Road Trip - Chicago Style!

I have been very lax in updating this blog recently, but now that the spring weather is here I will try to get back on track by talking about our trips so far this year.  We’ve been to Chicago, Las Vegas and Toronto in 2019 and we’re planning another short road trip soon!

Over the Christmas holidays we took a trip back to Chicago.  We like travelling over the Christmas holidays because we’re usually off work, and often lucky to have mild enough weather for a road trip.  

Chicago is a 6 hour drive for us, which is definitely manageable, but this time we decided to break up the trip with a stop in Kalamazoo, Michigan for a night to check out all the new craft beer places in the city since our last trip way back in 2013. There are a lot of changes!

We stayed at a hotel close to downtown and walked to the new HopCat Kalamazoo first.  HopCat has really expanded over the years from their first location in Grand Rapids, Michigan. If you see one on your travels, it’s an excellent place to try local craft beer.  The Kalamazoo location is huge and in an old train station. We made it in time for happy hour and had some delicious beer, cider and snacks.

Next we checked out Bell’s Eccentric Cafe.  Last time we were here, it was just a bar with a food counter, now they’ve expanded to a full service restaurant as well as the bar.  Their beer is some of the best in North America, and we featured it in the Beer Baron’s first post on this site!

We had some more snacks and beer and moved on to the Kalamazoo Beer Exchange where they have a stock ticker and beer prices rise and fall throughout the night.  It’s a cute concept.

The next morning, we decided to make one more detour before Chicago and visited the famous 3 Floyds Brewery in Munster, Indiana, about 45 minutes outside Chicago. We picked up some precious bottles and had a really spectacular lunch in their busy brewpub. The food was outstanding and the staff was super friendly.

Finally, on to Chicago!  On the way into town we stopped at Marz Brewing in the up-and-coming Bridgeport neighbourhood near White Sox stadium.  The brewery is gorgeous and the beer is fantastic. It’s a great community place.  

Our hotel on this trip was the brand new Aloft Chicago Mag Mile.  We like Aloft hotels - they’re a little bit modern and usually have a bar and live music in the lobby on weekends.  This one was perfectly located and an easy walk to Michigan Avenue and all Chicago attractions. One of the reasons we love Chicago, other than the amazing food, drinks and shopping, is that hotels can very cheap!  Our hotel was less than $90 USD per night in the perfect location. In the winter and spring on weekends, we’ve gotten some amazing hotel deals in the city.

On our first night we walked to Headquarters Beercade River North.  Matt loves an arcade bar and this is one of the best we’ve ever been to.  The games are FREE to play and they have a great beer and cocktail selection.  

Afterwards we tried Rick Bayless’s new speakeasy, Bar Sotano. We’ve enjoyed his Chicago restaurants, Frontera Grill and Xoco in the past, so as soon as we heard about this new addition we made a reservation!  We’re so glad we did. The entrance is in an alley behind the restaurants and you check in at the front desk before being led behind a curtain and down the stairs (sotano means basement in Spanish).

The drink menu was spectacular and we tried several cocktails, including this mango cocktail served in a plastic bag!

The food menu is mostly small plates but Matt had the burger, which we were shocked to find was one of the best we’d ever tasted!

The next day we did a little walking and shopping and stopped by Millennium Park to visit the bean.  Matt had a Chicago Dog in the park.

That evening we hadn’t made plans but wanted to try one of Top Chef Stephanie Izard’s restaurants.  We ended up at the Little Goat Diner, We sat at the counter and had some amazing food!  Matt had the tallest burger in history!

We also checked out the Chicago outlet of one of Matt’s favourite San Diego breweries, Ballast Point, and played some more video games at Emporium Fulton Market.   The perfect end to a fun and filling trip.

Short & Sweet Sunday - Chicago-Style Hot Dogs

This post is by Matt, the Beer Baron who also loves hot dogs! 

I admit to getting weirdly obsessive about odd things sometimes. It happens mostly with movies and food - both things I absolutely love. If I get a certain movie (like Aliens or L.A. Confidential, for example) in my head, I will obsess about it until I get the chance to see it again. The same thing goes for food. If I crave a certain food, it becomes a matter of when and not if I will eat it next.

Yesterday, for some odd reason, I wanted a Chicago-style hot dog, which we discovered on our first trip to Chicago a decade ago and then had again on a visit in 2013. Rather than drive the 640 kilometres to get a real one (which I briefly considered), I decided to make my own.

