24-Hours: Park Hyatt, David Burke Primehouse, Stanley Cup Game

A 24 hour whirlwind trip started on Saturday morning in Charleston, SC and ended in Chicago, IL for the Stanley Cup game between Chicago and Boston.

We stayed – and when I say stayed I really mean spent a few hours – at the Park Hyatt Chicago.  Normally I would have stayed at a Starwood hotel, however, none of the ones I wanted to stay at were available.  The friend who I stayed with has diamond status with Hyatt so that was a nice little perk (my platinum status with Hyatt has turned out to be pretty worthless.)  The room was crisp and clean and I loved the bathroom. The bed is incredibly comfortable – if only we spent more than about an hour sleeping!   The hotel is beautiful and if the opportunity arose and I had to stay somewhere other than a Starwood hotel in Chicago again, I’d absolutely stay here again.

We went to dinner at David Burke’s Primehoues in the James Hotel. The restaurant is a classic steakhouse and we learned that every piece of beef comes from a descendant of one bull named Prime 207L.  Burke purchased that bull for $250,000. When the meat arrives at the restaurant, it is butchered and sent downstairs to dry age in a climate-controlled room where the walls are lined with Pink Himalayan salt.

I went with the legendary burger for dinner, as did one of my friends. The meat used in the burger is aged for 40 days.  The burgers are topped with shaved prime beef and I left the smoked mozzarella cheese off and my friend kept the cheese on the burger.  The burger is served on the lightly toasted potato bun. This is one amazing burger.  Here’s a little known secret – at lunch time their burger is served with a savory bacon mayonnaise.  You can request some at dinner as well. That really adds a nice touch to the burger. The burger is $24. We shared a Caesar salad that was made table-side.  It was amazing. The salad is $14.  One of the people I was with has a 75 day ribeye that ran $68 dollars and the other person had an Ahi Tuna that was served with stir fried veggies, brown rice and duck confit for $31.

The desserts are so creative – that’s true of all of David Burke’s places – and so here we shared the lollipop tree – cheesecake lollipops with whipped cream on the side.  You can’t go wrong at David Burke’s Primehouse Chicago in the James Hotel.

The hockey game was a lot of fun, and it was great to reconnect with some old NHL friends who I haven’t seen for about 12 years!  The game was a little slow, but it got very exciting towards the end and overtime was great.  As we waited after the game to say hi to a friend who works for the team, I started to think back to the time when I worked for several teams. I have no earthly idea how I used to stay up so ridiculously late and get up early the morning for work. Maybe I’m just getting old.

A fun adventure ended with a flight back to Charleston this morning and a long nap planned for this afternoon.