Category Archives: Food Blog

Recipes and Restaurants

So…hungry? Food Tour Chicago

One of the best things about living in NYC was the variety of different types of restaurants. After growing up in a small town in the Midwest, I hadn’t really been exposed to different types of foods. I’m a pretty picky eater but over the past few years I have wanted to try new foods. I met a friend in NYC, Sena, who shared the same desire to discover great restaurants in the city. So once a month we would get together (sometimes we would be nice and invite our boyfriends) and share a restaurant with each other that we found to be amazing. Sometimes we would just try a totally new type of cuisine that neither of us had had before. Now were not experts in food critiquing but we know what tastes good! And we are always on a budget so were not talking about your $50 per plate places. I’m talking about the real places.

So now it’s time to do the food tour of Chicago and find the best restaurants. It might take awhile because eating out is expensive, but I’ve been searching and already have a list of places to go. This time will be without Sena though 🙁 but when she comes to visit I will know the best places!

We have already tried a few pizza places in Chicago…but we haven’t tried any NY style yet only Chicago style. I have heard there’s some good NY style ones around though. Just down the street from out apartment though I believe Nancy’s has the best Chicago style stuffed pizza. I’m just basing that on about 5 different places I’ve tried throughout the years. Our favorite NY style pizza was in Brooklyn-Pizza Plus.

We have tried 3 different Indian places since moving to Chicago. We had our favorite place in NY, which was Panna II, but I kinda feel like 2 places here have surpassed Panna II…although none of quite captured the atmosphere of Panna hahaha. We found a Little India area in Chicago so that was exciting!! So many awesome little shops and tons and tons of restaurants. It was awesome, I can’t wait to go back and try another place there. The best Indian though in Chicago we have had I think has been Raj Darbar Indian Restaurant. We have also ate at Hemas Kitchen and Viceroy of Indian, which are very very close second bests. Raj Darbar and Viceroy both gave us the complimentary sauces and the bread/chips…don’t know the name. But Raj’s was better. All of the meals at these places have been amazing though. I think Raj wins because the Naan was amazing.

I’ve tried 2 Greek places so far: Melanthios and Athenian Room. Melanthios was pricier and I think Athenian Room might be better but I wanna go back and I have a few other places to try. At both places I had a Greek Burger.

So Food Tour Chicago…anyone wanna join or have any suggestions let me know!
Thai-Tac Quick
Chinese-Little Three Happiness, Mandarin Kitchen
Japanese-Ginza Japanese Restuarant
Mexican-Las Pinatas, Pancho Pistolas
German/Austrian-Resi’s Bierstube Restaurant, Mirabell Restaurant, Chicago Barvarian Food
Filipino-Pampango’s Cuisine Filipino, Isla Pilipina Restuarant
African-Vee-Vee’s African Restaurant, Zebda
Ethiopian-Ethiopian Diamond Cuisine
Turkish-A La Turka
Egyptian-King Tut
Greek-Santorini, Roditys
Southern Comfort Food-Big Jones, Wishbone Restaurant
Polish-Szatas, Old Warsaw
Cajun- Heaven On Seven, Lagniappe
Colombian- Las Tablas, Sabor A Cafe Colombian Steakhouse

This is gonna take awhile! Can’t wait to find some great places and awesome things in the city.

You suck, Applebee’s.

so i’ve always thought applebee’s was a decent restaurant. they have a good variety of food so out of those types of restaurants i’d say it was in my top 5.

i never really like applebee’s until mary and i ordered the nachos. their nachos were some of the best nachos EVER. so me and her would both order these giant nachos and it was amazing. it was like a guilty pleasure. we would go there and just pig out.

when i moved to ny though i had no one to eat these nachos with…so i kinda just forgot about them. one time i did happen to order them though and they were just as amazing.

here’s the thing though…there is an applebee’s right next to the theater we usually go to in battery park. so we would go there but awhile ago i noticed they replaced the good nachos with new nachos called “chili cheese nachos”…so i was mad but at least they still had the buffalo chicken salad and the buffalo chicken sandwich because those were the other 2 things i liked.

so then i went to applebee’s again and now not only are the nachos gone but the buffalo chicken salad was now gone! and i’m just like seriously!!! so out of the 8 different salads they have they get rid of the one that i like?!! okay but at least i can still order the buffalo chicken sandwich.

yesterday we went to a movie and afterwards were like lets go to applebee’s. i was looking at the menu thinking about the buffalo chicken sandwich…it’s really good and IT’S GONE! replaced with some new reuben sandwich….SERIOUSLY?! out of the 3 things on the menu worth getting they are now all 3 gone….?! the 3 things i order?! like they just randomly chose out of a hat which things to replace and all three that i like got chopped?! what are the freaken chances?!

so after this i am done with applebee’s. within a year they have gotten rid of everything worth me getting on their menu. i dont know if they have done this in other states…so until someone can prove they have 1 of these 3 things on the menu i will not eat there. the rest of the stuff is crap. applebee’s you should really consider keeping things on your menu…why not just keep things and add new things?! is it cheaper for you guys to make a crappy chili cheese nachos rather than your original ones? is there a shortage of buffalo sauce for your salads and sandwiches so now you can only afford the sauce for your wings? which by the way the buffalo wings are pretty good. but i’m sure if i went there again those would be replaced.