Savory Chicago; the Land of Indulgences!

Please head over to my new blog at TheUrbanHousewife.com, where you'll find this post & more!

Recently, Ryan & I took a little trip to the Windy City of Chicago. With a great group of friends there & lots of excellent dining options, I thought I would show Ryan why I enjoyed it there so much last time & try some spots I didn't make it to before!

We arrived in Chicago late evening & hungry as can be, enter Pick Me Up Cafe, the perfect place for a night time bite. While not an all vegan restaurant, you won't be short on options here! We decided to go for it & get the Jalapeno Poppers, Chili Cheese Fries, & French Toast. While the Jalapeno Poppers were less than memorable, the Chili Cheese Fries were a delicious indulgence with cumin spiced chili, & cheese sauce by Teese, & perfectly crisp fries. Although, the highlight of our dining was certainly the French Toast! Ryan is a serious French Toast lover & is rarely impressed by the offerings available, but we were both blown away by the cinnamon & nutmeg flecked coating on thick, fluffy, locally baked bread. With maple syrup, this was heaven on a plate, & we were glad we listened to the many people who recommended it to us! Rumor has it, the locals prefer the vegan version. On another late night, we popped in again for a bite & noticed dessert options such as rice krispie treats & cake, but we were looking for savory items, so we opted for the Buffalo Tofu & salads. Let me just say, stick to the French Toast, it's too good to pass up!

Chicago knows junk food & so does Veggie Bite. If you like neon cheese sauce, then you'll LOVE this spot that claims to be the first 100% vegan fast food joint. We headed here with Natalie from Bake & Destroy, plus her husband & Veggie Bite lover, Tony. She warned us it was going to be gnarly & boy, was she right! When selecting photos for this post, one thing I noticed was all the food looks the same! It's like Taco Bell, the food may have different titles, but it all has the same ingredients. We started with Chili Cheese Fries for the table, then moved on to a Chili Cheese Dog with Fries for Ryan & a Taco Salad for me. Guess what? They all had (slightly burnt) beans & neon cheese sauce with something fried! I could see this being a late night drunken dining spot, but I couldn't imagine eating here regularly, unless you enjoy having a boxing match in your stomach!

After checking out Millennum Park with Natalie & her crew, we headed to a new spot for vegans called Delicious Cafe. While it's more of a coffee shop with light food options, there's some tastiness to be had here. First of all, they have a case full of sweets, some made in-house, others made by Fritz Pastry, which included cupcakes, pie, scones, & even S'mores! On the savory side, you'll find a McMuffin-like Breakfast Sandwich, plus sandwiches like my grilled Peanut Butter & Banana. Ryan opted to make his own sandwich with Tofurky & lots of veggies, which came with a side of chips. While nothing we had was epic, it was a nice bite to eat & a great option for the neighborhood. If anything, I would go back to support this vegan owned & operated business!

You can't go to Chicago without going to The Chicago Diner. In fact, we went there twice, once before a Cubs game & once for a night out with friends & we may or may not have ordered the same thing both times. The bottom line is The Radical Reuben totally lives up to its name & even as someone who would likely not order a reuben, I just have to have this sandwich when I'm there. Perfect seitan from Upton's Naturals, tangy Sauerkraut & Thousand Island dressing, plus melted Teese, I'm powerless! I can't seem to get away without ordering the Peanut Butter Cookie Dough milkshake as well, Temptation ice cream makes a killer shake! We also had some tasty nachos, some not-so-buffalo tasting wings, & I tried a raw strawberry cheesecake that was pretty good. I think I may be a Reuben & Shake girl for life!


On sunny afternoon, we headed over to Handlebar, another vegan friendly spot in Chicago, to meet up with Leanne from Vaute Couture & have lunch. If you don't know, Leanne is the beauty & brains behind Vaute Couture, a 100% vegan, eco-conscious, fashionable line of winter coats! She also has a blog On Our Sleeve, where she writes about news regarding her line, plus her life has a vegan, model, & activist. We had a great time chatting about our lives in the fashion industry & what's coming up for us next, Leanne is an awesome gal! On the food front, Ryan had one of the staples of Handlebar, the Buffalo Chicken wrap with a side of fries. I opted for a salad version, taking the "Fried Chicken Salad" & adding buffalo sauce. It turned out to be a good call & it totally hit the spot!

I always like to try to meet up with friends & bloggers when I visit other cities & this was no exception. A group of awesome ladies including Kelly of Vegan Cookies, Julia of SnarkyVegan, & some PPKers joined me for a feast at Soul Vegetarian East. We started with a big ol' basket of fried food! Onion Rings, Cauliflower, & also the Protein Tidbits were passed around & we all filled our bellies with far too much before our entrees came out. Most of us went for the Dinner Special of Pot Roast, Red Beans & Rice, Collard Greens, & Yams. I also had to grab a piece of Cornbread, since it's a favorite of mine. Everything was well seasoned & I enjoyed it, especially the yams. For dessert, we ordered soft serve & that's when the confusion began. Our waitress just plopped all of the (tiny) servings on the table, never telling us which was Mango & which was Pineapple! You would think we could taste them & figure it out, but that wasn't the case. Needless to say, none of us were impressed. Next time, I think I'll pass!

