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Experience The Flavors Of Vietnam This Restaurant Week

Choose Chicago begins its annual Restaurant Week tomorrow, with some 250 local restaurants offering incredible deals on 3-course lunches for $22 and dinners for $33. This year, Saigon Sisters is participating, and they’ve got something special up their silk sleeves. During the event (which is technically two weeks), guests will have the opportunity to enjoy … Continued

May St. Cafe’s Latin Menu for Restaurant Week

Choose Chicago’s annual Restaurant Week is bringing Chicagoans flavors from across the globe for incredible deals on 3-course lunches for $22 and dinners for $33. Pilsen’s May St. Cafe is bringing their bright and flavorful contemporary Latin cuisine to the (technically 2 week) event with a special 3-course prix fixe dinner menu. The Restaurant Week menu … Continued

Chicago Gets Ready To Bring Home The Bacon

Chicago is gearing up for its biggest Baconfest yet, and pork belly-loving Chicagoans will want to have their mouse-clicking fingers ready to secure themselves a ticket at noon on February 16. In previous years, tickets to the event have sold out quickly. For the uninitiated, Baconfest is a two day bacon extravaganza featuring creative bacon … Continued

Bring the BBQ Home for the Super Bowl

Even though the Bears are out, your Super Bowl party can still be a winner this year. Some of Chicago’s top BBQ joints are setting up special catering boxes for the big game. Piggyback Tavern is offering their BBQ smoked over hickory, oak, and cherry hardwood along with smoked wings, mac and cheese, coleslaw, buns, … Continued

Kick Off Restaurant Week at First Bites Bash

Choose Chicago’s annual Restaurant Week is right around the corner, and dedicated Chicago food lovers won’t want to miss its kickoff event- First Bites Bash this Thursday night. Attendees will join restaurateur and Master Sommelier Alpana Singh, as she hosts the event in the magnificent Grand Hall at Chicago Union Station. Guests will have the opportunity to … Continued

Try The Pulled Pork That Beat Bobby Flay

Beginning this Friday, Chicago q is participating in Choose Chicago’s annual Restaurant Week(s), and guests who visit during the 14-day event will have the opportunity to sample a special three-course prix fixe lunch and dinner menu, including Chef Lee Ann Whippen’s award-winning, Bobby Flay-beating pulled pork and other Southern-style fare. The Restaurant Week special will … Continued

Mexican, Korean & S. Indian Flavors at Two New Finds

We’ve seen the Mexico-Korea mashup before in Chicago, namely, at Del Seoul in Lincoln Park. It typically means tacos with Korean-influenced bulgogi beef, or at the very least, a few tablespoonfuls of kimchi carefully placed between the corn tortillas. So when I stepped into Takos Koreanos recently, located a few blocks west of the bustling … Continued

Top 5 Peking Ducks in Chicago

Two years ago, I embarked on a magical, fatty/crispy sojourn to Beijing, in search of the real Peking duck. Nearly every great restaurant I visited had their own procedure – be it air hose between skin and meat, large fan for blowing on and drying out the ducks or poaching in hot water for 30 … Continued

Ceviche at El Mercado

When in Lima, you will certainly be spending time in the cebicherias. These afternoons-only restaurants are loud, boisterous, and typically show off the fish they’ve picked up at the market that morning. Places like La Mar and El Mercado are usually only open from 12 – 5 p.m. We happened to get a table at … Continued

Cabbage Soup at Podhalanka

During the early part of the 20th Century, as Chicago’s ethnic enclaves continued to settle into their respective landing zones, The Polish Triangle – at the nexus of Ashland, Division and Milwaukee – was a hub of ex-pat activity. Sadly, most of their descendants have moved well beyond that original settlement, to the Northwest and … Continued