Usually I am team Follow Your Gut, however a few choice reservations or recommendations always come in handy when we get tired. Thanks for the IG recs - some of those recipes look so fantastic I can't wait to try them.
Very amused by the restaurant recommendations (all good ones) - it's a fun sampling of mostly places within a mile of my house. My Hyde Park recs if you are back are the Medici, Daisy's, and Virtue.
I'm in between following my gut and power point planner. I always have a first night in a new city dinner planned/reserved. I do a ton of research and have options mapped out, but I like to leave plenty of room for that spontaneity.
I always like a plan and that's the best part about traveling for me - my family goes along with it and since we're the kind of people who are eating one meal and planning our next, it all works! I do have to admit to being on Michigan Avenue in Chicago years ago and seeing a long line of people. I quickly had my husband get to the end of the line while I walked to the front to see what it was all about. Best discovery ever............Garrett's popcorn!!
Team PowerPoint - would love to go with instinct but the thought of missing a great restaurant or meal leads me to plan almost every meal (and sometimes double book when I can’t decide).
Team PowerPoint! However, on a recent city trip, the first hungry night was planned, simple and hit the spot, and the second my daughter googled and found a real gem. Best of both worlds!
loved to see the longman + eagle shoutout. Not only great food and whiskey, but they have a small hotel on the top floor too! had my wedding night there actually ;)
Team planner! My family of 5 tends to rent a lot of Airbnb’s so I write down lots of restaurants we might want to try and then we typically choose for lunch since we are usually out and about. Lunch tends to be easier to get in without an hour wait or required reservation. Then I’ll make an easy dinner at home. We always make sure we rent a place with a grill. So easy then. My kids are happy to be back at the place after a long say adventuring!!
I am the cruise director on all our trips and I have spoiled all of my family unintentionally. I have to have a solid game plan going in but I do let our guts decide further into our trip. I learned from you, Jenny, to have a reservation set for the first night. It has saved us a lot of grief. So thanks!
I think Japan is especially well-suited to the Follow Your Gut approach. In many years of traveling/living there, I've literally never had a bad meal. My anxiety-reducing rule of thumb in Japan is - on travel days - to eat in the train station, or airport, when I arrive. First things first, I eat, before I get hangry. There's incredibly good food in train stations in Japan! Then, I deal with the stress of figuring out where I'm going and so on. In other places, like Venice where most restaurants are mediocre tourist-bait, or much of the USA where it's hard to find a restaurant that's not a chain, I'm definitely on Team Planning Google Map Pins.
The Medici in Hyde Park on 57th Street has good, dependable food. Around the corner on Woodlawn is the Seminary Co-op Bookstore, a fabulous resource. (I had a book signing there in May, and they were great!) If she wants to venture north to the lake, there's a good lakeside place near Montrose Harbor where my (resident Chicagoan) friend (and former roommate) had great fish tacos. So you can swim, under the watchful eye of a lifeguard, and then eat and people watch. Great vibe.
Team extreme planning here! I 100% agree on having a plan for night 1 - our default is Italian food, unless there's a compelling reason to do something else. It seems like there's almost always a good Italian option where we tend to travel (North America + Europe) and it's easy to decide what to get despite any language barriers.
The exhibit, which focuses on paintings from O'Keefe's time in New York, is great and is definitely worth a visit. I don't know if a summer intern qualifies, but admission to the Art Institute is free for Illinois residents on Thursday evenings and the Chicago Public Library has museum passes that can be checked out.
I happened to see the O'Keefe exhibit and the Harlem Renaissance exhibit at the Met with a few weeks of each other and it was fascinating to compare two very different views of New York from similar points in time.
The sequel Long Island made me so angry!! I loved Brooklyn and just couldn't handle Tony being unfaithful and Eilis being trapped with her in-laws on either side of her house. The rage I felt in the first two chapters!! I sort of skimmed the rest and then felt rage again at the ending. Had to read a fluffy nonsense romance as a palate cleanser afterwards.
Usually I am team Follow Your Gut, however a few choice reservations or recommendations always come in handy when we get tired. Thanks for the IG recs - some of those recipes look so fantastic I can't wait to try them.
