Melanie "yolo" V.'s Profile

Hmm...if you're looking for a fast, cheap and no-frills mani, then THIS is your place.

Don't expect water, shoulder massages, a nice chat.  Totally fine with me.  In and out in less than 40 min?  Win.  The manicurist did a solid job for $12.  I don't necessarily like the color I picked, but I suppose that's my own fault for not being able to pick the right color even after staring at the wall of colors for 5 minutes.  While it's not the best mani I've ever gotten, it'll do for for the next week and a half.  (Well, I HOPE so anyway.)

Waxing, however, is kinda steep, but I sucked it up because I didn't want to have to go to another place.  (March Madness is on and I needed to be in front of a tv ASAP!)  Eyebrow wax is $10 and lip wax is $8, which are extremely ridiculous prices for an Asian salon. Although she shaped my eyebrows nicely, I do think she semi burned my upper lip.  Whatevs.  Cocoa butter heals all.  

Pro's:
+Can tip on your credit card
+Huge tv in the back of the salon, so you can catch up on news or Wheel of Fortune
+Parking lot!  (The salon is located right next to Panda Express...across from Dominick's.)

Wait, did I just see Red Velvet?!

Oh...and Angel Food Cake?

Dreams coming true!  

Yogurt Square is cute, bright and has so many flavors to choose from!  In addition to my two favs mentioned above, they had ginger lemonade (win!), pomegranate raspberry, chocolate, vanilla, pistachio. I heard that the flavors change often, so that is good enough reason to stop in all the time!

For those of you counting your calories (or are just curious what the "healthy" options are), the details for each flavor are posted at each station.  

Toppings are also plentiful - cookie dough, granola, sprinkles, mango, strawberries, snowcaps, peanuts, cherries, marshmallows, chocolate syrup, honey.  You really can have a field day here!

45 cents/oz, so I ended up paying $2.50 for mine, but my friends ended up paying around $4 - $5 since they filled their cups up a lil bit more than me.  Free wi-fi and great location for people watching!

Well, well, well....

Garcia's seems to have developed some sort of attitude post make-over.  Gone are the days of cheap, delicious food and friendly service.  The food they serve now is a little overpriced and not made with the same TLC circa 15 years ago.   Ah, the sadness.  

The food is mediocre at best.  My friend always raves about his chicken fajitas and, while they were tasty, I don't think they were worth $14,  Seriously?  Garcia's?  $14?  I ordered the most non-Mexican item on the menu aka a spinach, broccoli and cheese burrito.  It was good (and reasonably priced at $6.50), but I suspect that the broccoli was frozen.  The taquitos weren't that impressive as I feel it was overcooked.  The hot salsa (it's green, for future reference) is definitely amazing and probably the highlight of this meal.  

The most disastrous part of the meal was our service.  Absolutely horrendous.  Since we were a party of 8, our gratuity was automatically included in our tab...and our waitress definitely took advantage of that.  She came by probably 4 times within the course of 2 hours, but ONLY because one of us were waving our hands in the air, trying to catch her attention.  Our water glasses were empty for like 15 minutes before we could even find her and ask for more.  Every time one of us wanted to order something, the waitress looked pained to write down what we wanted.  Seriously?!  

Maybe she was having a bad day and this was a one off exception.  Or maybe (this is the more feasible scenario) she just didn't give a sh*t about our table and refused to put any effort into serving us.  

Whatever the case, I never need to come back here.  So what if they have nicer tables, chairs and a couple murals on the walls?  I'll sooooo take Garcia's circa 1999 over this place.  Spare me the "poshness".

March Madness 2012!  One of my old roommates and I have this tradition of watching the opening rounds of the tourney and compare brackets.  Usually, we head to Joe's, but this year we wanted to try something new. (The food at Joe's is really less than desirable, don't you think?)

