Chicago Italian Beef & Hot Dog Experience

Ok, so when I went to Chicago last year, I made my friends take me to get deep dish pizza. That's all I knew about what was special in Chicago cuisine. How wrong I was! So since he'd had a year to get used to things, my friend Chris treated me to the Chicago Italian Beef & Hot Dog experience... MMM! Picture the beginnings of a Philly cheese steak... the shaved marinated beef on a long roll... except instead of adding the cheese, add 'jardiniere'. Jardiniere is this oh so wonderful tasting vegetable relish made from carrots, celery, and I'm not really sure what else is there, but with the beef it tastes great. Alright, so after you add the jardiniere you take the whole sandwich and dip it in this spicy, greasy, I don't really know how to describe it, "sauce." (Well, the dipping is optional, Chris got mine for me on the side.) Here's a picture:

Ok, I'll come clean, this wasn't actually my sandwich, I was too hungry to remember to take a picture of the darn thing before I dove in. Anyhow, I wasn't really crazy over the dip, but the sandwich in and of itself was really good.

Chris had wanted to take me to Al's, that's the big-name place in Chicago to get the Italian beef. It would have meant kind of a convoluted drive, though, so he took me to Torre's in his neighborhood. It was a neat looking place, sort of old fashioned, but very clean!

Since we were both really hungry, we also got a Chicago dog. I must say it was the best tasting hot dog I've ever had. However, it was a bit overloaded for my tastes. The traditional Chicago dog has mustard, relish, onions, tomatoes, and a dill pickle spear. Frankly, I would have been happy with just the mustard, relish, and onions, and that's how I got the rest of my hot dogs over the next few days. (Like I said, the dog itself just tasted so good, once I had tried one... I had to try more!) Here's a picture... again, not of my own hot dog... I was hungry, what do you want?!

The next few years are going to be interesting... I think I'll have Chris set up a tour of the Vienna Beef factory. Actually, on second thought, I think I'll take Bismark's advice and just go to the factory's lunch counter and forego the "How Hot Dogs Are Made" tour. Yeah...

Until next time!

God Bless,

~J