Very amused by the restaurant recommendations (all good ones) - it's a fun sampling of mostly places within a mile of my house. My Hyde Park recs if you are back are the Medici, Daisy's, and Virtue.
I'm in between following my gut and power point planner. I always have a first night in a new city dinner planned/reserved. I do a ton of research and have options mapped out, but I like to leave plenty of room for that spontaneity.
I always like a plan and that's the best part about traveling for me - my family goes along with it and since we're the kind of people who are eating one meal and planning our next, it all works! I do have to admit to being on Michigan Avenue in Chicago years ago and seeing a long line of people. I quickly had my husband get to the end of the line while I walked to the front to see what it was all about. Best discovery ever............Garrett's popcorn!!
Team PowerPoint - would love to go with instinct but the thought of missing a great restaurant or meal leads me to plan almost every meal (and sometimes double book when I can’t decide).
Team PowerPoint! However, on a recent city trip, the first hungry night was planned, simple and hit the spot, and the second my daughter googled and found a real gem. Best of both worlds!
loved to see the longman + eagle shoutout. Not only great food and whiskey, but they have a small hotel on the top floor too! had my wedding night there actually ;)
Team planner! My family of 5 tends to rent a lot of Airbnb’s so I write down lots of restaurants we might want to try and then we typically choose for lunch since we are usually out and about. Lunch tends to be easier to get in without an hour wait or required reservation. Then I’ll make an easy dinner at home. We always make sure we rent a place with a grill. So easy then. My kids are happy to be back at the place after a long say adventuring!!
I am the cruise director on all our trips and I have spoiled all of my family unintentionally. I have to have a solid game plan going in but I do let our guts decide further into our trip. I learned from you, Jenny, to have a reservation set for the first night. It has saved us a lot of grief. So thanks!
I think Japan is especially well-suited to the Follow Your Gut approach. In many years of traveling/living there, I've literally never had a bad meal. My anxiety-reducing rule of thumb in Japan is - on travel days - to eat in the train station, or airport, when I arrive. First things first, I eat, before I get hangry. There's incredibly good food in train stations in Japan! Then, I deal with the stress of figuring out where I'm going and so on. In other places, like Venice where most restaurants are mediocre tourist-bait, or much of the USA where it's hard to find a restaurant that's not a chain, I'm definitely on Team Planning Google Map Pins.
The Medici in Hyde Park on 57th Street has good, dependable food. Around the corner on Woodlawn is the Seminary Co-op Bookstore, a fabulous resource. (I had a book signing there in May, and they were great!) If she wants to venture north to the lake, there's a good lakeside place near Montrose Harbor where my (resident Chicagoan) friend (and former roommate) had great fish tacos. So you can swim, under the watchful eye of a lifeguard, and then eat and people watch. Great vibe.
Team extreme planning here! I 100% agree on having a plan for night 1 - our default is Italian food, unless there's a compelling reason to do something else. It seems like there's almost always a good Italian option where we tend to travel (North America + Europe) and it's easy to decide what to get despite any language barriers.
So fun to see my neighborhood in your newsletter! Did you have a chance to catch the O'Keefe exhibit at the Art Institute?
No! I'll tell my daughter about it, though. Thanks for the tip.
The exhibit, which focuses on paintings from O'Keefe's time in New York, is great and is definitely worth a visit. I don't know if a summer intern qualifies, but admission to the Art Institute is free for Illinois residents on Thursday evenings and the Chicago Public Library has museum passes that can be checked out.
I happened to see the O'Keefe exhibit and the Harlem Renaissance exhibit at the Met with a few weeks of each other and it was fascinating to compare two very different views of New York from similar points in time.
The sequel Long Island made me so angry!! I loved Brooklyn and just couldn't handle Tony being unfaithful and Eilis being trapped with her in-laws on either side of her house. The rage I felt in the first two chapters!! I sort of skimmed the rest and then felt rage again at the ending. Had to read a fluffy nonsense romance as a palate cleanser afterwards.
I’m hesitant to read it for this reason!
nice post Jenny, I also have a wonderful memory of a lunch at I Rizzari!