windy city weekend

If Emily Post had it her way, we would've celebrated our fifth anniversary with the gift of wood. Or silverware. We decided to buck tradition and take a weekend trip to Chicago instead.

Friday
If you didn't already know from my constant ramblings about this, I love Rick Bayless. And if we had thought of planning this little vacation at least six weeks in advance, then maybe we would've been able to get a table at Frontera Grill. Enter Xoco, Rick's newest place, which serves up a gourmet take on Mexican street food (and is located right around the corner from Frontera and Topolobampo). Thirty to forty minutes of waiting in line might sound like a long time, but it doesn't seem that bad when you are agonizing over the menu and deciding whether to get a wood-fired torta with homemade chorizo sausage, roasted poblano, and artisan jack cheese, or maybe a caldo of crispy pork belly, toasty-tender noodles, and woodland mushrooms . . . or maybe the torta filled with braised Tallgrass shortribs and caramelized onion?? I was going out of my mind, people.

However, when I got closer to the counter I noticed there was a shrimp and elote torta special on the menu board. YES PLEASE. I cannot fully express in words how much I love elote and shrimp, and those two things glued together with chipotle mayonnaise in between two slices of crusty bread was like a match made in food heaven. TJ had the torta de cochinita pibil (wood-roasted suckling pig with achiote, black beans, pickled onion, and habanero salsa), which was also tasty, of course, and I appreciated that the habanero salsa was actually really spicy and not as watered-down spicy as it often appears in other establishments.

For dessert we ordered churros and the Aztec hot chocolate (made with fresh-roasted cacao beans ground on location and spiked with chile and allspice). If there were a churro ratings scale, it would be Costco churros at rock bottom or probably even lower, and at the top would be Xoco churros, eclipsing even the very good churros we had at the Latino festival in Lexington last month and the ones we had at the zocalo churreria in Puebla.

Saturday
I think that TJ's main goal in Chicago was to get his hands on a cemita from Cemitas Puebla. Cemitas seem rather hard to come by in the United States, and it's hard not to dream about them after experiencing this beauty earlier this year. From our hotel, we made our way to Cemitas Puebla by foot, by train, by bus, by bus again after we realized we were going the wrong way, and then by foot. The owner, who hails from Puebla, was right there to greet us when we opened the door—he was very hospitable and quite excited to mention his appearance on Triple D on the Food Network. We decided to go big and split the cemita atomica, which is basically made of three kinds of pork with a ton of Oaxaca cheese on top. Highly recommend.

We really did do things other than eat food. For the rest of the afternoon we just walked—along the Riverwalk, down the Magnificent Mile, and around Millennium Park and Navy Pier. I wanted to experiment with photographing fireworks at Navy Pier, but it was raining and I also forgot my remote shutter release at home, which would've made it easier . . . so maybe next time. But it was nice to spend the whole day out and about, especially when your regular life involves staying indoors hunched over a laptop 24/7.

We figured that we couldn't go to Chicago and not have deep dish pizza, so for dinner we made our way to Giordano's. Not sure why we picked that one—might've been the closest to our hotel? The wait was pretty crazy and apparently I look like a Laurence because that's the name they put on our ticket. The pizza was good, though—I guess you can't really go wrong with a dish that involves piles and piles of melted cheese.

Later that night we made our way to Black Dog Gelato. The guy at the counter was really patient with our indecision, and we sampled a bunch of flavors like Goat Cheese Salted Caramel Cashew, which might sound odd as a gelato flavor, but it was amazing. TJ ended up going with Sweet Potato (good if you like the idea of sweet potato pie in gelato form) and I had a combo of Toasted Coconut and Mexican Hot Chocolate (which tasted just like a frozen creamy version of the drink we had at Xoco).

Sunday
Before hitting the road for Lexington, we had lunch at Johnnie's Beef with Santa Barbara friends who had just relocated to Chicago. We arrived at the Elmwood Park location maybe 10 minutes before it opened and there was already a line forming outside. That place runs like a well-oiled machine, though—took no time at all to get our order taken and food served. We both got combo sandwiches in order to experience both the beef and the sausage, except mine topped with sweet peppers and TJ's with spicy. The fries were great (thin and crispy, just the way I like them) and the Italian ice was fantastic . . . just wish I could've gotten to all of it before it melted. Also, as I have zero friends in Lexington (this is what happens when you choose to watch eight straight hours of election coverage instead of going outside and talking to people), it was really nice to hang out and catch up with our amigos.

In all, it was a fun and tasty weekend.