Best Pigeon Ever

It was time for our belated birthday dinner last night, at fancy-schmancy Chicago restaurant, NoMI. The wine list was 12 times as big as the menu. And even with such a minimal menu, there were still at least two items which I had no idea what they were: some fish that had a name that sounded like "tourniquet" (oh, it was "turbot") and another dish called squab. I politely asked our most attentive waiter if he might explain these two dishes. Squab, he explained, is essentially a flavorful pigeon. With a gesture towards the expansive floor-to-ceiling bay windows that look out on Michigan Avenue and the illuminated towers of the Water Tower, he offered that I could pick out my own pigeon for dinner from the street, much the same way that one picks their lobster from the tank. Chuckles all around our table. I figured if there was anywhere to try a flavorful pigeon, a place that might really do it right, it'd be here. Not too bad.
We realized that what makes a high-end restaurant like this 10 times better than the Olive Garden is not just the food. Maybe the food is 4 times better, but the ambiance is 3 times more impressive and the service is 3 times better also. The view was exquisite, overlooking the Water Tower, with a bright full moon hanging between its two spires. The photo below shows exactly the view I had all night.
For service and place settings: our cocktails arrived with the alcohol in a tall glass with ice, accompanied by a petite glass pitcher of tonic, in my case for my gin and tonic, so that you can gauge your own concentration of alcohol. (See little pitcher in photo above.) An elegant tray of extra treats arrived with the dessert we ordered, with a thin chocolate disk in the middle, proclaiming "Happy Birthday" in scripted white chocolate. Jason and I gave each other quizzical looks, the waiter had clearly been eavesdropping on our conversations with our neighboring diners who were also celebrating birthdays. We chided our server, and he confessed that he had overheard, but that he only listened to the important parts, and he didn't know that I was from Philadelphia or anything like that.