Mo "Grenouille" D.'s Profile

I've been coming here forever, and I really thought I'd  written a review about it, but I didn't.  So, here why I love Whole Foods:

Meat: I'm not a big meat eater, but their meat is now on an "ethical" rating scale.  You can see on what level of ethical treatment your meat was raised by looking at the number on the package or label  (1 is factory farming, 5 is born and raised on the same farm, living on pasture).

Eggs:  They now carry Vital Farms pasture-raised chicken eggs.  Certified Humane.  Nice.

Fish:  Good selection; as far as I know it's wild caught.  They have sashimi grade fish as well.

Produce:  Excellent selection of both organic and conventionally grown.  

Bulk section is awesome, too.  They have all the dry food supplies you'll need, plus they have a grinder that makes fresh peanut and almond butter.

They also have an excellent world cheese section, a pretty extensive  vegan/vegetarian section, alcohol selection, a food bar, an olive bar (which rocks), decent sushi, and frozen foods for all: dairy-free, dairyful, vegan, vegetarian, conventional, whatever.

The pharmacy / herbs / supplement section is extensive and contains many fair-trade items and clothing that was sustainably made.

Oh... and if you look in the frozen meat section, on the bottom shelf, there are frozen packages of dog food.  These are pasteurized but mostly still raw meat, bones and organ grind in one of those frozen "bullet" pack.  The best thing about them (apart from the convenience and the healthiness of them) is the fact that they are pasture-raised and fed New Zealand lamb, venison, and chicken.  I feel better knowing that I'm not contributing to factory farming for my pets.  That being said, I know the company (Country Pet Naturals) makes a cat food version as well, and I wish Whole Foods would carry that, too.

Great store, and I always end up spending far more than I should there!

I came here for the first time with my dad a few days ago, and I have to say I loved it.

The staff was polite, the atmosphere was nice (like...umm... a cellar bistro kind of) and the temperature was nice even though it was freezing outside and the place is pretty small.

My dad ordered the crab cakes as an appetizer, and I ordered the baked brie.  My dad seemed to like his crab cakes, and my baked brie was delicious.  It came with tiny slices of raisin bread, currant jam (I think), pecans, and pear slices. It was so delicious that I ate the whole brie and almost all the bread, and then I was stuffed and could barely work on my entree.

We both ordered the sea bass that was on special.  It came with leek and potato puree, artichokes,  and green onion and prosciutto and something else green on top.  The fish was cooked perfectly, not too dry.

I brought the rest of it home, and I ate it the next day at work for lunch.  I even skipped going out to lunch with my coworkers because I knew the delicious sea bass was awaiting me in my lunch bag.

Very highly recommend!

This man is one of the most brilliant endocrinologists I have ever had the pleasure of letting slice my neck open!  Okay, maybe that sounds very wrong.

Back when I was a young and fetching lass of 26, I had a giant something growing on my thyroid gland.  It was the size of ping-pong ball and somehow, my airheaded self never noticed it.  Maybe I just thought I had an Adam's Apple or something.

At any rate, I felt sick and icky and I went to one doctor who told me I needed the thing cut out and that Dr. P was the surgeon for me (seamless integration of poetry...).

Dr. P did my surgery and I ended up not going back to my prior doctor (who I earlier found out had messed up on my medical records, so I didn't feel much like going back).

Dr. P is an excellent surgeon.  My scar is so thin and faint that even though it goes halfway around my neck, hardly anyone notices it.

He's also an excellent maintenance endo.  He stays up to date on the latest research, listens to what patients say, and he actually acts on how you feel rather than on test numbers (this is really, really huge and important... in fact, it is the main step t not weighing eleventy-billion pounds when you have thyroid problems).  He recommends other doctors if problems are out of his scope of work.

He also has an ultrasound person, a phlebotomist, and a bone-scanny-person working there, and they are kind and helpful and the phlebotomist is always nice to me even when I come in shaking like a crack junkie because I know he has to pull a thousand vials of blood from me.   Dr. P's daughter works there, too, and she did my throat exam before my surgery.  She was a good doctor as well.  The whole outfit works well together.

There is rarely a wait too much beyond one's scheduled appointment time.  The Hinsdale office is organized, on time, and they have free coffee, which is just awesome.

