Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (Big Ugly Mich)

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 23:08:41 GMT

BuddyRoadhouse
I'm not sure all of The Contingent members could join you for the full 20 mile walk, but I think a lot of us would do a follow along in cars.

If you're going to walk Chicago, go here first! http://windycityroadwarrior.com/

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (kaszeta)

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:20:57 GMT

Yeah, I saw that over on SeriousEats (and updated my blog on Great Lake)

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (kland01s)

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 07:22:30 GMT

Another note of closings for you, not only Beard Papa has closed but Great Lake Pizza has also closed. They are said to be looking for a different location.

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (brisketboy)

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 11:14:28 GMT

Having grown up in the neighborhood of Montrose and Kedzie this topic really made me somewhat nostalgic for Chicago. I've been to some of these places and spent many happy afternoos at Wrigley Field. Thanks for the post.

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (kaszeta)

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 11:07:28 GMT

CCinNJ

Do you march rain or shine?

In theory, yes (since many of the participants' travel wouldn't allow a reschedule), but so far we've been blessed with great weather.

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (CCinNJ)

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 11:06:03 GMT

Do you march rain or shine?

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (kaszeta)

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 22:07:19 GMT

For those that were wondering where the next Death March would be, it's been schedule.

Boston. May 4th, 2013. Nominal route here.

Let me know if you are interested (preferably by private message)

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (kland01s)

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 17:42:14 GMT

Just a note, Beard Papa closed at the end of November.

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (kaszeta)

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:58:10 GMT

And here's the draft itinerary for the 2013 March in Boston:

http://goo.gl/PX6a4

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (kaszeta)

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 12:09:07 GMT

For those that might be interested, it looks like the 2013 Death March will be Boston. Nominations for food joints welcome... :)

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (ScreamingChicken)

Fri, 25 May 2012 09:30:05 GMT

kaszeta

The real specialty of Sun Wah is the Peking Dug,

Peking Dug or peeking Doug?

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (badart)

Thu, 24 May 2012 17:12:12 GMT

Glad you made the trip to Great Lakes Pizza. They get some of their veggies and herbs from one of my clients and friends Green Acres Produce here in beautiful North Judson, IN. Haven't made your Death March but as a frequent vistitor and worker in the city I have made many walks along the same routes you have. Thanks for the report!

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (kaszeta)

Thu, 24 May 2012 16:32:49 GMT

Now for the bonus material...

Before the walk, we all got together for dinner. That's been the tradition, so we look for a place that's informal, has large portions, and doesn't mind you hanging out a bit. Oh, from past experience, we also pick a place that doesn't have all-you-can-drink wine (we had a particularly hungover crowd for the Manhattan Death March due to this mistake. We settled on Sun Wah.

For the non-Chicago people, Sun Wah is basically your standard Cantonese-style BBQ joint (or in proper parlance, a “Siu mei” place): several different meats (chicken, pork, duck), put on a spit, glazed with a thick marinade and roasted rotisserie-style for hours until fully cooked. The result is a rather pleasant combination of juicy meat (the glaze seals in most of the moisture), deep flavor, and a really crispy and yummy fried skin. They’ve also got an extensive menu of side veggies, soups, cocktails (I opted for their “MSG” cocktail, which in this case stood for “Momma-Slappin’ Ginger”, a nice little cocktail loaded to the brim with ginger), rice dishes, and some fairly standard Chinese-American fare. But really, most of the menu is about the BBQ.

Stepping into Sun Wah, it becomes immediately obvious that they’ve expanded. This spot is large. Almost cavernous. Several hundred people can dine here. But it still mostly staffed as if it was a hole in the wall restaurant downtown, with not a whole lot of staff running around doing things. The result is more than a little bit of service. Expect, if you don’t have reservations, for it to take a long time to get seated. Expect also to wait if you do have reservations, you just get to wait in the slightly short “we have reservations” line instead of the longer “no reservations line”.
That said, by the time they left, the place was full, and while I’m sure nobody thought the service was spritely, nobody seemed to be terribly out of sorts or looking like they had waited for ages, so maybe they’ve got the system worked out pretty well. In any case, it was only about 30 minutes before walking in (5 minutes “early”) that we got seated, and handed some menus that appear, on the cover, to be relics from a former era.
I should mention as an aside that Sun Wah gets bonus for their food photography. The menus themselves may be worn (we joked that they’ve been using the same menu covers for their entire 25+ year existence, and I’m not sure that’s really a joke), but the current menu inserts are a rarity for a fairly budget-minded Chinese restuarant, in that the full-color third page menu pictures of various soups, BBQ rice dishes, and such were actually done by someone with some photography talent (usually, it seems that the photos in these sorts of places were done by a colorblind person who left his glasses at home, and is still using old Polaroid photo stock from 1989, with a resulting blurry, washed-out photo that does anything but appetize you).
But after looking at the tantalizing photos, we all had our minds set on what we wanted. Alas, that’s the Peking Duck, which you have to order 24 hours in advance, and we hadn’t. But it wasn’t that hard to find some other delicious looking items on the menu. We all opted for variations on the wonton soup (which turned out to come in a giant bowl for just $4.50), and variations on the BBQed meat with rice combo places (I ended up doing the combo of pork, duck, and chicken).

