Date: August 25, 2005
Location: 440 West Randolph Street, Chicago
Corkage Fee: $35
Price: $500 - party of five (including tax and HEAVY tip, corkage waived)
Phone: 312.575.9900

benchland organized the dinner on the Thursday night before Otis' CDP, what a great way to kick start my long weekend in Chicago. Anwar and Otis joined us for the evening representing the local mafia chapter, rounding out the group of five was benchland's distributor rep.

We started the night by opening a few bottles of wine and orderd a large chilled shellfish platters served on shaved ice, looks just like my avatar.
The platters came piled on with oysters, topneck clams, jumbo gulf shrimp, alaskan king crab, mussels and lobster, which took us a while to finish.

For the entree, Otis and I as well as Anwar and benchlad decided to pair off and order the special that night, 40oz bone-in ribeye for two, which came with two sides, broccoli, lemon, olive oil and lobster mashed potatoes.
The steak came to the table sliced after grilled at 1200 degrees farenheit. Dry aged, well seasoned, the temperature towards the center was just a bit more red than I prefered, but the texture and flavor more than made up for it, plus the couple of red pieces were probably more than what we can finish anyway.

For dessert, I orded an interesting selection called cloud 9, a carnival selection including cotton candy, ice cream cones chocolate covered pretzel, bringing back some childhood memories.

At the end of the night, we managed to put 15 bottle on the table, think we came prepared? h34r:

And the wine list...

02 Weingut Allram "Zobwinger Heiligenstein"
01 Ilse Mazza, Greuner Veltliner, Reid Weitenberg, Wachau Smard
00 Cordero di Montezwmolo Barollo "Vigna Enrico VI"
01 Quintas das Teldeiras Touriga Franca - Douro
01 Pride Cab
02 Match Cab
02 Amicus Special Blend
02 Neal Cab
03 Pax "Koebler Vyd" Syrah - RRV
97 Penfolds "RWT" Shiraz
02 Betz "La Cote Rousse" Syrah, Red Mtn WA
01 Clos St Theobold, Alsace GC Tokay PG
NV R.L Buller Fine Muscat, Victoria Australia
98 Kracher TBA Traminer #8
90 Massimo "Romero" Vin Santo di Montepulciano