The Taste Of My Chicago

I think Vital Info or someone did this on another board once-- suggesting an alternative Taste of Chicago which involves actually tasting around the city. But heck, I'll do it again, because the answers always come up different. If I wanted to taste around Chicago, here's how I'd schedule my day, incorporating lots of LTHForum-related finds:

8:00 am. Swing by Dinkel's for a chocolate bismarck to give me strength to make it to breakfast.

8:30 am. Edgebrook Diner for excellent eggs and perfect hash browns.

9:30 am. Sip on Grand Avenue to sit in their garden out back (you'd never guess such a bucolic space existed on such a utilitarian street) and have coffee while reading the paper, or maybe they have wi-fi by now and I can read LTHForum.

10:15 am. Swing by D'Amatos for some bread, and beat the rush at Bari for a Bari sub, which I will save for later (so what if the bread's four hours out of the oven by the time I eat it instead of two).

10:30 am. Dim sum in Chinatown. Should it be the ever-reliable and comprehensive Phoenix, or one of the smaller places in the mall like Shui Wah, not as varied or always as good, but likely to have something you've never seen before? I won't decide till I get there, though I must say, the authentic Beijing atmosphere of the mall usually wins out over the more touristy feel of the rest of Chinatown.

11:30 am. Eat my Bari sub in the car as I head north to go see a Hong Kong or South Korean crime film at the Landmark Century theater. Good thing I have some food with me since there's nothing around there. I could have gone hungry!

2:00 pm. Zip north up Ashland and make a run along Devon east to west: B&M Bakery to see if they have the chocolate croissants, then either La Unica for a Cuban sandwich or head toward the Indian/Pakistani part to see about something like the chicken boti.

3:00 pm. Go back down Western so I can stop by The Cheese Stands Alone and get a few things.

4:00 pm. It's summer, so the porch or whatever you call it at El Potosi might be a pleasant place to sit and grab a light snack.

5:00 pm. Make the week's run to Paulina Market.

6:00 pm. I'm not that hungry, but Thai food's light. Off to TAC Quick for boar pad ped and whatever else Erik's posted about lately. (If I get hungry, there's always leftover Pequod's pizza to snack on, with those great burnt edges.)

8:00 pm. Hard decision-- Scooter's for hot fudge sundae, or Anthony's on Southport for Italian ice?

9:00 pm. The phone rings. People are meeting for spicy chicken wings at the Hourglass. Gotta go!

It was probably our own eatchicago with this post at eatchicago.net.

It was inspired by this post by Cathy right here at LTH.

Things come full circle, eh? Well, this wasn't really a circle. But you get my point.

Ha! Great minds think alike about hash browns, at least. But I do think somebody did it a couple of years back on a dog-related food board.

Mike G wrote:Ha! Great minds think alike about hash browns, at least. But I do think somebody did it a couple of years back on a dog-related food board.

Well, I will take credit for the idea of a 24 hour taste of Chicago, but even that was based on something Zim wrote.

I certainly take no credit for the idea, I simply loved the thought of contrasting the Taste with a tour of some under-represented foods and neighborhoods. I got a lot of positive response from it, and of course, I owe a lot of that post's content to LTHForum. If I ever make a profit off the Google ads, I'll split the dime with Gary.

Best,
Michael / EC

I thought I posted something like this a while back and google found it to my surprise....

http://www.chowhound.com/midwest/boards/chicago4/messages/27097.html

Now I need to do this again with a bunch of new places, especially some I just found out about on the east side.