Originally Published on Medium on December 20. 2018
Hipsters might only know how to imitate fun, and price up Champion sweatshirts, but they are pretty good at keeping local food places open. For the last year and a half, I’ve split my time between Iowa and Chicago, doing my best to keep both Casey’s General Store and local Chicago restaurants afloat.
Chicago’s local food scene is wildly imaginative. It’s got ethnic foods, local staples, and character. The restaurants in Chicago are not just means of expression or living art, but rather extensions of the founders. When Juan at Nini’s greets the 1,000th person at the counter with his trademark enthusiasm, he’s not doing it for an ulterior motive or for the Yelp review, he’s welcoming you to Nini’s because he’s a welcoming person who makes the best Cuban x Mexican restaurant with incredible churros in the contiguous United States. Nini’s Kitchen Sink sandwich with a churro is the beautiful expression of life that George Washington imagined crossing the Delaware.
At En Hakkore, they serve Korean fusion food named after the spring that appeared when Samson was in distress. I don’t know what the significance of the name to the family that owns En Hakkore is, but judging by their dynamic bibi-map and parantha tacos, it was not chosen lightly.
On the west side of Bucktown, Irazu promises a “warm and genuine Latin welcome, yet a relaxed “pura vida” experience”, with photos of the owners’ homeland covering the walls. Drake once put out a mixtape called more life essentially bragging that he was experiencing more of life. While hedonism is not an advisable credo, a momentary indulgence when eating Irazu’s pepito sandwich or their casado plate is to be excused. It is as pure of a life experience this side of videos of soldiers returning from duty to surprise their children on a Jumbotron that you can get.
Meanwhile on the near west side, local institution D’Amato’s counter workers greet every customer in the same brusque manner that belies the warm heart of the place. Gentrification may sanitize people and what they’ve built, but thankfully D’Amato’s remains untouched by the yuppies. Their Italian Sub is top notch, but their real stand out is their Italian baked goods. I would give my dog up for adoption-to a loving home of course-for a free lifetime supply of their chocolate pistachio cannolis. Then I’d have no dog and diabetes, but I bet I’d be happy.
Chicago deep dish spots are well known. Lou Malnati’s, Giordano’s, Gino’s East. But the place for north side locals, for people who actually cheered for the Cubs before 2016, is Pequod’s. Their caramelized crust has led to the conversion of several committed atheists.
My Pi, just west of Pequod’s in Bucktown, delivers a sublime deep dish, with spices and flavor galore. It’s a close runner up to Pequod’s and is so local that most locals don’t know about it.
Two dueling burger joints have me trapped in a war for their affection. Red Hot Ranch on Western is an incredible burger joint disguised as a road side hot dog stand. “Sure,” you think, spying the yellow sign and blinking lights, “$6 for a burger and fries, it can’t be bad.” Little do you realize that Red Hot Ranch serves up a mean burger, dripping with grease and flavor and complemented by so many fries it makes Five Guys feel insecure. Red Hot Ranch is the opposite of those hidden camera commercials where they serve people food in a fancy setting and it turns out it’s White Castle with a cilantro garnish.
Meanwhile, its older, hipper competition is the younger, less hip brother of Au Cheval, Chicago’s world famous burger joint in the West Loop. Small Cheval’s condiment choice is high level. Thousand Island (I think?) on the burger, with a dab of Sir Kensington’s ketchup. The aftertaste here is absurdly good. It’s probably the MSG, but let the record show that the umami here could sue Umami Burger for copyright infringement. It would probably lose because that’s an absurd statement, but hey, Small Cheval’s burgers are absurd too.