We hadn't eaten breakfast, so by 1:30 I was starving. We decided to go to the food court at Water Tower Place, a huge shopping center in downtown Chicago. When Cristin and I were freshmen, we spent spring break in Chicago and we met Walter Payton at that mall. He was just randomly hanging out, waiting on a friend who was in the store. He was so friendly, and chatted with us for about 15 minutes. And of course, it was the one day of the whole trip that I didn't have my camera.
Food Life is the food court at Water Tower Place. Most food courts are kind of like an open-air market, where you walk around to the different food counters to pick where you want to eat; order & pay, and then find a place to sit and eat. At Food Life, you wait in line to get into the food court area, are seated by a hostess, and provided with a charge card. Once inside you can choose from 13 different food counters. You place your order at the counter and they charge the amount to your card. If you want a drink, they charge that too and you get whatever you want to drink at one of the beverage stations. When you're all done, you pay for the meal as you're leaving the food court.
I have to admit, I was a little overwhelmed. Since we had bags, Cristin waited while I went and ordered. In hindsight, I should have taken the bags with me so we could both go at the same time, because it took a little while to walk around and decide what I wanted, and so Cristin was just sitting there waiting. I didn't want to eat too much, because we were having an early dinner. But I was also absolutely starving. I decided on the stir-fry station, basically a mongolian BBQ. I did beef tenderloin with lots of veggies, teriyaki sauce, and brown rice.
I made sure to over-fill the bowl with veggies, having learned my lesson at Ghengis Grill. The stir-fry was delicious. It was too much rice, so I only ate about half of it.
Will I go back? Now that I understand the process, yes! If you know what kind of food you want, it works really easily. I think it would help if they had a list of the different options at the entrance, so you have an idea of what's available.
