Nels W.'s Profile

I agree completely with both of the reviews posted so far. Brandy is awesome and cares so much for the dogs she grooms. My little Maltese mix came from a shelter and was pretty fierce the first time we got him groomed, but he's settled down and gotten used to Brandy. She even remembers to shut the blinds so that he won't get too upset when people walk by outside.

Chuck helped us by our first home, and made it so easy. He hooked us up with a mortgage broker and a real estate attorney who both did great in making the process of buying our home exciting rather than a hassle. Chuck was very patient even though were anxious first timers.

We've recommended Chuck to several friends now, and they all appreciate the care he takes to understand and work with each client.

We (my wife and I) had only had our rescued dog for about a month before we had to take him to finish his booster series. VCA North is right by our house, so we decided to give it a try and were pleasantly surprised. I wasn't expecting much, but they were nice enough to get us into a room quickly when our little guy started freaking out and barking at the other dogs in the waiting room.

We were taken care of equally as quickly and efficiently, and the price seemed pretty reasonable considering we had the shots, a heartworm test, and got Frontline and heartworm meds.

My only complaint is that they didn't tell us you get a free dose of Frontline when you buy 6, so I only got one, and found out about the free one when I went back a few days ago for additional doses.

Very competitive prices, and good work. I was lucky, though, that I was working from home during the paint job, because there was quite a bit of miscommunication about what was in the quote, and what parts of the house were supposed to be done in what colors.

I had to do a bit of project management myself, but the painters were skilled at what they did, and they made sure that I was satisfied. That's the sign of a company who is trying to do good business - they know you'll tell your friends whether they did a good job or a bad job, and CPI definitely wanted good word of mouth.

I'm a little scared to give this a 4-star review because it's not like a 4-star quality restaurant. But my wife and I got the Sushi Mix special for dinner and had 4 rolls of sushi (with miso soup) for $17. We brought a bottle of wine and there was no corkage fee!

The service wasn't great, but not in a traditional rude and/or slow way. The waiter was probably the owner and he was really shy and cute. The place has only been open a little while, so I'm sure he'll get better with more experience.

The sushi was very good. The avocado roll was fresh, but plain. The vegetable roll was very unique for a vegetable roll - also very fresh, and delicious. The Philadelphia roll was fine, but a little heavy on the cream cheese. The Galapagos roll (which we weren't supposed to get for the price of the special, but he let us get anyway) was excellent.

We recently went to Kamehachi (downtown) and felt that the sushi at Galapagos was more fresh and certainly a better value.

I saw some reviews with complaints about the service, so I'll have to start by saying that the service for my wife and I was fine. I'm giving it 2 stars for the food.

The decor was really nice, and actually raised my expectations, but the food was not great; really only presented well. I had the Hong Kong steak as part of a special Prix Fixe menu week for downtown Chicago restaurants. If I'd paid menu price, I'd have been very disappointed. My wife had the prawns (she shared a few with me), and we both agreed it tasted like something you could get at Panda Express for a quarter of the price.

The drinks were good, but still overprice for what they were. If I'm going to eat downtown, I'd rather pay less money for the same quality of food, or else pay more money and get really good food.

Went on a Thursday for the Fixed Price menu and it was very good. Best part was the $5 for 3 glasses of wine. They're not messing around with that!

Nachos!

Quesadillas are good too. I've had other stuff... don't remember exactly what, since I usually just get an order of nachos and quesadillas, but it's always all good.

Make sure to order ahead of time (Burt requires that for reservations) so you won't have to wait too long for delicious pizza.

Burt talked my friend into getting stuff on the pizza, which was fine, but the true star here is the sauce. As such, I'd like to try Burt's pizza without anything but cheese and sauce.

I had sausage on one half and bell peppers on the other. Both were great. Certainly better than trying to get in Uno's downtown, or some other crowded place like that.

A warning, though... I think there's only 2 (maybe 3) people working in the whole place. So the service is pretty sketchy, but if you prepare yourself for it, it's kind of fun.

How come "vegetarian friendly" places can't make actual vegetarian friendly food that's as good as normal restaurants? Seriously, if I'm going to take any of my vegetarian friends out for dinner (or my wife, who doesn't like meat), I'm going to a real restaurant, and they can just order the items that don't have meat in them. My wife (once again, she doesn't eat meat) agreed with me on this after we went to Alice N Friends.

Alice N Friends not only has bad fake meat, they throw in the fake meat in the tofu dishes. So if you're a vegetarian because you don't like meat (like my wife), I'm not sure there's much you can here. I got the BBQ Steak and the sauce was good, but the "steak" didn't taste at all like steak. It would have been fine if they'd just said it was tofu. But trying to pass it off as meat was ridiculous.

Also, the restaurant appears to be a front for a cult, which is fine, I guess, if you know what you're getting into, but it's kind of creepy if you don't know that going in. I am pretty sure the cult ideals are what led to the no alcohol, no BYOB policy. Once again, if you're okay with that, then fine. But the food wasn't good enough for me to want to limit my options like that. I just felt like this place was being too restrictive and not providing enough reward for being subject to those restrictions.