My trip to Chicago is more than words could ever really put together. Just as my trips to Tokyo, Seattle, North Carolina, and Vegas, my whole world is always centered on food. Maybe that makes me a lush, maybe it makes gluttony my number one on my list of seven deadly sins but I adore it. I adore seeing what other like minded or even ill minded people care to do with the foods of their city, culture, art, and love and here just like in many cities food is at the utmost center of the universe.

I’m from a large city so seeing other ones is a different experience than those people who are from small towns. I’ve seen high rises and sky scrapers, I’ve dogged traffic, and road subways but everywhere in the world is somewhere that is unique but has some of the same old things going on.

I stayed in three places over the course of about 7 days in Chicago. My flight was simple and quick O’Hare is a monster of an airport and I was lucky enough to meet someone nice enough to give me a couple pointers on how to get around the city at approximately 2 am while I was trying to find my hostel and one of the subway lines i was going to take had just stopped running. Smart move? I think not but it worked out for the best, lucky for me. After hoisting my ridiculous luggage up and down flights of stairs and through pee scented elevator shafts (welcome to Chicago) I traveled a couple of blocks to a small neighborhood and stayed at Chicago Getaway Hostel for about 35 bucks for the night. I “slept” (well not really) then packed up, got a quick shower and headed over to store my luggage. A hostel is a truly funny thing like a not so organized barracks with crazy people sharing the same space. I like my own space just fine but for a couple of hours I couldn’t complain too much.  Welcome to 8 women sleeping in a chaotic clammy basement, oh joy.

I decided to get a quick breakfast and coffee I headed to north Clark street a lovely little row of restaurants,shops, and such in Lincoln Park and had breakfast in an Austrian Bakery called Österreichische

I had a quick coffee and a really delicious egg, swiss, homemade sausage, and spinach filled croissant. The croissant was one of the best I’ve eaten. It was so buttery and delicious that I couldn’t finish all the eggs I chose to eat the pastry and sausage instead. The German sausage was very tender and wonderful you could tell that it was homemade pressed pork with different spices in it than a regular traditional breakfast sausage. This place is also adorable because they sell a plethora of different regional pastries, cakes, cookies, and homemade breads, as well as Austrian specialties. If you’re ever up there check it out. The strudel looked to die for. The waitress here was also amongst the best servers I’ve had. Sweet and attentive but not overbearing.

 
 

After my quick breakfast/lunch I continued on about a 10 mile hike around Lincoln Park. I saw the conservatory of amazing flowers and plants, the Lincoln Park Zoo which was fun and free and I hadn’t been to a zoo in ages, walked through Bucktown and down Lincoln Avenue and essentially got lost for 4 hours. I love roaming places so it didn’t bother me. Finally my co captain for my trip Michelle called me and I had managed to get back towards the hostel and find where our other hotel was going to be and we made it. The Belden Stratford is where we stayed it is an older building facing Lake Michigan, with a gorgeous view and just the right amenities. after we got settled we were on our way to our 1st dinner in Lincoln Park. On my little afternoon of getting lost I found a place that my brother and his friends has talked about called Lou Malnati’s. Lou Malnati’s is a chain of deep dish pizza restaurants that even delivers to other states by mail. The atmosphere in the restaurant is fun and family oriented just as a pizza place should be. The middle of the dining room was even centered with a couple of couches and a big screen TV with the baseball game on. The dining room was packed and for good reason. The pizza here is awesome. What we also agreed on was that the place was filled with people from Chicago and not just tourists. I love eating at places that are good enough for anyone to go to whenever they want something good to eat. This was just that kind of place.

We started with a Malnati Salad

Romaine lettuce, diced tomatoes, black olives, sliced mushrooms, crumbled Volpi salami and gorgonzola cheese. Tossed with Lou’s famous dressing with a touch of romano cheese.
The salad was a good combo of sweet and salty, with the hungry people that we were if we hadn’t gotten the salad we could of eaten each other, since pizzas take 30 35 minutes to prepare, which was perfectly fine for us to eat and hang out talking about our flights in and my little day packed of getting lost.

Our pizza came which I ordered

 

The “Malnati Chicago Classic”
House made specialty sausage, a very thick richly ripe tomato sauce and thick melted fatty mozzarella cheese and a deep dish butter crust
You can taste the butter in the crust it flakey and rich with very little salt. But the salt from the thick perfectly melted cheese and the sausage is a really perfect balance. I love that the tomatoes are on top which leaves the crust to have a crisp texture with the wonderful flavor of tomato.

A really awesome pizza and salad for my 1st dinner in Chicago. Michelle had The Lou spinach, mushrooms and tomatoes covered with mozzarella, romano and cheddar cheese. Good pizza!

So that was my 1st day in Chicago you got 5 more to go. Fair warning. I took over 1200 pictures, they wont all be here but it does take a lot of work to get through them all. I hope you enjoy this adventure as much as I did.

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Cheers
Unrivaledkitch