No, no, not secretary--we mean administrative assistant. If you're looking for a place to treat someone, try Petterino's. Just tell your server that you're celebrating, and they'll give you a free chocolate "applause" cake dessert during lunch. What's applause cake? Well, it's kind of like a molten chocolate cake, but Petterino's calls it an "applause" cake as homage to its Theater District locale. But don't tell your assistant that. Let 'em think they applause is just for them! (You can also forget to mention that at lunch, the dessert's normally only $1.99 .)

Restaurant magazine unveiled its Top 50 restaurants in the world yesterday and the big news: Chicago has two restaurants making the cut!  That's not bad since the list contains a total of eight U.S. restaurants. So the two restaurants are -- can you guess? -- Alinea, which ranks at No. 36, and Charlie Trotter's, which ranks at No. 30. OK, no surprises there, but we're sure Mr. Trotter is breathing a small sigh of relief about the order.

We're still curious: Do you think that Restaurant mag got it right? Which one is truly the better restaurant -- Trotter's or Alinea? Or better question: Are these lists even meaningful?

In case you're wondering: The No. 1 ranked restaurant? Well, The Trib's Phil Vettel has the full story here.

Today at 10 a.m. head over to the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers for the unveiling of the biggest Ferris wheel you've ever seen (that's made from sugar). Executive pastry chef Omar Martinez -- the man who created a 400-pound chocolate replica of a King Tut last year -- gets ready to do that feat one better with a nine-and-half-foot-tall, eight-foot-wide replica of the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier.

From the press release:

• The 380-hour culinary labor of love...took an estimated month and a half to complete and consists of the following ingredients:

• 250 lbs. of sugar on the main frame



• Each gondola, 42 in total, weighs 2 lbs., total of 84 lbs.



• Royal icing doubles as glue and hand rails



• 80 lbs. of pastelege used for the base of the wheel



• Miniature golf course is completely made of sugar and consists of an additional 200 lbs. of sugar



• Edible food coloring utilized on all sugar components

But easy there, Little Chrissy--this dessert's strictly for looking at, so no chewing on those gondolas.