It felt sad leaving Central America and Costa Rica. Especially since we got to have one more day at the farm the day before we left and it felt sad leaving Bello and all the other animals there (and of course Allan and Patty aswell!). But excitement took over pretty quickly when we landed at the airport in Chicago, knowing that I was gonna see my brother for the first time in over 2 years.
This is what we were up to in the different areas of the city during the 10 days we stayed in Chicago.
Logan Square
My brother Daniel lives with his roommate Mark in the coolest area of Chicago (well, according to me and what I was able to see during our visit here), called Logan Square, just a short train ride away from the airport and the city centre.
Daniel told us before we arrived that we would fall in love with Logan Square, and we really did. It's a very arty, hip area where you'll find that cafe where you can have a coffee while painting, where they have markets and festivals in the park almost every weekend and you'll find good spots for craft beers and of course, a great place to find vegan like minded people and most importantly, the vegan food.
As two vegans who just spent 4,5 months in South and Central America we were buzzing and doing the vegan happy dance about almost every vegan item we found, because they are everywhere. It is easy to overeat over here for sure. And it's also very, very easy to be a lazy vegan in Chicago and get stuck in the vegan junk food trap.
The first thing we did when we arrived to Logan Square was to go to Foodsmart, and urban food market which is open 24/7 and where they sell what I've been dreaming of for months now; the vegan Ben and Jerrys!!!
I went nuts and bought the four different flavours they had in store at once (and let's just say they were gone very quickly as well), it felt rude not to considering I'd been waiting for this moment for so long. My favourite one is P.B and Cookies (vanilla ice cream stuffed with oreos and peanut butter swirl), but to be honest they were all amazingly good. They're made with almond milk and to be honest I had to double check the ingredient list twice even though it said Non-Dairy on them, because to me they taste exactly the way I remember the original Ben & Jerrys tasted like.
Foodsmart was good not just for satisfying the ice cream cravings, but for any other craving we've had for a long time. We found everything here. All kinds of plant based milks, vegan ready to go meals, different cheeses, seitan in all kind of forms and soy meats etc. So yes, we could finally make some freaking pancakes at home with the ice cream, chocolate sauce and strawberries. Blissful moment.
On Sundays they set up the Farmers market in Logan Square and this is also a treasure for vegan food. We tried so many different kinds of tofu that we got full just from tasting and it's a great way to find cheap veggies and other organic things.
We tried to cook many meals ourselves, but it was so hard with all the temptations around. Looking at the HappyCow app like a million places popped up and it seemed stupid not to try as many places as possible (well, maybe a but stupid for people like us on a tight budget, but not so stupid when h-angry)
My favourite spot that was the only place we returned to more than once is without a doubt the Chicago Diner, a classic american diner, but an all vegetarian one. Actually, everything comes vegan but you can request eggs instead of tofu for some of the meals on the menu, which makes it a vegetarian restaurant by definition.
They have award winning shakes, so for 7 dollars I was dancing on a pink cloud with my cookie dough and chocolate shake with whip cream and chocolate chip on top. Honestly the best shake I've had since becoming vegan.
We went for brunch here one day (they have brunch every day until 3 pm), where you can build your own brunch and so I did. Scrambled tofu with seitan bacon and a huge american pancake on the side. Wow.
Another day we came for lunch and I had the buffalo style hot seitan wings, which is only an appetiser but the portion is huge and was definitely sufficient as a lunch on it's own. It came with an amazingly good sauce as well. The bbq flavoured once are even better.
Not only do they have great brunch, lunch and dinner, but also a big dessert menu (and may I add, the most friendly and helpful staff you'll ever meet). We tried the brownie sundae which came in a big bowl with a huge chunk of brownie under a mountain of ice cream, whipped cream, caramel & chocolate sauce, sprinkled with peanuts and chocolate bits.
The Chicago Diner is in an area just next to Logan Square, California, and they have another location in Lincoln Park area where we never went.
Another cool hang-out is the pub Parts and Labour, which was perfect for an afternoon beer in the sun and for playing giant Jenga. The best part? The vegan double cheese burger with black bean patties, which we could get on offer. A beer or a short with the burger and curly fries. Again, you gotta love Logan Square for accommodating vegan so well.
Everyone knows how much americans love brunch, and with my brother as host we got to experience the true brunch lifestyle and had many different kind of brunches at many different places. As I mentioned, Chicago diner was best food wise, but we also found the vegetarian gem Ground Control which offers brunch on Saturdays and Sundays with a very vegan friendly menu. This is not technically Logan Square either, but it was such a short walk from it.
I had the breakfast taco (a nice mix of taco flavoured tofu, seitan and potatoes served with a cilantro dressing, sallad and tortilla bread and of course I had to add the vegan cheese. Soooo yum and so filling. Didn't need to eat much more that day.
So yeah as I mentioned, living on Logan Square was dangerous for the wallet but oh-so-good. The most dangerous thing is of course that most of the food is also available online. For some lazy nights we had a take away pizza with vegan cheese and seitan from Boiler Room and it was divine.
Just a 5 minute walk (dangerously close) from my brothers apartment was another piece of heaven; the Mexican restaurant La Cocina where they offer seitan mock beef and chicken and vegan cheese. Both the burrito and quesadilla from here are too amazing to describe in words. So cheesy that it felt like I was cheating on my veganism even though I knew it was the daiya vegan cheese.
Another cool Mexican gem is Quesadilla La Reina Del Sur (also not technically in Logan Square, but walkable depending on where on Logan Square you are.) It's on North Western Avenue and the difference from La Cocina is that we didn't spot those big bags of gross animal meat in the fridge with sodas, because it is all vegetarian. And for breakfast they can make tofu omelettes. Unfortunately we were out too late for breakfast that day, but what we did have for lunch was amazing.
