I Left My ღ in Chicago

In Chicago again for the Pitchfork Music Festival I realized
I kinda, like, love Chicago.
But moving onward to food, something far more translatable to the written word… I took the opportunity to squeeze in some vegan eats in before, between and after musical acts. As was the case last year, the festival itself provided me with plenty of delicious food options. With Chicago Diner on hand, I enjoyed a very satisfying corn dog on a stick Saturday for lunch and, for dinner, a huge cheeseburger on a multi-grain bun with crisp lettuce and fresh tomato. The fixin’s bar was a must with fresh chopped onion and condiments. High fructose corn ketchup was my only complaint.
Chicago Soydairy was also there again. Can I state for the record again how much I love this company? Besides a chocolate chip cookie dough cone, they were selling their amazing Teese and Dandy marshmallows. I bought a tube of sharp cheddar with some future recipes in mind. Here is my friend Kris. What a Teese!

And me with my chocolate chip cookie dough cone…

Wanting to mix it up a bit I opted for a pair of Bite Cafe‘s seitan tacos during the Sunday show. This beautiful pair of tortilla-wrapped seasoned seitan were smothered in a spicy sauce and topped with fresh mesclun greens. A bit steep at $7 but with two orders we received a free t-shirt.

Out n’ about in Chicago, I sampled some of the vegan cupcakes at Sweet Cakes Bakery. This is a darling bakery is not exclusively vegan but their uniquely flavored mini’s were all V for the tasting. I ordered the green tea cupcake and the London Fog cupcake. Though they were both yum and so reasonably priced (at like $2 and change for both) but it was the London Fog that rocked my world. The cupcake was modeled after their cappuccino concoction and was an Earle Gray cupcake with a sweet buttercream dollop of icing on top.
I first went to Earwax Café what seems like decades ago. But it was probably about 2003 or 2004. Back then I was a vegan without a blog and so the experience of their scrumptious diner fare and triple-layer decadent vegan cake was left to post and stay in my mind. I knew I had to return to the hip Wicker Park neighborhood to document an Earwax meal for my blog archive. Earwax serves your standard menu of tofu scrambles, burgers and seitan sandwiches… but they do it right! On the first visit I had the Seitan Ruben: yummy strips of marinated seitan, sauerkraut, Teese cheese and vegan thousand island dressing on rye.
Second visit, the sweet Jerk Seitan: those yummy seitan strips but this time marinated in red wine, onions, jalapenos, soy sauce, and Jerk spices on French bread with vegan mayonnaise. So. good. And a strawberry cupcake.
Chicago is home to many-a diverse eatery. Eateries that embrace the vegan and the omnivore. Like Earwax above, Handlebar has some great vegan brunch choices! I opted for the vegan French Toast and received a huge pile of thick, sweet toast.


…I had a bunch of other vegan-friendly spots on my hit list… but alas, the extended weekend will have to have a sequel before summer’s end.