Post #700311 by Ragbag Comics on Sat, Nov 23, 2013 10:57 AM

So we made another voyage to Three Dots, in the hopes of finally having the fantastical experience we keep hearing
other people talk about having. There's so much promise there, we had to keep swingin' til we hit something.

I chronicled our first two attempts here previously. The first trip was horrible, second was OK with some weird service issues but vastly more promising and we actually got a drink... since then (probably a month ago), my wife had gone back after a work function downtown, and it was, again, a terrible 90's dance party fit for Jersey Shore. Granted, that was on a Friday (which we already knew would be Kryptonite to any kind of relaxing Tiki atmosphere...) but we decided to try again...

FINALLY! The experience we'd been hoping for!

We went on a Monday around 8:30-9, sat at the bar, and the owner himself made our drinks. He's an incredibly nice guy with a great love of the fancy booze arts.. he loves Tiki and was totally stoked showing us all the new Tiki Farm mugs they'd gotten in.

The drinks were fantastic... I had a Rum River Mystic, which I'd tasted on an earlier trip, and it was well worth the trip back to have a whole one all to myself. What a fabulous, boozy drink! I would probably make 'em at home if I knew what the hell was in it (a new cocktail mystery to solve!) For the next round, I had the Lonely Island in a Foggy Sea (or.. the "Lonely Island Lost in the Middle of a Foggy Sea" as the menu states) which was absolutely incredible. It reminded me very much of the much beloved Mutiny at the Mai Kai... cold brewed coffee, fruit juices, just enough Black Strap to give it punch without tasting like waffles... so incredibly good!

My wife had a Three Dots & A Dash which was great... every bit as good as I make 'em at home, and the best quality version of that drink we've ever had in a public setting. To follow up, she had the Painkiller which was also really good... There ain't much to making a Painkiller, to be honest, but they snazzed it up a bit with passion fruit juice which gave it a little something extra than the standard Pusser's recipe. It tasted more well-balanced and tropical and less like dessert than the standard recipe.

So... great drinks, great service... the music was at a perfect volume and a perfect mix. As a severe music nerd I'm pretty persnickety about music in a bar (especially a Tiki bar)... I was hearing plenty of obscure-o tracks I would never have expected (Takeshi Terauchi and the Bunnies, anybody? Preston Epps the Bongo Man?) Mr. McGee told us they took great pains to go through hours and hours of music from a service based in LA to cull just the right tracks that had just the right feel to 'em... and they did a really good job, 'cuz it was great. That DOES beg the question as to why they were blasting Ace of Base on our first visit, but....

So they're doing a bang-up job in every respect, depending on when you go. If you're coming in from out of town, please check this place out, but for the love of God... go on a Sunday or Monday evening and sit at the bar. It's great watching their bartenders work, everyone is friendly, it doesn't get too crowded, and you can ACTUALLY relax...

IN RIVER NORTH!!

It's a damn miracle...

We will absolutely be back, many times... but only on Sunday or Monday. The dance party atmosphere at 3 Dots on weekends exists because it has to exist in order for them to stay competitive with all the other bars they're competing with in that "neighborhood" on weekends.

For those who don't live in Chicago, there is nothing even remotely enjoyable or local or interesting about River North... people who actually live in Chicago (honest, hard working blue collar folks) don't go there unless they work somewhere down there. It is the nexus of the Clark street tourist hell hole (see: Hard Rock Cafe, Rainforest Cafe, and Rock & Roll McDonald's all located a block away) and the ultra uber-rich stock market traders and trixies and cougars who live in that neighborhood and rarely leave it (see the streams of double-parked BMW and Lexus and Mercedes on weekends.) That area is pure poison... so for a lot of the complaints on Yelp about horrible crowds showing up on Thurs/Fri/Sat (including the experience we had shortly after they opened)... those horrible crowds exist because of the unequivocally terrible, not-at-all-local location. And for the complaints about occasionally surly service on weekends... I can't imagine how often they must have to break up fights between douche bag hair gel dudes or get snapped at by demanding wanna-be Kardashians on the weekends, so I get they're probably a little on edge.

Historically, I would find any reason possible to NOT go to that neighborhood... but our last experience at Three Dots was so good, I'm already itching to go back.

It's the same dichotomy we found with Trader Vic's 2.0 located right at the crotch of the "Viagra Triangle" on State & Rush... that neighborhood, similarly, is absolutely terrible in every respect, but TV's was a nice little respite from the douche baggery transpiring outside the windows.

So... GO HERE!

--Pete