Originally Posted by JBord (Post 33846657)

Tonight is Christmas part 2 for the part of the family that couldn't join us Friday/Saturday. Keeping it casual with Lou Malnati's catering:
- Pan of Lou's salad
- XL thin crust
- Large deep dish classic
- Pan of penne pasta

Originally Posted by gaobest (Post 33846722)

enjoy Lou’s - which location? I only know uptown highland park location before driving West.

Originally Posted by JBord (Post 33846918)

The downtown Northbrook location. We considered Barnaby's but they didn't do catering trays for the salad and pasta.

Originally Posted by BamaVol (Post 33847100)

We are looking at take-out tonight from Ramshackle Cafe. They have an extensive menu. Choice will be difficult. But I expect we will order light since there can be no leftovers as we are leaving tomorrow for a week.

Originally Posted by StuckInYYZ (Post 33842445)

I find calling the restaurant and ordering directly from them and picking up a better experience in general. I don't like those delivery services and the outrageous fees they charge. I find after 2-3 times in a close period, they become familiar with you and give you better service.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Originally Posted by gaobest (Post 33842737)

Xmas supper - we have a 3:30p arrival and we only need to bring fruit pie. We are also bringing a half cheesecake with sugared cranberries.
i believe the supper will include
ham
Turkey
mashed potatoes

i know I’m excited.


it’s tricky because some restaurants STILL prefer the online ordering with 3rd party platforms. Once we called a place to ask about something and the person at the restaurant told us to include a special comment on the app. it’s hard to be sure with a new spot.

total bummer on the restaurant.

i still use Eric’s as my main local Chinese because it’s a mile away so I call the restaurant and fetch it myself. If I was a newbie for Eric’s, I might automatically use a 3rd party platform.

Originally Posted by StuckInYYZ (Post 33843237)

Maybe it's different in the States? Up here, all the non-americanized chinese places prefer direct ordering. The only ones that prefer the platformed sites are the "modern" places (which are usually higher priced too). Many still use the delivery services, but if they can save on the commission, they will (generally the old-skool places also don't accept anything other than cash).

Originally Posted by chgoeditor (Post 33848239)

Sorry to be slow with the replies. This restaurant indicated this was their preferred way of taking orders. And the menu includes chicken gizzards, pigs feet, pork kidney, sheep entails, ox maw and pork intestines and blood, but also more mainstream dishes and proteins. So only somewhat Americanized Chinese.

Originally Posted by BamaVol (Post 33847825)

Half pound bacon burger with onion rings. The burger was slightly charred on the outside and red and barely warm in the center. I loved every bite. The onion rings, however, were quite pedestrian.

Mrs BV had a cranberry walnut (chicken) wrap. Bigger around than her forearm. She is saving half for the road tomorrow.

My father-in-law ordered a half slab of ribs with baked beans and macho nachos. Combined this must have weighed 10 pounds. He ate about half and the jalapeños were strong enough to make his upper lip perspire.

Overall, a good experience. We really need to order from there more often.

Originally Posted by JBord (Post 33849142)

I love this whole order. This is what I consider comfort food. I've had a huge craving for onion rings lately, sorry yours were boring. I had an onion ring tower on order a couple days ago via UberEats before realizing that the restaurant was closed (not sure why UE accepted the order). Short of making them, which is unlikely, I'm probably not getting those rings until 2022 now...

Originally Posted by Visconti (Post 33849751)

RE: Onions rings

I love onion rings and prefer ordering this more than fries. Heck, I even like those Burger King fake ones! Had a planned one day business trip that turned into another one of those unintentional 48 hour fasting things, and leaning towards going to Morton's later for steak & onion rings.