Where do we meet? And if anyone needs a ride from the north, PM me.

As noted in my long post up the thread a bit, we gather at 11:15 at:


Argo Georgian Bakery
2812 W. Devon

I am planning on doing this rain or shine. I just don't have a place big enough to host if it rains, and I'm afraid I don't have the time in the next two days to find one. It it's pouring, it'll be miserable, but some rain doesn't bother me.

Also, last night I visited all of the stops (except La Unica which I will get to tonight) and gave them all a heads up to expect a large crowd at an approximate time range on Saturday. They all appreciated the warning and look forward to hosting us.

Hellodali,

Thanks for the tremendous effort and detailed approach to this event.

Regards,

I will only be 1, not 2, this time.

Hellodali:
That was so nice to organize with the business owners! I can't wait til Saturday.

Thanks so much for your efforts. Rain or shine, this promises to be an outstanding event.

I am looking forward to Saturday and meeting everyone.

Jyoti

Hi all:

Just a final check in before Saturday. So far, based on the confirmations, we are at 34 people. When we gather at Argo Bakery, we can make some decisions about splitting up the group for some who maybe want to do a faster route of the take-out only stops and those who want to do the sit downs as well as take-out. Or we can split into two groups on two different sides of Devon. We'll see what everyone is feeling over hatchapuris and fresh-baked bread.

Will someone bring a camera? I don't have the best and I haven't figured out quite how to post pictures.

I also made up a simple guide listing all of the restaurants for people to take notes about what they tried. I just have to remember to bring them home from the office tomorrow.

I think we will find each other very easily out in front of the bakery, but just in case, I will be wearing black cropped sweatpants and a gray tank top and will most likely be carrying some sheets of paper. This has been fun to put together and I so look forward to meeting everyone!

Will someone bring a camera?

I only have a handful of LTH events under my belt, but I think there'll probably be a camera or two in the group...

It will only be myself tomorrow. I'm more interested in checking out the grocery stores than trying the food.... and I will be bringing my camera! Looking forward to it!

Deduct one (me) from tomorrow's outing. Unfortunately, I'll be at the office all day - Downtown. Thanks for all of the special effort to help make this a successful reality.

and if anyone has a little red wagon (or suchlike) to bring with to carry all our purchases, that'd be great!

We will be walk 'n eat, it seems.

Looks like we are going to miss this, which is too bad, because I don't get to Devon very often and was looking forward to this a lot. I'll just have to wait for the pictures and reports!

Looks like I won't be able to make it. Sorry.

HI,

I apologize for not getting there. There were a few things that compelled me to go home. One biggie was a rare last minute visit by my sister.

I was still hoping to come, though Cynthia was very kind to fill me in you were on the 2nd to the last stop.

I'm sure everyone had a great time. I cannot wait to read the reports.

Best regards,

Wow -- what a great day.

Thanks so much for all your planning, Hellodali. The restaurants chosen were great -- I want to go back to all of them (though those of us who made it to all them felt that Sabri Nehari, La Unica, and Hashalom were probably the highlights).

It was a great event. And lots of fun people attended -- good group of interesting folks from all over. The conversation added much to the enjoyment.

I had an even better time than I had thought I'd have. Great job, Hellodali.

Thank you for such a great event! I'm thankful for the opportunity to explore Devon with fellow LTHers and the places we visited were wonderful. I'm looking forward to visiting them again in the future to satisfy my cravings for Indo-Pak eats, sights and sounds.

Pictures and food descriptions of things we tried and found today are in my blog... please feel free to check them out!

Thank you to those who attended and especially to Hellodali for a great job organizing the day!

It was a terrific day, starting with Argo Georgian Bakery, Patel Brothers Market, Sabri Nehari, King Sweets, Ghareeb Nawaz, La Unica, Khan BBQ, and HaShalom. Not being satisfied (how could we?), we also went into a Russian grocery and European bakery near Mozart and Devon).

By the end there were only four of us intrepid Thon'ers. I was delegated to provide pictures of HaShalom. Others will provide other images. We ordered mint tea, an Israeli combination plate (Israeli salad, hummus, baba ghanouz, Moroccan eggplant, and falafel) and the Moroccan combination plate (Moroccan egglant, carrot salad, beet salad, matbukha (chopped tomatoes and peppers cooked in a medium spicy tomato sauce), and roasted peppers). This was a lovely way to end a global day of eating. The owner of HaShalom is of Moroccan descent from Israel (his wife is from Serbia). My only disappointment is that they did not begin serving their Moroccan couscous until 6:00 p.m., but another time, another thon. The Moroccan eggplant (found on each plate), the mint tea, and the falafel were particularly excellent.

Israeli Combination Plate



Moroccan Combination Plate



We give much appreciation to Hellodali, who had to leave during our lunch at Khan's. However, even with the absence of our Moderators, the younger LTH generation acquitted itself with honor.

HaShalom Restaurant
2905 W. Devon
Chicago
773-465-5675

What a fantastic day! The rain kept on threatening, but it only sprinkled for about ten minutes, compared to other parts of the city and suburbs where it rained far more substantially.

