1st time visitor who LOVES food and good music-HELP ME!!

We (34 and 40 year old married couple) are going to Chicago this weekend and need advice on good restaurants and live music venues. We are from Cincinnati and have eaten at every good restaurant here! We love ALL types of food-particularly all Asian and Mediterranean cuisines. We will be staying at The Westin 900 N Michigan. Music tastes range from Bjork to Squirrel Nut Zippers to Louis Prima and Frankie to Cake to Jamiroquai to The Beatles. Any suggestions would be nice. Thank you!

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msweet wrote:We (34 and 40 year old married couple) are going to Chicago this weekend and need advice on good restaurants and live music venues. We are from Cincinnati and have eaten at every good restaurant here! We love ALL types of food-particularly all Asian and Mediterranean cuisines. We will be staying at The Westin 900 N Michigan. Music tastes range from Bjork to Squirrel Nut Zippers to Louis Prima and Frankie to Cake to Jamiroquai to The Beatles. Any suggestions would be nice. Thank you!

Check out this, this, and this.

Well regarding Asian food, Lao Sze Chuan would be a good choice if you like Chinese.

http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=2294

Nearby, less spicy, and also good is the Cantonese restaurant Little Three Happiness. It is smelt season and their salt and pepper smelt is terrific.

These are both in the GNR list given above.

Schuba's is a good spot for live music (the food in the attached restaurant is good, but not as good as any LTH GNR Restaurant).

Park West is another good venue.

It's hard to pick a venue unless you know what's playing. For show listings, check out The Reader's music listings.

There are 2 good shows at Schuba's this Saturday night too. The later show, Chris Mills, is a personal favorite. The earlier shows, featuring some Swedish singer-songwriters seems pretty cool too.

The Reader will tell you everything you need to know about what music is playing. The Empty Bottle and Schubas are great, intimate music establishments for "up and coming" bands. Larger acts are typically booked at The Metro, The Riviera and The Vic. For folk check out Old Town School of Music, blues (Rosa's), and jazz (The Green Mill).

As far as eats, simply search through this site and enjoy the food porn!! If something catches your eye..... go there!!

Even better than the reader in my experience is Time Out Chicago.

Buddy Guy's has passable cajun food and far better than passable blues (Magic Slim on Saturday):

http://buddyguys.com/category/

Plenty of good dining venues also nearby in South Loop and environs: Mercat a la Planxa, Custom House, Gioco, etc., etc.

If you are in for a limited time there is a MUST GO place. The Green Mill. It is mainly a 5 am bar that gets going around 1am. This is more than just a "club". The Green Mill is a great Jazz/Blues place where the cities most talented musicians play. Most of the time it is impromptu visits with the house band. I have been there many times when members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra or other major musicians have been in the crowd and went up on stage for a jam session song or two. Super cool place. when you are done there you have to get yourself a football size burrito at El Famous Burrito, also open until 5am
http://www.greenmilljazz.com/
http://efb.no-ip.com/

I second the Green Mill. And you can get great Vietnamese food just a few blocks north on Argyle, or go to Silver Seafood across the street for great crab claws and salt and pepper shrimp.

davecamaro1994 wrote:If you are in for a limited time there is a MUST GO place. The Green Mill. It is mainly a 5 am bar that gets going around 1am. This is more than just a "club". The Green Mill is a great Jazz/Blues place where the cities most talented musicians play. Most of the time it is impromptu visits with the house band. I have been there many times when members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra or other major musicians have been in the crowd and went up on stage for a jam session song or two. Super cool place. when you are done there you have to get yourself a football size burrito at El Famous Burrito, also open until 5am
http://www.greenmilljazz.com/
http://efb.no-ip.com/

...second The Empty Bottle right near Honey 1 and Taste(Taste has issues of the front-of-the-house variety, Honey 1 is almost universally-acclaimed here)

The Empty Bottle might be a tad adventurous for the favored music you list(it's not merely about "up n comers" as another poster suggests), it inarguably hosts some of the most forward-thinking work in the US, one of the top teeny-tiny live venues on the planet...too bad about the hipsters...

Christopher Gordon wrote:gotta disagree 'bout Green Dolphin

DaveCamaro recommended Green Mill, not Green Dolphin. Two very different types of places.

