5 (or 6) Bites to Eat in Chicago

There’s about a million restaurants in Chicago and if you ask for a recommendation, you’d get as many opinions on which is the best. So to add to that list, here’s my 2 cents on a few delicious bites that I tasted during my days in Chicago.

Pizza - deep-dish Chicago style pizza – is a given.  I imagine asking a Chicagoan where’s the best pizza is like asking a Marylander who has the best crabcakes.  I had a spinach personal size pizza from Giordano’s at Navy Pier (there’s a restaurant and a stand). And while in O’Hare, I enjoyed a cheese pizza from Reggio’s (Concourse C – not sure if they are near other gates, too.)  Be ready for the carb and cheese overload and enjoy.

You can't pass up a deep-dish Chicago pizza

Okay, now on to other food.

Popcorn. Specifically – Garrett’s Chicago Mix. A bag of the caramel corn and cheese mix is a Chicago must-taste. It’s a unique blend of sweet, sticky caramel and lick your fingers cheesy. (The first time I had it, I thought someone messed up the bag.) Once you are within a block of a shop, you’ll smell the hot burnt sugar sweetness. I also got a bag of the caramel with pecans (other nuts are also available) – it’s like a grown-up bag of Cracker Jacks.  For travel, I would recommend the caramel – it keeps better than the cheese or butter.

Get it while it's hot... caramel and cheese popcorn

Mini churros & sweet cream cheese sauce. Fried dough – enough said, right? Churros require a special crispiness, hot (as in warm) but not burn your tongue hot, and sweetness. Add a sweet dip – this one was a cream cheesy; I usually go with chocolate, but this was a yummy different option.  And a cup of coffee – it was the beginning of a great brunch at GT Fish & Oyster.

Churro's in Chicago. Yep.

Kimchi as condiment. I have eaten this fermented cabbage (or other vegetable) native food of Korea all my life. However, I generally eat it with rice, noodles, and Korean or other Asian food. I have never thought to eat it as a condiment on a sandwich or any “American” food.  I had an Oyster Po-Boy with Kimchi (all those yummy words together, how could it go wrong?) at GT Fish & Oyster.  At BellyQ, there was a Warm Potato Kimchi Salad – which I didn’t try, because I didn’t like all those words together, but was intrigued by the idea.  I did however, ask and receive a side of kimchi, which was pretty good.  (I’ll have to do a post on kimchi one of these days.  More later.)

I don't know whose idea it was to put Kimchi on a sandwich.

Grits. I really didn’t plan on feeding my grits-hunger while in Chicago, but I guess there is a touch of southern heritage here (read TheWarmth of Other Suns).  At BellyQ I had Coconut Grits. You like Coconut Rice? Ahh, they coulda slid some slices of mangos on it and had a whole new addictive food. (No pics, sorry, but it was good.)  I also had Shrimp & Grits, because as I mentioned in my Charlotte food post, it’s one of my favorite dishes. I had this bowl, with a more tomato soup taste with a kick, at GT Fish & Oyster for brunch.

Shrimp & Grits. This one up north in Chicago.

Fried deviled eggs. Because. It was deviled eggs. And it was fried. What could go wrong. Nothing.  Except you only get one.  At ThePurple Pig. Yes, as a vegetarian, you can find a good meal at a place with “pig” in it’s name.  Try the calamari with Fregola.  As a carnivore, particularly a pork-ivore, you will find a lot of interesting plates, including the Pig Platter.

Fried deviled egg. Crispy, hot, creamy.

Can I add one more? Because how can I do a food list without some chocolate?  From a foodtruck!  I had a chocolate cheesecake cupcake with chocolate frosting (feel that in your sweet tooth?) from Chicago Cupcakes.  The truck was at Jackson Park, near the Museum of Science and Industry, when I got my fix, but the guy said they are usually downtown and you can check Twitter to find them on any given day. Check them out.