I suggested heading to Derby as I was there a couple weeks prior and noticed that tv's were plentiful...and, therefore, perfect for game watching.  We claimed a table right before a rush of people came in.  (I was pretty happy because we weren't sitting at one of the tables oddly placed in the middle of the bar.)  Our waitress was bubbly and cute...Jessica Simpson-esque as my friend told her.  

Drink specials were great deals for gameday ($5 Smirnoff and $4 beers).  Food selection here is intriguing as it has the normal bar fare, but also some more 'adult' style food.  I ordered the jalapeno hush puppies simply because they were burbon and bacon infused.  While they were good, I suggest ordering something else to complement them (like a salad) because I couldn't really eat the whole plate of them.  

This is a great place to watch games as there are tv's all over the place.  They also have some pretty large booths, so Derby would be pretty nice for a large group of people.  The patio area is also big, so I can just imagine how crowded it will be come spring/summertime!

Ever have one of those Friday nights where you basically can't recall anything that happened? Ya know, like you need to piece together the night via butchered memories of everyone who went out?  

Sadly, this recently happened to a couple of us and we desperately needed to recap the night.  I've always been a fan of Temple bar (centrally located, plenty of parking, laid-back atmosphere), so I suggested we all meet there.  It was pretty empty on a Sunday night (thankfully!) and I planted myself at the bar, in front of one of the huge tv's playing the Bulls game while I waited for my friends.

The bartender was so adorbs and hilarious.  Great service!  Not only did she rave about the ribs, wings, practically all the food, but she was fast refilling the drinks ($3 stadium cups!).  The corned beef sliders and the potato skins were really good...and my friend really enjoyed the ribs!  All great comfort-ish food to indulge in when re-living our night of fails.

Even though there were still some missing pieces to our Friday night, I think we know what happened.  For the most part.  Kinda.  Moral of the story?  Say no to $5 Patron shots.

Tip: Yelp check-in special = Free nachos! Yum!

Hellllllo, life changing.

Thankfully, I'm not referring to one of my BFF's turning 30.  (For those of you that are curious, there were no tears shed at the dinner table.  Surprisingly.)  My meal at Girl and the Goat was phenomenal....and probably one of the best meals I've ever had.  I'm still raving about it to people weeks later.

The birthday girl decided to order enough food for like 8 people (as opposed to 5), but that was cool with us as we got to try everything.  The dilly here is that you're supposed to share plates, so make sure you come with people that you actually like...or else this meal could get awkward.  

All the dishes were beyond delicious, but my three favorites were the pig face, goat empanadas and the scallops. But, honestly?  Pig face.  Amazing.  

For as popular as this place is, the atmosphere is so NOT pretentious.  Employees are extremely friendly, knowledgeable and accommodating.  One of my friends is on a tragic gluten free diet and was afraid she could eat nothing on the menu.  However, our waitress was super helpful in explaining what she could/could not eat.  My friend was ecstatic, to say the least.  

It now makes complete sense why these reservations are hard to come by. Plan ahead, people -- it's SO worth it.  And, if you can only score a 10:15 reservation...on a Wednesday night...the day before a major meeting, TAKE IT.  It'll be the best decision you've ever made.

Bubbly Creek, you are amazing.

What's not to love in a cocktail that consists of whiskey, ginger beer, bitters AND a green maraschino cherry? It's the perfect blend of goodness.  

If that's not what you're into, Maria's has a HUGE list of specialty cocktails (Manhattan, Sazerac, Dark and Stormy) and beer.  Endless selection here, really. When my friends couldn't decide on what beer to order (literally, it took them 15 minutes to decide), the bartenders made countless suggestions and even gave them samples so that they knew what they were getting themselves into.  So nice.

The crowd is also friendly...which is why I still don't understand how the South Side has a bad rep still.  Case in point, I was hoovering next to this bar stool, but didn't want to sit on it because there was some unidentified liquid on it.  The guy on the stool next to me just wiped it up so I could sit down.  That's unheard of up North, no?  

