The Foods of Chicago
Oct. 26th, 2016 04:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroJethrien and I celebrated our ten-year wedding anniversary with a trip to Chicago (while my parents very generously hosted their grandson for a long weekend). We did the architectural society’s boat tour, which was awesome; and the Big Bus tour, which was kinda lame. But mostly, we ate.
(We also got to see Edgehopper’s house and meet his dogs and play Rock Band with him for the first time in ages; and spend lots of time with Lithoglyphic and S, but whatever. Clearly the food is the important part.)
We had our anniversary dinner at Topolobampo, which does a choose-your-own tasting menu. As it doesn’t have to match, we did a seven-course meal and each got to try 14 dishes. Jethrien may want to get into more detail, but standouts included fantastic black cod, quail, eggplant and multiple mole sauces. Not cheap, but really fantastic.
Edgehopper recommended two donut places to us, and we tried them both: Do-Rite Donuts has a more classic donut, and their bacon-maple donut, while not perfect, was an excellent example of the style and a generally good donut to boot. Glazed and Infused was a bit more of the “confectionary” style of donut, with more hipster-style frostings and fillings, but their glazed chocolate donut was excellent and the PB&J donut itself (as opposed to the filling) was really good. The jelly was a bit too sweet, a bit too syrupy.
Because we’re crazy, we actually did two food tours, one on Saturday with Edgehopper and Manduh; one on Sunday with Lithoglyphic and S.
The first was a “gold coast” classic Chicago foods tour, which included a spice shop, oil and vinegar shop, chocolate shop and cupcake shop; but the main highlights were the Pizzano’s Chicago-style pizza and the Dog House Chicago-style hot dogs.
My final take on Chicago-style pizza, having tried both Pizzano’s and Giordano’s, is that as a self-respecting New Yorker I can’t call it “pizza”, any more than one could call a pizza bagel or a French bread pizza “pizza”. (As Jethrien noted, “pizza pie” might be acceptable.) This doesn’t mean it isn’t delicious—it’s basically a pie crust full of cheese, toppings and tomatoes—but if I wanted pizza and got this, I’d be sorely disappointed.
Chicago-style hot dogs, on the other hand, while all of my friends seemed underwhelmed by, were very appealing to me. It’s a beef frank on a poppy-seed bun (always a safe start) with mustard, sweet relish, onions, a dill pickle spear and tomato slices.
At the last stop, the food was called “poutine” and was nothing of the sort—it was fried potatoes covered in cheese, bacon, mayo and a fried egg. Which is delicious, but not poutine. But the real key there was they had a number of variants on the Moscow Mule that I’d never heard of but were brilliant: Scotch, Tennessee and Kentucky Mules, made with various whiskeys instead of vodka. This is a brilliant thing I’d never heard of before and I’m going to start mixing ginger beer and scotch in other circumstances.
The second tour was of Chicago’s Chinatown, and included dim sum (shumai, pork buns and a fried taro puff that was new to me); Szechuan-style chicken with red peppers and eggplant in garlic sauce (tasty but a bit too spicy); peking duck (with “pancakes” to make little Chinese tacos); and two bakeries for assorted pastries (winter melon pastries were a big hit with the group, moon pies somewhat less so). I tried a Szechuan peppercorn, which is a fascinating experience that makes your tongue tingle then taste cold and lemony. I found that I like milk tea when it’s brewed strongly enough for the tea to stand up to the milk without being overly bitter—but it also had me wired for hours afterwards. We also stopped at a Buddhist temple, a park and a Chinese apothecary. I had no idea there were so many kinds of ginseng!
What else? We also did karaoke; stayed well-clear of the baseball stadium as the Cubs made the World Series for the first time in decades; had brunch with my friend Michelle and her family (and got to meet her younger daughter for the first time); got Ghirardelli hot chocolate; saw the Cloud Gate bean-statue; and made an emergency Old Navy run when it became clear we hadn’t packed enough warm clothes. And probably other things I’m forgetting, as it was a rather packed weekend. But lots of fun. Next time, we can bring ARR and see how much of Chicago he can climb on.
