It took a walk down city streets crowded with history to reach Friends Station (now called Muan Jai Thai Hot Pot), a shabu shabu restaurant on the corner of Chicago Ave and N State Street. It’s the ground floor tenant in a four-story residential brick building with the vague aura of “historical.” A corner turret hovers over and around the busy intersection.
When we entered, it was immediately clear we weren’t like the other diners in the restaurant. Two parents and a 6-year-old, arriving for an 8:30 pm reservation among couples in intimate conversation, friends wrapping up a lively reunion, and solo diners sitting at the high-top bar, immersed in their Airpod worlds.
The hostess seated us at a four-person high-top, and our daughter’s eyes widened at the peculiarity of cook-top tables and conveyor belt of food delivering a collection of unfamiliar vegetables directly to diners. The experience was already elevated by its sheer novelty and excitement of our late schedule. Now with food running right alongside our seats, available to take and cook and eat, this dinner had become near magic.
This feeling accompanied our entire spring weekend in Chicago. We’d planned the trip with our eldest daughter who was finishing Kindergarten, a way to mark the end of this cornerstone moment in her life. It was the first in a series of milestone trips set around transitional years—Kindergarten, the start of middle school, and driving age—that we’ve planned to take independently with each of our kids. Chicago was the easy choice for a first destination. The flight is short; public transportation is widely available; it’s a big-city atmosphere, different than our everyday; and there are plenty of kid-friendly activities. Though we usually plan our trip itineraries around activities the whole family can enjoy, with this one, we gave the 6-year-old full control.
We were staying at the north end of the Magnificent Mile, tucked in a quiet grid of streets between the famous thoroughfare and Lake Shore Drive. After a comatose first night’s sleep, my belly full of Friends Station’s matcha tiramisu (aka, the best dessert I’ve ever eaten), we put the reigns in our daughter’s hands and began our kid-planned weekend. First stop: breakfast. We hopped in a car down to the Nutella Cafe—perhaps a brand-based gimmick for tourists, but that was us this weekend, wasn’t it? She devoured the Nutella pancakes, and the “Panzanella” Fruit Salad with Yogurt—a yogurt and fresh berry combo drizzled with Nutella and, best of all, pound cake croutons—was unexpectedly fantastic.
After breakfast, we wandered down to Millennium Park with promise of the famous Bean (unfortunately, at the time, surrounded by maintenance barriers) and, per my convincing words, “the most amazing playground ever” at Maggie Daly Park. The Sea and Slide Crater areas were hugely popular with their rolling topographies and ample structures to climb up and slide down, so popular, in fact, that we got our first taste of willful 6-year-old attitude in a battle between further play and lunch. (I pulled the parent card, and my hunger won.)
The New York Times published an article in 2023 on traveling with the mindset of a flâneur—the 19th-century Parisian archetype that prioritizes journey over destination—providing a concise label for the style of travel we have long embraced. It’s an appreciation for the city stroll, a welcome of the stumble-upon and the unexpected. It’s a mentality I hope to pass along to my kids, one that values observation, patience, flexibility, and open-mindedness. But also, our daughter is six. Kids want to know where their day is going, so we’ve got to sneak the aimless wanders in where we can.
The journey to lunch was our opportunity to do a bit of wandering along Chicago’s River Walk, though it wasn’t without the persistent sound of a whining child. Fortunately, we found ways to take a pause; we stopped for cute dogs and to take pictures of flowers and to watch the bridges lift for passing boats. Lunch was even more necessary after the long, slow walk, and we were rewarded with a hearty meal at The Dearborn, a tavern with a cozy, industrial sophistication serving American favorites. The burger, shrimp and grits, and kid’s grilled cheese left us satiated and newly energized to keep going.
Next on the agenda: the Sloomoo Institute, an interactive slime museum that has popped up in a handful of the US’s largest cities. Is it an over-priced, one-trick-pony of a tourist attraction? Absolutely! But it’s also the part of the trip my daughter is still talking about, nearly five months later. At Sloomoo, visitors are welcomed with a new slime name (replace your vowels with “oo”) and led through a hands-on sensory warehouse of variously textured slimes. There are a few side activities scattered throughout—crazy mirrors, augmented reality, a slime slingshot—but the peak is the build-your-own slime bar where you customize the texture, color, and scent of your own take-home slime. Cynicism aside, that part was legitimately fun.
Our next stop was the American Girl Store on Michigan Avenue for its multiple floors of merchandise and hospitality experiences to which we did not succumb, much to our daughter’s frustration. (This may sound optimistically naive, but when do kids break free of the “buy me stuff” raison d’être??) To squeeze in use of public transit, we traveled via the L train and caught some nice, elevated views of downtown and the river. Thanks to our travels, our daughter is no stranger to most forms of transit, but city trains are always a priority experience when we’re with the kids; I love showing them how different facets of life impact one’s everyday experience. Perhaps these will be things they’ll consider when building their own future lives.
We made a quick visit to Navy Pier before dinner. The Ferris wheel was closed, presumably due to wind, but we took a quick ride on the carousel before leaving the area as quickly as we could. It was crowded, full of sidewalk drinks and overflowing trash bins, and generally more grimy than enjoyable. Plus, the sun was quickly setting, and we wanted to beat the dinner rush. No trip to Chicago is complete without pizza (our daughter agreed), so we headed to the waterfront Robert’s Pizza and Dough Co. located on Ogden Slip. While normally we follow the “when in Rome” guidelines of travel, Chicago-style pizza is just not something we could stomach. We are New Yorkers, and Robert’s Pizza is gloriously thin-crust. (New York-style is superior; sorry, Chicago.) The wait was long for outdoor seating, so we enjoyed immediate seating inside and made haste with a large pepperoni pie.
Our 36 hours passed quickly. It’s rare, at this point in our lives, that we spend so little time on something that requires such effort—and, in this case, is of such monument. It feels like we should be dedicating more time to make more memories, or like the impact of such experiences will directly correlate to how long we spent with them. But this trip was a reminder that may not be the point. It’s not that our daughter will remember the itinerary of our trip, feel dissatisfied with barely scratching Chicago’s surface, or be inspired to visit again in the future. Instead, she’ll remember an experience away from home at a big moment in her life, how she was the focus of attention for 36 hours, and how she was granted full control.
We enjoyed a final breakfast on Chicago’s city streets—Do-Rite Donuts, her choice—before hailing a cab back to the airport. In the backseat, my 6-year-old rested her head on daddy’s shoulder and closed her eyes, the adventure now behind her, awaiting her homecoming.
