After work yesterday I met up with Steven in Pilsen. We were supposed to eat at a certain cafe so I could review it for the Reader, but it was closed. The window had a nice little sign that read, “We are closing today at 2:30.” Hafta try back next week. This the second time I’ve gone to review a place for the Reader only to find that I’d happened to pick a bad.

So instead we wandered east, eventually passing through some kind of street fair that was going on next to the ComEd power plant. Eerie. We ended up having dinner at the Skylark, a hole-in-the-wall bar practically under the Expressway. Looks like a David Lynch movie from the outside. Industrial, dicarded power drills in the gutter, taht kind of thing. Then you walk inside and it’s like Chicago Blue Collar Dive Bar, c. 1960. Except that no dive bar of that locale or era ever served damn good soul food. 

Started things off with $2 Pabst. So underrated. I’d take a Pabst over a Bud any day of the week. But I digress. $4 gets you a huge basket of tater tots and three dipping sauces. It was so large we could’ve dined off of that alone. However I also ordered fried chicken, which included potato salad and collard greens. Ever since Leo’s Lunchroom closed I haven’t been able to find a place wth good potato salad. But now I have. And the chicken was plentiful and juicy. Way more than I could eat. Next time I’m in Pilsen, I’ll be going to Skylark.

Then we hoofed it north so I could see his new pad. A great place. Bi-level studio, room for his studio and instruments, and a sprawling back courtyard with a gazebo (!) and five cats. A little parcel of paradise. 

I enjoyed the busride back to lakeview with my iPod. I’ve really been into Coleman Hawkins’ “Today And Now” recently. It sounds really good at night. 

After work I’m checking out the Newberry Book Fair, then we’re having dinner at Star of Siam. And then The Elephant Man at the Siskel.