Chocolate Cupcakes. What else do you need to know?

Note that I traveled to all of these restaurants (except the food truck and O’Hare) from my stay at the Hyatt on Wacker Dr. by foot or by bike. So when you go to Chicago, take your walking shoes.

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See Chicago on $7/Day on Divvy Bikes

I added to my zoo "collection" with a visit to Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo, one of the country's oldest (note - it's free!) I checked out my favorites - the big cats (though I'm not a fan of house cats) and the monkeys and apes.  

Visit to one of the country's oldest zoos- Lincoln Park Zoo

As I walked a few blocks to the Old Town section, I noticed everyone on bikes, especially the same baby blue model. These were the rental bikes that are popping up in different cities, including New York and DC, and some city-suburbs. The concept: pay a fee to rent a bike from a stand, ride it to or close to your destination, park it at another stand, and go about your business. Chicago's brand is Divvy Bikes.

The rental fee for Divvy Bikes is $7 for 24 hours, as many rides as you want, under 30 minutes each. Over 30 minutes, its a couple dollars more per ride.

Find a stand with blue Divvy bikes & ride!

At first I thought - do I want to ride a bike seeing as I didn't really know where I was going? But then I reasoned: I didn't know where I was going anyway, so at least on a bike, I'd get there faster.  

I grabbed a bike and breezed through the city. (Apparently, there's no helmet law in Chicago, which all my Maryland friends asked.) Chicago, surprisingly for being such a busy city, turned out to be an easy biking city. The landscape is pretty flat, there are clearly marked bike lanes, and where there aren't, drivers are pretty good at giving bikes the right of way, or at least not running bikers off the road - though they will honk if you don't move when the light turns green.

I road from Old Town through downtown to Millenium Park, about a 2 mile distance, according to Googlemaps. The fun part - traveling faster, I definitely went further than planned and came upon some entertaining surprises. There was a running waiters race on one square and a soft-serve ice cream truck on another.  I wandered through the park, checking off some of the Chicago landmarks, like "The Bean," and caught a little bit of Edward Scissorhands as the movie being shown out on the lawn. I picked up another bike, then rode back to the hotel, the Hyatt Regency, where there was a bike stand a few feet from the door.

How do you know where you can get a bike? There's an app! (But you knew that, right?) This came useful when I was ready for dinner - I read a review for BellyQ, an Asian fusion restaurant that was a few miles from the hotel in the Old Loop. Looked on the Divvy site at the map and ta-da there was a bike stand a block from the restaurant. Perfect. I picked up a bike a block from the hotel and rode straight to the other end of town in about 15-20 minutes.

Dinner by the way, was quite delicious. I had Crab Rangoon, Coconut Grits, and Hamachi (ceviche). And a drink called "Kill Bill." So.... I took a cab back to the hotel. Don't drink & ride!

I got a bike again another day, taking my own riverside and city tour. I saw a book at the Art Institute, Chicago Then & Now, about the architecture and history of Chicago. A read through something like this is useful to develop your own tour through the city.

 

Interesting look at the architecture of Chicago pre-Chicago fire and since.

There are a few drawbacks to rental bikes (like own-your-own bikes):

• Rain. I was going to get bikes one day with friends, but it was unpredictably raining and what we didn’t want to do was get caught in a downpour with bikes.
• Broken bike. One of the bikes I got, I couldn’t adjust the seat. And I didn’t want to go thru the process of getting a new code for a new bike, so I rode it, with the seat lower than I would like. Then I understood why other’s adjusted the seat before getting the bike.
• Empty bike rack. Every now and then, there’s a bike rack with no bikes on it. Walking a couple blocks to the next bike rack can throw a wrench in your plans, if you’re on some kind of schedule. Otherwise, it’s a minor annoyance. 

The rental bikes are fun, inexpensive, and flexible. I could see them being a quite useful mode of travel in your home city, and it’s a great way to see the city on vacation.

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