I think there was only one item the entire day which I thought was unappealing, and it was not a main dish. The fact that I can get through an entire day like that for just $18 is astounding. [If I had started buying things at Patel Brothers, however, that probably would have tripled!]

Highlights of the day for me:
- The people. It was a fantastic, diverse, and funny group.
- The goat stew at Sabri Nahari. Actually, everything at Sabri Nahari, but the goat stew was outstanding.
- Watching everybody enjoy their sweets at King Sweets (I was so full at that moment that I could not have considered ordering any)
- The Chicken Roti at Khan's which I have been reading about for months and finally got to try.
- The Cubano sandwich at La Unica.
- The very nice gentleman behind the counter at Argo
- Ghandi Electronics: Mowimy po Polsku
- And of course, the tiny Hare Krishna parade which closed a mile of Devon Avenue for over an hour.

Lesser lights of the day:
- The waiter at Khan's. He seemed annoyed that we were not ordering 12 dishes for 12 people.
- The dinginess of La Unica.

EDITED: Link to photo album at Shutterfly (12 photos)
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welc ... YsWTFm4YcM


Thanks again to Helodali for organizing such an enjoyable event.

I'm so sorry I missed it Errands overtook me.

Thanks for posting the fabulous pictures everyone, but more so for your excellent company yesterday. I so enjoyed the day and it was due in great part to the terrific people who joined the excursion. It was great fun to plan and experience. I hated to leave before the end but work called at the last minute...

I already have Devon-a-thon II planned (for a Sunday maybe in early September). This would focus a bit more west of California and west of Western:

Tel Aviv Bakery
The Kosher grocery store the name of which I can't remember
Afghan Restaurant
Mysore Woodlands
Kamdar Plaza
Sukhadia's Sweets

(The one lesson from Devon-a-thon I is that 6 is probably the absolute max number of places that we can do in one day!).

A thousand thanks, Dmitra -- splendid day. I'm enlisting for Devonathon II.

May I suggest people bring some sort of nametag -- since I've been advised by GAF that this can be a sore spot -- those that wish to be remembered tag themselves in some sort of fashion -- perhaps some sort of "official" lth semipermanent moniker avatar tag could be devised --

Sonja

Hellodalli,

Thank you for organizing a fabulous "Thon" - I had an absolutely wonderful time. I particularly enjoyed visiting sites that would not otherwise have been on my list of places to visit - La Unica, Georgian Bakery, Hasholom. Gary forgot to add that some of us visited the Lithuanian bakery after our meal at Hasholom! The kipfel were pretty good.

As always, it was a delight meeting other LTHers.

I look forward to Devon II.

Jyoti

Yes, I just wanted to pipe in and say that I had a lovely time on Saturday! Thank you so much for organizing the event. I'd definitely love to attend a second Devonathon after this one.

I would agree with Cynthia and say that the definite highlights were Sabri Nehari (can't think of a bad thing we had there), the Cuban sandwich at La Unica and the samplers we tried at HaShalom (particularly the Moroccan eggplant, and tea with fresh mint!)

The entire day was an excellent experience, though. I can honestly say that most of the food I sampled was all new to me, and really excellent. I can't wait to have an opportunity to try more!

I'll add to the chorus...
Thanks HelloDali for doing such a great job organizing this event. The company outshone the food (which is saying a lot!!). I really enjoyed meeting everyone. Sabra Nehari, La Unica and King Sweets were the highlights for me.

I too, really want to thank you, HelloDali, for all the work you did organizing this event. As great as the food and the parade were, the highlight for me was definitely getting to spend time with other LTH'ers -- both those I'd previously met and those I met yesterday, for the first time.

=R=

A warm thank you to Hello-Dal-i for her careful orchestration of this eating extravanza and to everyone else too who made the event so enjoyable.

This was my first trip to Sabri Nihari, which I will visit again - especially for the Nehari highlighted by several, the kahari gosht that also wowed Threadkiller, and the chicken makhani. Of possible interest to some, we were informed that a new location would be opening near Wabash and Roosevelt in the near future.

This also was my first encounter with other LTHers. What a good bunch of people Saturday's gathering brought together!

I had a great time too. If and when I figure out how to post pictures, I'll do just that. I'd love to go on Devon-a-Thon II. Do we have to wait til September?
By the way, Hello Dali, how did you like the mangoes?

The mangoes were wonderful. Somehow tangier and more intensely mango-ey than the mangoes I usually get. Thank you for sharing!

threadkiller wrote:- The dinginess of La Unica.

As someone who's been a regular at La Unica for 15 years, and the presenter of the GNR, I'm puzzled by this. Crowded ass-to-elbow bodega, yes, but I've never seen anything that looked out of line, hygiene-wise. Maybe you caught them on a bad day, or maybe I have a higher tolerance for small, crowded ethnic markets than you. If I remember, you would never eat at Ginza Fish, either . I can sort of see where you're coming from, actually...

You'll probably want to skip Carniceria Leon and most of Argyle. Glad the sandwich was enjoyable, though. Sounds like a great event.

La Unica's Last Health Inspection:

http://webapps.cityofchicago.org/health ... id=1048742