I believe we present a good balance of cuisine in Last Supper. For every expensive fancy-pants restaurant I cover, I try cover a place like the subject of this week’s column: Chicago’s Windy City Hot Dogs.
I call the grub at Chicago’s irresponsible. (Never mind that I suggest the food would tell you to do something responsible, like get a job, if it could talk. I was drunk when I wrote it, okay?) The reason I used that term is because so many fawned-over Portland restaurants couch their menus in the idea of responsibility—whether to the community, the environment, or animal welfare. Chicago’s seems to represent the direct opposite of those ideals. I don’t think much on the menu is local or sustainable. In fact, the meat products are from Vienna Beef in Chicago.
The meat sourcing speaks to a desire for authenticity at Chicago’s. That’s something I appreciate: a bit of the fatty, cheese-covered Midwest tucked away on Canyon Road. However, for eaters who dine in Portland restaurants that allow them to feel ethical by proxy, it may cause a bit of guilt.
I say screw the guilt. Chicago’s food is intensely pleasurable, in that animalistic way that only pounds of tender meat crammed into a roll can be. That’s just me though. If I’ve learned anything about you, Blogtownies, over the last two years, it’s that your tastes can be… Shall we say… Extravagant? So, what is your guilty pleasure? What’s that irresponsible food that can launch you into an orgy of gluttony from which you emerge with a dirty face and a dazed look. Don’t hold back.
UPDATE 2:15 PM
Dave J. has the right idea! On Totino’s Party Pizza, from the comments: It tastes artificial as hell, is absolutely horrible for your body, and I fucking love them.
C’mon, Blogtownies, don’t let Dave just hang there with his confession, twisting in the wind. Get in on the discussion.
Oh Jesus, if people here can’t enjoy ONE delicious, authentic Chicago hot dog because it wasn’t made from their neighbors vegan-fed backyard yoga chicken, they need to just get out of the business of eating.
I’m all for fusion, but if you want a god dammed Chicago hot dog, you need a) Vienna Beef and b) those little sport pepper things. If you want some other bullshit kind of hot dog, use other stuff.
Plus they’ve been making hot dogs for, what, like a hundred damn years? That shitty little region-sourced yogurt place everyone food-blog’s about is going to last 6 moths, tops. Maybe there’s a reason for that.
I’ll freely admit that the shockingly awful, horrible food that I feel both intensely guilty and thrilled to eat is…Totino’s Party Pizza. Oh yeah. The “supreme” version. It is 100% fake food. NOTHING on it is organic, sustainable, locally sourced, or even made up of actual ingredients. Somehow it has stayed the exact same price for the last 15 years. It is about $1.25 per pizza now, same as when I was in college. This makes no sense–it is inflation proof. It tastes artificial as hell, is absolutely horrible for your body, and I fucking love them.
Poultry skin. Chicken, duck, quail…you name the waterfowl, I’ll eat its skin.
I second Dave J.’s opinion, and would like to add that my favorite Totino’s is “Canadian Bacon (with water added).” WATER ADDED? WTF??
Personally, I love those watery chicken sandwiches you can by on Amtrak sometimes.
It’s… kind of a big reason I ride the train whenever I can.
I am a sucker for a lot of the stuff in the “natural foods” section of Freddie’s that is actually just garbage, like the spicy nature cheetos and nature doritos.
And ice cream. I love ice cream. I eat this too often.
If I did not care about getting fat, I would eat a LOT of donuts. But not that yuppy voodoo shit – just the cheapest old-fashions.
Liver with bacon and onions, mashed potatoes and gravy and a vegetable. Ice cream for dessert, maybe peppermint.
Does anyone in Portland make a good Chicago-style deep dish or stuffed pizza?
@dmitrir
Not that I know of. We seem to be fixated with New York (which is a shame).
There was a Russian place in Talent, Oregon, that used to make an amazing deep-dish style pie. I asked one night where in Russia the pizza pie was from and the Russian waiter said (in a dead-on Midwestern accent), “Che-cah-go.”
The last time I went to Southern Oregon, it looked like the place had shut down.
Captain Ankeny’s Well has a deep dish pizza. Is it Chicago style? I don’t know. Is it good? Yes it is.