We wanted to learn more about Chicago so we found on TripAdvisor something called the Chicago Food Planet tours. It combines two of my favourite things – eating and sightseeing. We decided to take the Near North Food tour which visits the Gold Coast, Old Town and Lincoln Park neighborhoods. The tour takes you to “mom and pop” type shops, most of which have been around forever.
Our tour guide was Kent and he really made the tour enjoyable and very informative. The tour started at Ashkenaz Deli which is a Jewish deli. Here we actually made our own reuben sandwich with pastrami and all the toppings. It was a quick walk to our next stop which was Tea Gschwendner, where they sell over 300 varieties of tea. Here we got to sample a cranberry mango iced tea while learning so much about tea. While walking towards our next stop, we passed by the original Playboy mansion.
The next three stops were very close together in Old Town. First up was The Spice House. We learned about the origins of cinnamon which is actually dried up bark. After that we went to Old Town Oil. This by far was my favourite stop. We did oil and vinegar shooters – yes oil and vinegar shooters. We had so much fun mixing different types of oil and vinegars together. The overall favourite was the tangerine balsamic vinegar mixed with blood orange extra virgin olive oil. Next up was The Fudge Pot. This shop has been around since 1963 making the most amazing chocolate items. We feasted on chocolate carmel crunch, which was mouth-watering.
We walked a couple of blocks to Delightful Pastries. This is a European pastry and bake shop. What I loved about this place is that it was started by a Polish lady. We got to sample cheese and potato pierogis and a pastry which resembles cheese and apricot danish.
Our last stop was in Lincoln Park which was about a 20 minute walk. Bacino’s Pizza served us their very famous stuffed spinach pizza. It’s the only pizza that has been recognized as being heart healthy by the Chicago Heart Association. I really enjoyed the pizza and I don’t even like spinach. Since we had been walking for three hours, we decided to take a cab back to the car.
You can’t come to Chicago and not visit Harpo Studios where The Oprah Show is taped. We didn’t see Oprah but we did make a quick stop at her store, where she sells new items, plus some of her own pre-worn items. We headed back downtown to do a bit of shopping at Nordstrom Rack before heading to Millennium Park. The park has something called the Cloud Gate. It’s a silver sculpture that resembles a bean. I believe it was inspired by liquid mercury. We had a lot of fun walking around the sculpture taking lots of pictures, with the skyline of Chicago reflecting in it.
Chicago has the second largest Polish population outside of Poland. We had to get some stuff for my parents so we found Little Poland’s Dollar Store. This store was jammed with so much Polish stuff it was making my head spin.
We were kinda tired from all that walking in the sun so we headed back to the hotel to enjoy our Maggiano’s Little Italy leftovers, followed by some relaxing and then a quick dip in the hot tub.
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