Chicago is a great city to live in if you're a foodie. Just last week, Michelin awarded 25 Chicago's establishments with Michelin Stars - the most ever in the city's history. There are so many good restaurants here that even if I have a favorite, I have a hard time revisited them again, because there's always another new one to try.
I do tend to stay in the same handful of neighborhoods when I'm eating out. Downtown is for the afterwork dinners. West Loop is for the "treat-yourself" upscale dining. River North is the fun vibe to take out-of-towner who yearns for the bar/club scene. Albany Park is for diverse food - literally can find any ethnic dishes here. Wicker Park/Logan Square is the up-and-coming places/chef. Lakeview/Lincoln Park is the newish places that you have to visit asap or it will close next time you visit.
And then there is South Loop. I hardly ever spend any time in South Loop. In my mind, it's more residential than it is a culinary destination. Thank God for Dishcrawl!
Dishcrawl is a Food Adventure company who's tagline is "Make Life Delcious. It is like a Bar Crawl, but for food. They partnered with a handful of restaurants, all within walking distance to each other, and lead a tour through small bites, appetizers, entrees. Dishcrawl is a great way to discover dining in a new area. It completely changed MY mind about South Loop! Check them out in your area: http://dishcrawl.com . Tickets go for around $45 but last week, I was invited to a special complimentary Dishcrawl, co-sponsored by OneMedical, a great healthcare service here in Chicago. The theme that night was healthy eating, and it was a delicious healthy night.
Follow below for my Dishcrawl Journey:
I arrived to the first location, City Tavern, half an hour late since I had a previous engagement that same night. The event was to start at 6:30pm and when I got there at 7pm, about 70 people were just milling about on the 2 floors of City Tavern. I quickly and easily checked in and went around to talk with various people I knew in the crowd. I gathered that we were divided into several different groups, and I was placed in the gray group. A few friends were in the green group - the designated group with dietary restriction like vegetarian or non-pork eaters, and tried to convince me to switch, but I'm glad I didn't. (More on why later...) I had fun chit-chatting with people, but I was highly disappointed I didn't get to try any food at City Tavern. Apparently, there were some salami chips and cheese puffs being passed around, but none of it reached me nor my other friends. I feel bad for the people that were there for an hour with no food!
Finally, after half an hour of no eating, we part ways to our respective group's next restaurant. Mine was at Flo & Santos, a Italian place that had the best smelling pizza. Unfortunately, there were to be no pizza for us. We sat down and was immediately served a plate of salad, pierogis and sauerkraut. I'm not the biggest fan of sauerkraut, but I ate the whole plate since it was so amazing. I have to come back again for their pizza.
Last stop was at Weather Mark Tavern. They had an incredibly spread for us here. They certainly did not want us to leave here hungry! I had several sticks of bacon-wrapped potatoes that was just heavenly! I followed that down with stuffed chicken roulade topped with grilled onion. Lastly, I had a giant heaping of candied walnut salad which is my favorite kind of salad. Well, anything with the word candy in it is good. I must have gotten up for the bacon-potatoe skewers 3 times. We all ate until we were in pain, and then tried to put down some more.
As you can see, I had a delicious time just like I expected. But that's because I'm very open-minded about what I eat. My friends, however, can't eat pork for religious reasons, and did not have such a great time. They had notified the Dishcrawl coordinators of their restriction, and was under the impression that the group they were in would accommodate. However, they told me that on their second stop, everything that came out were pork. They got quite frustrated and ended up leaving halfway into their crawl to grab a pizza nearby. So, I was very glad I didn't go with their group. However, I was disappointed that Dishcrawl didn't do a better job at placing them in the right group. Had they gone with my group, they would have been fine. So in that end, if you go on a Dishcrawl, check and check again that the menu would be ok for you before you buy a ticket!
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