Chicago Eats

A couple of weeks ago, I met up with some good friends in the Windy City for a quick weekend getaway that had lots of food, lots of fun, and went by all too quickly T_T I had never been to Chicago before that, so I was looking forward to trying the famous Chicago foods- pizza and hot dogs! We were also there during the Restaurant Week, so we couldn't pass up that opportunity and had lunch at one of the participating restaurants :) If it weren't for E proposing to go to the exercise room or walk up the stairs, I think we would have been even more round and bloated by the end of the weekend than we actually were ^__^;; Ok, now on to the photos! lol

Day One

E's coworker recommended Portillo's for Italian beef and hot dogs, so the first thing we did was bus over there and try out the Italian beef sandwich! I was too focused on eating and didn't remember to take a photo until I was nearly done eating (oops!) My sandwich was dipped, so it was slightly soggy and quite delicious. The three of us collectively gave the sandwich two thumbs up lol.


Italian Beef

Day Two

This was the first full day we had in Chicago, so we jam packed it with food, food, and lots of food. So much that we ended up retiring before dinner and bought snacks at a nearby grocery store and munched on them while watching movies on tv. Ahh good times..

Our first stop was lunch at Quartino. We went here after looking over the Restaurant Week options and I think it was overall pretty good. Family style Italian food with mismatched silverware and dishes and a friendly staff made it an enjoyable experience.


Baby Spinach Salad, ricotta on the side because E is not a fan of cheese. This was very nice and light and the cheese was delicious :D


Wild Arugula and Orange salad, dressing on the side by E's request. The orange was...spicy.. lol.


Napoli style, half sausage and half margherita pizza. Thin crust. So delicious. I repeat, so delicious.


Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Puttanesca sauce. Also quite delicious! The sauce was spicy, but not overwhelmingly so.


Mushroom Risotto. F hadn't tried risotto before, so she was curious to try one. I'm not a mushroom person, so I can't say I loved this, but I did like the consistency of it and ate more than I thought I would lol.


Coppa al Banana. OMG DELICIOUS. Banana, biscotti, ice cream, and chocolate? Can we say recipe for success? lol lol.


Zeppole with dark chocolate and honey. I believe zeppole is basically an Italian donut? They were freshly made and quite delicious in both the honey and dark chocolate, although I think E would disagree about that lol.

After lunch we headed to the Art Institute and wandered around for a good few hours before leaving to take a break...with more food!


Almond Croissant from Au Bon Pain. It was rather sweet, but I liked the filling :D


Pecan Caramel Crisp from Garrett Popcorn. Mm so sweet lol. This was E's bag, and unpictured is the bag of just caramel popcorn that F got. The popcorn here was pretty good, and they give samples! I think we were just a little disappointed that it wasn't warm and fresh.


CheeseCorn from Garrett Popcorn. This was my bag. I wanted to cut all the sweetness that we were eating with some salt.

Day Three

This was our last day here ::sniff:: so we made this day all about food :D

We started off with a breakfast at the 3rd Coast Cafe which was literally 3 blocks away from our hotel :D We were pretty satisfied with our selections and the portions were just a little too big, but we managed to finish everything :D


my eggs benedict


E's blueberry pancakes


F's eggs florentine

Then we headed back to Portillo's to try their hot dogs for lunch before F had to leave to catch her plane. I don't really eat hot dogs but F said they were pretty good and I had no complaints :) The chocolate cake, however, we felt wasn't alll that special.


Hot dog and fries!


E opted to get the Italian beef and sausage sandwich. You can't see the sausage but it's in there under the beef. I think E's conclusion was that the regular Italian beef sandwich was better, esp with the dip.


Chocolate Cake. Not the best, but still tasty.

After F left us for the airport, E and I wandered a bit around the area and had some froyo at Berry Chill. The froyo was ok, not the best but decent. I think we regretted not getting different toppings, like Girl Scout cookies, instead of our usual fare. Oh welll.. The coolest thing was the color changing spoons though lol. We took them home with us... :X Actually, I don't know what happened to mine..



And for dinner, we met with one of E's old coworkers at Gino's East for some Chicago style deep dish pizza :9 We got a medium supreme pizza that pretty much stuffed us to the brim. So much that it felt nice when E and I walked all the way back to the hotel (because we missed the bus :X)



And that ended my whirlwind eating tour of Chicago. There are definitely more places I want to go and I definitely want to go back before I move away from the midwest!