Thursday’s Report

Today was departure day, and between the start time of the training being moved up to to accomodate flight departure times and the fact that I had to pack up my stuff and get it to the car, I didn’t have time for breakfast. Ah well, Lou Mitchell’s and Ceres will remain high on my list when I return to Chicago.

So by lunch, I was plenty hungry, and determined to find the Gold Coast location in Union Station (about a block away). My coworker also wanted to get ahold of a real Chicago hot dog or two, so off we went. I had gotten colder and windier over the course of the morning, so the 1 block walk all but froze us — I will be better prepared for the intense wintery cold of Chicago if I come here this time of year again.

We found the ‘food court’ easily, but it wasn’t like your typical huge dining area surrounded at the perimter by food establishments, but rather these were somewhat scattered through a wide area with very little sit down space. A little persistence brough us to the Gold Coat location. My coworker ordered a double char god chicago style, and I ordered a char cheddar dog, a char polish, and a small order of cheese fries…..yeah, I was hungry. The order o cheddar fries turned out to be enormous, barely fitting into a box that would normally hold a 9" sub sandwich or so. I split these with my coworker, and these were absolutely tastey but messy (I think these would be better if they were cooked a little more well down, and the cheese tended to soften the fires out a bit, but would love some input back on this). The dogs were great too…..I noted they were better at the quad-split ends where the charring was more pronounced, producing more intense flavor. Of the two, the polish was the better, but the cheddar dog was no slouch. My coworker pronounced that this was by far the best lunch we had had in Chicago, and I heartily agreed.

I was looking forward to the dog stop the least, and it had turned out to be the best…….I’ll be sure to try some of the other dog locations on my next visit, as I understand Gold Coast isn’t even the best Chicago has to offer. Still, my boss ( a native chicagoan now living in Cincinnati) was quite jealous that we had gone to Gold Coast, claiming this as one of her favorite Chicago lunches.

—-

I did not get another meal in Chicago, as we got out of training at about 3pm and were detrmined to escape the rush hour traffic as early as possible. So ends my Chicago trip in the Roadfood sense…..next meal? the dollar menu at a McDonald’s somewhere in Indiana 🙂 argh! We didn’t even stop to pick up a deep dish pizza to go…..