It’s the dead of winter, and most of the fun holidays are behind us—but there’s still months of cold and slush to get through. So we’d like to welcome you toTropical Staycation这是一周的岛屿启发食谱和其他故事，将您带到更温暖，更阳光明媚的地方。只是在阅读时不要看窗户。
Last February marked Rainforest Cafe’s 25th anniversary, but who would have known? The chain didn’t seem too loud about celebrating it—and companieslove庆祝他们birthdays。It seems that the restaurant group is keeping a low profile, not even doing much to maintain aweb presenceor drum up interest with splashy events like a big birthday bash. It’s been shuttering locations across the country strategically and quietly, and it keeps its remaining locations humming along with an apparent efficiency that you might not expect within such an over-the-top facade, heavy with fiberglass frogs and gorillas and flora. Somehow, in an era where even our摇滚麦当劳has faced the wrecking ball, Chicago hangs on to its massive Rainforest Cafe. And somehow, as three full-fledged adults, the staff of188betios下载found themselves there last week to experience it for the first time.
By 1997, when the restaurant first came to Chicago, I was already feeling much too old to request it as a destination for a birthday party or special occasion. My parents never saidthey不想去雨林咖啡馆；他们只是把它看作是一个如此俗气的地方no one想去，我（徒劳的）追求青春期的凉爽使我远离了藤蔓的门。副编辑艾米·莱维特（Aimee Levitt）回忆起她年轻时去雨林咖啡馆的一次之旅，但没有任何具体的经历（除了它是伍德菲尔德购物中心（Woodfield Mall）现在关闭的郊区所在地）。她说：“我认为我度过了愉快的时光。”铃声的认可！我们必须走。所以我们做到了。
对于初学者来说，Rainforest Cafe是一家热带主题餐厅，在美国有18个地点，在世界各地有5个（是的，一个在迪拜）。Its tagline, “A wild place to shop and eat,” is refreshingly honest, prioritizing the “shop” part of the experience so that the expansive gift shop section of the restaurant, situated between the entrance and the host stand, feels less like a gouging sneak attack of plush snakes and light-up kickballs. The first location opened in 1994 at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota—sort of a perfect setting to capitalize on the 1990s rise of “Save the Rainforest” awareness, when you think about it—and its reach has been expanding and contracting ever since (like a tropical python). The Chicago location sits less than half a mile from188betios下载’s offices.
I had low expectations for Rainforest Cafe, perhaps because I assumed it blew all its money on the facade and prioritized easy-clean surfaces over anything more jungly. As our party of three entered through the leafy archway, however, I realized I couldn’t have been more wrong. It hadnone我期望的自助餐厅每个角落都充满了细节，以使眼睛四处飞镖。通过天花板横梁编织的人造树冠后面看不到管道。主机摊位旁边的瀑布实际上是雷鸣般的，我们友好的迎接者几乎不得不大喊以使自己听到：“遵循拼音！楼上！去饭厅！”We began our adventure onto the impressively patterned carpet.
The gasp that escaped my lips as we crested the staircase had as much to do with the sheersizeof the place than any of its Eden-esque qualities. There was a football field’s worth of seating, tables spread at comfortable distances from one another able to accommodate dozens of parties and hundreds of diners. It’s the sort of dining room that makes you break into a sweat, involuntarily imagining their P&L statements. The place was empty—it was 5 p.m. on a Thursday—and we had our pick of seating. (There would definitely be no sighting of Cha Cha the Tree Frog, a roving costumed mascot, this evening. He wouldn’t have nearly enough diners to mingle with.) “Would you like to sit closer to the elephants?” our second-floor host suggested.
Elephants?
大象。让我们谈谈这些大象。成人和后代的两只真人大小的（？）非洲大象是餐厅的焦点，耳朵不断闪烁，后备箱摇摆。当我们仔细阅读菜单时，我们坐在离他们十英尺的地方，开始将它们视为我们的用餐同伴。这是彻头彻尾的迷人 - 也就是说，直到雷暴开始。
Thunderstorms?
这是一个雨林，如果您认为雨林咖啡馆不会用它所拥有的一切（除了实际的雨水）倾向于其主题，那么您就不会来这里打球。每15分钟，大象就会开始激动的小号，这标志着一场狂暴的风暴的开始，该风暴模拟了，闪光灯，鸟儿撞击和蝙蝠的掌声。(The dome of night sky just off to our right, however, remained unclouded.) It’s a conversation-halting, baby-frightening display, and each time it bombarded the dining room, my brain’s anxiety centers shifted from P&L sheets to the sheer lawsuit potential of all these intentional loud sudden noises, perhaps the worst possible pairing for the restaurant’s signature sparkler-topped volcano cake.
Volcano cake?
When the elephants aren’t screaming for their lives, the rumbling soundscape offers something else:“Volcaaaaano……! Volcaaaaano…! VOLCAAAAANO!”这是一个无调的声明，但有人将房间的每个头都转向嘶嘶声的声音。而且这蛋糕确实是一件美的事物：三片双巧克力蛋糕末端站立，形成了一个金字塔，该金字塔包裹着一堆冰淇淋和搅打的馅料。没有孩子不生病就可以吃整个切片。我自己几乎无法管理（但我肯定做到了）。在城镇的这一地区，不足的巧克力蛋糕不足是18美元。再次，我为利润率而烦恼。
The rest of the menu was decent enough, too; the Taste of the Islands seafood platter seemed like the most reckless possible item to order from a restaurant with a gift shop attached, but we’re three bold women, and we forged ahead. Our server brought us a plate of crispy, sugary-sweet coconut shrimp piled beside a tureen of scallops flooded with flavorless but inoffensive cheese sauce (unless the merefactof cheese sauce on scallops is sufficient to offend), plus some tilapia that I swear was cooked properly and well. Most importantly, our fruity island lemonades came in flashing battery-operated souvenir tumblers—an effortless upsell from our server, who doled out the most convincing you-don’t-wanna-miss-out tone I’ve ever been plied with. We were, she could tell, along for the ride.
那是在雨林咖啡馆用餐的基本规则。您必须屈服于其对雨林的精确解释，也就是说imprecise一。您不能质疑为什么主机架后面的巨大鱼类塔克拱门中没有鱼。您看不到23美元的主菜称为Mojo Bones，并为您所了解的东西感到遗憾。至少，您会走开充满价格合理的巧克力蛋糕，这些巧克力蛋糕在技术上简短地着火了。And at the most, you’ll gain not a greater appreciation for the true rainforest or the true cuisine of the peoples therein, but an appreciation for what lies behind the doors of a silly place you’ve always assumed wasn’t made for you, but in fact aims to be for everyone. (Or everyone willing to try picking up what it’s putting down.)
而且，如果您发现自己喜欢这个地方，那么Rainforest Cafe也是一家餐厅，会激发一个令人振奋，低级的恐惧，因为拥抱它的shtick是坚持曾经可以支持它的经济体的遗物，现在。I don’t claim to know what kind of revenues Rainforest Cafe Chicago rakes in—from us it earned a rather staggering amount, with a bill well over $100 that included zero booze—but I do know that real estate in River North comes at a premium, and this joint takes up half the block. It was uncomfortably empty when we arrived at 5, and only slightly less empty when we left at 7. I worry for the continued existence of this Wild Place To Shop And Eat. I hope this location can hold on and fulfill the tourist district’s cheesiness quota. And there’s no better metaphor for my concern than the constant rumble of thunder from an unseen speaker system, heralding the arrival of another storm.