, and gotta say, it’s definitely a student area, with great looking people). In general, the west village is better than the east village (see Part 3 post), but there was a lot of trash at the West Village the night we went.