Day 11: Downtown

It looks like I have more plans that fall through than I have that are successful. Due to two of my favorite people deciding that they should actually do their May Projects, I had to rearrange my schedule. Which should never happen, because my May Project should take priority over everyone else's May Projects. This is obviously not the general consensus, so, instead of eating Indian food today, I ate breakfast downtown at a restaurant called Oak Tree, located at 900 North Michigan Avenue. It is on the sixth floor of the North Michigan Avenue shops:


To get to 900 N. Michigan Avenue, I took my favorite bus, the number 8, north until the Chicago stop. From there, I transferred to the number 66 heading east until the Michigan stop. From there, I walked to 900 N. Michigan and then rode the elevator up to the 6th floor to meet Erica.

I think I am learning to love the bus, mainly because I meet such great people. I was riding north on the number 8 bus when a man walked on. The man was 30-something, attractive, and was holding a pink Nintendo DS. He sat down, turned the game on, and started to play Pokemon. I kid you not. Then a woman walks onto the bus right behind the man. She was 50-something, large, bug-eyed, and kept sticking her tongue out, as if she were a snake smelling the bus, although I do not know why she would want to smell a city bus... Anyway, a few stops later, The man with the pink DS and the snake woman exited the bus, one right after the other, and they started walking down the road side-by-side. They then turned and sat down together next to a building, and started making out! Why would anybody take a bus to a random place in the city to make out?

Then, I was riding east on the number 66 bus when I heard a siren. The bus pulled over and a blue, unmarked car pulled over directly in front of us and a man jumped out and walked on the bus. The man sat down directly behind me, pulls out his phone, and calls a friend. The entire bus listened as the man had a very loud conversation: "You'll never guess what just happened to me! I was on my way to work and I was running late. I was about a block away from the bus stop, and I was running to try and catch the bus. Suddenly this blue, unmarked car pulls up and two cops run out and say to me, 'Sir, hand us your backpack and put your hands on the vehicle. We're looking for a man with a gun, and you match the description.' So I got searched, and they obviously did not find a gun, and I was like, 'Great, now I have missed my bus. Can you at least drive me to work?' They're like, 'No, we can't take you all the way there, but we did make you late, so hop in the car.' They then turned the siren on, raced through traffic, cut people off, and then pulled in front of the bus that I had just missed. They let me off, and I turned around and ran directly into my bus." This must be why people take the bus; there are so many adventures to be had!

Finally, I made it to the restaurant. The place was very swanky and modern-looking inside:


This was not always how the restaurant looked. Oak Tree used to look like an oak tree. The old furniture was made to look like tree trunks and there were bird cages and stuff like that. But this is nice too, except it is not quite as thematic as it once was, although I guess the Rainforest Cafe has that covered. Although, the restaurant is still open, kind of like a treehouse. The first thing you see when you enter the 6th floor is the bakery of Oak Tree. Since there are no doors or windows in the restaurant, this is the view from outside of the restaurant:


Oak Tree still has maintained a bit of its former cutesy theme by displaying animal-shaped bread loaves in its bakery:


But that was the end of anything even slightly themed. The food was very traditional, but very tasty, breakfast food. Well, they serve lunch too, but we ordered breakfast food. So as far as you are concerned, they only serve breakfast food. I ordered the Brioche French Toast:


This was served with sauteed bananas and mascarpone. When you sautee bananas, you caramelize the sugar on the outside of the banana. The oil that it is cooked in makes the banana kind of slimy, but not in a bad way. This method of cooking the banana enhances the sweetness of the original food and gives it a different texture. Mascarpone was new to me. It is a sweet cream cheese that is easily melted and spread. It is usually served in desserts, like tiramisu. Although, if that is true then I probably have eaten mascarpone before, although never on French Toast. The meal also came with butter and syrup, but the french toast was so sweet anyway that it did not need anything else.

Erica ordered a Glazed Ham, Cheddar, and Scallion Omelet:


The french fry-looking things are hash browns. Actually, these look a lot like the fries that I could not take a picture of yesterday because of the specters that ate my camera. So, mentally copy and paste these hash browns into yesterday's post. Also, Erica's omelet came with toast.

I always assume that everyone knows exactly the amount of information that I know, which means, no one knows what scallions are! Turns out, scallions are green onions. They are more mild than regular onions, and they are often used in many Asian recipes. Also, scallions can be silly:


That was the first hit on Google Image Search for "scallion." I just thought I would show you.

Erica also ordered a strawberry smoothie:


Purely for the sake of research, I tasted her smoothie. It was delicious, and the fruit tasted very fresh.

It was a very good breakfast totaling to $37 for the two of us, and I brought home one of my french toast slices, so I can eat it for dinner tonight.

Tomorrow I will be going to Korean barbecue with Linnea. I WILL be going to Korean barbecue with Linnea. If I say it emphatically enough, I will not relive history and the plans will not fall through. Until next time, happy eating!