The Bon Vivant Blog

Apparently Spiaggia is one of Obama’s favourite restaurants, and since we didn’t want to go so upscale, we decided to try its sister restaurant (right next door), Cafe Spiaggia, which is more casual and less expensive.  It is wise to make a reservation. We were seated at one of the quaint tables for two just [...]

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The debate over the best hot dog in Chicago rages. Here are just a few of the links: Citysearch Best Hot dogs 2008 www.hotdogchicagostyle.com Chowhound Top 3 Hot Dogs At Portillo’s Hot Dogs, the dogs come with lots of pickles and no ketchup. One of the better hot dogs I have had but I am [...]

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Graham Elliot, is a recently opened restaurant this past summer by the eponymous chef. Nice modern but warm space. The food is supposed to be high-end but fun with quirky ingredients. Any place that starts off with a hot bowl of complimentary garlicky popcorn wins my vote. The foie-gras lollipops coated in pop rocks was [...]

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Great place to go for drinks and food with friends at a reasonable price. The place has a great vibe and the italian food is quite good – our favorites included the antipasto plate (you choose the options), the pizza and the fresh hot doughnuts with chocolate dipping sauce. It’s packed so try to make [...]

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If you want to try the classic deep dish chicago pizza, Uno’s is not a bad bet although it is likely not the best deep dish pizza in town. In fact, there are many posts on the web discussing this very subject, such as, http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/117625 Personally, we liked Gino’s East better. Each pizza takes about [...]

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T: Our major research project of finding the perfect (for us) espresso maker showed that when it came to espresso, all roads lead to Rome – that is, to Intelligentsia Coffee here in Chicago. So – we’re here for a week – definitely a destination that we wanted to check out. Their ‘black cat’ blend [...]

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A nice contrast to the molecular gastronomy restaurants we had visited on our Chicago trip, Trotter’s was purely and simply excellent. It was nice to get back to good food done well with no fancy gastronomy tricks. It was also nice to have a less than 20 course tasting menu – which allowed us to [...]

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