Up until my sojourn to Chicago last weekend, I, in all my travels had not made it to the American mid-west - a glaring hole in my travels around the globe. Keen to rectify the situation, a plan was hatched three months prior, while on a visit to Boston to meet-up with one of my good friends Marianne. We were visiting her during the 4th of July weekend, and Boston is a great place to experience it (more on this in a future post). When she mentioned that she was preparing for a Marathon - the Chicago Marathon. I jumped on the idea of heading to the Windy City and use as an excuse the fact that I would show up to cheer on Marianne and Oded while they ran the 26.2 miles.
First things first - getting a reservation at the infamous Girl & The Goat, this is where Chicago would convert me into a foodie - lock, stock, and barrel. More on this later.
Finally the weekend of the Chicago Marathon arrived. I had booked an early evening flight out of San Francisco - sadly I couldn't take the day-off. After leaving work fairly late, I got into SFO with only forty-five minutes left till my flight took-off. I know, very ambitious! Suffice to say, I missed the flight - fortunately there was another flight into O'Hare half an hour later with ample seats available for stragglers.
While I was at the United counter I noticed an elderly couple speaking Italian at the counter adjacent to mine, their luggage covered in Ferrari decals - finding this curios and being the Smart-Alec that I'm, I said something. Turns out the gentleman was actually one of the VP's of Ferrari! (unverified, but still a good story-I'll take his word for it)
Friday night in downtown Chicago was actually quieter than I expected. By the time I checked into my hotel it was passed midnight. I headed out immediately in search of food, at the hotel's suggestion I went to an Irish Pub that was still serving food. I was pleasantly surprised to catch the Ireland vs. Wales Rugby World Cup match at the restaurant and ordered some food driven by my extreme hunger. Again, the bar was rather mellow for a Friday night. Marianne and Oded had landed earlier that morning but had also called it an early night and I was due to meet up with them early on Saturday morning. Keen to get an early start myself, I called it a night after finishing my meal.
Saturday was an absolutely fantastic fall day in Chicago! Shorts, flip-flops - it was 75F (24C) at 9AM. I actually was up and about before I expected. Like a good traveler, I headed to Cloudgate, or otherwise effectionatly called by locals "The Bean" at Millenium Park. I was due to meet-up with Marianne & Oded there. I actually arrived while the throngs of tourists was at a minimal, mostly runners who were getting a final run before the big day. The backdrop of all the skyscrapers reflecting off Cloudgate was providing great fodder to keep a novice photog like myself occupied for hours. Fortunately, Marianne and Oded arrived promptly to whisk me to other great parts of Chicago.
Breakfast was on our schedule next and we walked what seemed like miles looking for a breakfast spot. In spite of having GPS-enabled phones we were sent on a wild goose-chase; the type that can only be brought about only when exploring a new city. This is that feeling/state that travelers get hooked onto and tourist try to negate. It turned out the breakfast spot (Meli Cafe on Wells St.)- a place know for it's french toast- would end-up near my hotel and also close to our next tourist activity for the day: an architectural tour of Chicago by boat. The french toast didn't disappoint.
Next was the famous architectural tour of Chicago by boat, we had booked our tickets beforehand since we were a bit wary of it beign sold out due to the Marathon-crowd. By now the weather was glorious, at 1PM, the three of us decided to crack open the first beer of the day/trip! The architectural tour is a must-do, it not only acts as an architecture tour but also provides the history of the city - highly recommended. And, the added bonus of enjoying an alcoholic beverage on or near water is quite possibly universal.
From there we were meeting one of Marianne's friends at Gene's Sausage Shop in the Lincoln Square neighbourhood. Gene's rocked my world, it has an awesome rooftop Beer garden with all the Bratwurst you can desire. This along with the 80+F (27C) weather couldn't be beat. After imbuing copious pitchers of the Weissbier and eating Bratwurst and a Rib Belly Sandwich we decided to head to the Chicago Brauhaus located a stones-throw from Gene's. Again, a few stein's of Hofbrau were put down while the band almost managed to transport us to Munich during Oktoberfest. It had started to get late in the evening so we decided to head back to our hotels to gear up for the Chicago nightlife. We headed out to the old town neighbourhood of Chicago and had a ball.
The next morning I was paying the price of starting my first beer at 1PM. By noon I dragged my butt out of the hotel and met up with the gang for lunch. We were headed to Chicago Pizza ando Oven Grinder Co. They were located in a historic location, on February 14, 1929 - The notorious “St.
Valentine’s Day Massacre” occurred just steps from the location of the restaurant.
In 1971, after a fire burned the original house down Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder Co. was born. Their specialty is the Pizza Pot Pie. A pot pie, created with the ingredients of a pizza, but once the pie is brought table-side it is flipped out of its bowl. Now, you have a upside down pot pie on your plate. But, it works - it is successful in transforming a pizza into pot pie form.
Afterwards we walked toward the Lincoln Park Zoo (which is free!) and traversed our way towards the Michigan Lake shore. Being as it was another picture-perfect fall day, there were many beach bums and volleyball players. We strolled along the beach heading towards the looming skyscrapers of downtown. Fianlly heading back to our hotels as Odie and I were intent on heading to the top of the Hancock building (formerly Sears Tower) for some drinks.
We made it to the 96th floor of the Hancock building, where the city view, especially at sunset is unfathomable. After a bit of a wait (arrive with at least 30mins prior to sunset so that you can get seated in time for it), Odie and I settled into a nice spot - there isn't a bad seat in the house! After a few Martini's and re-telling of past travel adventures we met up with Marianne and were off to our reservations at the Girl & The Goat.
I'm not going to lie, Girl & The Goat is for the adventurous eater (you don't have to be an Andrew Zimmern, the food isn't that bizarre). The menu is split into three categories V, M, F ( Vegetables, Meat and Fish). Here's a list of some of what we ordered:
Roasted cauliflower with pickled peppers, pine nuts, mint
Goat chorizo flatbread with ajvar, peppers, green tomato, apricot, fresh ricotta
Wood oven roasted pig face with sunny side egg, tamarind, cilantro, potato stix
Braised beef tongue with masa, beef vinaigrette, salsa verde
I can't quite describe the eating experience at The Girl & The Goat in so many words - the best I think it could be described is as a food pilgrimage that everyone who goes to Chicago should embark upon. Content and just reliving every bite from every plate we headed back to our hotel and had one last drink for the night.
Rested, I met Marianne for my last day in Chicago. On our agenda was to head back to "The Bean", we were hoping it would be less crowded since it was a working day, albeit it was more crowded than it was during Saturday morning. We went for a walk on the Magnificent Mile, a row of designer shops. I came upon the Apple store which was inundated with post-it tributes to Steve Jobs. After strolling for a while we decided to head to the Art Institute of Chicago, which houses an insane amount of great art; works by the likes of Picasso, Dali, Tanguy, Pollock etc.. It's a veritable who's-who of the art world. You spend an entire day there but sadly we could only muster a couple hours.
Being as though we were getting peckish and my flight was fast approaching we decided to grab some food and our last mean in Chicago would be at a place called The Purple Pig. What a fitting place to finish-off what has been a riveting culinary exploration of Chicago.
Chicago really overwhelmed my taste buds, the people are really friendly and the city is probably one of the cleanest cities I've been to stateside. There are plenty of other great neighbourhoods to explore, restaurants to have your taste-bus wowed but, sadly on a 66-hour itinerary this is all I could fit in.
Chicago, go for the architecture stay for the food!
P.S. I know I didn't talk about my friends running the Marathon after it being the reason I went to Chicago - like I said it was an excuse to get me there :).
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