Very awesome doctor.  I hope he never retires!

(Funny story... when I went under the knife, as I was drifting under anesthesia, the anesthesiologist goes, "Take any vitamins? Medicines?  Supplements?"  I said, "No, nothing but fish oil."  The last words I heard from the anesthesiologist before I zonked out? "Oh no, she's gonna be a bleeder."

Apparently, fish oil is blood thinner.  Apparently, thyroids are quite vascular.  Apparently, I didn't listen when they told me not to take supplements two weeks before surgery.  Woops.)

I came here to get my bumper replaced after someone put a hole in it with a trailer hitch.

The owner of this place keeps some very early hours, so you can drop your car off very early in the morning, which is great.

This body shop did an excellent job on my car, did it for a reasonable price, and got it done overnight.  I asked the owner if he could remove the old bumper stickers from my other bumper, and he did this for no charge, which was really nice and above and beyond the call of duty.

The owner works hard and is very determined to do the best job possible.  He puts lifetime guarantee on all of his work and works with most major insurances.

Most highly recommend...

Wow!  This is my new favoritest store ever!

If you are of the European persuasion, or can be persuaded to be European, then this market will make you feel right at home.  The decor is all wood and natural and small-looking, more like a mom and pop grocer and less like a food warehouse.

I wandered into this store, thinking it was a run-of-the-mill grocery store, after I had finished going to Twice Is Nice thrift store next door, and I ended up staying in the VM for an hour and a half.

There are your standard American groceries, of course, but the majority of the stuff there is fresh (cheap) produce (of a very extensive sort); meat (also cheap, and many things you wouldn't find elsewhere...chicken hearts, tripe, whole beef tongue, home-made sausages), and European (and some Asian and South American) grocery products.

In one trip, I got taramasolata, herring in cream sauce, Macedonian pepper and eggplant spread, hand-made cookies, olive oil and salt crackers, Polish sourdough bakery bread, chicken hearts, crab cakes, artichokes, peppers, plums, bok choy, dried fruit, 2 lbs. of sugar snap peas, and other stuff I don't remember.  The total bill was only $40.  I was shocked.

The best part was that I was able to go down the aisle and pick up stuff that (gasp) wasn't made with high fructose syrup!  In fact, most of it didn't even contain sugar!  Hooray for stuff that's not made with soy and corn products and then formed into different food shapes!  Hooray for bread that's made with bread, yeast, water, and salt!

My inner European girl was quite happy to be let out for the day, as she's probably getting shoved back inside when I go to Red Robin later on today.   Europeans will be happy to see their favorite brands: Orangina, Cracovia, Bonne Maman, Petit Beurre, Haribo.  Not everything is translated, though, so don't be afraid to ask if you don't understand (or just be brave and try something new).

Awesome, awesome place.  Go soon!

Well.... i'm going to review this in an open-minded sort of way.  As everyone else said, this place is kinda like Hooters.  The waitresses are very young and very pretty and very scantily-clad, and if I were a guy, I would probably be very happy sitting here as they chatted me up.

The food is so meh I can't even remember it.

This place was one of the first places I realized I was getting older... In my younger years, I would have cringed going into a place like this, even with a large group of friends.  Now, however, it was December, and the place was an icebox and super drafty, and those servers looked disturbingly hypothermic in their teeny outfits.  My first words in this place were to the little server, "Aren't you cold...?"  Yeah, I almost added the word, "...sweetie," at the end.  That would really have made me old, so I'm glad I refrained.

Really, I spent all dinner wishing I could give her a sweater and a hamburger,  poor dear.  That being said, she probably wouldn't have made nearly as much in tips with my LL Bean hoodie on her...

Kids these days.

Anyway, fun if you're a guy, or if you're one of those chicks who wants to be the "cool girlfriend," and impress your guy and his buddies by taking him out here to show him how confident you are in yourself or whatever.

I cannot recommend Roger Tully and his coworkers highly enough.

I have been having ongoing electrical problems for about 3 months.  Half of my condo (1 breaker) would lose power, one appliance at a time.  First my tv would start flashing on and off.  Then my wireless router would go out.  Then my hall lights... then my bedroom lights.  I had to choose between using the internet or watching t.v.... having a working alarm clock or having bedroom lights.  It was quite the conundrum.  When my breaker started making sizzling sounds when I flipped the switch, I figured this was a Bad Thing and called my first electrician, who did nothing, charge me $70, and a week later I was back to square one. Gr.  

