Chicago - What to Eat

Taylor was our culinary guide to Chicago, as the primary epicure tourist in the group (although all of us are more than happy to do the food tour of wherever we go).

Naturally, the first stop was deep dish pizza at Pizano's, about a mile and a half walk north of our hotel. Felt very casual and friendly local Italian place- a narrow room with a bar and a game on the tube along one wall, red-checker covered tables along the other half, sepia portraits on the wall above the tables. The kind of place where it is not a great stretch of the imagination to see as a mafia front, where a whispered word to the wait staff and a knowing nod lead to meeting rooms in the back with Rich Eddie, Thumbs, and Tony Banana.

Actually, you have a lot of time to imagine as deep dish pizza takes about 30 minutes to bake. Best to wait with a beer or something to munch on.

The following morning, we decided to go with another guidebook recommendation and visited Xoco a Mexican place run by a celebrity chef. We split fresh hot churros and coffee, and I got the chilequiles, which were excellent. The churros were the best churros I've ever had too, with a nice crunch and not an overwhelming sweetness.

Lunch was at a place which I'd been before, many years ago in high school, Portillo's. If Chicago was a theme park, this would be its food court. Four or five counters where you order- each one differently specialized- this one for alcohol, this one for hot dogs and sandwiches, this one for desserts. We all got chicago-style hot dogs. Not bad, but nothing exceptional either. Tay also got to cross off an Italian beef sandwich on his list of Chicago things to try.

The following morning we started with coffee and donuts at Duncan Donuts, because we wanted to get a fast start to the day, and then we hit a last pizza joint, Lou Malnati's, which felt a bit more generic. I suspect that this place started as a hole in the wall somewhere, and then expanded out to a lot of locations. It had a kind of Applebees feel to it, and while the food was good, it wasn't exceptional.