I started out with the Wonton Noodle Soup with Tendon, which was indeed a substantial bowl of soup, probably enough for 2-3 people. But it was a good wonton soup: the wontons had a flavorful filling, a nice, thick wrapper, and were plentiful throughout the soup. The tendon was several thick slices of nicely simmered and soft tendon. The broth itself was a rich and flavorful broth with a hint of shrimp, but not much salt. Overall, I’d be a rather happy person if most places could serve up a wonton soup this good (the last bowl of Wonton soup I had that I enjoyed this much was at my favorite Chinese place in Minneapolis, Shuang Cheng, where I’m pretty sure the staff still remember me by name and order).

When my BBQ rice plate arrived, it was basically everything I was hoping for. The duck was tender and perfectly cooked, with a nice flavorful and crispy skin. The pork was similarly delicious, with a really pleasant sweet note to it. And the chicken had a solid pepper flavor to it. This and some greens served on a bed of rice for $5.25, and it’s quite frankly a steal as well. I’d almost get this again, but…
Here’s the place, however, where I need to repeat our major tactical gaffe: we weren’t organized enough to reserve a duck. The real specialty of Sun Wah is the Peking Dug, and while I was quite satisfied indeed with both the quality and price of our meal, watching the other various tables dining on their carved-to-order ducks made me realize that Sun Wah has to go on my “must revisit” list.

They bring out the duck with a flourish and carve it table side, serving it up with some delicious-looking buns. They then take the carcass back to the kitchen to make you some fresh duck-fried rice and some Seriously, if you go, get the Peking Duck. I know, since we didn’t. And I’m feelin’ the regret.

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (CCinNJ)

Wed, 23 May 2012 22:47:05 GMT

Here's a nice NYC walkin' article...

http://www.nytimes.com/20...ml?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (kaszeta)

Wed, 23 May 2012 16:05:30 GMT

BuddyRoadhouse

I'm not sure how you made your decision to skip Khan BBQ, but I can tell you it is nothing like Sun Wah.

Well, we made a few tactical mistakes. Not doing Khan was probably one of them (but Great Lake was a seriously good pickup, so I'm not sure how that washes out).

The other was not ordering the duck in advance at Sun Wah. :(

Plenty of material for another visit. I'm not done with Chicago yet. ;)

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (BuddyRoadhouse)

Wed, 23 May 2012 14:20:16 GMT

buffetbuster

Did you happen to try any of the fried shrimp from Red Hot Ranch? It is some of the finest I have ever had outside of South Carolina and Florida.

buffetbuster,
You beat me to the punch in recommending the fried shrimp. You're right, they are outstanding. And served "tails off", requiring minimal effort.

kaszeta,
I'm not sure how you made your decision to skip Khan BBQ, but I can tell you it is nothing like Sun Wah. Sun Wah is Chinese and Khan serves more of a pan-muslim menu, ranging from the Middle East to Pakistan. They're both outstanding (I hope your group ordered the duck at Sun Wah) and you should absolutely come back to Chicago to try Khan BBQ. And make sure you contact me to join you.

An excellent trip so far. Looking forward to the rest

Buddy

P.S. You should really consider a Milwaukee tour, there's plenty of good stuff to eat up there. It's a highly under appreciated town with almost as much diversity as Chicago, and in certain categories, more. I'm not sure all of The Contingent members could join you for the full 20 mile walk, but I think a lot of us would do a follow along in cars.

B.

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (kaszeta)

Wed, 23 May 2012 12:24:05 GMT

ScreamingChicken

Very neat concept! I like to walk but 20-some miles would be a challenge...do you do any special training in the weeks leading up to the DM?

