I Ate Chicago

One of the nicest things about having out of town guests is that they get locals to go to places that they normally put of visiting. It’s often not because of a lack of interest, but more because most of think of local institutions as things that are always there and don’t necessarily go out of their way to make time to see.

On Thursday, Friday, and Sunday, I had an experience kind of like that but 100% related to food. The people over at Serious Eats are working on a book. It’s going to be a book version of the website although much more national in scope. That means there’s going to be a whole lot of food reviews and tips along with some recipes and some other food related content.

I freelance for the site, but I have no role in the book. I’ll leave it to them to describe exactly what the book is going to look like when the time is right. For their trip to Chicago, Ed Levine, the site’s founder, and Robyn Lee (AHT editor) and Carey Jones (Serious Eats: New York Editor) needed some extra mouths to go along and try some food. I, of course, jumped at the opportunity.

The result was that I got to visit a couple of places I go to at least every few months, a bunch of places I visit every couple of years, and even a couple of places I’d never been to before. I brought my camera all three days but routinely forgot to take pictures.

On Thursday, we went to Ina’s, Graziano’s. Xoco, Kuma’s, Cemitas Puebla, Red Hot Ranch, Borinquen, Frank ‘N’ Dawgs, Hot Chocolate, and Big Star. The food was excellent, with the exception of Big Star, which is merely very good. There are dozens of taco stands in town serving a superior product, but the ambiance at Big Star is pretty sweet. But the absolute clear winner of the day was Xoco. I’d been once before for the churros and hot chocolate, both of which were amazing and deserved a return trip that I hadn’t made. After eating the tortas and the ice cream (and more churros and hot chocolate), I want to eat there every day.

The Serious Eats staff has been doing these eating trips for a few months, so they’ve learned to not gorge too much early in the day. And Nick, who also freelances for Serious Eats and was there, is just better at not being a pig than me. We almost never ate all the food we got at each place (over-ordering was the norm), but I couldn’t stop myself from finishing a couple of the sandwiches we were leaving behind and the pictured ice cream.

On Friday, we went to Ann Sather’s, M. Henry, Tre Kronor, Susie’s Drive-in, Honey 1, Old Fashioned Donuts, Top Notch Beefburger, Harold’s, Calumet Fisheries, Lem’s, Izola’s, Brown Sugar Bakery and Uncle John’s.

There was so much deliciousness, it’s hard to pick the favorites. Actually, it’s not. The blackberry bliss cakes might be the best pancake dish I’ve ever had. Light and fluffy but, thanks to brown sugar and oats, with a lightly crisp crust, these things were served with a blackberry sauce packed with whole berries and some vanilla mascarpone. I didn’t get a picture, but if this doesn’t make it into the pancake section of the book then the terrorists have lost because it means America is better than ever.

Those things were definitely in my top three of the day. The other two:

Top Notch, which continues to amaze me each time I go, was phenomenal. It was the only place that we decided defeated us. We wanted to stop eating it but just couldn’t.

On Saturday, they went to Wisconsin and I stayed in Chicago to avoid guilt and do a little Yom Kippuring.

On Sunday, the Serious Eaters returned to Chicago and we had a much more relaxed day, only going to Hoosier Mama’s, Johnnie’s Beef, Gene and Jude’s, Wiener and Still Champion, Edzo’s, Al’s and Black Dog Gelato.

At Hoosier Mama, we ordered one of each of 12 slices available. Here’s what we did to them:

See those leftovers? Nobody wanted them so I took them. Was going to give them to my sister and the brother-in-law who graciously loaned me his (their?) car to drive the others around. But on Sunday morning, Nick was doing the driving and when he dropped us off to hop in Ryan’s car so I could drive the rest of the day, I left the pie behind. I realized it almost immediately and called Nick who promptly declared the pie to be his. The man has no soul and is going to go to hell. Probably after choking on some pie.

Ohmmmm…….Ohmmmm……..Ohmmmm

Okay, back to the food. The pie at Hoosier Mama, as it is every single time anyone goes no matter which pie they get, is simply phenomenal.

At Edzo’s, we also had some fun. Edzo’s sells two styles of burgers, thin griddled 4 ounce patties and thick 8-ounce grilled burgers. Of course we had to try both. Edzo’s also offers, for a little more money, burgers made from Dietzler Farm beef (raised on grain, but raised deliciously) and from grassfed beef from Tallgrass. Since we had to try all of those as well, we got three of the griddled burgers, one with each meat, and three of the thick burgers, one with each meat. Ed, Nick and I did a little blind taste test and all of us agreed on each category. The only thing was, our results were entirely inconsistent. On the thin burgers, we went 1) grass fed 2) regular and 3) Dietzler. On the thick ones, we went 1) regular 2) Dietzler and 3) grass fed.

I am shocked by the results. I was sure I’d pick Dietzler first in both categories. We told Ed (the owner) our results and he told us the experiment was slightly flawed because the regular meat had been ground that day and the other two had been done the day before. Still, I’m fascinated by the results and want to do some more experimenting.

We ended the day at Black Dog Gelato, which I’d been meaning to try since they opened earlier this summer. I tried to go a couple of weeks ago but they were closed even though they were scheduled to be open. Glad I went back. That stuff was delicious.

I’ve lived in Chicago for 25 of my 35 years. I have never explored so much of the city (112th Street South, Evanston North, 3500 East and 7600 West) or eaten close to as much of its food in such a short time.

Well, there might be one time I’ve had a bigger variety of food. At Chicago Gourmet last year. And guess where I’m going this weekend!?

This entry was posted on Monday, September 20th, 2010 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.