A Chicago-style hot dog is an all-beef wiener put on a poppy seed bun, then topped (in this order) with yellow mustard, sweet green pickle relish, onions, tomatoes, pickle spears, sport peppers (pickled peppers), and celery salt. 

Most of the ingredients are pretty easy to come by except for the poppy seed bun, so I had to improvise by using a basting brush to brush melted butter on the tops of my normal hot dog buns so I could then coat them with poppy seeds.

The end result was absolutely delicious. The mix of flavours and textures is really what makes it special. While I never liked Chicago-style deep-dish pizza, I think Chicago nailed it when it comes to hot dogs. Cheers!

Detour - Chicago Part 2

Last time we visited Bell's Brewery in Kalamazoo, Slurping Turtle and Frontera Grill.  Now for our final day in Chicago.

We did a little shopping on the Magnificent Mile and then for lunch we decided to go with the recommendation of a local friend of Matt's and try Portillos, a famous Chicago institution for Chicago-style hot dogs, Italian Beef, and Polish Sausage.

Chicago had its own special style of hot dogs and Chicagoans are proud and protective of them. A Chicago dog is an all-beef frank on a poppyseed bun topped with mustard, relish, onions, a dill pickle spear, tomatoes and pickled sport peppers (hot peppers) and celery salt. There is no ketchup on a Chicago dog and some vendors will even refuse to add it!  So, this was Matt's lunch.  

I had an Italian Beef, another famous Chicago sandwich.  It is thinly sliced roast beef, dripping in beef juice served on an Italian roll, also dipped in beef juice and topped with sweet peppers or hot giadiniera.  It was very delicious.  

After that, we hopped in a cab to do some shopping on the Clybourn corridor, an emerging shopping area near Lincoln Park.  We took a little walk to grab a drink at Local Option, one of the best beer bars in Chicago, so Matt could have his first birthday beer.  They had a great selection and we had more than a few rounds.  We'd planned to do a bit more shopping but instead grabbed a cab back to the area near our hotel and had a coffee so we'd be ready for our special dinner.  

We made reservations at The Publican for Matt's birthday dinner.  This is a farm-to-table restaurant that has an excellent beer list so we thought it would be a good fit.  I don't have many photos but here's the scoop:

Most of the seating is long, communal tables but we were in a booth that closes completely. Service was great and food is served family-style so we ordered several dishes to share. We ordered pork rinds (incredible!), arctic char (fantastic), suckling pig (delicious) and 1/2 farm chicken with frites (amazing, wish we'd ordered the whole chicken). Plus brussels sprouts. This was for 4 people. We also ordered a sampling of ham but it never arrived. The waiter was very apologetic and offered to buy us dessert. We got a popcorn gelato for the birthday boy, plus stout chocolate cake (amazing), rice pudding brule and a cheese plate. 

The next day we drove home and made it in record time.  A very successful little holiday!  Chicago is a great place to visit.

Detour - Chicago Part 1

Over the holidays we took a trip to Chicago for Matt's birthday.  It was our 3rd time visiting.  It's just a 6 hour drive from home and we love the city!  Shopping is fantastic.  There's so much to see and do.  And the food!  The food is incredible!

Day One:

Our first stop is always on the road. Kalamazoo is the halfway point between home and Chicago.  Michigan has a wonderful beer scene and Bell's Brewery is one of the best in North America.  They have a great little restaurant called the Eccentric Cafe where you can get a terrific lunch and some tasty beer.  They also have a General Store to purchase their beer, along with brewing ingredients and equipment and swag.  We grabbed some fancy beer and headed back on the road.

Once in Chicago we made one more stop at Binny's Beverage Depot.  We usually go to the downtown location but this time we went to Lincoln Park and it was tremendous!  Huge selection of beer, liquor and wine.  Matt bought dozens of interesting beers and I got some Champagne and French sparkling wine for a ridiculous price (they had samples in every aisle!).  I also bought a bottle of interesting tequila and some delicious margarita mix.  Most of this was to bring home but we did consume some in the hotel room as well.  

Next we checked into our hotel, the Amalfi Hotel Chicago.  This was our first time staying here but the whole trip was planned around a great deal we found.  Chicago hotels are often deeply discounted on weekends and this was no exception.  The Amalfi is in a fantastic location on Kinzie Street, just a block from the river and two blocks from the Magnificent Mile.  It was easy to walk to restaurants, shopping and sights.  It also had a wonderful reception each evening with free (!) cocktails and snacks, plus a free continental breakfast each morning.  It was a great place to stay.  

