Sea cucumber, anyone?

Chicago.

For my last night¹ in Chicago, some coworkers and I went out for dinner and drinks, with the extra bonus that it got us out of a frighteningly dull and awkward trade organization meeting. Chinese food at Silver Seafood, followed by drinks and jazz at the Green Mill Jazz Club, one of Al Capone's old haunts.

There's nothing quite like going to a restaurant that serves - the the standard American palate - genuinely bizzare food. Granted, not everything at Silver Seafood is odd; in fact, the majority of the twelve-plus page menu was filled with only slightly less Americanized versions of Chinese staples. Think less deep-fried, more seafood. But when I see a list packed with things I've never seen, much less tasted, I've got to try something unusual. After all, when's the next time I'll get to a place that serves shark fin soup?

No, I didn't order it. Aside from the ethical and sustainability issues it would raise, it's spectacularly expensive ($78, I think) and requires ordering a day in advance. But I did manage to creep out the other six people at the table with what I did order. Honestly, when the menu categories include Frog and Abalone and Sea Cucumber in addition to the usual Pork and Chicken, someone's got to get something out of the ordinary. And the rest of the table just wasn't up to the challenge.²

I was genuinely tempted by the abalone and the sea cucumber, but they were just too pricey, especially since I knew no one would let me pay for dinner. The "duck tongue in X.O. sauce" was also calling to me, as were the jellyfish, the fried intestines, and the fish bladder soup, but there's only so much that one person can eat in a sitting. So I ended up going with the boneless duck webs as an appetizer, followed by the frog in black bean sauce. And I managed to convince one person to get a hot pot with head-on shrimp, which I consider a victory.

I don't know that I'd order the duck webs again, though that's more because they have no flavor. Zero. The sauce was nice, slighty spicy-sweet, but the webs - the feet, sans bones - were all about the cartilaginous texture, a dense, rubbery chewy that fell just short of crunchy. The best part, I must admit, was the "Are you sure?" I got from the waitress. Either that, or when I was able to convince three other people to try them.

The frog, which consisted of leg chunks, was decent, but pretty low on the flavor scale, too. The meat, fall-apart tender and still wrapped around its little bones, was halfway between chicken breast and whitefish, only milder, which would explain why it was always served with a strongly-flavored sauce, like black bean or curry. Not bad, even though you have to constantly be vigilant so as not to chomp down on a bone.

The head-on shrimp were stellar. The shrimp flavor was more intense than you'd expect, though I only ate one. After making a phenomenal mess of my fingers peeling the shell, I used most of my napkin just cleaning off the sauce. But sucking the juices out of the head? Delicious. And the meat - and everything, really - seemed to take on so much more shrimp flavor from those shells.

There were so many leftovers, from everything, that we've got a lunch buffet ready for today. At least now I can eat the shrimp next to a sink.

After that, we waddled across the street to the Green Mill, and spent a few hours listening to a sixteen-piece swing band and watching the mostly older crowd - a very nice woman was telling us about how she learned to dance in 1939 - dance up a storm. Sure, the music wasn't anything earth-shattering, but it made for a nice backdrop that was at that right level of loud to allow conversation only when you wanted it. Glass of bourbon, sit back, and enjoy.

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¹Last night I was obligated to be here for work, that is. Potential future visits to do fun things don't count.

²Not even Miory, who, like me, will happily eat fish eyes. Though, to give her credit, she was willing to try everything, and gave her approval of the duck webs. They reminded her of squid, which she's apparently only ever had overcooked.