Three cheers for
Carolina Bob! Besides his fascinating pictures of food and the settings they are found in, besides being a raconteur par excellence of his travels, you can adding trip planning master to his bag of tricks. Bob planned out a wonderful assortment of great food stops from his
SE Chicago/NW Indiana stomping grounds. I'll leave it others to supply some pictures from this trip. I'd also like to welcome
Tinley Park's own
Eric aka
HelloDriver. Meeting a bunch of Roadfooders for the first time, Eric jumped right in and chaffered us around and gave us some valuable tips for the next time we visit the area.
Some of the
Wisconsin Contingent car pooled and we made a stop in Skokie's
Kaufman's Deli before we hit Chicago proper. Bagels, rugalleh, rye breads, pumpernickles, beef sticks, fresh half sour pickles and more started our day off well. We then found thousands of drivers all picking the same time using the
Edens and
Dan Ryan expressways.
Gyp stayed calm and we got through it only losing perhaps forty five minutes from our plan. Things picked up at
Schoops. A survivor from the depression,
Schoops specialized in thin crispy edged burgers. Now your first thought might be, I like my beef mooing but this style worked and worked well for me. The crunchiness added taste notes I hadn't had since sitting in the
Corner Cafe eating burgers during my high school years. I loved them and can't wait to have them again some time. Next was
BuffaLouie's, a stop I had my doubts about. Again I was mistaken.
BuffaLouie's had a nice assortment of wings. My volcano wings stopped while still well on the tasty side of heat but with plenty for me. Others tried boneless wings and
Buffalo Shrimp. I was very surprised to see their hot dogs were all from
Nathans, which is pretty far from home.
Zels was next and while I expected Chicago style Italian Beef, I was surprised it was tender roast beef, something not found anywhere in Milwaukee. It was a real treat and kept me from trying anything but a
Michelada from
Jalapeno's. Others will have to describe what they had. Our last stop proved to be my personal favorite,
Cunis. Cunis is an old fashioned ice cream and confectionary business. It was not heaped in nostalgia like
Beernstens, Whitey's and
Lagomarcino's Confectionary. This was an old working store in a tired neighborhood where everything is made in house. The caramel and hot fudge and all the ice creams.
Buddy Roadhouse mentioned the peach ice cream and a peach sundae is what I got. Perhaps Roadfooders from Georgia have had better peach ice cream but I have not. The sundae had fresh peaches adorning it instead of the usual syrups and I've never had a sundae anywhere I've enjoyed more. I hope the others add some pictures and thanks again
Carolina Bob for putting together!
You sir epitomize what
Roadfood.com is all about.