I don't. I regularly go on hikes in the White Mountains that are longer (although easier on the joints; city streets are a lot harder than "dirt").
But one reason we originally picked the ~20 mile length is that a good fraction of people that don't regularly hike that far, but are in "reasonably good shape", can do it. Sure, you might feel like, well, death, the next day.
The routes to date have also made sure to stay relatively close to transit options if people need to drop out, and we do pick rendezvous times for people to join in (we lost 2 people early on in Manhattan, were joined by someone partway through, and had partial walkers for both SF and CHI).
The biggest issue for people not used to the walking is feet. We heavily encourage people to make sure they've got good walking shoes. And moleskin. And a change of socks. (We didn't need any moleskin or sock swapping this year, however).

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (ScreamingChicken)

Wed, 23 May 2012 12:04:55 GMT

Very neat concept! I like to walk but 20-some miles would be a challenge...do you do any special training in the weeks leading up to the DM?

Brad

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (kaszeta)

Wed, 23 May 2012 11:42:28 GMT

CCinNJ

Do you average the same number of stops on every Death March?

How much time (on average) do you like to spend at each eating stop?

Not really enough Death Marches done yet to really say. We ate at the same general number of places in Manhattan (from rough memory, Zabar's, H+H, Beard Papa Gray's Papaya, oysters, several pizzerias, ice cream, kebab in Greenwich Village, and a post-March pizza celebration). Fewer in San Francisco (Fisherman's Wharf, Ferry Building, Beard Papa, tacos in the Mission, Bi-Rite Creamery, and a post-march burger joint in the Mission). Hopefully more on future walks.

We try to spend less than 15 minutes at stops, since (a) all the stops accumulate (according to my GPS, on most Death Marches we spend 1/3 of our time not walking) and can cause time pressure, especially when evening comes, and (b) After mile 10 or so, you stop wanting to get up after being seated for more than 15 minutes or so.

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (kaszeta)

Wed, 23 May 2012 11:37:45 GMT

Turning East on Foster, we hit the part of the walk where "Death March" started to have real meaning. Almost the entirely of the last 5 miles of the walk was due East, perfectly straight. Several points you could even see a vanishing point:

This part of the walk didn't have much food, but did take us through some interesting neighborhoods, like North Mayfair, which is basically a 1940s bungalow time capsule:

We did, however, pass this place, which made me wonder about the name. There's no "hill" anywhere nearby:

And this impressive collection of Satellite dishes:

But we eventually arrived on Clark, and headed up to our final destination: Great Lake Pizza

Great lake is a small place. Three tables, a small kitchen, and a single deck oven:

The place was full, and rather backed up in the kitchen, but I was able to talk them into slipping in an order for us. They let me know that Simon's Bar down the street a ways didn't mind outside food, so we eventually took the pizzas there.
We ordered two of their standard pizza's. Here is there #1 (Tomato Sauce, Dante Lamb Cheese, and Fresh Herbs):

And here is their #4 (Bacon, Onion, Creme Fraiche , and Black Pepper):

I'm saddened that the extremely low light level at Simon made for such poor photos, since these were amongst the best pizzas I've ever had (almost as good as Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix).

After pizza and beers, we took the El back downtown (nobody was terribly excited about my crazy idea of just walking back on Clark....)

(I'm not done, I might as well do two followup posts on the other places we ate that weekend outside of the walk, including the pre-March dinners at Frontera and Sun Wah, and the post-March dining at The Publican and The Gage).

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (CCinNJ)

Wed, 23 May 2012 11:37:33 GMT

Do you average the same number of stops on every Death March?

How much time (on average) do you like to spend at each eating stop?

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (kaszeta)

Wed, 23 May 2012 11:12:20 GMT

ann peeples

How awesome is this trip report? I am blown away by the walk, and what you all chose to eat. Please, please come to Milwaukee sometime-the eats while walking are awesome! I would love to show you some fine places...

I'll be honest, Milwaukee has been so far off my radar (I've been there a total of.... once, and most of that was helping a friend work his restaurant's stand at the Brady Street Festival) that I'd love to do something like this there, but would serious need some help planning.

I love these trips, since you get to see so many parts of cities that you normally wouldn't, especially as a tourist. For example, the Manhattan Death March had two New Yorkers on it that had never been north of ~90th, and it's a whole different world up there.

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (ann peeples)

Wed, 23 May 2012 11:02:54 GMT

How awesome is this trip report? I am blown away by the walk, and what you all chose to eat. Please, please come to Milwaukee sometime-the eats while walking are awesome! I would love to show you some fine places...

