foodwhores do chicago

littlelee and spleen came to visit this past weekend, and we packed in a hell of a lot of chicago eating, along with a few touristy things I’ve been meaning to do since i got here. 🙂
The architecture river tours are totally worthwhile. Alcala’s Western Wear is worth the trip, and spleen bought herself a pair of cowboy boots in black & a lovely caramelly brown. We also went to see a live taping of Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, the NPR news quiz show, which was hilarious in so many ways, not least of them being how much new information we learned about current events. We’re lame, yes. Or maybe just hiding from the horrors of reality.
Anyway, we also went to Supermercado Morelia (7334 N. Clark St., 773-761-3291), which i learned about from Cindy and have been dying to visit. It didn’t have any of the exotic citrus she described but it did have some fabulous wafer cookies filled with cajeta, the yummy goat-milk caramel. There was also some gorgeous looking roasted pork in the hot case, but the place was a zoo, so I didn’t wade in to get any. I did snag some dried chiles with which to make posole, and some Ibarra chocolate, since there’s now a palpable chill in the air here in Chicago.
The girls got their minds blown by Devon St, where we ogled fabulous gold jewelry we can never afford, and bought some of the wonderful snack mixes at Ambala. We had some gorgeously fatty barbacoa tacos at La Pasadita. We had elotes, which they agreed are completely disgusting in theory but completely delicious in reality. We hauled our asses to Hae Woon Dae (6240 N. California) and knocked back a respectable quantity of soju and OB lager with our friend E, also serendipitously in town the same weekend for a bachelorette party, along with exceptional kalbi, delicious spicy pork, a mediocre spicy soup, and an oddly-buttery-but-delicious version of kimchi bokum.
We also went to Frontera Grill, but that’s a whole post in and of itself. Rick Bayless is my hero.