The food crawl edition
My friends are quite the foodies and so, as expected, a food crawl was planned. We spent one full day in Chicago and one full day in Boston visiting an outrageous amount of restaurants as seen on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, Outrageous Foods, Man vs. Food, and other local restaurants that had great reviews. Here are the restaurants that we hit, and maybe you can visit as well if you are ever in the area:
1. Gino’s East – http://www.ginoseast.com/flash.html
The first leg of our trip was Chicago, so of course the first stop we made was for some deep dish pizza, something that Chicago is definitely known for. Gino’s is really well known in Chicago (along with Uno / Duo and Giardanos) and there are tons of locations around the city, but we went to the one in downtown Chicago, their flagship store. We probably lined up for approximately 20 minutes and ordered two pizzas, the meaty legend and the four cheese pizza. The pizzas take 40 minutes to make, so they are fresh and piping hot when they come out. Deep dish pizzas are THICK, and really, don’t think that you can finish a personal size pizza by yourself. Either case, the pizza was pretty delicious, and as compared to Uno’s, I think that Gino’s definitely has the better pizza.
2. Portillo’s – http://www.portillos.com/
This restaurant is actually the first stop of our official food crawl day, we started at about 11am, and walked to our first stop (note to food-crawlers, it is probably a best practice to check all the hours of operations before starting your food crawl to avoid disappointment as some of the DDD stops that we went to were closed at the time that we showed up). Portillos is known for its hot-dogs, so that’s what we got. The hot dog was pretty average, had a ton of toppings, but definitely still, just a hot dog. But the decor is super fun, and serve many different types of food, so I’d still try it for funsies. What I did really like was their mango smoothies, definitely delish.
3. Al’s Beef – http://www.alsbeef.com/
Al’s Beef is just around the corner of Portillo’s and was featured on Man vs. Food. We ordered the Italian Beef Sandwich, which sort of resembled a philly cheesesteak. I actually quite liked the sandwich, really flavourful and tender, a really good snack or late night eats option I think. Doesn’t look the most appetizing, but it’s pretty good!
4. White Palace Grill – http://www.whitepalacegrill.com/
This was our first official DDD stop, and of course, we had to order exactly what Guy ordered. So we got two entrees, a chicken parmesan and a Greek chicken. I actually really loved the Greek chicken. Really subtle flavour and super tender meet. The chicken parmesan was pretty standard. Either way, the place was pretty huge and packed. We had to wait in line for approximately 20 min before we were able to get seated.
This was probably my favourite diner experience. It is one of your typical diners with barstools at the front and comfy booths along the side. We ordered the cheesecake stuffed banana pancakes, cheesecake stuffed french toast, and the fiesta skillet. The stuffed pancake and french toast were pretty good, and given that I don’t eat desserts at all, that’s really good! It’s not super sweet, just a good mix of sweet and savoury. Besides the cheesecake, there are strawberries and whipped cream on top. The skillet was AMAZING, in fact we ate it so quickly, that no picture could be taken 😦
Another DDD stop and let me tell you that the wait for this place was the most ridiculous thing ever. I think we waited a total of 2.5 to 3.0 hours, and we still weren’t able to get one table together. Our group of 6 had to be split up into two tables. But this is a pretty crazy place. It’s a heavy metal burger bar. The inside blasts crazy heavy metal music and decorated to match, but there is also a patio outside that is just pretty chill. We actually ended up going to another stop while we were waiting for our table. In the end, we got our seats, and ordered the Metallica burger and the Slayer burger. At this point, I was pretty stuffed, but I got to say, the burgers were pretty good, although is it a 2.5 hour wait good? Not so sure, but definitely is a place you have to see.
7. Lucky’s Sandwich Co.
This was our next Man vs. Food stop. The sandwiches at this bar are ginormous and I think are known because they put their coleslaw and french fries IN the sandwich. We ordered the pastrami and roast beef sandwiches. These sandwiches were so filling, but pretty tasty. I really liked the ‘slaw in the sandwich, but honestly, you can only eat about 10% of the sandwich before you get so full that you don’t want to move anymore. Definitely something different and pretty good.
This was an Outrageous Food stop, and let me tell you, it was definitely a little bit outrageous. This bar has on its menu, a giant ‘bacon bomb’ which is essentially a 5lb meatloaf wrapped in bacon. At this point, I think we had 8 people trying to eat this bacon bomb, and we didn’t even make a dent. Not something that I would say is delicious, but if you want to torture yourself with food, definitely the place to go. I think if you eat the whole bomb and the fries in 45 mins, you get your picture on a wall and maybe some other stuff. (Similar to Lucky Sandwiches, where there were people that ate the sandwich in less than 3 mins)
The bacon bomb marked the end of our food crawl in Chicago. It was actually a pretty good day, and allowed us to move around Chicago (some of the locations above are in a more suburban areas), but if you have a bus / subway pass, it actually was super convenient to get around. A super big thanks to my friend “Lobyn” for planning the whole food crawl and for the photos. Loved every second of my very first food crawl experience!
This is a japanaese / peruvian fusion restaurant, and they have tons of locations in the US. I love these types of restaurants because you can share everything and have a taste of all the dishes. I really enjoyed the meal and it was definitely different due to the peruvian flavours.
