Chicago Food Tour with a New Zealand Flair

Jeff and I had the wonderful privilage of hosting our dear friend, Maree from New Zealand for a week.

One of the things we did was stay overnight in Chicago and show her some of the big city (For some reason the corn fields of Central IL just didn't hold our attention for that long...). We took a three hour food tour through the neighborhoods of Wicker Park and Bucktown.

The tour started us off at an establishment famous for its Chicago dogs.

Do you know the 7 ingredients in a true Chicago dog?

1. mustard
2. dill pickle spear
3. sport pepper
4. tomato slices
5. onions
6. sweet relish
7. celery salt

NO KETCHUP!

Then on to a pastry shop called "Hot Chocolate". We were given this amazing "sipping chocolate" on ice. 80% milk chocolate and 20% dark chocolate with a homemade marshmallow on top.

One word: DIVINE


Wicker Park is best known for its artisan flair. The artists have seemed to congregate in this neighborhood as well as high end boutiques and a fine arts fair is held on its streets in the fall.

Next was a deli/catering shop. It was chocked full of pastas and pastries as well as goodies on the shelves, such as chocolate bars with bacon bits.




We feasted on a salad bursting with asparagus, arugula and feta cheese. (or as our NZ friend would say, "fee-tah" cheese)

This cleverly named pizza joint was voted the best pizza in the....I believe it was the city, but may have encompassed even a broader range than that.

As much as I gush over Chicago style pizza, this New Hampshire-style, thin crust garlic and cheese pizza caused me to keep stuffing my gut which by now was getting extremely full.


After a nice long walk viewing the local architecture and hearing the history of the neighborhood, we landed at a middle eastern restaurant to try their Falafal pita sandwich. Little fried patties of blended chickpeas with cucumbers and lettuce and yummy spices. This could be my new favorite sandwich of all time!

This ice-cream shop was the most interesting of all the places. You decide your own ice cream ingredients and then it is made on the spot using liquid nitrogen. It has won all sorts of awards for ingenuity and the ice cream itself is pretty good.

I found this shop a little bit of a turn-off only because of all the choices you had to make. Decision-making is not my forte.


Note the steam? smoke? (not sure which) from the liquid nitrogen. Seemed pretty sci-fi to me!


And, so ends our food tour...if you want info in doing one of these tours, I can give it to you. It really is a great thing to do in Chicago!