Please note that since writing this blog post, Boom Chicago has closed down
I wasn’t really planning to review Boom Chicago. But then again they kind of asked for it…
I was on a team night out with MegaCorp, and we’d booked to see Boom’s latest gig, “The Social Media Circus”, with a pre-performance VIP dinner thrown in. To my mind, Boom is a comedy club that happens to serve food, not a restaurant (I’m not sure if they’d agree!) so I was intending to leave my reviewer’s hat off for the evening.
But then the comedians got on stage and started asking the audience about our Twitter habits. I wouldn’t say I’m a prolific tweeter (if that’s the noun for those of us who have Twitter accounts), but I seem to have collected somewhere in the region of 700 followers. Apparently, that qualifies me as a Twitter guru in the eyes of Boom’s crew, so they popped over to our table to find out my Twitter name (@amsterdamfoodie in case that wasn’t obvious!) and encouraged us all to engage in frenzied tweeting throughout the show.
It always makes me nervous when anyone speaks to me at a comedy show, because before you know it you’re either a) up on stage yourself (dancing = yes; comedy = no), b) the butt of a running joke for the entire evening, or c) (in this case, and far more worrying than scenarios a or b) having your social media accounts scrutinised by ruthless comedians. So I tweeted (I had to tweet, right? I mean, as Twitter Guru they made it fairly clear that I was contractually obliged to tweet!) about the fact that I was at Boom Chicago and might be reviewing it… and then spent the rest of the evening mentally rehearsing scenarios in which I tried desperately not to blush, while thinking of witty and intelligent responses to their quips. Crikey.
But first the food, and then we’ll come back to this.
For a start, it was all rather late. We were well into the comedy by the time our main courses arrived, which I don’t think was entirely the plan. The darkness of the auditorium meant we couldn’t really see what we were eating (mind you, that might have been deliberate), and the comings and goings of plates and waiting staff was all rather distracting from the serious business of being amused.
In theory, the starter was tuna sashimi and scallop ceviche. In practice, it was three strips of raw, worryingly fishy-smelling tuna on one side of the plate, and a scallop shell filled with watery, acidic, pale-coloured mush on the other. Why you’d want to decimate a scallop like that I have no idea.
The protein circus continued with the main course: a surf ‘n turf affair that involved a burnt T-bone steak that must have weighed at least half a kilo, and half a lobster covered in cheese to mask the flavor. I think there was some green stuff underneath, but it was hard to see in the dark. I left a good deal of the steak on my plate and filled up on chips, which would seem like an enormous waste of expensive ingredients.
Don’t even get me started on the vegetarian alternative my colleague had. Suffice to say, I’ve never seen a “risotto” made with wild rice before.
Dessert was by far the best bit: hot chocolate brownie with ice cream, banana and Chantilly. It looked like the kind of dessert I’d have put together when I was 15 (it made you want to arrange the banana into a smiley mouth, with bits of brownie for eyes), but at least the chocolate part was gooey and rich and warm…
We’d ordered the VIP menu, which – with hindsight – I think was a mistake. Other diners around us were eating big American-style burgers in sesame buns with truck loads of chips. I didn’t taste them, but the basics looked like far the best bet. Boom’s chefs mistook VIP dining for throwing money at a situation. I guess we did the same. But sometimes the cheap option is the better one.
The comedy – when I wasn’t being distracted by the food – was pretty good. And, miraculously, my name was never mentioned by the comedians again. Either they were scared to piss off the reviewer (they needn’t have been – the food did that all by itself) or they decided that my tweets were just too dull to make fun of. Still, I was happy to have got away with it. I’m fairly sure that, from an establishment that engages in social media as part of its (at least current) core business, someone from Boom will pick this up on Twitter and I’ll hear about it… But like I say, they did ask for it!