(We also got to see Edgehopper’s house and meet his dogs and play Rock Band with him for the first time in ages; and spend lots of time with Lithoglyphic and S, but whatever. Clearly the food is the important part.)
We had our anniversary dinner at Topolobampo, which does a choose-your-own tasting menu. As it doesn’t have to match, we did a seven-course meal and each got to try 14 dishes. Jethrien may want to get into more detail, but standouts included fantastic black cod, quail, eggplant and multiple mole sauces. Not cheap, but really fantastic.
Edgehopper recommended two donut places to us, and we tried them both: Do-Rite Donuts has a more classic donut, and their bacon-maple donut, while not perfect, was an excellent example of the style and a generally good donut to boot. Glazed and Infused was a bit more of the “confectionary” style of donut, with more hipster-style frostings and fillings, but their glazed chocolate donut was excellent and the PB&J donut itself (as opposed to the filling) was really good. The jelly was a bit too sweet, a bit too syrupy.
Because we’re crazy, we actually did two food tours, one on Saturday with Edgehopper and Manduh; one on Sunday with Lithoglyphic and S.
The first was a “gold coast” classic Chicago foods tour, which included a spice shop, oil and vinegar shop, chocolate shop and cupcake shop; but the main highlights were the Pizzano’s Chicago-style pizza and the Dog House Chicago-style hot dogs.
My final take on Chicago-style pizza, having tried both Pizzano’s and Giordano’s, is that as a self-respecting New Yorker I can’t call it “pizza”, any more than one could call a pizza bagel or a French bread pizza “pizza”. (As Jethrien noted, “pizza pie” might be acceptable.) This doesn’t mean it isn’t delicious—it’s basically a pie crust full of cheese, toppings and tomatoes—but if I wanted pizza and got this, I’d be sorely disappointed.
Chicago-style hot dogs, on the other hand, while all of my friends seemed underwhelmed by, were very appealing to me. It’s a beef frank on a poppy-seed bun (always a safe start) with mustard, sweet relish, onions, a dill pickle spear and tomato slices.
At the last stop, the food was called “poutine” and was nothing of the sort—it was fried potatoes covered in cheese, bacon, mayo and a fried egg. Which is delicious, but not poutine. But the real key there was they had a number of variants on the Moscow Mule that I’d never heard of but were brilliant: Scotch, Tennessee and Kentucky Mules, made with various whiskeys instead of vodka. This is a brilliant thing I’d never heard of before and I’m going to start mixing ginger beer and scotch in other circumstances.
The second tour was of Chicago’s Chinatown, and included dim sum (shumai, pork buns and a fried taro puff that was new to me); Szechuan-style chicken with red peppers and eggplant in garlic sauce (tasty but a bit too spicy); peking duck (with “pancakes” to make little Chinese tacos); and two bakeries for assorted pastries (winter melon pastries were a big hit with the group, moon pies somewhat less so). I tried a Szechuan peppercorn, which is a fascinating experience that makes your tongue tingle then taste cold and lemony. I found that I like milk tea when it’s brewed strongly enough for the tea to stand up to the milk without being overly bitter—but it also had me wired for hours afterwards. We also stopped at a Buddhist temple, a park and a Chinese apothecary. I had no idea there were so many kinds of ginseng!
What else? We also did karaoke; stayed well-clear of the baseball stadium as the Cubs made the World Series for the first time in decades; had brunch with my friend Michelle and her family (and got to meet her younger daughter for the first time); got Ghirardelli hot chocolate; saw the Cloud Gate bean-statue; and made an emergency Old Navy run when it became clear we hadn’t packed enough warm clothes. And probably other things I’m forgetting, as it was a rather packed weekend. But lots of fun. Next time, we can bring ARR and see how much of Chicago he can climb on.
