Taste of Chicago

Ratings Guide:
Half handshake, half chest-bump hug – 5 stars
Chest bump – 4 stars
Fist bump – 3 stars
High five – 2 stars
Handshake – 1 star
Manly ass slap – ½ star
Fone and fone – 0 stars



Restaurant: Taste of Chicago
Location: Grant Park


I don’t understand why people hate the Taste of Chicago. People go as far as calling it the Waste of Chicago. Why? Don’t they realize the true genius of it? Here’s what to love about it:

- Tons and tons and tons of food. It’s like the world’s biggest buffet (also the world’s most crowded and most expensive). Where else can you get a giant turkey leg and pad Thai and Italian ice and perogi’s and cheese fries and ribs and a pickle on a stick all in the same place?
- The people. Everyone thinks this is a negative, but I think they’re missing the point. Where they see an annoying crowd of white-trash hoosiers, I see a crowd of endless laughs. If you can’t laugh at a guy wearing jorts (jean shorts), sunglasses with a strap, a tank top that says “Keep On Suckin’”, and socks with sandals, then who can you laugh at? It’s like an endless sea of enjoyment at someone else’s expense.
- Did I mention the huge selection of food?
- And the people watching?

That doesn’t sound like fun?

If you’ve never been, here’s what you can expect:

- Mullets, and plenty of them.
- Mustaches.
- Jorts. Fine for women, especially if they are of the Daisy Duke variety. Unacceptable for men, especially if they are of the carpenter variety.
- Tank tops.
- Fanny packs.
- Sweaty bodies.
- A heart attack or diabetic attack or both.
- A crowd that’s almost impossible to walk through and even harder to eat while you’re trying to walk through it. If you don’t drop grease or BBQ sauce on yourself, someone will do it for you.
- To pay more for food than you ever have in your life. Tickets this year were $7 for 11. 11 tickets don’t go very far. I bought 33 tickets and still didn’t have enough, and I didn’t even get anything to drink.

And since I’ve already made two lists, why not go for the trifecta? Here are my tips for properly enjoying the Taste:

- Wear proper attire. This means either a tank top or a button down shirt open all the way to show off your gut or no shirt at all (ideally with a well-developed farmer’s tan). If someone isn’t telling you to put a shirt on, then you aren’t trying hard enough. Also, Jorts are a plus, but nothing tops a good pair of Zubaz. And I highly recommend a pair of this season’s must have accessory – Blue Blockers.
- Try not to order things that you can get whenever you want. Like a Chicago-style hot dog. Why use 6 tickets for one when you can go to any street corner and pick one up? Or pizza. Come on, you can get pizza anytime. Try to branch out as much as possible.
- Keep to the “taste” portions. They’ll only cost you 3 tickets and you’ll get to sample a ton of things. It’s like tapas, but you don’t have to share with anyone.
- The best time to go is lunchtime during the week. The crowds are at their smallest and most tolerable.
- Never go to the ticket booth at the entrance. The lines are way too long. Head to any of the booths within the rest of the Taste and there’ll be no line at all.

So, the day after the 4th I grabbed a couple of co-workers (Kasey and Sarah) and headed to the Taste for lunch wearing a tank top and Blue Blockers (last year I went shirtless, and lost a lot of friends at work over it). On the way there we got a little taste of what the Taste is all about – a guy wearing a “I’m not a gynecologist…but I’ll take a look” shirt. Good stuff. Only at the Taste. Or on a plane to/from Cancun.

The first stop was the ticket booth. Of course I immediately broke one of my rules and went to the ticket booth at the entrance. It took us about ten minutes to get tickets. And about one minute for me to lose my patience.

Once we got our tickets in hand we cruised around as best we could, but the crowd was larger than expected, so we did meet some resistance.

We stopped at Bella Luna Café, where I happily parted with 3 tickets for a taste of the Pizza Bites. They were basically fried ravioli stuffed with cheese and sausage and they were delicious. I’ve never been to Bella Luna Café, but this tasty treat would make me think about it. Chest bump.

