The Taste

I had my first friends come in town to visit this weekend. Lord and Lady Maplewood came in town with their son, Squire, to go to Taste of Chicago. It has been great to see some familiar faces, and we really enjoyed the festival.

On the ride home, I tallied up all the dishes we sampled between the three of us, 16 in total! Don't worry, it was split between lunch and dinner. We didn't employ much strategy, so we kept flipping between savory entree, dessert, appetizer, dessert, entree, appetizer, etc. Thankfully, I managed to avoid any indigestion.

Here's my tip for ToC: go for lunch. The crowds at suppertime where CRAZY! Apparently, Stevie Wonder was playing on the mainstage. Who knew he could still draw such a crowd?

There were 64 restaurants represented, everything from African (goat meat stew!) to deep dish pizza. I tended focus more on local Chicago flavors: Italian beef, Italian ices, Ely's cheesecake. I tried to throw in a few exotic flavors, including shark, to make things interesting.

Here's a list of all the food we tried: beer-battered artichokes; chorizo and cheese breakfust puff; Italian beef sandwhich; loukaniko greek sausage (see above); frozen chocolate chip toffee crunch cheesecake on a stick; plain cheesecake; fresh pineapple seafood salad; gazpacho with avocado and chopped chives; grilled veggie chopped salad; chocolate mousse; lemon and mango italian ice; skewered shark veracruz; Italian breaded steak sandwhich; Taiwan shining noodles; vegetable tempura; and mango cumin-dusted fries with chutney.