Owners and staff are great, too.  I really do love that there's a liquor store up front, so you can really stock up on anything you need!   There is also 10 billion scary looking dolls on top of one of the fridges.  Although frightening, it gives the place definite character and charm.  The seating is a little limited, but they've apparently opened a patio recently, so that will definitely help with the crowd.  

Great laid-back, chill bar with amazing drinks!  One of the employees mentioned that they had free bbq Mondays...something about serving kimchee??  I'm in! Bridgeport win!

Three Ways I'll Become Your Number One Fan:

1. Use the phrase "cray-cray" in a sentence nonchalantly
2. Tell me that you can spot a Michael Kors purse from miles away
3. Cut and style my hair beautifully

Luckily for me, Corey at Carbon Hair salon did just that!  I have this fear that when a stylist "trims" my hair...what it really means is that they're going to take 6 inches off, making me resemble Dora the Explorer.  (It's happened.  It's NOT a good look for me.)

However, Corey reassured me that 2 inches isn't that much in the grand scheme of things.  So true, so true.  I love the layers that he put in my hair and, in the end, the cut made my head feel so much lighter.  (Thick hair is heavy - don't hate!).  They also used some amazing cream/pomade/alternative product to relaxer which was AMAZING.  I hope they start carrying that in the salon.  (*hint*)  The guys in the salon were super amusing, so it made my experience there super enjoyable.

For YouSwoop'ers, make sure you call ahead and see when they have availability.  I believe you can't use it during the weekends.  The salon is open until 7, though, and they seem to be okay with working well past the close time (as I didn't get out of there until almost 8!).  Loves! Show owner comment »

Thanks to the suggestion of my co-worker, my friends and I spent a lovely Friday night stuffing our faces with sushi.  (Well, half of the party anyway.)  I'm so glad that Jaiyen denied my reservation for 8 people because "they could only seat parties of less than 4" apparently.  If it wasn't for them, we would have never been introduced to this little gem!

So, it's a Friday during Lent, right?  No better time to eat sushi!  Kitchenette had a pretty extensive offering of rolls (from the traditional to the more fancy), so my friends and I literally had a field day deciding what to get.  For the traditional rolls, my favs were the spicy shrimp, spicy scallop and the unagi with avocado.  I probably could have eaten all three by myself, no lie.  The Mexican maki (delish hamachi!) and the Dragon were my favs of the fancy rolls.  Except for one roll that we can't remember, we LOVED everything we ordered!  And..believe me...we left there so stuffed and satisfied.

Best part?  The price!  For all these rolls, we ended up paying like $25/person!  Hello, amazing.  The traditional rolls average like $6, so it's definitely a great price for good food!  

Service was great!  Our party of 8 was the only group in there on a Friday night, so I suppose they didn't mind that half of the group busted up in there half-buzzed and loud.  Thankfully.

Notes:
+ BYOB (no corkage!)
+ Street parking available on Ashland
+ For the non-sushi lovers, Kitchenette also offers soup, noodles, curry and lots of appetizer options.

What's that saying?

"Don't judge by a book by its cover."

Pretty applicable to Dreamscape Nails.  Not even gonna lie.  This place looks borderline sketchy when you drive past it on 31st.  But, once you step inside, it's pretty welcoming...brightly colored walls.  The color combinations might not make any sense...nor does the decor (*ahem* random faux-chandiler and wooden benches...what?), but whatever.  The place was packed when I got there (4 pedi chairs, 3 nail stations).

The woman finished my mani in like record time, I swear.  She did a great job shaping my nails and cleaning up those cuticles, but the polish job could probably been a little better. The color is fab, though (Lincoln Park After Dark, ya'll!).  Super friendly and, of course, played the 'What Ethnicity Are You?" game with me.  Classic.

+Mani's are $12
+Minimum on credit card is $10
+Free street parking available on Parnell after 4pm