6 posts tagged “chicago”
Sometimes I get down a little bit on Chicago because I want to leave this festering stink-hole so very very much. However, there are some really nice things about Chicago, too, and honestly there are some things I'm really going to miss when we're gone. For example:
1. Eating food Chicago-style: I couldn't say for sure that Chicago-style pizza is superior to normal-style pizza, but it's a fun treat, and it's cool to think that this right here is the best city in the world for eating a lasagna-type pizza. You don't see too many cities that claim their own style of popular foods. Also, Chicago-style char dogs are superior to regular hot dogs, hands down.
2. The lakefront: During the winter, I forget how vibrant and colorful Lake Michigan can be. It's invigorating to see the huge mess of people out congregating and swimming and enjoying the summer. I think I'd miss this more if I wasn't moving to a city with a lakeside park, though.
3. The Evanston Farmer's Market: The Evanston Farmer's Market is so famous that a parking garage in Evanston named a floor after it. We only discovered this last year, so I'm sad that we only had one chance to enjoy the height of cherry season, and those fantastic blueberries. It was such a great way to start the weekend, and Aaron loved it. We'd meet people we know there, and we'd get great cheese and fresh fruit, and it's really a model of how a farmer's market should look.
4. Ethnic restaurants aplenty: Instead of going to the Indian restaurant, in Chicago, you can go to one of the Indian districts and choose which of it's ten blocks to stop at not only for dinner, but for Indian groceries or movies as well. You can find out the difference between Bosnian and Serbian food, or try Ethiopian, or eat at Cafe Suron every night and never get tired of it. Man, do I wish we could bring the restaurants with us.
5. Summer weekend festivals: In Stillwater, we'd have two art fairs each summer and they were always fun to see if they fit your schedule. In Chicago, every neighborhood has two art fairs each summer so you can go to one whenever you want to. Don't like art fairs? What's wrong with you?! Well, luckily, there's music festivals, cultural picnics, free sample days, firework nights, and all kinds of other things that guarantee you'll never have to set one of your precious feet into an art fair if you don't want to, weirdo.
6. Professional Baseball: For the record, I think the idea of an inner-city rivalry is dumb. It is possible to root for more than one team, dudes. However, in Chicago, both teams' supporters have a point. Cubs fans are right in saying that watching a game in Wrigley Field is more about evoking the best memories of baseball and enjoying the buzz of people in the middle of a fantastic neighborhood than it is about some silly game, and Sox fans are right in saying that the Cubs suck. I've had great times watching both teams.
7. Touristy stuff: Granted, I haven't been to the Art Institute or the Shedd Aquarium in a while, but I can still heartily recommend them There are so many familiar pieces in the Art Institute, it can feel like you're walking through the pages of an Art History book. And who doesn't love a good sea horse exhibit? Plus, there's so many other museums, and theatres, and zoos, and architectural tours, that I'm sure I've missed something great.
8. WXRT: Chicago has a really great radio station, with cool, friendly DJs whose morning shows consist of matching music to the news and maybe answering a question on the air. Yes, they have Beatles hour on Sundays, and commercial free rush hour, and a pleasant mix of music from the last forty years, but a lot of radio stations are similar. What sets XRT apart is that everything seems so laid-back, like all the employees keep meeting each other in Starbucks and deciding, "Hey, let's do that radio station thing again."
9. So many people: Admittedly, this is one of the things I can't stand about Chicago, too, but it's cool to see all these different people with different ideas getting together and working to make Chicago their own. Whether it's volunteers for health fairs, or friendly restaurant owners who want to share their favorite dishes, or neighborhood groups going for a getting-to-know-you picnic, it's great to see people willing to give their time to make Chicago better.
10. The L: In Chicago, we ride the L to the Sears tower, and then eat Italian Beef, and we're so wonderful. C'est Magnifique. Chicago's got an iffy track record on keeping their public transportation up to snuff, but at least it's there. Watching those trains rumble by overhead is just part of living here. It's iconic. Even when we've long since left Chicago, I'm sure I'll continue to dream about the idyllic Skokie Swift, and it's wonderous journey through paradise.
I'm sure I forgot a few. I think I'm really going to miss this city, and the great times we've had here, once we're finally free of it's wretched, putrid clutches.
Every 17 years, the red-eyed cicadas crawl out of the cold Chicago ground and make their desperate way into people's hair and underpants.
I wasn't here last time it happened, but to hear the Chicago Tribune tell about it, the Magnificent Mile was approximately waist deep in writhing, screaming insects. Roads were shut down, and people had to commute to work by setting out a pile of hair and underpants at work in the morning and at home in the evening. People would then ride the wave of cicadas to and from work.
