Bon Appetit Albany Park Food Crawl

I just found out this is going on next Tuesday evening, May 22, from 5 to 9 pm. The restaurant lineup looks pretty good, and I can't figure out how to embed a URL, so here you go:

http://www.albanyparkchamber.org/bon-appetit-2012.html

I've been to all the Middle Eastern places, but plan to use the opportunity to check out the Mexican places, pizza joints, etc. Sounds like fun, and as of this writing there's still a half-price ticket deal on LivingSocial: http://www.livingsocial.com/deals/324178

Can't beat $20 for an event like that, or so I hope! Any suggestions/tips? I will kill someone if I get stuck late at work on Tuesday.

As this is in my neighborhood but I had conflicts I'm real interested in hearing you post your impressions of your experience attending this. Thanks.

Kman wrote:As this is in my neighborhood but I had conflicts I'm real interested in hearing you post your impressions of your experience attending this. Thanks.

Sorry, I don't necessarily stop by this board on a daily basis! I was plesantly surprised by some of the spreads the various restaurants put out; I think the two real winners in that department were Dawali (which was giving out half-sandwiches of falafel or chicken shawarma) and Lindo Michoacan (which had a whole bunch of different things: carnitas, chicken or beef fajitas, green or red salsa, fresh steaming tortillas, horchata and jamaica) and was not really watching too closely to make sure people didn't double-dip. I had been kind of concerned that restaurants would just hand out little canapes, and I would still be hungry at the end, but that was far from the case.

We didn't get to hit every spot on the passport because we ran out of time (late start, my gimpy ankle, and co-worker with toddler all contributed), so we mostly concentrated on the north end of the trail and skipped places like Jimmy John's and Starbucks (because really, why bother?). Everyone was super-friendly, especially to the aforementioned toddler (who has a Mexican dad and Chilean mom, so the folks at Lindo Michoacan were really chatting them up). I do have to say that there wasn't much for vegetarians to choose from (I think basically pizza or falafel). But I'm not a vegetrian, so it didn't bother me. I think the ticket at $20 was a good value, but at $40 not so much, unless you basically think of it as fundraising for the Albany Park Chamber of Commerce.

24 Bon Appétit Restaurants, 24 Bon Appétit Special Menus - Wednesday, July 22nd through Sunday July 27th

http://bonappetitweek.com/BAWRestaurants.html