We took an awesome food tour through the Bucktown / Wicker Park area while in Chicago. We found it through
Chicago Food Planet. We went to six different places, all of which were amazing. Our tour guide was extremely knowledgeable and made our tour that much better! I'm sure it helped that her other job is acting :)
We started with a Chicago-style hot dog at
George's Hot Dogs. I think our tour guide said this is either the oldest or one of the oldest places in the area. A true Chicago-style hot dog has seven toppings...tomato, mustard, pickle relish, onion, pickle, hot pepper and celery salt. Everyone really liked it but I scraped off most of the toppings LOL
Next we went to
Hot Chocolate. That was my favorite! We had iced hot chocolates with homemade marshmallows. I drank mine down so fast!! The owner is a pastry chef who has won numerous awards. Their menu looked good too, and I would love to eat there on a return trip.
Next we went to
Goddess and Grocer where we were given a veggie salad. I don't like veggies but I loved it. My family loves veggies and didn't love it...go figure. This place is owned by a woman who used to do international catering for famous bands...so cool! This is also where I bought Hunter a doggie pie :)
After that we went to Piece, a pizza place with pizza and beer brewed on site. I don't love beer but I heard positive things from everyone on the tour about it. The pizza was amazing! We had white pizza which was fantastic because I am not a sauce lover.
Next we walked through the residential neighborhood, looking at the various types of architecture on the houses. Many houses used to be single-family mansions, then after the war were boarding houses, and are now being returned to their original amazingness.
This is from a movie with John Cusack...I forget which one.
How can this be a house? It looks like a museum or something!
So many details!
Tons of balconies!
So insane!
Our fifth stop was Sultan's Market. They have tons of Mediterranean food, a food bar and more. One great thing about them is their generous food portions and their low prices! We were served a half portion of the falafel sandwhich. We we all so stuffed by this point that we only wished we could have eaten more. My mom graciously offered to let me take a picture of hers.
Our last stop was
iCream, one of my favorites but the only one where I forgot to take a photo. This place makes you ice cream on the spot using liquid nitrogen. We got to try a flavor called "That Guy From Florida", which is white chocolate and cream soda flavored ice cream with nutella mixed in. Amazing!!!
If you are ever in Chicago, I would highly recommend this food tour and/or any of the places we stopped at!