Bug disposal at home is usually my job. I have nor particular fear of sliverfish, having become close friends with the ones in my shower in college. I also move out any spiders that happen to crawl across the ceiling. I'm cool with that.
But these things are huge. If they can get their scaly forelegs on a hat, they can pretty much pass among us undetected. Red eyes and screeching noises aren't unheard of in bus stops around here. I could be talking with one for ten minutes and then, just as we're able to find something in common (the Edens are better the the Kennedy), RAAAARGH, it goes right for my underpants.
They emerge next month.
Frankly, I'm terrified.
Whenever we go to Minnesota, people seem surprised that we take I-94 (The Edens) instead of I-90 (The Kennedy). "Why on earth would you take the long way around?" they ask me in a hurt but accusatory voice. I mumble something about tolls being cheaper and try to change the subject.
So this weekend, on our Easter trip, we took I-90. We were leaving from downtown, and thought hey, why not 90? There you go, fellows, maybe now you'll forgive me.
I, on the other hand, will never forgive you, because I-90 is vastly inferior.
First of all, there's tolls. I know, I've been saying it for years, but this is actually the first time I've taken I-90 to Madison since the tolls doubled. Because, you see, they did not double on I-90. There is no rhyme or reason to who figured out the tolls on the long stretch leading out of Illinois, but the only way to tell is to take the tollbooth operators word for it, or read the hastily drawn pencil sign on notebook paper informing you that the toll that used to be $0.40 has doubled to $1.60. "Double twice, charge once" is their motto. Until next week, when it's "Double twice, charge up to seven times because seriously, what are you going to do about it?" Another forty cent toll doubled to a dollar, the motto being "Schwabee-doo meow meow give me a dollar." That's a lot of tolls. Oh, and I was watching. Open road tolling isn't working on I-90 at all. People were just sitting stock still in the wide open I-Pass lanes (probably being charged over and over again for every second they sat under the monitor), and us cash-paying suckers often got through faster. Funny, open road tolling works OK on I-94, though.
Also, getting to Madison may be been shorter in terms of asphalt covered, but took approximately twice as long as taking I-94. We inched along that road, and paid through the nose for the opportunity to do so. They were patching a six foot square patch of road on the shoulder, and closed off about 100 feet of the right lane. For that, we got an extra hour to 90 minutes of slow-and-go. If this was a one time deal, I'd understand, but I've never been on the Kennedy when there wasn't some kind of construction project going on. Do they pave it with graham crackers? Even in the dead of winter, the orange cones are out there. Heaven help you if you ever hit a construction zone in I-90 during a snowstorm.
Finally, there's not a ton of natural beauty on either freeway between Chicago and Madison, but I-94 makes up for it by giving you interesting things to look at. You get to watch the roller coasters moving around at Six Flags, you pass the adult bookstore that promises that truckers get percent off (whatever that means), you pass a sign for the Bong Recreation Area, a billboard invites you to Party with a Pig, featuring a happy-go-lucky pig who makes you wonder how exactly he's improving your party (and if truckers get a percent discount for the pig), you go an otherwise non-descript hotel that has waterslides poking out of the wall, and you go by about a dozen towns that contain Wau somewhere in the name, which invite you to shout it out with increasing distress, like you've slipped on a pile of ever more treacherous banana peels (We're leaving Mil-waaauugghh-kee and getting close to Waaaauuugggghhh-kesha. Let's stop in Oconomo-WAAAUUUGGGGGHHHHH-c). When you take I-90, the most interesting landmarks are the Medieval Times castle and the bar that sounds like it was named mid-childbirth (It's called the HHFFRRRGGH bar and grill).
Plus those tolls.
Hey, about those Cubbies?
It's frustrating to hear how little people know about Chicago culture. In a recent survey, 200 high school students were asked what kinds of food they could eat in Chicago. The number one answer was, "The Sears Tower", followed by "Winston Churchill" and "Chicago-flavored bananas". All three answers are wrong. There's no such thing as a Chicago-flavored banana. I don't think these kids are even reading the question anymore!
My point is, there are a lot of people from a lot of cultures who all congregate in Chicago, and a good 60% of them lay some claim to pita bread. Therefore, here's a list of good Mediterranean places that I've eaten at.
