My kind of town (part 1)

The first stop on our recent holiday was Chicago. We’d been once before and loved it, but there was a special treat in store this time – we were meeting up with Tami and Kim who I’ve become great friends with through recipe testing, along with their husbands. We had great fun and were finally able to share our passion for food and wine in real life instead of through the internet.

Here’s some of the food!

Buffalo Wings – Karyn’s Cooked. This was my favourite part of the meal (and far better than my own starter which was a pretty dull potato soup. I mean, if they served it at work I’d be thrilled, but it was the least exciting dish anyone ordered).

Ribz – Karyn’s Cooked. These are so unbelievably dense and meaty.

Karyn’s Cooked – Flautas. I didn’t get to try much of these but the plate was licked clean. The filling had tofu in it which was a nice change.

I’ve been to Karyn’s Cooked twice now and enjoyed it a lot both times but it was far better sharing and swapping with Tami and Jim.

The following day we met up with lots of PPKers at Chicago Diner. Others have described the event better than I could, with better photos, so take a look here and here. I’ve got a few pics of our food though. I was determined not to have what I had on previous trips, much as I loved them (the Reuben and the Dagwood), so I was delighted to see a new sandwich called California Reben which was new yet old…

Matthew is a huge fan of breakfast at other times of the day, so he went for the Breakfast Bowl:

We went back to The Diner a few days later before the baseball. We shared a portion of nachos, which were amazing:

I had a Halfpipe, which was recommended by Tami. You can’t really see on the photo but there’s fried seitan underneath all those onions. It was huge, so I ended up taking lots of it for a seventh inning snack:

Again Matthew couldn’t resist something from the breakfast menu, and ordered a Monte Cristo sandwich:

The Daiya cheese melted in this so beautifully I wondered if they’d got the order wrong.

I’ll be back soon with more Chicago eats but here’s a bonus people pic:

Kim, Me and Tami share a bottle of wine. Anyone who tells you that you can’t make real friends via the internet is talking utter nonsense.

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