Things to do / Travel Guide
No place in America is more known for its street food than Chicago and southern Wisconsin. The tasty specialties of this area are incomparable! That's not all though, as the region is also host to a burgeoning modern cuisine fronted by some of the world's best and most daring chefs.
Chicago Street Food
It's been only recently that gourmet food has made its mark in Chicago, as the Windy City has been most known for its street food and corner restaurant food for decades if not centuries. Chicago has made its mark on the world with its deep dish pizza, sandwiches, sausages, and hot dogs. Get them while they're hot, on many street corners downtown and most of the main streets of the city's 70-odd communities. You can also find these specialties at Chicago's major stadiums, like Soldier Field.
The deep dish pizza surfaced in 1943, a monster with thick crust, massive heapings of tomato sauce, extra toppings, and inch-thick cheese. Pizzeria Uno claims to be the first to bring the deep pie to the public. Uno's has a few locations, mostly in the downtown Loop area.
The Italian beef sandwich, with its thin slices of beef tossed into thick Italian bread, made it's way to Chicago from Italy at the turn of the 20th century. Mr. Beef on North Orleans Street, in Near North Side, is so famous for the sandwich that Jay Leno frequents the joint every time he's in town.
Nothing says Old World the way a Maxwell Street polish sausage does. Simplistic with it's polish sausage, topped with grilled onions and mustard, and served in a bun, the taste could warm the coldest of Chicago nights. It originated somewhere in the old Maxwell Street Market around 1871, prepared by Jewish street vendors; a few other alternatives include kosher, and all-beef hot dogs. A Chicago institution is to eat a scrumptious Maxwell Street polish at one of the city's stadiums during a game.
On the subject of dogs, no trip to Chicago is complete without trying the Chicago hot dog. This is not your usual U.S.A.-ballpark frank. Here in Chicago they take a steamed or boiled, all-beef hot dog, lovingly place it in a poppy-seed bun, and top it with onion, sweet relish, a dill pickle spear, tomato slices, sport peppers, celery salt, and mustard. But don't dare put ketchup on this dog! No one does it better, especially at two in the morning, than the Weiner Circle on North Clark in Lincoln Park. Beware - they make an art of verbally abusing anyone who tries to order, putting Seinfeld's Soup Nazi to shame. It gets worse when you ask for ketchup. But a bite of the proud dog dispels all doubt as to the quality of the joint.
Ed Debevics made a franchise out of abusing the customers. The restaurant is based on an old and now defunct diner along Highway 50, where blunt signs were hung throughout stating “eat and get out,” and the popular “if you like what you're eatin', order more. If you don't, there's the door!” It's a must-see-to-believe experience, and the chili and assortment of burgers are to die for. it's located, not on Highway 50, but in Near North Side on North Wells Street.
Not everything in Chicago is tied to sausages or pizzas. Ethnic restaurants are scattered through out the city. The best Indian and Pakistani food is on Devon Avenue in Park Ridge, north of city. For Greek, head west of the Loop to Greektown; for Italian, visit next-door Little Italy. Another group of Italian restaurants is located in Heart of Chicago, in Lower West Side, on Oakley Avenue. Chinatown is located in Armour Square in the southern part of the city, and you'll find excellent Chinese restaurants, obviously; New Chinatown in Uptown is actually populated by Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, and Tai immigrants, and there are a generous amount of ethnic restaurants and supermarkets.
Chicago Gourmet and Avant-garde
Cutting-edge restaurants have been popping up mostly in the northern parts of the city, like Near West Side and Lincoln Park. What characterizes avant-garde Chicago cuisine is an emphasis on fresh and organic food, unusual ingredients, and unheard-of combinations and concoctions.Charlie Trotter, the self-titled King of Chicago Cooking, opened up Charlie Trotter's in Lincoln Park,where the average meal is about $200. Be prepared for wild entrées, like the whole roasted fig with goat cheese ice cream topped with a spicy fig sauce, or the baby carrot terrine with shiitake mushroom salad with carrot juice reduction, dill oil, and 50-year-old balsamic vinegar - good examples of what we mean when we say unheard-of combinations and concoctions.
