Chicago Eats

I recently traveled to Chicago for a long weekend because, well, it’s the closest cool big city to where I live and it only takes an hour to get there by air. Of course we wandered the Magnificent Mile, visited Marshall Fields, took in the view from the Hancock Observatory, stared in awe at the band shell and Cloud Gate in Millenium Park and visited the Field Museum and the Art Insitute.

Maybe I’ll write more about some of these later. But the real reason we went to Chicago, and what I want to talk about today, is the food.

There are all sorts of options for food in the Windy City. If you want to find a good restaurant in a certain part of town or with a particulary cuisine, from Afghani to Vietnamese and literally everything in between, the Tribune’s Metromix is the site to visit. Here you’ll find listings and reviews for most of the eating establishments in the city.

Another good way to find food in the city is to follow your nose. You’re bound to pass a few restuarants every couple of blocks no matter where you are in the city. If something smells good, stop and eat.

That’s how we found McCormick & Schmick’s a beautiful seafood restaurant on Chestnut Street. The menu is printed daily depending on what fresh fish is available that day, and every fish is labelled according to where it was caught. Several kinds of trout, hallibut, snapper, tilapia and more where on the menu when we were there.

My hubby and I spent our honeymoon in Maine, eating tons of the local seafood, and the clam chowder (New England style, of course) and McCormick & Schmick’s was the best we’ve had anywhere since Maine. It was obviously made with cream (and was so rich it just about killed me) and the freshest clams anywhere. The crab cake was melt-in-your-mouth, slap-your-mama delicious, and, oh yeah, the fish was good, too.

Of course when you go to Chicago you have to eat pizza. I wanted to go to Gino’s, but the one we were close to was closed for remodeling. So we went to Giordano’s instead. The stuffed-crust deep-dish vegetarian was so good, we’re definately looking forward to going back for seconds. Unfortunately, the pizzas are really big (even getting the small we left half the pizza on the table) so bring lots of friends or stay in a hotel with a fridge so you can keep the leftovers for midnight snacking.