Our first evening we hadn't planned dinner but we knew the Slurping Turtle was close by and wanted to check it out.  Chef Takashi was one of our favourite contestants on Top Chef Masters and we lucked out that he actually popped in to his little soup restaurant while we were there!    

We were seated at a communal table and had a great server who explained the menu.  I'd planned to get ramen but my top choice, Tan Tan Men, turned out to be quite spicy so Matt ordered it instead and I ordered an amazing lobster and crab maki roll and shared a bit of the soup.  Our friends ordered another ramen, Tonkotsu, a traditional pork noodle soup, as well as some sashimi and it was incredible too.  We also had bacon-wrapped asparagus and the most delicious Brussels sprouts in history.  This place is amazing.  I'd love to return for lunch where they have a great looking bento box special.

Day Two:  

Today walked to Millennium Park where we visited the Art Institute of Chicago.  

The collection is pretty amazing and we spent several hours there before heading to Macy's on State Street for shopping.  This Macy's is 7 floors in a beautiful, old building. We had a quick lunch (beer & nachos) at the sports bar at Macy's, then shopped all afternoon.

One of the things we love in Chicago is the amazing Mexican food.  It always astounds me that there's such a huge Mexican population so close to where we live but we can barely get decent Mexican food in our area.

Tonight, dinner at Frontera Grill.  We'd eaten here once before and loved it.  Chef Rick Bayless makes amazing Mexican food at his Chicago restaurants.  They have a limited number of reservations available for Frontera Grill (Toplobampo, the more upscale sister restaurant next door does take reservations).  We managed to secure a reservation months in advance to celebrate the night before Matt's birthday at his favourite restaurant.  

We were seated right away and ordered cocktails.  I had JJ's Elixir: Fig-infused Riverboat rye whiskey, cinnamon agave, fresh lime, Scrump's hard cider. Matt ordered a Fernet-Pear Mojito: D'Aristi rum, Fernet Branca, pear, fresh mint, lime, cane syrup.  We also tried the Oaxacan Gold: Wahaka Joven Espadin mezcal, wood-grilled pineapple, Mexican vanilla, fresh lime.  

For appetizers we all wanted some ceviche. We'd tried it before at Frontera and loved it. We ordered Yucatecan Ceviche: Steamed Mexican blue shrimp & calamari, lime, orange, habanero, avocado, jicama, cucumber & cilantro with tortilla chips, plus Jícama Street Snack: Jicama, cucumber, pineapple, fresh lime and crushed guajillo chile, plus Stuffed Jalapeños: Sweet-sour jalapeños stuffed with Veracruz-style chicken picadillo (tomatoes, capers, olives, herbs), cilantro crema, peashoots and añejo cheese.

All of this should have been enough but then we had a little mix up.  We ordered a half-sized oyster and ceviche platter but were served the full version.  We ate it anyway and the oysters were incredible, but it was way too much food for four people.  And we hadn't even had entrées yet! This is a dozen oysters plus two large tuna ceviche.  

I don't know if I've ever ordered oysters before but now it's all I want all the time.  They were so delicious.  

For our mains, the birthday boy had Duck in Pasilla-Huitlacoche Sauce: Red chile-rubbed Gunthorp duck breast, dark sauce of pasilla & local huitlacoche. Corn husk-steamed tamales studded with sweet corn, smoky green beans, cheese chicharron.

He loves duck and loved this.  A beautiful, complex sauce. 

We've been impressed both times we visited this restaurant at how helpful and professional they are about nut allergies. I was thrilled to hear they had two nut-free moles on the menu.  I wanted to order something Matt could try too. I asked for a recommendation and ordered Chicken in Mole de Calabaza: Garlic-marinated chicken breast, red kuri squash mole, roasted local sweet potatoes & beets, watercress salad.  The chicken was beautifully tender and the sauce was delicious.  Tortillas were served alongside which I shared with Matt for his duck.  

One of our friends ordered Red Chile Meatball Tacos: Classic little Mexican pork meatballs, guajillo chile sauce, braised kale, crispy onions, queso de cincho.

Our other friend ordered the daily special of Chipotle-glazed Gunthorp Farm pork back ribs. Tangy cabbage & black beans. We had a taste of the ribs and they were spicy and delicious.

We don't commonly order dessert when we eat out but they brought Matt a nice little sorbet.  We also ordered boozy coffees and got some lovely tequila complements of the house. 

It was a great way to spend a special day and it's not even Matt's actual birthday yet!  Tune in next time for our last day in Chicago.