I tried again by calling Tully Electric.  Mr. Tully was kind enough to come by the next day with his co-worker Ken.  They took a ten second look into the fuse box , diagnosed the problem and fixed it (worn out contact point in the breaker box upon which the first electrician had jammed a new breaker).

Mr. Tully also suggested he put in a separate outlet in the wall just for my space heater, since that was what had burnt out the first fuse.  Apparently, you can't run a space heater that takes 100% of the power from one wire and expect to run other appliances such as, say, a television, at the same time.  Shocking.  So, the two gentlemen put a hole in my wall under the fuse box and within 15 minutes, I had a new outlet on a 20 amp breaker that could power my space heater and keep my bedroom from getting too frosty.

As a sidenote, Tully Electric pays attention to detail.  They started off putting an ivory-colored outlet into my wall, realized my other outlets were white, and they immediately took out the ivory one and replaced it with white.  They accidentally tracked something in on their shoes and asked for my carpet cleaner and removed the stains.  I offered to do it myself, but they insisted on getting every last spot removed.

Very professional, helpful company.  I would highly recommend them, and am happy to write a positive review for them.  

Now, I'm going to watch t.v., turn on some lights, and go use my wireless router AT THE SAME TIME.  Because I can.

Love this place!  I've been coming here for years and years (make that well over 20) and it still keeps me coming back for more.  They've made it bigger and better, improving the kids' and teens' sections.  They have an excellent array of DVDs as well, though it's the book collection that keeps me coming back.

I've taken advantage of their many electronic services: finding books online, requesting books from other libraries, and putting books on hold.  There is now a self-checkout, which is quite easy to use, and it goes way faster than waiting for a human.

The reading and study rooms are large and quiet (except for those stupid-heads who haven't realized they should use headphones on their computers, because, hey, it's the quiet room, and the sign says no laptops, I believe, and especially not noisy ones. Gr.).

I was kinda disappointed when they started charging for DVD rentals.   It used to be free up until about 2 years ago.  Now it's cheap, but I did prefer the freeness, of course!

Beautiful library.

Meh.

it was ok, IMO.

I was a little confused by the amount of "ground chicken," in everything.  Chicken that goes through the food processor and gets added to everything?  I guess it's easier than chopping it by hand.  It was a little weird to me.

The spring rolls were a very good appetizer, the wonton soup was huge and pretty good, and the chocolate dome dessert was awesome.  I had enough noodles left over from my entree to eat for at least three more nights.  I liked the lettuce wraps as well, though it came with more ground chicken, same as my entree.

Our waitress was kinda out there.  She needed to elaborate on everything, interrupting conversations way too often (and saying loudly, no no, please keep talking)  to give these long-winded speeches.  With these, she included elaborate hand motions, as though she were doing some sort of interpretive dance, and proceeded to go on with these every time she reached across the table.  I'm all for attentive service, but when she needed to explain how she mixed the sauces for us while doing an interpretive Dance of the Seven Chili Peppers of the Lost World, my whole family got a bit annoyed.

OK, but I wouldn't go there that often...

After reading other reviews for this restaurant, I was not sure what to expect... anything from gross to the best in the entire world.  What I found was in between the two, but more than good enough to make me happy.

I went at lunch, and it seems that people who give it good reviews went there at lunch as well.

Features include:

*A rather extensive sushi bar, and not with just California rolls.  There are many different rolls and regular sushi, with all sorts of fish, roe, seaweed, etc.

*A very, very long Chinese buffet, except better quality food than a regular Chinese buffet.  Includes soups, entrees, salad, and desserts

*A hibachi station, which I did not try because I was too stuffed with sushi

*An ice cream station that actually has real ice cream in many different flavors and is not soft serve... It's like Baskin Robbins, with a human behind the counter, scooping out ice cream for you.

At $12 for lunch, the price is pretty sweet as well.

I thought the place was clean, nice, and the food was good.  It would have been a million times more awesome if I hadn't made the decision to go there at the last minute, and after having already eaten a huge breakfast.

Next time, I will not eat for five days prior to going. :0)