Yes, I know. CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. I should move there, I visit like every few months. It’s in a great area so traveling is super easy! So this a combination of food and places you can visit while you’re there. Some places are repeats from previous food alerts because I just can’t get enough. Can you guess where? Let’s get into another weekend in Chicago!
DAY ONE IN CHICAGO
First thing first, FOOD! We got into Chicago and went to Iron Age Korean Steakhouse for some all you can you Korean BBQ. It was a Friday, so it was dinner price of $29 per person. For the options of meats and sides, I thought that was a good price compared to other prices that I have seen. So you get unlimited rounds, but it’s 3 meats and 3 sides per round for the whole table. So you order more as you finish the rounds. If any leftovers remain, then you do get charged a percentage of it to your bill. We only ate two rounds. Yikes I know we’re getting weak, but you actually get a decent portion of each protein.
First round: Spicy Pork Bulgogi, Hawaiian Bulgogi, Iron Age Soy Beef Steak, Rice, Kimchi and Veggies.
Second round: Top Blade Steak, Spicy Squid, Spicy Pork Steak and Japchae.
My recommendations would be to skip out on the Top Blade Steak and go with the Iron Age Soy Beef Steak. The Top Blade Steak is very plain and simple, while the Iron Age has the soy flavor and a richer quality meat. I really enjoyed both Bulgogi meats, the Hawaiian Bulgogi and the Spicy Pork Bulgogi. I would like to come back to try their chicken options and especially their Beef Brisket.
What’s a good meal without some dessert after? Look there’s no rules to dessert, you can eat some after every meal if you really want. We’re all grown here, we make our own rules!
We had the pleasure of being overloaded with sweetness and cuteness at Kurimu! We had a small sample of their ice cream when we visited the Color Factory for my birthday back in July, so it was nice to see what the actual store had! There was a Care Bear x Kurimu Popup, so a lot of the ice cream flavors were based on the theme. We had the Black Sugar Milk Tea ice cream with Mochi topping and a Pink Vanilla cone.
It’s still summer time, so what did we do? Grabbed some rooftop drinks with a beautiful view of the city. Club Cabana was perfect for that. It’s a rooftop part of a hotel, so you might have some people in the pool, but if you bring your swimmies then you can join in on the fun! They played good music and had a good selection of drinks on the menu. It’s outside of downtown Chicago, so you don’t get the traffic or noise which was nice, you also get a beautiful view of downtown. I am a sucker for rooftop bars, eating, etc. I love the city views, it makes me feel some type of way, but a good type of way. I was obsessed with my Paloma drink made with tequila because of the Tajin rim. I vote that we get rid of the salt rims on drink and replace it with Tajin, everything would taste 5x better.
Last place to end our first day was of course **DRUMROLLL PLEASEEEEEEEE** Jolliebee!!! It’s now a mandatory visit every time I come to Chicago. I won’t post a picture because this will be it’s like 3rd mention on my blog I think? Can you guess what I ordered? If you said Jolly Spaghetti, you’re completely right. This time I skipped out on the fried chicken and got mashed potatoes instead. I can never get enough, the Jolly Spaghetti is like a drug to me. I wasn’t hungry when we got back to the hotel and said I was only going to take a bite or two. I then ate half of it, it’s seriously that addicting to me.
DAY TWO IN CHICAGO
Breakfast for this day was spent outdoors on the patio of Parlor Pizza at the Wicker Park location. We made it in time for the brunch menu and decided order something unconventional. Pizza in the morning, but make it brunch! The Eggs Benedict Brunch Pizza on the menu caught our eye, then it caught out tastebuds. The Eggs Benedict Brunch Pizza consist of three eggs, Canadian ham, baby fontina, Spanish manchego, scallions, chives, and lemon hollandaise sauce. I love how creative and different it was. I can now say I’ve had a pizza that had a sunny side up egg on it! It was delicious and I would love to come back to try other items on the menu.
A little fun fact about the Wicker Park location of Parlor Pizza, on the side of the building they have this mural of a bear eating pizza! I think it’s so cool. Here’s a picture of us from 2019. We didn’t eat there that day, but said we would come back to try it and we finally did!
Next, we made our way downtown Chicago to finish out the rest of the day. We stopped by some stores to shop on the Magnificent Mile. We had some time to kill, so why not stop by the Starbucks Reserve Roastery for some drinks? Yes, as in alcoholic drinks! The Starbucks Reserve Roastery has a total of 5 levels and on level 4, they serve alcoholic beverages. Plus you can get a seat by the windows and see the view of Michigan Street. The drinks are pretty strong and after my Roastery Boilermaker and one of the Espresso Martinis from the Espresso Martini Flight, I was feeling it. So I grabbed a Salame Piccante Pizza before we left.
