Chicago Restaurants

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I'll be in Chicago on the Magnificent Mile for a couple days before long. I had thought about the following two places for supper.

Roy's which we have eaten at dozens of times in Hawaii on Kauai & is always great.

Spiaggia for Italian (cafe though as the dining room requires a jacket).

Opinions?
 
My wife and I went to http://www.joes.net/chicago for our anniversary. It was pricey, but amazingly tasty.

We had stone crab claws for appetizer. Split a Caesar salad. She got the broiled scallops, I got a fried shrimp, fish, scallop, and calamari platter. We split the sides of fried green tomatoes and roasted corn.

Waiter was amazing, service was good. Only poor thing was parking.
 
Brazzaz is pretty good, if you like Brazilian grill stuff, but you'd better have a big stomach to get your money's worth.

If you like steak, I've heard Morton's is good, but then again, they're in lots of other places, too, not just Chicago.
 
I'm not really that big of a pizza connoisseur to be able to judge. Honestly, I haven't had any Chicago-native pizza since I moved up here a year ago. I've heard Uno's is good, but again, Uno's isn't only in Chicago.
 
I like David Burke's as a steakhouse/primehouse. In Des Plaines is a great hot dog/polish place called paradise pup, which I always enjoy.

Harold's fried chicken, smothered in hot sauce, is some of the best fried chicken Ive had.

There are a bunch of Brazilian places, Brazzaz is my favorite, and the others are bigger chains, but really good all the same.

Grillers, on the loyola downtown campus has a nice hot dog - but hot dogs are good most everywhere.

My favorite besides David Burke's is Bandera, which is on Michigan Ave, just near the tribune building. It is a second story restaurant, and in the spring, when Michigan Ave is done up with flowers, it is great to get a table by the window and look out at dusk. Really nice. Get a pint of Goose Island 312, have some of their cornbread and something off the rotisserie, and it is GREAT!
 
Originally Posted By: LT4 Vette
Pete,

Is Chicago pizza good or is it just hype about it being better than NY pizza ?


They're different kinds of pizza. Traditional Chicago deep dish pizza is almost like a pie, where the cheese goes on first, then the meat/toppings, then the sauce. New York pizza is the big honkin style pizza that is very thin. It's big enough to where you can fold the slices.
 
When in Chicago, I usually head to the top floor of the Hancock Tower to have a lunch or dinner. It's not the food but the view that I find important.
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
If you like steak, I've heard Morton's is good, but then again, they're in lots of other places, too, not just Chicago.

Mortons was quite good when I ate there about 13 years ago. But frankly, if I were to go back to Chicago, I'd really rather have pizza than steak. I think Gino's East was the pizza place we ate at that was simply fantastic.

later,
b
 
I'm not big on the 'Brazilian' type restaurants. I've eaten at one in Atlanta & probably won't go back.

A good pizza place for lunch one day sounds good. We'll look into Gino's but with it being on Man vs. Food turns me off. We are staying on East Walton St. Hopefully it will be nearby.

JHZR2,

I don't doubt that you liked the fried chicken, but I have too many preconceived notions about fried chicken with me being born & raised in the south. I might think it is good, but I doubt it would be as good as my grandma's fried chicken meal with mashed taters, etc.

CivicFan,

Do they still charge to go up to the top of the Hancock Tower? If so, I assume this is waived for eating at the restaurant or is that fee just for the observatory?
 
Originally Posted By: benjamming
We'll look into Gino's but with it being on Man vs. Food turns me off.


Why? It's a very famous restaurant chain in Chicago.
 
Originally Posted By: benjamming
I'll be in Chicago on the Magnificent Mile for a couple days before long. I had thought about the following two places for supper.

Roy's which we have eaten at dozens of times in Hawaii on Kauai & is always great.

Spiaggia for Italian (cafe though as the dining room requires a jacket).

Opinions?

What kind of food would you like to try? You can get some [censored] food for a lot less money if you have a car or don't mind cabbing it. Let me know what you would like and I'll give you a couple of recs.
 
Last month we went to Lawry`s Prime Rib. It was excellent. Very old school atmosphere where they cut your prime rib right in front of you. Just off Michigan and Ontario.
 
The places you mentioned are OK, but they're basically crowded tourist destinations that are not very good values. The real opportunity you have is to get some fantastic ethnic food in a small neighborhood place at a fraction of the cost and probably better quality. You can probably get a good steak in AL, or most anyplace for that matter. Why not take the chance to try some world class ethnic cuisine from places like Poland, China, Thailand, Korea, Persia, India, Germany, Italy, etc.? Then again, some people think spending $200 on a steak dinner in a fancy place is where its at. Are you spending your own money or the company's?
 
$200.00 on a steak dinner? lol I eat at home, much cheaper, get what I want and eat in peace, lol. I have much better things to spend $200 on than a dinner!!!
 
Originally Posted By: Drew99GT
Originally Posted By: benjamming
We'll look into Gino's but with it being on Man vs. Food turns me off.


Why? It's a very famous restaurant chain in Chicago.


No offense intended, just not what we are looking for I don't think.
 
Originally Posted By: xxch4osxx
$200.00 on a steak dinner? lol I eat at home, much cheaper, get what I want and eat in peace, lol. I have much better things to spend $200 on than a dinner!!!


I didn't say anything about spending $200 on a steak dinner ($75 each for a steak is pretty steep.) Why are you then posting in this thread?
 
Cogito,

Thank you for the responses. Unfortunately, I'm probably not going to have reliable access to a car & no cab rides as I have a real aversion to them.

We aren't looking for value per se, which of course would be for my wife to cook in our room. There are only a couple of restaurants in our home area that serve food that is better than my wife's cooking. However, she needs a break every once in a while.

$200 for a steak dinner? Which one of those 2 restaurants that I mentioned charges $75-100 per steak? However, can I assume you just threw $200 out there as a way of saying expensive? I think that I mentioned we would only be eating at the cafe portion of Spiaggia? Is it really that expensive even at the cafe? If so, we will go elsewhere.

I have eaten world class ethnic cuisine on a few occassions. I love trying different food. I do understand the tourist trap scenario. Roy's on Kauai is anything except "touristy" & that might partially be b/c Kauai isn't really a touristy type place anyway. BTW, we don't get appetizers, salad, entree, dessert, & drinks at restaurants. It's usually entree & water. That's makes most every restaurant tolerable if the food is good. If the food is bad, it's not worth being on a dollar menu anyway.
 
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