William "williamt" K.'s Profile

Shinto is a pretty standard sushi deal. Nice place. Good food. Hot sake!

The scene was pretty surreal on a Friday night. Shinto is pretty large, but I groaned when a 4-piece band started playing in the middle of the place. Live music during dinner... usually not good. But they start playing and the sax player in charge was absolutely amazing. Later, I went over a complimented the guy. His name is Reggie Foster, Jr. What an incredible talent.

After we finished dinner, we moved to the bar so that we could listen to the music some more. We seemed to be surrounded by the cast from Glengarry Glen Ross... salesmen in their suits and large watches and pinkie rings. The guy sitting next to me bet me a hundo that Facebook's market cap after their IPO would be a trillion dollars. Snort. It was weird and fun.
yow, bill

5 dang stars. I'll give you my two disclaimers at the end.

Absolutely gorgeous hotel and grounds. The room was great. The service was great. Great, great, great.

The pool. Sigh. It was the adult pool. Life is so relaxing without other people's kids around. He he. They planted these flowers on ledges around the pool, and the multi-colored petals gently rained down on you throughout the day. Sigh again.

OK. Two disclaimers. Yes, the room's expensive. Duh. But they don't unnecessarily rip you off at the pool or the lobby bar or whatever. And second, we had the most beautiful weather in our trip to Phoenix. That's it.

5 star me!
I would go back in a second.
woot... yow, bill

Easy 5 star fun at the Phoenix Zoo. I've never seen critters so closeup before. At the Monkey Village, they don't even have cages. The giraffes came right up to us. I spent half my beer money on fishheads and shrimp feeding the stingrays. It was a blast!

We had great time!
yow, bill

PS - I've never commented on other people's reviews before. But jeez. When someone goes to the zoo and complains about the cost of a hot dog or a snow cone... well, for spider monkey's sake, get a clue!

Urban Union is some simple yelp-math. That's 4-stars for the food and ambiance and all, plus one star for the wonderful positivity we encountered with our waiter and each and every person that worked there. It was great!

UU serves their food tapas style, but it's not Spanish food. They have a great assortment from seafood (baby octopus) to pasta (pork cheek ravioli) to beef (marinated flank steak)... all excellent. We had a nice bottle of Barolo. Speaking of math, Holly parlayed the evening's winner with her choice of the mussels with chorizo and garlic. Lawdy!

Dessert was great too. Both the creme brulee and chocolate cake were worthy. And French-pressed coffee too.

That's 5 yelp-stars boys and girls... ring it up!
yow, bill Show owner comment »

Oh cmon. This is about as easy a 5-star rating as you'll find. The architecture is absolutely beautiful, and the concert hall sounds great. North Central College consistently schedules truly wonderful events there encompassing a wide range of types of music.

Last night I saw the DuPage Symphony perform Dvorak's New World Symphony, and it was dreamy. The cherry on top... since it's in the burbs, the cost is low low low. 30 bucks to see the symphony. Huzzah to that!
yow, bill

Well, Nana is cute as a button. The space is actually pretty large, but it feels very homey. The greeting at the door was very warm and inviting. Then, well... dop. We were there for New Year's Eve. Kim39 and I had an early dinner reservation at 7:00 so that we could get home in plenty of time before midnight.

Go:

1. The service was glacial. We were there for almost 3 hours. Right off the bat, we sat for more than 30 minutes before our drinks came. That's a no-no, Nana (sorry, he he). The restaurant was almost full, but not overly-crowded, so I don't know what the problem was.

2. The food was just OK, maybe barely 3 stars on its own.

3. They didn't offer any champagne for NYE diners. They had Prosecco, but nuts to that.

4. And comic relief... we were seated right next to a small area clearly designated for a band. I figured, "it's 7:00, so we'll be out of here before any band shows up". Wrong. The band started up at 7:30, before our drinks arrived. We reveled in every drum solo throughout the night. Snort.

5. Comic relief 2... at nearly every course, they took our silverware and didn't replace it. So, our next course would come, the server would bolt, and then we'd be stuck with our fingers as utensils.

So, some of my review is NYE-specific, but mostly not. We laughed about the whole escapade because you try these new places for the fun and the adventure. Nana just didn't work out, but our NYE was great nonetheless.
yow, bill

Friends, seemingly, has 2 defining characteristics.

First, the staff and ambiance is very friendly (imagine that, ha!). Did you ever notice... scowling servers is so often a part of the sushi place experience. I preferred and enjoyed the friendliness.

Second, the decor is ultra-modern. It's pretty cool. It felt like a set from Woody Allen's "Sleeper" or a high school play based on Woody Allen's "Sleeper". Holly thought it looked like the inside of a whale, albeit an ultra-modern white whale.

Food was great. Sake! The whole deal.

Friends is a very fun, friendly place worth an effortless 4 stars.
hi-YA... yow, bill

The Green Lady had great ambiance and beer selection. The bartender was very amiable as well. Excellent.

Extra special... they had those special PumKing beers. Mmmm.
yow, bill

This is a wonderful experience. It was fun and worthwhile, and you work as a little team. It's really enjoyable and all for a good cause. The volunteers in charge could not have been nicer.

Bring your kid along... and a couple a bucks to donate as well.
Bill

Danny's is a real local bar. Not a chain or TGIF or some downtown Naperville place. There aren't a million flat-screen TV's all over the place. No fancy aperitifs. No hot, young servers trollop-ping about. No manicured entryway.

It's just a local bar in a strip mall (right next to the pawn shop). It was nice. And the prices were pretty reasonable. I think the highlight was the Killian's on tap.

I asked our (very nice) server if they had chicken fingers on the menu. She replied that they did, but they were very large... more like chicken hands.

I'll go back again.
yow, bill

PS - I have this mental image stowed away in long-term memory. Parked outside Danny's was a small compact car with a large plastic, misshapen foot attached to the roof advertising foot massages for $25. Excellent.