The Espresso Martini Flight give you three different Starbucks Reserve® Espresso Martinis fused with global liqueurs: Orange Cacao, Molé Spice and Cherry Limone. The Roastery Boilermaker is a Chicago location exclusive and has Starbucks Reserve® Cold Brew, Koval Four Grain Whiskey, Malört, Combier Pamplemousse, Honey Syrup, Fever Tree Club Soda, Bittermens Hopped Grapefruit Bitters, Pink Grapefruit Juice, Lemon Juice, Grapefruit Wheel, Salt Tincture, Rhine Hall Bierschnaps.
I have never had a boilermaker before nor did I know it existed, so I was a little confused about the separate shot glass. I was wondering if you take it separately or if you poured it in the drink. I did a quick google search and read that you’re suppose to take the shot then chase it with the main part of the drink which is a warmer beer. I did that exactly and I was not expecting the taste at all. The main glass had a lot of grapefruit flavor, but it was more of the bitter grapefruit rind flavor. My reaction is actually pretty funny, so enjoy the video below hahaha. No drink went to waste, I just chugged the rest and chased it with some sour power strips that I got from the candy store before.
Surprise! Believe it or not, but we don’t only eat. We actually do non food related activities too. Over the many, many years that I’ve been visiting and making trips to Chicago, I’ve never taken a boat tour before. So we found one to go on! There’s plenty of different boat tours, but we did the Shoreline Architecture Tour at Navy Pier. We chose the 7:10 PM time slot and it was perfect for the sunset behind the city. I actually learned a lot of interesting things about the different architectures that are in downtown Chicago. I like learning things like that so it was very worth it in my opinion! Plus beautiful views.
On the way home, we stopped by this diner drive thru place (looks like Sonic, but older) called Superdawg Drive-In. We saw it on the way back to our hotel on day one and said we would try it out. What caught our eyes were the two huge hotdog people with laser beam eyes. One was dressed in a caveman or circus muscle man outfit and the other was a hotdog lady in a dress. That was pretty cool to see.
Fun fact: Superdawg Drive-in has been there since 1948 making it 74 years.
DAY THREE IN CHICAGO
We went over to Little Vietnam on Argyle Street, the Vietnamese town for Tank Noodle. I wanted to try something other than Phở. I already knew that it’s pretty good at Tank Noodle, so I went with the Bún riêu. Bún riêu is a traditional Vietnamese soup with rice vermicelli noodles. This one had shrimp, pork, tofu, quail egg, pork cake, pork blood, tomato, onion, green onion, shrimp paste, cilantro, crab paste, and pepper. I would have to say Tank Noodle has the best Bún riêu out of the other restaurants that I have tried it at, but nothing beats my mom’s homemade version of it!
On the way back to our cars, we quickly stopped in First Sip Cafe and ordered the Ubae Nior Latte. It was such a cute decorated cafe with black walls covered in plants and lights. Then around the register there’s a bunch of different teacups hung up and gave it a very dainty feel. I thought that was super cute. The picture may not look as appealing, but it was a really good drink. I would order it again! It’s a black tea with activated charcoal latte, sweetened with Ube or sweet purple yam.
The Museum of Ice Cream was our last stop. Back in July we came across it, but it wouldn’t be open until the weekend after. I first found out about the Museum of Ice Cream through some friends when they were visiting New York, so I was excited to find out about Chicago opening one up since we couldn’t fit it in our NYC trip earlier in the year.
I wouldn’t say this museum is made specifically for selfies and photo opportunities, but more for you to learn about ice cream while tasting a bunch of different versions! You can definitely get your photo ops in though. I’ll do a separate blog on the Museum of Ice Cream and my experience there. All you need to know is that we ate 6 different ice creams going through the museum and everything’s pink!
Another weekend spent in Chicago, a lot more places explored, and still so much more that it has to offer. I can’t wait for the next trip and the places/foods that we’ll try next. Very soon, I’ll be writing individual blogs on the Museum of Ice Cream (Chicago) and the Color Factory (Houston and Chicago) and my experiences there as well as the various locations visited! You can follow me on socials or you can sign up to receive email newsletters on new blogs that I post right under here.
Stay hungry in both your stomach and heart until the next adventure!
SALLY♡THINGS 