Cafe Suron (Persian-style)
Cafe Suron is a jewel. People are sometimes a little wary when we take them there, since their specialty is meat sticks, but one bite of meat stick and they're sold (Note: this does not always work with vegetarians)(Note: but sometimes it does). All of the meat sticks are laid on a bed of dill rice, which tastes like someone took rice and made it reeeeeeally tasty. Ever see a toddler eat lima beans? That's all Aaron wants when we order meat sticks n' dill rice. He eats them like candy. The weird thing about Cafe Suron is that the restaurant is usually near empty. I don't know if that's because people tend to think of them as a delivery and carry-out place or if there's a special seating area in that back that's filled night and day, but I always want to see the joint at least on the verge of jumpin'. As it is, I'm pretty sure that my family keeps them in business. They seem to inspire all seven of the deadly sins in one meal. I greedily lust after the dill rice, I become envious of gluttons who eat more food than me. And when the food is gone, I'm so full of rage that it makes me, um... slothful? What's the last one? Something about graven images? Well, anyway, it's really good.
Big Buns and Pita (Assyrian-style)
What if you want a place that serves hamburgers as a backup to hummus and shwarma? Well, there's plenty of places that can help you out there, but let's face it, how many of them are called Big Buns and Pita? Seriously, that's what it's called. Has anyone ever eaten a hamburger and thought, "Well that was OK, but I sure would have appreciated bigger buns"? Clearly, this place was named as a joke. First of all, the buns aren't that big. They're normal buns. Second, has anyone ever walked in not thinking about enormous butts? I would venture no. As soon as you walk in, you instinctively ponder your own butt and the butts of the people around you. You find yourself noticing the rear entrance of the building, you see that the cook is falling behind on his order, the cheese gives off a certain dairy-air. It is all butts. It must be how a schnauzer feels. Getting back to the subject at hand, Big Buns and Pita has pretty good pita, somewhat disappointing shwarma and really good curry chips. Also, the buns aren't bad.
Reza's (Middle Eastern Style)
Reza's advertises on TV. They have a group of people who look a little terrified of the camera talking about how great Reza's is, and how they should eat there. Then they eat there, eyeing the camera with white-hot fear in their eyes. The announcer says "Reza's--a great place to eat" and the diners pretty much wet themselves. Reza's is actually a great place to eat, and I've never been particularly frightened when we've eaten there. They've got a menu that is positively Tolstoynian in length, but if you're like me, you get a sixth sense when eyeing unfamiliar dishes and just naturally pick the one that looks the most pleasant. You then spend the rest of the meal eyeing everyone else's plates, which seem to be filled with better food than yours, and vow that next time, you will try the Koubideh instead of the Fessenjan, and then next time someone gets the Chengeh, and you realize that you need to stop picking dishes based on the lack of h's in their names. I really like Reza's, but I prefer Cafe Suron, which has all of the good menu items, and it's cheaper.
Pita Inn (Mediterranean-Style)
Let's say you are a hobo. You're living the storied hobo life, riding rails, carrying around a bag on a stick, and carving secret messages into fenceposts. Well, hobo, if you've got a hobo-sized hankering for some baba ghanoug and falafel, make your hobo way to the Pita Inn. You can eat like a king, even on your meager hobo salary. I think their lunch special is under five dollars, and includes pita, hummus, falafels, shwarmas, shish-ka-bobs, tabouli, kibbeh, wayzata, shakopee, edina, and watchee-hotchee soup. Or something. Dude, it's a lot of food. Pita Inn is packed, mostly with non-hobos, and the servers are constantly shouting out numbers and passing around spicy red sauce and making room for more people and carving secret messages into fenceposts. It's worth a trip, even if a trip is only worth a buck fifty.
Athena Restaurant (Greek-Style)
I do a disservice to Greektown by summing up all of the varied and wonderful restaurants in this one, which I haven't visited for three years. Ha ha! I just enjoy doing disservices.
I ate at our local Gold Coast Dogs today. What a disappointment.
The pickle is no longer something Gold Coast does for you. The pickle is a puny acknowledgement that there's supposed to be a pickle there. The relish was not the color of a Florida gift shop. It was relish-colored. The char dog was not charred, and resembled more of a slopped dripper.
I don't know if my local Gold Coast was taken over by zombies or if they sent the real hot dog ingredients back to heaven for cleaning today or what, but I can't in good conscience recommend what I ate today.
Sigh. Well, maybe Minnesota style hot dogs have gotten real interesting.
If you are visiting Chicago, don't make the same mistake that millions of Chicago tourists do and forget to eat, or worse, just bring a box of Ritz and eat that the whole time. One of the best things about Chicago is that the food is really good, so you're really missing out when you spend a week here and refuse to eat anything. Today I'm focusing on the best hot dog places I've eaten at or heard about in Chicago.
