Chi-Chi-Chicago

The hubs and I decided to take a weekend off and head out to Chicago! We had a great time, and did what we did best- EAT!

We stayed at the lovely Hotel Blake. It was right off of the subway, which meant we could travel all around Chicago for the shocking low price of $14 for the whole weekend!

Our first night in we decided to go big and have Chicago style pizza. Man, we were not disappointed! In true Dori style, we took our recommendation straight from Throwdown with Bobby Flay and visited Lou Malnati's Pizzeria.

Oh Oh they did not disappoint! Surprisingly, the namesake pizza the 'Lou' was vegetarian! Chicago style pizza is very different than your average pizza and deceptively filling. Yum!

The next morning we woke up and decided to travel Chicago a bit. First up was the Smart Museum. I think that this museum might be the best kept secret of Chicago- sure it's a trek even on the L, but it's free and has an awesome private collection to share!

Many thanks to Lynds for letting me borrow her awesome puffer jacket

The Smart has over 10,000 individual pieces in their permanent collection! It's also the first museum that I've visited that has a dedicated space for German artists, Italian artists and for a little hometown flavor artists from Chicago. Can anyone name the artist of this piece?? It's one of my favorites :0)

After touring the gallery, we hopped back on the train and hit up the DePaul University area. After a quick tip via Urbanspoon, we found ourselves in Toast. OMG, go there. and get the lemon pancakes. and thank me later. I have a minor obsession with all things lemon, so when I saw these lemon pancakes lightly dusted with powdered sugar and drizzled with honey I was in heaven.

It didnt hurt that my studly travel companion was pretty smitten with his breakfast too.

Next up was a fun event known as the Polar Bear Swim, which is where a handful of truly crazy, er, dedicated people strip down to their skivvies and brave the icy waters of Lake Michigan for charity.

It was sooo cold! And we quickly found out why, even the lake was frozen over!

Our last, but very notable trips were to the Chicago Diner and Yolk.

We totally forgot to take pictures at both, which is only a tribute to how gloriously yummy their food was! The Chicago Diner is a landmark vegetarian restaurant famous for their Radical Rubens. Jason approved :0)

An at Yolk, I swooned over the Banana Blue Pancakes which were banana pancakes with blueberries and granola mixed in! Yuuuuummmy!

Here's to another excellent adventure!