G Wiv wrote:

Christopher Gordon wrote:gotta disagree 'bout Green Dolphin

DaveCamaro recommended Green Mill, not Green Dolphin. Two very different types of places.

oh thank god

my apologies DaveCamaro(I'm still unsure about the burrito thing, tho')

I read Green Dolphin and it triggered my gag reflex...

then I'll piggyback...Green Mill is a great place(it gets hella packed...so packed I had a panic attack there once)

I'll edit my post upthread

again...oops...sorry...

A different, but highly entertaining option in Wicker Park, is Davenport's. Around 10:30, The Nitz and Howe Experience begins. I'd try to describe it, but you really just have to experience it for yourself (FWIW, I've run into LAZ having a good time there, too). Check out the web site for the cabaret acts in the back Cabaret room.

It's walking distance from The Violet Hour for cocktails, and soooo many Wicker Park dining options.

^ Davenports with Nitz & Howe is fantastic. I've seen them twice in the past few months. EXTREMELY RAUNCHY, but great, great fun.

If you like eclectic music, check out The Charleston (2076 N. Hoyne) on Fri/Sat nights from 10pm-1am. It's a small neighborhood bar that has free live music and cheap drinks. It's always something different, but it's always great.

These dishes are more or less unique to Chicago:

* Deep-dish and stuffed pizza. (Giordano's, 730 N. Rush St., 312-951-0747, does fine pizza.)
* Italian beef sandwiches (and beef/sausage combos).
* Chicago-style hot dogs. (Portillo's, 100 W. Ontario St., 312-587-8910, should be fine, although there are better places if you're out and about.)
* Shrimp de Jonghe.
* Chicken Vesuvio (a classic version can be had at Rosebud, 720 N Rush St., 312-266-6444).
* Jibaritos
* And, while they're not precisely unique to this city, we offer better steakhouses than many other parts of the country.

If you like Mediterranean fare, you will want to go to Greektown. My ex-patriot Chicago friends now living in Cincinnati make Greek Islands one of their musts on every visit, but Santorini, Venus and Artopolis are also very good.

Chicago has a great live music scene, for almost any type of music, but jazz and blues are particularly noteworthy here.

The Green Mill is a fine recommendation. (And I do enjoy Davenport's, although it isn't necessarily the place I'd think of to send a first-time visitor.)

One other thought - I have a friend coming in from the East Coast in a couple of weeks, and he wants some sort of food that he can't get there. I told him that Chicago probably has the finest Polish food in the Western Hemisphere. So I think I'll be taking him to Lutnia, for upscale Polish. Not sure of the music scene around there, but so many venues are easily drivable ...

Lutnia
5532 W. Belmont Ave.
Chicago

Get curry buns at La Patisserie P, they are kind of life changing, at least they were for me.

Argyle also has a lot of Vietnamese restaurants, to choose from. I have not eaten at it, but Sun Wah is popular with people an here.

http://www.lapatisseriep.com/
1050-52 W. Argyle Street
Chicago, IL 60640
773 878-3226

Sun Wah
1132-34 W. Argyle St., Chicago
Tel: (773) 769-1254

S.P.A.C.E.at Union Pizzeriawill be opening this weekend. It's not close to downtown, but is very close to an El stop: if you take the Red line to Howard and change to the Purple, it's just a few stops away and about a 1 1/2 block walk from the train. The acronym apparently represents the "Society for the Preservation of Arts and Culture in Evanston."

I also recommend Green Mill.

Please post back & tell us about what you chose to do & your experiences.

It may be canned, but I dig the Mid-East tunes they play at
Pita Inn
3910 Dempster, Skokie

For live tunes, you have
Abbey Pub
3420 W. Grace

Uncommon Ground
3800 N. Clark

Heartland Cafe
7000 N. Glenwood

If you don't mind painfully loud tunes, try
Coobah (often has a DJ)
3423 Southport

International Pop Overthrow is in town this weekend at the Abbey Pub. There is a link on the site to the Abbey Pub. Been a while since I eaten at Abeey Pub, but, if I remember, they have good wings.
http://www.internationalpopoverthrow.com/

here's a preview of tInternational Pop Overthrow in the Reader: http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/sidebars/music/ipo08/wk3/