Chicago hot dogs are a little different from other hot dogs, in that they usually include the better part of a salad on top. They include onions, tomatoes, relish, hot "sport" peppers, celery salt, a big ol' pickle spear, and mustard. You do not have to order all of this. They'll hold the onions if you want. But dude, take the pickle spear, even if you have to eat it separately from the rest of the dog. The pickle spear is something that Chicago is doing for you, and you should show some gratitude. Also, Chicago hot dogs, or "red hots" as they're sometimes called, are usually served on a poppy seed bun. It is believed that this is because hot dog vendors are trying to get you in trouble with airport security for ingesting a hallucinagen so you'll stay in the city longer and eat more hot dogs, or "tube steaks" as they're sometimes called.
So, where should you eat?
1. Gold Coast Dogs. Gold Coast is a chain, so they're always opening and closing everywhere around Chicago, making it easy to find one. Gold Coast uses relish in a green normally reserved for glow sticks and a hot dog (called a "char dog") as red as the delicious cherry in the middle of a Cella's. Be sure to order a "char dog" instead of "one magnificent dog", or you'll get a flaccid, unappealing hot dog (also known as a "slopped dripper"). You can't go wrong with the char dog, and since the folks at Gold Coast have a hot dog empire to think about, the quality is pretty consistent.
2. Fluky's. I didn't care for Fluky's as much as some of the other hot dogs (or "wonder wieners") I've had in Chicago. The toppings were a little wimpier. However, Fluky's dogs have a satisfying snap when you bite into them, and still taste pretty good. Also, they kept the name Fluky's for years, well after people started thinking "liver worms" when they heard the name. Last year, they finally bit the bullet and changed it to "You Dawg, You Dirty Dawg, You Stinking Dawg, You" or something like that (I forget). I kind of liked their old name better, even though it had the negative connotation. Like it was sort of a fluke that they did so well in spite of their name. Anyway, if you're a father you get a free hot dog (called a "Frankfather") on Father's day. That's pretty nice. Also, there's a big statue of a hot dog smiling at everyone who walks in, which is an experience I find most people don't have enough in their lives.
3. Hot Dog Island. I have never eaten at Hot Dog Island, (they closed shortly after we moved to Chicago), but I often dream of it. It would be a great place to eat on Talk Like A Pirate Day.
4. Hot Doug's. Hot Doug is the gourmet of the hot dog (or, as he calls it, the "Encased Meat"). It's only open for lunch, and never open on Sundays, and they take long unexpected vacations, but if you have the time, and they're open, seriously go here. Doug makes hot dogs out of anything. Elk, pheasant, rattlesnake, crocodile, wild boar, all of 'em hot dogs (which some call "The Game of the Week"). Then he makes them all gourmet by adding apple ale mustards and blueberry compote relish and truffles and foie gras (shhh! Don't tell the cops). These are some incredibly good, incredibly weird hot dogs, and Chicago knows it. When Hot Doug's opens at 10:30 on Saturday, there is already a line around the corner to get in, even in the rain. Doug himself will take your order, and he seems to know a good deal of the people in line. That's the sign of a good hot dog joint. And as a special bonus, it's located right across the street from Midway Games, so if you eat there, you might overhear what unlockable characters will be in the next Mortal Kombat game (hint: one of them looks exactly like Scorpion). The normal hot dogs are also quite good.
5. Superdawg. In terms of smiling hot dog statuary, you can't do better than Superdawg's, where not one, but two enormous anthropomorphized hot dogs perch on the roof and glare down at you with their zombie eyes. One is, of course, dressed as a caveman and the other is dressed as a cheerleader. I think they're married. Superdawg's is a drive-in, where you park and order into the intercom and totally make out until your food arrives. Their version of the hot dog (or "Superdawg") is a slight variation in that they pickle most of the toppings. At least, the tomatoes are pickled. And the pickle. And I think the relish. Hell, maybe even the celery salt. They come in an adorable box that has a picture of cave-dog smiling at you and professing his love from the bottom of his all beef heart. The bottom is the ventricles, right? Anyway, that's where his love comes from. This really is an experience, what with the giant statues, and the drive in, and the cute box, but the reason to go back is that there's some ingredient in their fries where they found the anti-matter ingredient and put it in their chocolate shake, so when you have them both, there's this little explosion of deliciousness in your mouth. The Polish Sausage (or "Whoopskidawg") ain't too shabby neither.
6. The Wiener's Circle. Some things are just better when you're drunk at 2AM. Swisher Sweets, for example. Another good example is The Wiener's Circle, where the staff berates and abuses anyone who walks in to get a hot dog (or "Hot Man-Meat"). I don't know what to tell you. If you're jonesing for a hot dog during the wee hours and you're in the North Side, go here? Apparently they've come up with a bunch of double entendres that relate to hot dogs. If you've been hitting the sauce, and all of your drinking friends are your best friends in the whole world, and this is the greatest night ever, then surely, these are also the best hot dogs (sometimes called "Squiggleweasels") ever. Otherwise, they're fine.
