Chicago may be better known for deep dish pizza and Italian beef sandwiches than haute cuisine, but there’s plenty of great food to be had in the Windy City. While in town for a friend’s wedding, we hit up some Chicago hot spots and ethnic restaurants, and came away more than happy with the variety of options. Here’s a rundown:
Hipster haven Mott St. serves Asian-inflected small plates that are heavy on the offal. The menu reads like the meat section of an Asian grocery, featuring duck hearts, lamb belly, pork neck, sweetbreads, and other unusual bits and bobs Mott St.’s atmosphere leans towards the cooler-than-thou—think communal tables, waiters with elaborate facial hair, and lighting so low you can barely make out the menu—but its staff is friendly and passionate about food, and its dishes are scrumptious. Offal’s no gimmick here: It’s incorporated beautifully into dishes like crab brain fried rice, which is redolent of coconut and lemongrass, and a pork jowl that’s reminiscent of Korean barbecue. The General Tso’s sweetbreads provide a witty take on that laowai staple, with the glands’ creamy texture providing a nice contrast to a sweet-and-spicy sauce.
Crab brain fried rice, Mott St.
This is Mott St.’s sign. They’re so cool they’re almost invisible from the road.
General Tso’s sweetbreads at Mott St.
No-frills Pierogi Heaven is an excellent choice for Polish comfort food. Its homemade pierogies boast toothsome dough (the savory sautéed mushrooms and tangy cheese were our favorites) while its kielbasa has a complex, smoky-spicy flavor and comes in a casing that snaps audibly when you cut into it. Nice.
No, I’m not about to stab that guy in the background. I’m just happy to be eating Polish food.
Xoco, the street-food branch of Rick Bayless’s Frontera Grill, specializes in the filling Mexican sandwiches known as tortas. We tried the goat barbacoa and the suckling pig, and both meats were tender and dripping with rich juices. The churros that followed came with little cups filled with delectable caramel and chocolate dipping sauces. Both were so good we drank the little that was left once our crispy churros were gone.
Suckling pig torta, Xoco.
Churros, Xoco.
It’s hard to pass up a place that advertises its fare as “Hot Asian Buns.” That’s the case with Wow Bao, a small Chicagoland chain that serves white flour buns with fillings inspired by classic Asian dishes. We liked the gingery Thai curry chicken best, but you can’t go wrong with teriyaki chicken, kung pao chicken, Mongolian beef, and BBQ pork, either.
Get ’em while they’re hot.
Sink your teeth into some hot Asian buns.
MingHin Cuisine, in Chinatown, serves respectable dim sum in an elegant modern setting. All of the dim sum standards we tried were tasty, fresh, and piping hot. The pieces in some of the dumpling fillings were chopped less finely than we were used to—there were whole shrimp in the ha gau—and the restaurant uses menus for dim sum rather than rolling carts, but that didn’t affect the quality of the food. As a bonus, MingHin is located in a cute outdoor Chinese shopping mall that’s got a pagoda and statues of the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac.
Dim sum at MingHin.
MingHin. Classy.
A couple of other helpful notes about dining in Chicago:
- You’ll never lack for caffeine, as there’s both a Starbucks and a Dunkin’ Donuts (choose your poison) on practically every block.
- Reservations are a must if you want deep-dish pizza. On a Saturday night, the wait at Lou Malnati’s was an hour and a half, and tourists were lined up down the block. (That’s how we wound up at Xoco, so it wasn’t all bad.)
- Mario Batali’s specialty food store Eataly is a spanking-clean shrine to all things edible and Italian. It’s fun to browse, but the prices are stratospheric.
The post Crab Brains, Churros, and Hot Asian Buns: Dining in Chicago appeared first on Matters of Varying Insignificance.