Chicago Food!

More about Chicago Food during the IFT Conference! Man, how I wish I could've stayed here longer to eat more!

1. Giordano's - Special Deep Dish Pizza

Here I was, jumping around excitedly like a 5 year-old at the planetarium! "Oh deep dish pizza! I've stalked you on Wikipedia and Google Images for years... and now I can finally have you!" For a busy, famous restaurant on a sunny Friday afternoon, Giordano's managed to squeeze the 12 of us into one large booth, without reservations and only a 15 minute wait. The food did take a while to arrive, which was completely acceptable. Although there were various other foods on the menu (Italian roast beef sandwiches, soup, thin crust pizza, etc.), we were all set on ordering deep dish pizza. We ordered three medium pizzas and 2 plates of fried calamari + lemon + green beans + onion(?). The calamari was good (but isn't it always?) while I found the green beans to be really soggy. After one is done with the appetizers, the waiter/ess comes and whisks away your plate. We learned this the hard way after JT's plate was nabbed, even though he had already sprinkled herbs, parmesan, and other condiments onto his plate, ready for sticking to his slice of pizza.

The medium pizza was meant for 3-4 people, so we divided ourselves up according to preferences. My group and I ordered the "Special", which was mushroom, green pepper, onion, and sausage. The other two pizzas were pesto + chicken(?) and half mushroom, half something else. Ah, I appear to have not paid attention.


The pizza arrived on a metal plate that fit over a plate-chair, underneath which there was a cake pan full of condiments. RN joked about taking away the cake pan for cooking back at Cornell.

I consumed a wondrous quarter of deep-dish pizza (with one issue)! The bottom was a thick, bready crust, topped with plenty of onions and peppers and exactly 5 measly chunks of sausage, topped with a thick layer of cheese, topped with tomato sauce. The cheese was extremely stretchy and the crust was perfectly doughy and crusty (with the bottom being noticeably undercooked and floury). However, I did not encounter any sausage until I was 3/5 done with my slice (or 4/5, if you consider only the saucy part, and not the crust). I guess they only sprinkle the sausage on the perimeter. I am not entirely happy with the fact that there were only about 20 grape-sized chunks of sausage in the entire wheel of a pizza, but otherwise, I was satisfied and rotund.

[UPDATE 7/26: My brother's friend agrees with me regarding the dearth of sausage on the pizza]

That evening, I found another pizza place but I didn't try any because I was still digesting my luncheon.

2. Portillo's - Chicago-Style Hot Dog



The next day, I went out exploring all the great grocery stores and streets of Chicago. Chicago really likes revolving doors. I happened upon Portillo's on my way to the Doughnut Vault. Portillo's is in this indoor courtyard-type place, with old-style interior design which was part barn, part street, and part sqalid close-knit neighborhood. There were ribs, frozen custard and Italian roast beef sandwiches along with the classic Chicago hot dog. Portillo's opens at 10:00, and I chanced upon it at 10:08am. By that time, there had already been 17 previous orders! 20 to 30 people were milling about, eating or waiting for their food, while cheerful swing(?) music pranced around in the background. At one table, a group of 4 ate hot dogs and drank beer from giant goblets. The person in front of me asked for ribs, only to be told that one could only get ribs at the adjacent food stand.

The hot dog sausage was very normal. Boiled. Boring. The intriguing parts of the Chicago hot dog are the poppyseed bun, the pickle spear, and the various plant items in it. Overall, the hot dog was underwhelming. Just ok.

There was also an advertisement for garbage salad.

3. Doughnut Vault - Chestnut Yeast Doughnut and Coconut Old-Fashioned Doughnut

I love the Doughnut Vault! The entire setup is perfectly comical. Outside the literal hole-in-the-wall, painted on the brick is this a bright and humble menu. I arrived at about 10:45 am. As I walked in, the letterbox on the door facing the wall had two slots - Love Letters and Hate Mail. Cute, I thought absent-mindedly, as I heard a voice say that I had just beaten the Saturday morning crowd. It turns out that the Doughnut Vault gets pretty busy in the morning, and their opening hours are determined by whether they still have doughnuts. Look at this line from two years ago! Fortunate for me, by the time I had arrived, ther were only about 6 people relaxing at the table outside the store.

To the left of the letterboxes, there was a small countertop. To the right of the countertop was a glass/mirror menu and a shelf of doughnuts hidden in a cubby. The two people at the counter were extremely friendly! The woman let me halfway past the counter to look at all the doughnuts. For a small shop, they had a wide selection of doughnuts! There were chocolate, vanilla, and chestnut yeast doughnuts, and coconut, gingerbread, and possibly some other "old-fashioned" doughnuts. I asked which kind Dunkin has (because I'm not a fan of Dunkin's Doughnuts), and she said that she didn't know.

