Unlike previous holidays, Nita had to fly in solo. She arrived into Chicago around 4:30pm and made her way to the hotel, staying at the Westin North River. My flight from Detroit landed just after 8pm, made it to the hotel just before 9pm.

There she was in the lobby with her favourite red wine, time to charge my glass of Stella and let the holidays begin . I was surprised by the lack of tiredness on Nita, she had been travelling for over 18 hours, and was eager to hit the streets of Chicago. No point wasting time.

Heading out, noticed the night was not as cold as I had expected, San Jose and Ann Arbor had been cold!, Nita was doubting what I had told her about the cold, still it was windy and enough to require a light pull over.

Colleagues from Dominos had recommended Shaw’s seafood, that was to be our first stop. Luckily the Westin was in the heart of the Chicago eating out area, restaurants and pubs all around and Shaw’s was only a 10 minute walk away.
Walking to it, I was surprised to see the number of pubs and restaurants, they were everywhere, literally everywhere in this area! Lots of options and variety!

Got to Shaw’s, going through the menu, unfortunately nothing was appealing to us, I guess it was more that we wanted something SPICY and nothing wrong with the menu itself!
There were lots of other options, back on the road just walking around, looking for an option that may interest us. Interesting to see most of the shops, restaurants had revolving doors, finally worked out this was to do with the wind factor, Chicago seems to always have high winds and the revolving doors do so well to shield the inside from winds!

Walking about the place, we stumbled upon Imperial Lamian

– asian fusion place, menu looked very nice and YELP gave it the all ok! Only had to wait 5 minutes for a table to be available, we got a high table near the bar, that area seemed more lively and fun! Seated and quickly got about ordering, the time was already close to 10pm. Simply loved the fact that even this late, people were actually enjoying the night and coming in to eat! We back at home soo need to change to this mentality, eating out LATE is fun.
Food arrived soon and did it look delicious! Had ordered Ginger Chilli Chicken, Kung Pao Chicken, & Seafood Fried Rice. Food was simply brilliant, especially the Kung Pao – with the most amazing flavours and the Seafood fried rice – they actually had massive pieces of lobster in it!

What a meal, highly recommend this place to all visiting Chicago.

Nita was not tired and felling quite up to walking around, so next stop was dessert – the Grand Lux Cafe, created by the founders of Cheesecake factory. It was a 10-15 minute walk from Imperial Lamian, and was located on the Magnificent mile, the high street of Chicago shopping.

The Grand Lux had some great dessert varieties, however after our big meal we could only manage to share one plate. Settled for the creme brulee. Now I have had this back home and know the size of a typical serving, well here it was twice the size, yet the taste was the BEST we have every had! Simply brilliant.

It was past midnight and Nita’s travel tiredness had kicked in, time to head back to the hotel. Along the way we made a quick stop over to get a glimpse of the view from  the bridge behind our hotel linking to Downtown Chicago, amazing view at night!