Bang Bang Pie Shop (Logan Square)

Chocolate chess with whiskey rye caramel

Damn. Good. Pie. Bang Bang Pie Shop has barely been open a few months and I have been aggressively spreading the word about its glorious, mind-numbingly delicious pie. Kristen and I both got the chocolate chess pie with whiskey rye caramel. It tasted like undercooked brownies: gooey, rich chocolate, with a thin hard layer on top, and that outstanding caramel drizzled ever so delicately across whole piece.

You know when you're in the Loop and you walk out of the subway and you get a whiff of the chocolate from Blommer Chocolate Factory? This pie tasted like that smells. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh pie-gasm.

Banana cream pie (photo by Nick Emrich)

We also got their homemade biscuits with homemade jam and their coffee, which I thought was great considering I'm not an avid coffee drinker.. It was the cutest thing watching two girls with aprons on make pies in the kitchen. You could tell they were taking their time in preparing these pies that everyone visiting seemed to loved. 

The people working there were super nice and the guy who rang up our order even checked up on us after we finished our pie to make sure everything was okay. Another guy who worked there said they are going to make the backyard of the building into an outdoor eatery and patio and even throw a wedding back there. There's a good chunk of land back there! Go. GO. GO GET THIS PIE!!!!

2051 N. California Avenue

Note: Closed Mondays! Open Tuesday-Friday: 7-7 Saturday: 9-5

Bonny's (Logan Square)

2417 N. Milwaukee Avenue

EDIT 10/24/12: BONNY'S HAS CLOSED AND I AM SAD. Rumor on the street is it's relocating.

This sign is the only image you need to see at Bonny's in Logan Square. You do not want to see bad iPhone photos with that horrible flash of sweat-dripping, red-faced dancing bodies inside, pushed up against one another on a hot summer night. Everyone's faces start to blend together in the barely lit bar as you try and crump to "This is How We Do It" because it's dark and no one can see you try to booty shake your white girl butt. But even if they did see me, I mean, you, shaking that white girl butt, they wouldn't care because all the other kids are trying to crump and Dougie, too.

You DO want to see that if you're drunk and it's after 2AM, which is when you go to Bonny's, which is also when I am the best at white girl crumping. There's usually a line after 2AM since all the other normal people bars close around then, but you're drunk by the time you get there anyway and it usually moves quickly. As a 5AM bar, there is a sweet spot you should hit between 1:30AM and around 3:30AM. If you're still there by 5AM, you're either blasted out of your mind, being dragged home by your friends, or you're going home with someone to have some sexy times, which, hey, I completely support. Git yours!

Bonny's plays choice dance music: 80s, 90s, Top 40, oldies. It's all there and it's all good. The DJs are fun and sometimes they even play Usher "OMG" when you ask.  

I have always had a rockin' good dance time here and it's always our last stop on the bar hop train. It's a dive, that's for sure, but I love me some gritty, sticky floor butt bumping and hip shaking.

Note: This bar is cash only! Dolla dolla billz y'all

Hot Chocolate (Wicker Park)

Holy mother of the god of food. I have little words to express my new-found love/passion/obsession for Wicker Park's Hot Chocolate. What I felt when I ate food from there is more of a feeling; a state of mind, if you will. It's a place where milk never goes bad, where people call instead of text, where puppies never turn into adult dogs, and where wedgies don't exist.

Lamb and scalloped potate bake

The establishment has the yummy food category down pat with part restaurant, part dessert bar. You have to be seriously committed to serving up choice dessert if it's in your main title. I wish I would have had room for dessert, but alas, it must be reserved for another day.

I ordered the lamb and scalloped potato bake: Black Earth Farms' lamb sausage, scalloped potatoes, spring peas, fava beans with a poached farm egg. My first bite sent me into a euphoric world. I closed my eyes and forgot where I was for a second. I get kind of mad at food when it's so delicious. It's more of a disbelief that what I am eating has been created simply for us to enjoy. I could not waste any of it and devoured the dish, weird food noises and all.

1747 N. Damen Avenue

My brunch date got brioche french toast with sliced bananas, malted whipped cream, maple syrup, Three Sister's toasted pecans, and house-made sausage. I don't know what Three Sister's is, but I'm glad it was three instead of one. And, come on, malted whipped cream? How? How??? Incredible. It was stellar.

The only bad thing that came out of Hot Chocolate is that now brunch is ruined. Brunch is broken because nothing else has been able to compare to Hot Chocolate. I also got reamed out by my older brother for not getting any hot chocolate to drink. Even more reason for me to return.

Note: They are closed on Mondays.