Apart from amazing food, cool stores and people, Logan Square and its surroundings is perfect for going out for drinks. We went to a few different places, but the one that definitely stood out was Tiki Bar.
The drinks are more expensive than other places, but you get a cool experience here with the tropical atmosphere and the coolest drinks I've seen. I had the banana daiquiri and it came with a whole banana in it, shaped like a dolphin.
Wicker Park
Another cool area is Wicker Park, just a couple of train stops away from Logan Square. This is also a great area for that afternoon beer and browsing in cool stores.
We went here for the Green Fest, a organic festival aiming to be as sustainable as possible. You could learn about composting, recycling and there were live bands playing at two different stages. The entrance was only based on donations, which was good because it was a bit disappointing to be honest. I was surprised as to how little vegan and vegetarian food that was offered from the food trucks, the only thing we found was a vegan burger and that was kind of it.
But it was nice chatting with people form animal rescue centers and I think the dogs visiting had the best time as they got to bathe, because it was ridiculously hot outside when we were here, so I actually got jealous.
So instead of eating inside the festival area, we went to the coolest pizza place, Dimo's Pizza, where they sell vegan pizza by the slice (!!!). When we were there they offered buffalo chicken pizza and they had a lunch deal which was a slice and a really nice salad on the side. So so so lush.
A great coffee place we found was the vegan friendly Brü Cafe, where they even offer free yoga classes on Tuesday evenings. If I hadn't been so full after the pizza I would've gone for a vegan donut at Stan's Donuts close by to go with my take away soy latte.
'Garfield Park Conservatory
Visiting Garfield Park Conservatory was like visiting a zoo for vegans. It is one of the largest greenhouse conservatories in the country and it's often referred to as landscape art under glass. It was so cool going in to all the different rooms with different kinds of plants and flowers from all over the world. It felt like we were back in the Amazon at times. A very good activity for a rainy day.
Lincoln Park
Deep dish pizza is like a Chicago thing and felt mandatory to try, so in order for a vegan to do so you have to head your way to the Lincoln Park area and to the very cool, tiny vegan restaurant Kitchen 17. This is the only place in the city where they offer vegan deep dish pizzas. It was so greasy and good, and we fell in love with the pizza and the place immediately.
On our first Saturday in Chicago, Daniel took us on a real Chicago brunch at Zellas. Where a brunch buffet with bottomless mimosas is 45 dollars. A good deal if you're a vegetarian or a meat eater, but not so much for vegans. Me and Guy only had fresh fruit and potatoes, and x amount of glasses of mimosas..
Chinatown
Since Daniel never been to Chinatown here either, we thought it could be fun to go to a place where no one of us had been before. Just because we could. Chinatown in Chicago is small, but pretty cool. We went in to a few stores and just did some window shopping.
Daniel had food at this cool old school restaurants that's been at the exact same spot since 1946, and walking in there was like going back in time. So much in time that there weren't a single vegetarian, let alone vegan, item on the menu unfortunately.
Downtown Chi-town
Downtown Chicago is really nice, not too busy as the streets of New York which was nice and there are several cool buildings and art sculptures.
The tallest of them all is the old Sears Tower, nowadays referred to as Willis Tower. With its 442 meters it is the tallest building in USA, so we thought we had to take the bullet of paying 22 dollars each and stand in a busy queue for over an hour to spot the amazing view from the top.
The highlight of the visit is the Sky Deck where you walk out in a glass cube and it feels like you're walking on air. Very impressive.
Another nice thing with downtown Chicago is that there is a river running through. You gotta love big cities surrounded by water. Sitting by the river in the sun to have a mountain of shoestring fries was just the perfect way to end a day with a lot of walking around.
Other than shoestring fries there are many vegan food options in the city of course. Because every American I've met always talk about the Mexican fast food chain Chipotle as if they couldn't live without it, I felt obliged to try it. And I can finally understand what the fuss has been about, cause it was great. I had the bowl with tofu (there is only really two choices for vegans when it comes to choosing the first filling, because they have meat and shit on the menu, but as a vegan I could go for the tofu or just simply plain veggies), black beans, guacamole, salsa and loads of veggies and salad.
But despite the yumminess here, Chipotle wasn't the best fast food place for a vegan like me. There is this chain called Native Foods, which is an all vegan healthy fast food chain with several locations in Chicago. It was so many different things to choose between on the menu that it took us ages to decide what we wanted to try, but finally I went for the Soul Bowl with quinoa instead of brown rice, kale, veggies, fired "chicken" and a bunch of different creamy sauces.
Guy had a sandwich with seitan bacon and cheese with a big portion of side salad and a bowl of yummy potato salad. They also had desserts and everything, but we were just too stuffed after that meal.
Millennium Park and those other parks
It's really easy to access these amazing parks from downtown Chicago as they are basically located downtown. Millenium Park is probably the most famous one, with the Bean attracting many visitors with its mirror surface.
In summers they have outdoors cinema here once a week. We went here for the opening and it was so crowded with people that we actually had to leave because there weren't anywhere to sit down.
One of my favourite days however, was when we walked along the waterside and had the beautiful view of the city and the lake infront of us. We walked all the way to the Musem Campus and behind it where there is a small beach where we had a much needed swim.
A visit to Chicago isn't complete without a Chicago Style hotdog (basically a regular hotdog with loads of stuff on it, like dressings, relish, onion etc). So in order to be able to complete our visit we found that Kim and Carlo's Chicago Style sold vegan Chicago Style Hotdogs in the center of the Museum Campus.
