I need 4 dinner recommendations in Chicago next week.

[Coach McGuirk]

Yum! The pizza at least. I have never been a big hot wings guy.

[falafel]

10" stuffed special: 19.15 (delish)
8 hot wings: 8.45 (ripoff)

Could only finish three slices. Aye carumba.

Damn that looks tasty. You finished three? Let me suggest that that's a very respectable finish. I've never had the wings.

[ERCougar]

10" stuffed special: 19.15 (delish)
8 hot wings: 8.45 (ripoff)

Could only finish three slices. Aye carumba.

Mmmm...looks good. I'm still an Uno's fan myself, but you can't really go wrong with any of the three.

[Fiyero]

I finished the other three slices for dinner tonight. Mmm.

Tomorrow my last job is just 4 blocks from Grant Park, so I'll wander around looking for a good encore, preferably a place that will be showing the All-Star game.

[MarkGrace]

We were in Chicago this weekend, and I'm fully willing to admit that we ate at Frontera. Even more, it's was really good and I'm glad we went. Seared duck breast in pipian rojo...yum! Sashimi grade ahi with advocado and mango-grapefuit salsa...also yum!

I watch Rick's show, and he's had a big impact on how I think about Mexican food. I've always been kind of a Mexican food traditionalist (all about street level cuisine and dive-y corner restaurants), but watching his show has made me believe that Mexican can be something different -- something more high concept -- and still be real. So I really enjoyed finally making one of his restaurants.

Anyway, he has this new place next door that opened in the fall of last year called Xoco, and it's Mexican street food (tortas, caldos and what) but done with his twist (torts are wood-fired, high-end ingredients). It was really great. I got this torta that was a take on cochinita pibil, which was a really popular dish where I served my mission. Roasted suckling, pickled onions, black bean paste, etc. All very testy, and served with a habanero salsa that was knock-your-dick-in-the-dirty hot but so damn good. Haven't had salsa like that since my mission either.

We also got this ice cream there that was fantastic. Mexican vanilla served soft-serve style, with a streusel made of maple, pecan and bacon, and then covered in salted caramel sauce. Man, that was good.

I was shocked that his places are still so slammed on weekends. Frontera has been around for +20 years and there's still a 2-3 hours wait on the weekends. I would have thought that since Chicago was such a big food city there's no way people would endure that kind of wait, but I guess I was wrong. Fortunately we got a relatively quick seat at the bar and didn't have to wait out the restaurant.

I'm headed back in November and will likely check out Blackbird. Alinea is still the dream Chicago restaurant (well, just flat out one of my dream restaurants in general), but it will be a couple years before I can afford to throw down on that one.