M. Henry (Andersonville)

5707 N. Clark Street

Sometimes you meet a person and you feel an instant connection. Your heart beats quickly, you smile a lot, you try to think of something funny to say and it comes out as a really weird noise through your nose. Oftentimes this is how I feel about food.

For Nick's birthday brunch, we journeyed up to M. Henry in Andersonville. Frankly, this place is adorable. The atmosphere has a cozy, European style, and is simply elegant (is that a Martha Stewart magazine?). There's a farm-y aesthetic about the place with wooden tables and chairs, milk jugs scattered about, and a ceramic rooster here and there. Incredibly welcoming. Also, while waiting for our table, I keenly observed they serve gelato, which I will devour upon my next visit.

Nearly 2 1/2 inches tall, the quiche I ordered was stuffed with asparagus, sautéed leeks, shallots, applewood bacon, gruyere and lorraine swiss. I ate this quiche, you see, and my heart fluttered with every bite. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. The medley of flavors blew me away. Every bite caused me to fall in love further and more deeply. I couldn't bear for the fling to end. And it didn't. Because I took it home for leftovers and finished it the next day. YES.

The quiche in question

Of course, with every love, sometimes there are annoying quirks, or orange juice you get overcharged for. I ordered a fresh-squeezed orange juice and when we received the bill it said $4.50 for the glass. I double checked the menu and there was a small size option for $2.75, which I was not consulted about. I'm never one to nitpick about a dollar here and there, but the fact that our waiter didn't even offer me an option irked me. I was swindled! Swindled, I say!

So I worked in Andersonville for two years and lived in Ravenswood/Lincoln Square area for four of those two years and never went to M. Henry. Now that I live in Logan Square, which is a 45 minute, two-bus ride away from Andersonville, this is the time I chose to visit. Of course. But I would do it again and again. My wait finally paid off. I'm in love!

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Carlos and Sarah's Surplus of Options (North Center)

3664 N. Lincoln Avenue in North Center

Hands down my favorite resale shop in the city. Mid-century modern furniture. Photographs. Books. Clocks. Giant posters and signs. Taxidermy. Lamps. Art. And straight up weird-ass shit. Not weird ASS SHIT. Because that would be gross.

Run by two twenty-somethings, Carlos and Sarah, the shop's owners, are debunking the claim that Millennials can't do shit. They started up the shop in an old part of the adjoining mechanic shop by scrounging estate sales, alleys, barns, garage sales, and everywhere else you can find cool junk.

Front room and some oldie specs 

Back room and a sweet oldie typewriter

I almost always walk out of Surplus of Options with something. I have bought vintage ornaments for my mom (she loved them), an old map of France for my friend (she loved it), an old alarm clock for my other friend (she double loved it and it's on her dresser), and random stuff here and there like photos and tiny things. I want ALL the credenzas, coffee tables, and metal filing cabinets they have. I wish I was rich and had five houses I could put all this stuff in!

Also, don't be deceived by thinking the first room you walk into is the only room; there's more in back! The store is different every time I go in because of new additions and rearrangements. My most recent visit proved somewhat sad as there used to be half of an entire car in the back room. It was gone this time for some reason. But other than that, the rest of the visit was not sad. I always walk out of there feeling like Doc Brown just took me back in time in his silver plutonium spaceship.

Oh, and the weird-ass shit I'm talking about is an embalming table.

Here is their Tumblr where they post cool new items! http://surplusofoptions.tumblr.com

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.