We had such an amazing time in Chicago! If acting doesn’t bring me here, we’re definitely booking weekend trips back. There is too much to see and do. We want to come and just watch all the improv and theater.
We tried the places we got multiple recommendations for first.We had great hot dogs from Portillo’s. I wouldn’t recommend Italian Sausage sandwich even though I love Italian sausage. The hot dog was good and I love the Chicago style toppings. A hot dog will never be the same.We had spaghetti at Monteverdi and again, spaghetti will never be the same. They were also able to modify it without dairy for me and it was still so good.
Lucas, my husband, has his first deep dish pizza at Giordano’s and it’s like Jon Stewart said, it’s a casserole. However deep dish done properly is not like outside of Chicago. It takes the full 45 min to cook and the crust is crunchy instead of soggy because of the way they do it. Be ready for a pound of cheese though. We didn’t make it to the other two places on tile two, but next time we’ll give it a shot for a full comparison.
We had good coffee almost everywhere tbh. Cupitol we liked. I don’t like overly toasted, beans that so many independent coffee shops in ATL have, and Chicago had a great non-burnt flavor.
We went to London House on the most amazingly warm (for Chicago) day. I’m a sucker for roof top bars in cities with lots of high rises. London House does have an amazing view. Cons- plastic cups and meh drinks… we basically got “you’re really paying for the view” tequila sodas and water. We were also there on a rarely warm afternoon in the winter and I think it would have been really chilly to experience on a regular winter’s day because the bar itself is enclosed in plastic to protect from the elements and pretty underwhelming.
We went to the famous Chicago Bean and the Navy Pier. I’d love to see the Navy Pier in the summer. Unfortunately, even though we were in the best area for nightlife, I had daytime commitments that kept us from staying out really late but we have a few options we can’t wait to explore. The weekend was so clear and beautiful there was a 2.5 hour wait to do the sky deck and that was too long for a short trip.I added some things on the the second tile that we’d like to try, in addition to an awesome list a friend sent me from a Chicago resident. Pin-able tiles below. This was only the first trip we’ve made and I left out the underwhelming KBBQ and brunch we had while we were there. I’m hoping I can have better comparisons on our next weekend visits.