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (kaszeta)

Wed, 23 May 2012 10:19:37 GMT

After RedHot Ranch, we pretty much resumed walking NW on Milwaukee. This led us by a rather huge number of food places, mostly of the interesting mix of of Polish and Mexican places side by side; there were a lot of taquerias right next to Polish butchers. But we didn't stop much on this stretch, primarily since Polish butcher shops are generally in the business of selling raw product and not ready-to-consume stuff. I've got about 20 places on this stretch that I want to check out on another trip, hopefully when I've got access to a kitchen (and a cooler to take stuff home).
But we also saw a lot of cool non-food stuff. Including fleabag hotels:

Cool murals:

Bizarre art installations:

Polish insurance brokers next to Taquerias:

Tri-lingual (English, Spanish, Polish) signage:

Cool theaters:

And possibly the US's most architecturally elaborate public high school:
.
We eventually made it to Jefferson Park before turning east on Foster (a bit short of the original planned Devon route). My only regret is not knowing that there was a nice Polish Constitution Day celebration going on, if I had known that, I might have somehow adjusted the route to allow me to indulge in some Polish food.

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (kaszeta)

Wed, 23 May 2012 10:07:32 GMT

kland01s

http://www.lthforum.com/b...c.php?f=18&t=33471

Indeed. I planned the Manhattan and San Francisco Death Marches (I'm very familiar with both of those cities due to frequent visits), but I handed off organization of this one to Kevin since he lives in Chicago (well, did, he's moving to Syracuse for Grad School).
You can see our original route skipped downtown, and also went further north, but we made several last minute adjustments (we skipped Khan BBQ because the night before the March we did Sun Wah BBQ, which is somewhat similar, and several of us wanted to check out Great Lake Pizza. More on those joints later...). I'd like to do a variant route sometime that gets us up to Devon, but as it was, around mile 20 we were starting to some talks of revolution... ("Hey, that Route 62 bus goes right to our destination!").

(I forgot about the LTHForum thread, if Kevin doesn't post stuff over there, I might repost most of this there as well). There's a lot of decent discussion at TivoCommunity.com as well, but you need to have a (free) account to access that forum.

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (kaszeta)

Wed, 23 May 2012 09:52:05 GMT

buffetbuster

Did you happen to try any of the fried shrimp from Red Hot Ranch? It is some of the finest I have ever had outside of South Carolina and Florida.

I was tempted, but I've got a mild seafood allergy that I didn't want to risk dealing with ~10 miles left of walking. I'll note it for another visit

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (kland01s)

Wed, 23 May 2012 09:29:28 GMT

Heres the planning stage for this event:

http://www.lthforum.com/b...c.php?f=18&t=33471

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (buffetbuster)

Wed, 23 May 2012 09:13:06 GMT

Did you happen to try any of the fried shrimp from Red Hot Ranch? It is some of the finest I have ever had outside of South Carolina and Florida.

Beautiful photos and I am really enjoying this report.

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (CCinNJ)

Wed, 23 May 2012 08:58:57 GMT

I just need 3 pairs of shoes and I can do it...no problem. I have to change shoes every 9 miles...or hit a wall. I am quick like a NASCAR tire change. Lol

Ok...back to Chicago back to Chicago.

Re:Walking Chicago: 22.6 miles spent walking and eating my way through the Windy City (kaszeta)

Wed, 23 May 2012 08:57:14 GMT

Shortly after we did the pie, we hit the approximate halfway mark on our route, and it was time to celebrate, so we stopped for a beer at the well-respected Map Room tavern:

It's got a rather nice interior (and you can't see it in these shots, but most of the walls and some of the ceilings are maps, and the tables are international currency):

Here's the rest of the walking crowd:

I'll mention here that we repeated a mistake from the Manhattan Death March. While a halfway beer is refreshing and enjoyable, it also means that the next several miles of walking will also likely involve lots of searching for restrooms.... and Chicago has noticeably fewer public restroom facilities, especially on Milwaukee Ave. This resulted in unplanned stops at Taco Bell and McDonalds for token purchases to use restrooms...

After that, it was time for another Chicago treat, Chicago Dogs! We got ours from Redhot Ranch on Western Ave:

Each of us got a dog and fries. The dog was, IMHO, only slightly better than the average Chicago dog, but the fries were well above average: hand cut, nicely crisped, and flavorful. Probably the only fries served with a Chicago dog I've liked better were at Hot Doug's (not visited on this trip, since the schedule of a Death March doesn't lend itself to waiting in line)

Death Marcher Kevin (who lives in Chicago) gave us a demo of the proper hunched-over posture for eating a Chicago Dog (he gave us a similar demo back at Al's):