Before 7:00pm, Sushi Samba has happy hour or “Samba hour”, and there are certain dishes that are half off, but available in the bar area only. We got there around 6:30, so we decided to have some drinks and eat some of the happy hour sushi before we started our dinner. We ordered fried bok choy, shrimp tempura rolls, and spicy tuna rolls. Definitely a good place to drop by for happy hour with a friend. Grab some drinks at the bar, and get a ton of sushi 🙂
After we finished our appetizers and drinks, we got seats in the main dining area and proceeded to order even more food. We ordered a salmon serviche, samba rio roll (lobster roll), pacific roll (king crab, avocado, asian pear, soy paper, wasabi-avocado crema), a 5-meat churrasco rio grande (grilled hanger steak, ribeye, pork tenderloin, chorizo and linguica with malagueta pepper oil and chimichurri), asparagus, and a celebration roll (it’s sort of their version of a rainbow roll). All in all, it had a really nice atmosphere, the food was pretty good and you can fill yourself with some good meats and sushi, I would definitely like to come again and try more of their menu. It is more on the pricey side, but pretty comparable to the downtown sushi restaurants in Toronto.
And the final restaurant that we had time for was Topolobampo –
http://www.rickbayless.com/restaurants/topolobampo.html or ‘Timon and Pumbaa’ as we would like to call it, as really, who can remember or even pronounce Topolobampo? This is a Rick Bayless restaurant and has earned a Michelin one-star. I know, you are probably thinking, one star? Why would anyone want to go to a one-star restaurant?!? Well, apparently, the Michelin stars are super hard to get, and even one star means that it’s awesome.
The Topolobampo and Frontera restaurants (both Rick Bayless) are actually attached to one another. We had originally thought to go to the Frontera restaurant for lunch because we did not make reservations, but fortunately for us, they told us that they have one table open at Topolobampo, and so we were seated for lunch. Topolobampo is a Mexican restaurant with a pretty small menu. Let me tell you one thing, the entrees are tiny. I would suggest that you plan on at least ordering an appetizer and a main. I probably could have gone with two appetizers and a main if I was super hungry.
Instead of bread as a starter, the restaurant serves as guacamole and dip which is one of my favourite appetizers. I don’t love cilantro though, and they always have cilantro in guac, but the cilantro didn’t overtake the dish, which was great for me. We actually loved it so much that we ordered another plate of it. The first one is free, but the second will cost you $5.00, which is not too bad at all.
After that, our appetizers came and we had ordered the Trio Trio Trio, which is a sampling of Sampling of Ceviche Fronterizo (Lime-marinated Hawaiian albacore with tomatoes, olives, cilantro, green chile), Ceviche Yucateco (Steamed Mexican blue shrimp & calamari, lime, orange, habanero, avocado, jcama & cilantro) & Coctail de Atun Tropical (Sashimi-grade Hawaiian yellowfin tuna, avocado-tomatillo guacamole, tangy mango-grapefruit salsa). The three flavours were quite different and it was great to be able to sample them all. I have to say that my favourite was probably yellowfin tuna and the guacamole, although all three were quite good.
And finally our entrees, as I said, these entrees are teeny tiny little morsels of food. But because we had appetizers, it ended up being just right for me. However, I’m pretty sure that the bf was probably still hungry after this. But good thing we had already been super gluttenous the day before with our food crawl, that it was a relief not to be super stuffed for a change. Each of our meals came with mole that they poured into the dish at the table. I’m not sure about my verdict on mole. It is very strange and I had never had it prior to this. Is all mole made with chocolate? That might be why I was not the biggest fan, never been a fan of dessert and chocolate, but I still liked the experience. Our table ordered the following: Pan-roasted Gunthorp heritage breed rock hen, tangy tamarindo-ancho chile sauce, grill-charred eggplant, tomatillo relish with red knob onion, garlic scapes; a pork-dish made three ways; Pan-roasted Crawford Farm lamb leg, classic Oaxacan black mole (chilhuacle chiles and 28 other ingredients), layered market vegetable budín, marrow-braised radishes, black bean tamalón; and Buttery Pacific king salmon, squash blossom crema (güero chile), fresh-dug potatoes and carrots, charred tatume, summer herb oil, flowers.
I tried a little bit of everyone’s and I liked the rock hen the best. The mole was a little sweet and I guess had a little bit of a bbq chicken taste, but the chicken was super tender. I had the lamb, and that was pretty good too, but too small of a portion, I still think. And it came with a bread-like thing (it looks like a little cinnamon bun in the picture) that I wasn’t too much of a fan of. So although I did enjoy the appetizers, you have to be a little careful in which entree you choose. If I go again, I would probably order a lot of appetizers and just share with everyone.
And so ends our Chicago food adventure. I have never eaten so much on a trip before in my life, but it was definitely an experience. But if you love food, you should definitely plan out a food crawl for yourself, definitely something to experience once with your friends. 🙂
terbeardinnercountdown 
September 19th, 2011 at 2:13 pm
Hey, just a note to say I enjoyed your post. I live in Chicago and haven’t visited half these places, although I’ve seen them on DDD and MvF. There’s a local TV show called “Check, Please!” that features three different restaurants every week. I think you can stream them online through their TV station, WTTW-TV. Anyway, thanks for the entertaining post!