Dinner at Heaven on Seven

Emma, the director of Global Unix Engineering at my company, was in Chicago from England and to save the company some money (and no doubt to shop on Michigan Avenue) she flew back on Sunday night instead of Friday. To keep her company, and to take advantage of an opportunity to share the thoroughly satisfying experience of a night of revelry in Chicago, Isabelle and I offered to accompany her for dinner and drinks on Saturday evening. Originally we had just planned to get a late lunch, but Isabelle has been adjusting to a night shift schedule (temporarily) and needed to sleep during the day.

Isabelle and I chose Heaven on Seven on Michigan Avenue for our dinner where we met at 6pm. This is Chef Jimmy Bannos' joint that certainly kicked off MY personal Cajun Craze. I own his cookbook and have made just about everything in it. They sell t-shirts that say, "People who come back from Heaven all say the same thing: Try the Gumbo!" and I think I'll need to get one of those before I move away from Chicago.



We talked about Michigan Avenue and the shopping "opportunities" that Isabelle knows inside and out. We started off with some chicken and andouille sausage quesadillas and fried green tomatoes. After that, we had the three main courses which were "Angry" shrimp, a Louisiana Bayou sampler, and a chicken caesar salad with onion rings for Emma. To be perfectly honest, after the appetizers were were all stuffed! We ended up taking the mains home with us! We all had a few drinks with dinner and left in high spirits.



Not ready to surrender the evening just yet, we walked down Michigan Avenue a bit and looked at the Tribune building, which is embedded with pieces of other famous buildings and monuments. Then Isabelle suggested we go to the wine bar at Hotel Intercontinental. While she was in college, she worked at the hotel and still knew a few people there. After a glass of wine, I was ready to taxi back home and fall asleep on the couch!