Alinea, a tapas restaurant which combines art, science, and food, offers one-bite dishes with thanks to its chef Greg Achatz. You can pick your courses, and because each one is so small, you can have set in front of you eight, 12, or even 30 dishes. Bring your dictionary with you, as a look at the menu will otherwise mystify you. But where else can you get squab with huckleberry, sorrel, and long peppercorn, or rabbit with cider, roasted garlic, with a smell of burning leaves. No kidding!
An impressive culinary hotspot can be found in West Fulton Market, in Near West Side. Meatpackers still temper the neighborhood, and this just lends an avant-garde element for the new higher-end elements. Visit restaurants such as Moto and Blackbird, where you can eat food prepared with the help of liquid nitrogen and carbon dioxide, even lasers - you guessed it, this is also Charlie Trotter country.
It's called molecular gastronomy, similar to how McDonald's makes its food, just not mass-produced. A favorite technique of chefs who practice molecular gastronomy is to mix sweet foods with salty foods for unexpected results. Charlie Trotter did it above with his roasted fig and goat cheese dish; another favorite might be caviar on a white chocolate dish. One hint, though: You shouldn't call it molecular gastronomy in the chef's presence, because these folk sincerely believe that “molecular gastronomy is dead.” Don't ruin it for them.
While you're in Chicago, you should make time to try the fusion restaurants, where the chefs concoct fusions of various world cuisines. Three are located somewhat close to each other, in Near North Side. These are Japonais, a Japanese-French cuisine, Le Lan, a French-Vietnamese cuisine, and Vermilion, with Indian-Latin fare. Can they do it? Is this allowed? With dishes bearing names like Hedonism (at Vermilion), no one seems to care.
Southern Wisconsin
With a rich tradition of greasy, yummy food - southern Wisconsin might steal the mantle from the Deep South. Their Friday night fish fries originated with the Catholic inhabitants during Lent because they couldn't eat meat on Fridays. Milwaukee is the fish fry capital of Wisconsin, where even the Mexican restaurants serve up their version with perch. Other fish like walleye and haddock are popular, but the perch remains number one. It's hard to go three feet without seeing a restaurant that has a fish fry.
Bratwursts should be the official state meat for Wisconsin. This hotdog-like dish is, more or less, beef, pork, or some variation- stuffed inside a casing, then boiled. While generally only one form of German brats can be found in Wisconsin, there are alternatives like Polish kielbasa and Italian sausage. Supermarkets have entire freezers devoted to local producers of bratwurst. It's Wisconsin's soul food.
Nothing says Wisconsin like cheese. After all, it is the Cheese State. It produces over one-third of cheese sold in the United States, in over 600 varieties. The most commonly produced form is cheddar - with many varieties from bland to sharp tasting and colors that range from white to orange. Just as popular are muenster, Colby, Swiss, and yes, limburger cheese. A deli sandwich with limburger on pumpernickel bread is considered a delicacy in Wisconsin, as well it should. Two cheeses not born to Wisconsin but perfected by their cheese makers are gouda and emam with their smooth but soft texture and nutty flavor. There are cheese boutiques all over southern Wisconsin, in Racine, Milwaukee, and Madison.
A must-have on any trip to Wisconsin is custard! It's thicker than ice cream, and many people around here think it's better, also. Patrons of the Kopps frozen custard stands in Milwaukee take their frozen custard so seriously, Kopps has a flavor-of-the-day hotline.
Thanks to various migrations of Europeans in Wisconsin's early days, Wisconsin has a wide variety of ethnic foods to choose from. Eastern and Central European foods, like those originating from Poland, Serbia, and Germany, are no strangers to Milwaukee.
Madison is said to contain more restaurants per capita than any other American city, and indeed, everything from spicy Cajun to exotic Laotian is available. You'll find the classier stuff on Capitol Square, where the restaurants cook with the locally-grown produce, and the bakeries overflow with pastries and sweets.
New Glarus is known for its Swedish- and German-influenced meats. Ever since the initial Swiss migration, traditional Swiss food like landjaegers, dried sausage with equal parts beef, pork, and lard, and kalberwurst, creamy-tasting sausages with veal and milk, have been a popular choice for newbies to New Glarus. Probably the most patronized meat store is Ruef's Meat Market, on 1st Street.
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