I didn’t know what to expect from a dinner at The Publican in Chicago. Those in the know all agreed it was a must for people serious about food and it certainly looked enticing from the photographs I had seen. Had I known we were blithely walking into a James Beard award-winning, beer-focused, farm-to-fork restaurant, I probably would have studied the menu harder before arriving; and skipped breakfast and lunch.
Sleeping in is one of my favorite indulgences while on vacation. It’s one of life’s free luxuries, yet we rarely do it in our day-to-day lives. It’s even more rewarding for me after a long winter of forcing myself out of a warm bed, well before dawn, five days a week, to run off a few more of those stubborn holiday pounds. Aside from the potential embarrassment of peeing the bed, a grumbling stomach is about the only other reason I get out of bed at all on vacation. On our last trip to Chicago, this lethargy nearly made me miss breakfast at the one restaurant I really wanted to visit again; XOCO.
It was sprinkling when we stepped out of the hotel that morning. We were on our way to breakfast at The Bongo Room, a place we had discovered almost by accident last year, and a few rain drops were not going to dampen our enthusiasm about returning. The Bongo Room pulls out all the stops for breakfast and gives the first meal of the day the respect it deserves. Most breakfast joints are content to serve weak coffee, limp bacon, and starchy tasteless pancakes. At The Bongo Room, quality ingredients are creatively transformed into delicious new takes on the old standards. Fueling up here is our favorite way to start a day of urban exploration.
Just off interstate 465 on the west side of Indianapolis, down a tree-lined back road and across a narrow bridge, awaits a dining experience you can scarcely believe exists within the borders of our fair state’s capital. On a hill, overlooking grassy fields, sits a 19th century barn that is home to Trader’s Point Creamery’s restaurant, The Loft. It’s idillic country setting started to work it’s magic on us as soon as we stepped out of the car. It was a quiet evening and the air was crisp and faintly scented with the smell of fresh cut grass and wet earth. A farmhand was turning over the soil in one of the large gardens and a curious barn cat stalked us from a safe distance. We could feel our pulses begin to slow down and our shoulders start to unclinch after a day spent in the heavy traffic of Indianapolis’s north side. Although we had just arrived, it was so peaceful, dinner was becoming an afterthought.
Wicker Park is my new favorite neighborhood in Chicago. More than any other area, it feels like the city’s hipster mecca. Almost everyone is under 30 and sporting Warby Parkers, Red Wings, and concert t-shirts from bands I won’t know about until two years after they’ve broken up. North Milwaukee Avenue is crammed with bars, record shops, vintage furniture stores, second-hand bookstores, “recycled” clothing boutiques, and dozens of interesting restaurants. Here, everything that is old is cool again, and no place more typifies this aesthetic than The Wormhole Coffee. Sean Wang, of Trionfale Espresso, recommended them so we knew it would be good. As soon as we saw “Est. 2015” on the door, and the DeLorean time machine perched in the back, we knew this was no ordinary coffee house.
I’m going to go on the record and predict that dim sum, along with tiny pies, will be one of the next big food trends. Dim sum’s bite-sized portions, wide variety of exotic options, and affordability should make it a favorite of food enthusiasts every where. Furthermore, the relaxed social atmosphere surrounding dim sum makes it a perfect “dinner with friends” and an opportunity to share many different items. Danielle is responsible for turning me on to dumplings, and in turn, dim sum. When she was in China, she developed a taste for the basic pork dumplings which were made fresh and served everywhere. Here in the Midwest, the dim sum we had at Phoenix Restaurant in Chinatown, on Chicago’s Archer Avenue, might just be the next best thing.