I got the coconut doughnut, and after a small deliberation, also got the chestnut one because I've never had chestnut-flavoured non-Chinese products. I brought the doughnuts to Millenium Park to eat (but I ended up saving the Chestnut one for breakfast the next day). The smothering icing on the coconut doughnut was really good, even though I know it was probably just powdered sugar and water. There were a few shreds of coconut mingled with the icing, but the doughnut was not overall coconutty. There were small black specks throughout the icing, which could've been vanilla or some other flavouring, but whatever it added was decidedly undetectable.

It turns out that Dunkin probably does the yeast doughnuts, because I didn't particularly enjoy the chestnut doughnut texture, while the "old-fashioned" coconut doughnut was fantastically fatty and cakey.

The chestnut doughnut icing had stuck itself to the paper bag (what a pretty paper bag!) There was no chestnut flavour, so I was not a huge fan.

4. Grocery Stores! As you may know, whenever I go to a new place, I enjoy visiting their grocery stores to see what regional things they sell.

1. Some small convenience store near The Wit, near under a bridge and possibly around some milkshake place. Here, there were Dill Pickle Lays Potato Chips, Limon Lays Potato Chips, and Honey BBQ Lays Potato Chips. I bought the Honey BBQ ones because I have tried Dill Pickle ones before in Montreal. They were a bit sweet but did not taste like honey. Overall, they weren't as salty or dark as normal BBQ chips.
2. Dominick's
   
   Here, I bought some Limon Cheetos because I'm pretty sure the East Coast doesn't really have them. I have yet to try them though. Dominick's was pretty nice, overall. It's still hilarious to me that one strolls in and out of the store through a revolving door.
3. Fox & Obel - This was a fancy gourmet market where there were gummy pandas as opposed to gummy bears. The entire place was dimly lit and there were so many confections.
4. Trader Joe's - Felt just like the Trader Joe's in NJ and in Philly. Bought a peach because I anticipated eating no real fruit or vegetables in Chicago. While eating the peach, I got mistaken for a local. Why, thank you!
5. Jewel Osco - I got a guacamole sample, noted the ordinary chip selection, and left.

5. The Blommer Chocolate Factory

I purposely got "lost" in Chicago. I wasn't actually lost, because I knew that if I walked towards the tall towers (specifically, the Willis tower), I'd end up in the touristy business district. On the way there, on Kinsie Street, I saw a Chocolate Factory! As I walked towards it, the I noted a bunch of trucks, and the smell of chocolate wafted towards me. A real chocolate fragrance. Unbelieveable. At the intersection (directly opposite Jewel Osco) was the chocolate shop, open to the public.


I wonder if they change the banner every year.

The shop had so many chocolate and non-chocolate items. The shopkeeper was really friendly. When I asked whether they sold dark chocolate by the half-pound and he said no, he went into the back and gave me a large chunk of the dark chocolate I had been eying. It was pretty good, and I was satisfied. He also said that all the chocolate-covered things are not manufactured by them, but they do cover the things (Oreos, nuts, dried fruit, espresso beans) in their chocolate. They had quite a selection of chips, chunks, blocks, bars, and sugar free delicacies.

I was debating between (dark?) chocolate-covered espresso malt balls or chocolate-covered brownie chunks, and ended up buying half a pound of the malt balls because I can make chocolate-covered brownies myself! They are thickly covered with this soft, compound chocolate coating that doesn't taste very much like coffee. There is only a faint coffee aftertaste. texture is more like hardened ganache than chocolate. It's not bitter at all, which is uncharacteristic of dark chocolate. The bright side is that the malt balls are NOT like Whoppers (i.e. they lack that bizarre waxy mouthfeel).
Incidentally, I met the Blommer company at the IFT Expo and they gave me (and everyone else) an ice cream bar.

6. IFT Reception and IFTSA Mixers
My take on the Chicago hot dog.

My take on the Italian roast beef sandwich. It was good.

Had my first jalapeno popper. 

Taste of Chicago

I love Chicago (or at least, the touristy areas I visited)! My fellow students and I went to Chicago for the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Conference (which was
fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!!
NOTE!! MY
!!!!!EXCITEMENT!!!!!
BY THE SUNDRY EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!)
and we had a couple of free days to lounge around and explore Chicago. So of course, I drank it all in and spent more time wandering around the city than in my comfortable half of the hotel bed.


Our trip coincided with the Taste of Chicago Festival near Millenium Park. This reminded me of the BBQ Festival in NYC I stumbled upon many years ago (I didn't try anything there that time, though), except that it was more diverse. Apart from the plain-cheese deep dish pizza, there was also lots of cliche Asian fare, African goat + plantain stew things, and frozen bananas on sticks (wrapped in opaque plastic packaging, so they probably didn't hand dip them an hour prior...).

