One week ago, I had dinner with my landlord (we’ll call him ‘Fred’… mostly because that’s his name, but partially because he seems like a Fred). We got to talking about great places to eat. Fred’s been in Milwaukee for a very long time, and knows all the best places (as well as the nights those places have specials). Obviously, this makes him an indispensable resource. On this particular occasion, the conversation led to Chicago eateries and we had the following exchange…
(For the sake of historical accuracy, Fred substituted the word ‘Jewish’ in the above conversation with the words ‘Jew’ and ‘Heeb.’ I just was just unsure as to the proper use of those terms, so I stayed away from his vernacular.)
So on Friday, a friend and I went to the Field Museum in Chicago (I took a personal day… I guess). On the way, I stopped at the aforementioned restaurant and ordered the lox plate while my friend had the corned beef hash.
Not only were the lox fantastic, but I also found out that I'm a fresser. The corned beef hash is another story… let’s just put it this way I have always felt that there are two types of people in this world, those who like corned beef has and those who have functional taste buds. For twenty eight years I’ve been faithfully and staunchly planted in the latter camp. After the meal on Friday I'm not sure I can honestly maintain that position. That’s how good the hash was… it was camp-changing… which is the biggest kind of changing I can imagine. Once Upon a Bagel also offers my favorite bagel… the delicious-but-difficult-to-find salt bagel. After pampering my taste buds, I got bagels, corned beef, and rye bread to go.
An hour later I was staring at the worlds largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton in the world, but honestly it was only the second most impressive thing I saw that day…
Me: Any suggestions for places to eat in Chicago?
Fred: That depends, do you like Jewish delis?
Me: Wouldn’t know… never eaten in one…
Fred: There’s this great Jewish deli called, ‘Once Upon a Bagel.’ But it’s authentic Jewish food, so only go if you like pastrami and corned beef…
Me: Pastrami and corned beef?...
Fred: Yeah… do you not like those types of meat?
Me: Nahh… I'm just trying to wrap my head around the notion that other people wouldn’t like ‘em.
(For the sake of historical accuracy, Fred substituted the word ‘Jewish’ in the above conversation with the words ‘Jew’ and ‘Heeb.’ I just was just unsure as to the proper use of those terms, so I stayed away from his vernacular.)
So on Friday, a friend and I went to the Field Museum in Chicago (I took a personal day… I guess). On the way, I stopped at the aforementioned restaurant and ordered the lox plate while my friend had the corned beef hash.
Not only were the lox fantastic, but I also found out that I'm a fresser. The corned beef hash is another story… let’s just put it this way I have always felt that there are two types of people in this world, those who like corned beef has and those who have functional taste buds. For twenty eight years I’ve been faithfully and staunchly planted in the latter camp. After the meal on Friday I'm not sure I can honestly maintain that position. That’s how good the hash was… it was camp-changing… which is the biggest kind of changing I can imagine. Once Upon a Bagel also offers my favorite bagel… the delicious-but-difficult-to-find salt bagel. After pampering my taste buds, I got bagels, corned beef, and rye bread to go.
An hour later I was staring at the worlds largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton in the world, but honestly it was only the second most impressive thing I saw that day…
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