Chicago’s Food
Sunday, September 6, 2009 - Annie Duke
Last week I was in Chicago to teach a WSOP Academy in Hammond, Indiana right across the border. I generally make it a rule that I don’t teach camps outside of California or Vegas because I don’t like traveling away from my kids but I made an exception for this because I really like Chicago and thought it might be a nice weekend getaway for me and Joe. Now, I don’t think many people know that I am a huge cooking show fanatic. My two favorite cooking shows are Diners, Drive-ins and Dives and Top Chef. I am pretty sure that Joe is completely jealous of Guy Fieri’s job which is just doing around to dives around the country and trying the food. We both watch that show together and, in fact, are planning a trip to Memphis in the next couple of weeks which is built just on BBQ places we have seen on Triple D (as Guy Fieri calls his show).
As for Top Chef, I just finished watching Top Chef Masters which was a version of Top Chef where the best chefs in the country were competing for charity. Like a celebrity chef version of the show. So two of the finalists have restaurants in Chicago, Art Smith who has Table 52 and Rick Bayless who has Frontera Grill. Bayless won the whole competition and his food look incredible. He does authentic Mexican and man I really wanted to try it. But, alas, as hard as we tried and as many strings as we pulled we could not get a reservation. I was so sad. We did manage a reservation at Table 52 and what was hilarious is that two of the other couples sitting next to us in the restaurant were there because they has seen Top Chef Masters, too! I thought that was pretty funny.
People in Chicago are much friendlier than in LA and the people sitting near us were striking up conversations with us which was a really nice change. I particularly enjoyed the older couple who were fascinated that Joe ordered every side dish on the menu. That’s right. Every single one! Corn pudding, fries, candied yams, mac and cheese and greens. He figured we were probably never coming back so he wanted to try everything. In case you are wondering, his order from best to worst was greens, corn pudding, mac and cheese, yams and fries. The sides were awesome but Joe’s favorite was the ridiculous desserts, particularly the root beer float which was actually a sandwich made from homemade sugar cookies with homemade root beer ice cream in between them.
I wish we had time to go to some of the Diners in the Chicago area that are on Guy Fieri’s show. That will have to wait till next trip. BTW, the camp went great. But I gained like 5 pounds!D
Tags: Annie Duke, Chicago, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, Food, Guy Fieri, Top Chef, WSOP Academy