On my final day in Chicago, I spent most of the day in a tattoo chair with Hannah Aitchison laying down a little over 6 hours of ink on my arm. All that tattooing gets a girl mighty hungry, so I met up with friends Cas, Mary, & Megan for dinner at Amitabul, home of "Healthy Korean Vegan Cuisine". Everything on the menu sounded SO good, it was hard to decide what to get, but we all started with some delicious dumplings, & I ordered the Spicy Kimchi Noodle dish as an entree. It was a HUGE plate of food that was super flavorful & spicy! Mary ordered the Dark Side of the Moon & I have to say, it was so good, I would likely order that next time! I loved the fresh vegetables & flavorful dishes at Amitabul, it really did feel healthy for restaurant fare & I hope to get back there soon!

Once again, Chicago showed me a good time on the dining front. While everything may be a bit heavier than I would normally eat, it's fun to let loose sometimes & load up on vegan cheese products & fried treats. Speaking of indulgences, next time I'll be bringing you the sweet side of Chicago! Stay tuned!

Chicago, the Sugar Shack; part two.

Please head over to my new blog at TheUrbanHousewife.com, where you'll find this post & more!

You would think by reading part one of my Chicago adventure, I might have exhausted all the vegan options in the Windy City, but I'm happy to say there were many more eating adventures, including dessert, of course!

Despite being full of cupcakes from both The Bleeding Heart Bakery & Sweet Cakes Bakery, Natalie & I were not done with our sweets tour! We had a rest after our rainy day at Renegade & then we were off to Blind Faith Cafe & Bakery in Evanston, home of "innovative vegetarian cuisine" & a large selection of vegan treats. I started with a wonderful Lemon Seitan dish, my first non-baked good of the day, & it really hit the spot. For dessert, I ordered an assortment of desserts for the table to split. Once again, they were refrigerated, so my order was placed in advance. We noshed on a tasty maple spice cake with cream cheese frosting, a firm, but tasty cappuccino brownie filled with walnuts, peanut butter chocolate cake with lovely frosting, & both a chocolate & a vanilla cupcake. The cakes were all on the dry side & the frostings on the cupcakes were far too sweet for me, but Blind Faith had a nice dessert assortment, many of the items were very tasty, & I would go there again.

The next day, Natalie & I set out to bake together. With two bitches who love to bake in one house, how could anything go wrong? Well, let me tell you, it can & it did. Not once, but TWICE. The great vegan cinnamon roll experiment = FAIL. The yeast never activated, yet we kept going & ended up with half baked lumps of dough, that I still tried to eat. Natalie documented our failure best & even includes the recipe. (Side note: It's a great recipe I have used with success!)

Post baking failure, I headed out in to the rain to meet up with Kelly of Vegan Cookies fame. Let me start by saying, she's young, motivated, & writing an awesome cookie book; make her Snickerdoodles now! We met up at Pick Me Up Cafe where I had a cup of chili to balance out the sugar intake & Kelly had vegan cheese fries. Photogenic? No. Tasty? Yes. After a bit of wandering around & a photoshoot by Kelly (she took the photo at top), we walked multiple miles in the rain back towards Renegade Craft Fair, where we shopped around a bit before she had to catch a train home.

For dinner, I headed over to Earwax Cafe, the spot with a not-so-appetizing name, but a nice vegan selection. I got a Jamaican Jerk Seitan salad & sadly, it was so spicy, it was hard to enjoy. Luckily, the most amazing milkshake ever was there to keep me happy! Freshly squeezed orange juice + Temptation ice cream = OMG, so good! Seriously, skip the other flavors (I almost went peanut butter, but it was hydrogenated) & get this! I still dream about it!

Monday was my final day in the windy city & I decided to check out Karyn's Cooked for my final meal. Let's just say, I should have listened to what others had to say. I ordered Thai skewers in peanut sauce & a trio of sides which included Southern greens, cole slaw, & potato wedges. Unfortunately, the portions were small & most everything was bland & uninspiring, although with a hefty dose of salt, the greens were quite nice. For dessert, I ordered a slice of tiramisu cake, which was, of course, refrigerated. Coming in at $7, this was a pretty generous slice & probably best shared between two people. The cake was hearty & wheaty, almost like a coffee flavored bread with a creamy coffee frosting that was not very sweet. I found myself taking bite after bite, trying to figure out this cake, but I can safely say I wouldn't order it again.

So, where was the best dessert in Chicago? I think I may have found it in the kitchen of Natalie Slater of Bake & Destroy; enter the Chai-cago cupcake! This lovely spiced confection with sweet & festive Bears themed frosting made my tastebuds dance. I've heard it's a bit heard to get a reservation at the Slater household, but luckily you can check out BeBoBa for Bake & Destroy sweets. Overall, I thought Chicago was a great city with fabulous people! I'd love to go back sometime when the weather isn't such a downer & explore some more!