Next up was what I consider a pillar of the Taste of Chicago – the giant Turkey Leg. It kind of encompasses what the Taste is all about. Greasy food covered in some kind of sauce (in this case a BBQ sauce) that you eat with your hands. Just a mammoth piece of meat. Helen’s usually delivers, but this year I found the leg pretty dry, and the meat didn’t fall off the bone like it usually does. And at 10 tickets it’s a pretty steep cost to be let down. That is why you stick to the tasting portions. It’s with a heavy heart that I give it a high five with a manly ass slap.

To recover from the disappointment at Helen’s, I stopped by Kasia’s Deli to indulge myself on some of my native food, the pierogi. I wised up and went with a taste-size of the potato pierogi (smothered in sour cream, of course). Kasia’s makes a mean pierogi (but not as mean as my Grandma Sophie) and I almost had to head back for round two. Luckily, I got distracted by the Chicago Chocolate Company. The pierogis get a chest bump with a manly ass slap.

I’ve been to Chicago Chocolate Co. before, and both times there my thoughts were the same – I really enjoy it, but it’s way too expensive for what it is. In contrast, you pay an arm and a leg for some truffles at Coco Rouge, but I feel like they are worth the money over there. Chicago Chocolate Co. has good chocolate, but not good enough to charge boutique prices. However, I was happy to depart with 3 tickets for a taste of the turtles, and it was another great decision. Perfect contrast to the pierogis I had just eaten. Fist bump with a manly ass slap.

After making it to the end of the tents where all the water rides were, it was time to turn around and head back, checking out the tents on the other side of the long row. It didn’t take long before we came upon A Natural Harvest. Now, I know I’ve said you shouldn’t get things that you can get anytime. But they had cheese fries. And it will be a drug-free day in Madison before I pass up cheese fries. They were perfect. The fries were fresh out of the fryer. The cheese was piping hot. You could barely hold the tray without getting third degree burns. And they added a little Cajun spice that gave the whole thing the perfect touch. And it was a huge portion. Well worth the six tickets it cost me. It felt like a bottomless tray of cheese fries. Half handshake, half chest-bump hug.

I was down to eight tickets. Not a good number. Taste portions are three tickets, so if I got one of those, I’d be stuck with five tickets, and not many things are five tickets. I had already decided I wanted to end the day with Italian ice (which is really breaking the rules since I can walk to Miko’s and get the best Italian ice in the city), which I figured couldn’t be more than five tickets, so I was happy to spend three tickets at Harold’s Chicken.

This was the best piece of fried chicken I can remember ever having, and it was only a fried chicken wing. I can only imagine how good a whole drumstick would be. And it came with some fried okra as well. Why don’t I eat at Harold’s every night? Actually, that’s a dumb question. A better question is why have I never eaten at Harold’s before? I have no idea. In fact, I’m embarrassed to even talk about it. Half handshake, half chest-bump hug.

Guess what? The Italian ice I had my eye on was more than five tickets. It was eight. I could have gotten a taste portion, but it was blue raspberry. Why even make a blue raspberry Italian ice? Oh well. We wandered over to Eli’s Cheesecake and I borrowed a ticket from Sarah and got a chocolate-dipped piece of chocolate-chip cheesecake on a stick. I don’t like cheesecake, so I’m not sure why I thought I would like this. Not surprisingly, I didn’t. But I refused to let the tickets go to waste so I forced myself to eat the whole thing. At least it was cold. High five.

It’s hard for me to leave the Taste without about twenty regrets, but I’ll spare you from another list. My biggest one would be not taking out a loan from the bank so I could get enough tickets to make sure I had no regrets. Or I could try and get a job with the Tribune, who paid Monica Eng to try EVERY SINGLE THING at the Taste. She is now officially a hero of mine, along with Joey Chestnut, Oliver Miller, Jabba the Hut, and his half-brother Pizza.

Overall, I’ll give my time at this year’s Taste a fist bump. Good, not great. I hope to make up for it next year.

Got a question? Send it to josh@borntofork.com.