For $8, one could obtain 12 tickets. Food samples/servings were about 4 to 12 tickets. Bottled water was 6 (or was it 8?) tickets, and there were no water fountains. There were free samples of juice and tea that certain companies were distributing, and I did have my reusable water bottle, so I was not entirely dehydrated. The hand-washing stations outside the portable toilets stated "Water is not potable".

Coincidentally, everything I got had chicken in it.

I did not get anything from here, but the slogan is pretty Good (see what I did there?). 

Classic Chicago-style hot dog, lacking ketchup.

I got a tamale here but I didn't get to eat it until I returned to the hotel. It was just ok. The chicken was kind of stringy, dry, and tough. Is that how it's supposed to be in tamales? In 粽子(zong4 zi3), the meat is usually pretty overcooked and stringy, and I don't find that texture very enjoyable. The corn part was good though! 4 tickets.

I found schnitzel! I've wanted to try schnitzel ever since Chowder (the TV show)! I was pretty disappointed. It just tasted like a crunchy-coated chicken chunk that was kind of tough and bland. What happened to thin slices? Pummelled with a hammer? Tender? So maybe this was mediocre schnitzel, or maybe I find schnitzel banal. 4 tickets.

Finally...chicken etouffee with rice! I've never had etouffee before. The broth was extremely flavourful! It was simultaneously mellow, smooth, and a crazy explosion. The chicken was just ok though; slightly tough. I will try crawfish etouffee at the next opportunity!

Institute of Food Technologists Conference 2013

IFT Conference and Expo 2013. What a blast! As someone from a university that doesn't have a food science program, IFT was an eye-opener to the food science industry. I found so many aspects of food science that I had never considered, and I also learned that there is a career in food packaging, sustainability, and waste management. Who knew?

I'm not really sure how much I'm allowed to expose about the IFT Expo because we weren't really allowed to take pictures, and a lot of it was probably supposed to be confidential information. However, I can give an overview of the program. We had an opening ceremony on Saturday the 13th in the evening, where the current and next IFT president talked to us, and we watched a bunch of videos to much fanfare music. We then had a networking reception with snacks. Each day of the conference, there were presentations, poster sessions, product development competitions, and the Expo. The Expo is basically thousands of booths (7 football fields, apparently), each showcasing their products and looking to sign a deal with some consumer company. According to my friends, these people would start off all cheery, but lose interest as soon as they learned that we were students. I only found that this occured in about 17% of the people with whom I talked. Most companies were willing to chat, answer my questions (interestingly, a lot of people were in Sales/Marketing, so they didn't know how to answer my technical questions), and give me samples and point me to more information.
I obtained many samples. Stevia seems to be a big research area currently. In reviewing my samples, half of them were sweet items (brownies, chocolate, cereal, granola, dried fruit, candy, gummies) that had been modified to include more fiber, less sugar, more vitamins, less fat, more protein, less gluten...

I went to watch a student product design competition finals. I personally didn't think that the presentations were good enough to warrant this as the finals (typos, stumbling on words, overall organization), but who am I to judge?

At night, there were some IFT Student Association mixers, one at the Navy Pier and one in the Hilton. For a food science event, the food was merely ok. I feel like Google entry-level employees have better dining options than the typical food industry R&D employee, which is just silly.

Corning Museum of Glass

Who knew the Corning Museum of Glass had food-related displays?
I highly recommend the museum if you happen to be around upstate NY.

I was unaware that Pyrex is owned by Corning. It was pretty cool seeing old playsets and cookware.

There were also lots of art pieces made with glass. We saw a glass-blowing demonstration and it was fantastic.

The juicer and food bowl seem a bit impractical but I guess they're pretty.

Baguettes (from May)

After Finals were over, I decided to make bread the night before I moved out. Packing? Psh, I could do that later. (But it actually turns out that I can just throw all my stuff into canvas bags).

I decided to make baguettes because I don't like turning the oven up to a high temperature at home, whereas it's fine in my dorm's kitchen where the heat doesn't cling onto you like duct tape. I also really love baguettes. All day every day.



Although these aren't exactly authentic because they're kind of dense...I think they pass. I don't remember exactly what recipe I used, and now I can't find it online, but I think it was this:
10 g active dry yeast
680g flour? Some mix of white and whole wheat
330 ml water?
Some salt...

I had to knead the dough for at least 10 minutes before everything was incorporated. Halfway through, I started to believe that there wasn't enough water (because it was pretty floury) but after a lot of kneading, the dough becomes really hydrated and sticky.

I think I let it sit for 1.5 h? Then I formed the baguettes, and let it sit for another hour. It is unfortunate that I don't remember the steps...

After rising, they go in the preheated oven with a metal container of about 50 ml water that will create a lot of steam. The steam in the oven emulates conventional baguette ovens that have steam injected in during baking. Refer to here to learn why steam helps with crust formation.

I liked this so much I gave some to my GA, SP's mum, and friends. It needs bigger holes though (too dense and not as chewy at the moment).