Half Italian Grocer (Logan Square)

2643 N. Milwaukee Avenue

I have not stumbled upon many Italian grocery stores in the city. So when my friend Amy told me about Half Italian Grocer, an Italian grocery store very near my new apartment in Logan Square, the Italian in me mentally started eating spaghetti and meatballs with great fervor and firmly telling everybody to eat more food because they clearly had not eaten enough already. Mangia! Mangia! Mangia!

Half Italian Grocer is a mixture of a grocery store that features quality Italian products, a deli, what seems like a hundred kinds of cheeses, fresh produce, some of which they grow in their backyard, and extremely warm, friendly people that work there.

The first time I visited I quickly became friends with Jeremy, the guy who made the sandwiches. He has since moved onto Revolution Brewing, but in his place is Jordan, an equally nice and awesome dude. I ordered the prosciutto sandwich, which is creminelli prosciutto, fresh mozarella, house italian dressing, and baby arugula, all for $8. After taking my first bite I thought of my mom's homemade Italian cooking. My mom is the best cook I know and my brothers and I were spoiled with her culinary effectiveness growing up. Even though the sandwich had simple ingredients, the combination provided my taste buds with quality satisfaction.

I also want to point out that before I got home and ate my sandwich I ordered a cannoli. The cannoli did not make it to the house. I was worried about getting hit by a car while eating it because all I thought about was how amazing this dessert was; I'm a focused eater. My absolute, most favorite dessert of all time is a cannoli. I have had plenty. But the ones from HIG are in my Top 5.

I could easily eat this whole tray of cannoli.

Just go to this store and explore. It's a cozy place, which is Craigslist apartment lingo for small, but it's mighty.

Quality ingredients. Quality pizza. Papa John's.
(replace pizza with 'awesome everything' and replace Papa John's with 'I want to eat all the canoli')

Note: CASH ONLY. There is an ATM in the joint and a Chase bank two doors down.

Green City Market (Lincoln Park)

Green City Market and a dude caught mid-laugh

If you want to feel good about giving back to the environment, local businesses, and farmers, then get your life conscious butt to Green City Market. Yes, farmers still exist! They are real! And they're not all old guys with cowboy hats and a piece of straw sticking out of their mouths shouting for you to get off their land. Except there is the elk farmer who wears a cowboy hat and all camouflage. Besides that, a lot of the farmers at the market are young and trying to make a difference in our mass-produced food world.

One of the biggest farmer's markets in the city, the market features vendors with sustainable agricultural practices and locally produced/grown products. Green City runs year round; outdoor in the summer months and indoor at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum during winter months. There's all kinds of seasonal fruits and vegetables, cheese, meat, pasta, eggs, flowers, sandwiches, donuts (from Zullo's, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED), smoothies, herbs, spices, jams, and the list goes on. 

Those darn butter lovers!

You can go to the market for breakfast, too! Or lunch! Eating. All of the time. When we went we got a grilled cheese sandwich made with homemade butter, cheese, and bread. The ooey gooey goodness of the cheese ran like lava from a volcano out the sides of the toasted buttery bread. The line was long so we knew it was going to be tops.

Grilled gooey good from Prairie Pure Cheese farms in Wisconsin

The produce I get from the Market is always amazing. It lasts longer, is good for you, and good for the environment. Captain Planet would be proud.

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL FARMS!

I bought those golden delicious and did a happy dance.

Hours: Wednesdays and Saturdays 7AM-1PM located at the south end of Lincoln Park between Clark and Stockton Drive

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.

Hoosier Mama Pie Company (West Town)

1618 1/2 W. Chicago Avenue

OH SHIT.
PIE. PIE. PIE. PIE. PIE.
This is what I thought when I went most recently went to Hoosier Mama Pie Company. Pie is a dying dessert. You don't see it on menus much anymore. But a whole place devoted to the delectable dessert? YES. AND YUM. AND DOUBLE YUM.

Once you walk in, and smell what they are baking, oh my gosh. It's exhilarating. Invigorating. Enchanting. I never thought pie could be enchanting, but it is. It really is. The actual kitchen takes up more space than the seating area does and the place is so small that even the address is cut in half at 1618 1/2 Chicago Avenue. There are only three tables in the shop so when Becca and I wanted to sit down to eat we couldn't because they were all occupied, with more people walking in by the second. A couple sat in the little nook by the window and had clearly finished eating a while ago. They seemed to be exchanging some type of love language that I suppose can only take place in a pie shop so we resorted to sulking back to Becca's VW Jetta to consume our treats.

Pie. Glorious, magical pie.

Size constraints aside, let's get onto the eating part, which is the most important. I got a slice of chocolate cream pie and Becca got chocolate cream pie with bananas. We quickly started devouring these gargantuan, honkin' slices and then, the food silence happened. It's when whatever you're eating is so freakin' delicious and you're stuffing your face and you can't even stop enough to breathe let alone speak. The chocolate, the thick cream, the shaved curls of chocolate, the crust; superb. Every day they have 10 different kinds of pie to choose from, which include the classics such as apple and banana cream, but, there's also bourbon-pecan, fat elvis, and passion fruit meringue pie, to name a few out-of-the-ordinary flavors.

The shop! Mmmm

The couple in question.

You can also order pies ahead of time for pick-up (they require 2 days notice), which might be their more popular option since their storefront is not conducive to hanging out.

Get a slice of pie and a cup of coffee for $5. As my mom would say, "That's a deal at twice the price!"

NOTE: They are closed Mondays!

Very Best Vintage (West Town)

1919 W. Chicago Avenue

 I have wanted to visit this thrift store ever since I moved to Chicago five years ago. I never made it until this past Saturday when I was in the area. Very Best Vintage is colorful, adorable, fun, and a vintage-loving gal's dream, which would be my dream. I'm the 'gal' in that sentence.

After one run-through of the store I had picked up an armful of items to try on, including dresses, a few tops, and a skirt. Everything was appealing. Vintage shopping and thrifting can be overwhelming to the average lady or fella, but this is one of those stores that handpicks items from other resale shops or thrift stores and puts them all in one spot. The clothing was from the mid-1950s to 1980s. Tons of dresses filled the racks, which was surprising for being a smaller store. There was also a trunk full of scarves, which are my absolute most favorite-of-all-time item to buy at thrift stores. I actually had to cut down for a while because I kept buying them and buying them. So when I see a trunk full of them I geek out.

Black and yellow black and yellow black and yellow.....shift dress

Super unique items. A few housewares. Cute accessories. I want to go back and buy it all or just make that store my bedroom/house.

Unfortunately, there is only one tall rack of men's clothes. So if you're a dude, this shop isn't really worth a visit. But if you're looking to get your lady a little somethin' somethin', then come on down!

They also have an Etsy page! Or "like" them on Facebook! Or follow them on Tumblr!