Does Chicago do Street Food

One of the best places to eat in New York is off the cart. I MISS those chicken and rice plates with white and red sauce, the empanadas and chinese egg roles from the sketchy vendors in Chinatown.

Does Chicago do street food? Does it do it well enough to have recco's??

Get thee to Maxwell St. Market on Sunday morning, Roosevelt & Des Plaines, for some of the best Mexican street food on the planet.

Sweetestgirl75 wrote:One of the best places to eat in New York is off the cart. I MISS those chicken and rice plates with white and red sauce, the empanadas and chinese egg roles from the sketchy vendors in Chinatown.

Does Chicago do street food? Does it do it well enough to have recco's??

No and no....(at least on a consistent basis or in the areas that I'm guessing you'll be in based on your other post)
You can find things like elotes and what in certain neighborhoods but I doubt you'll be around those parts and wouldn't recommend going out of your way to visit them.

*if I'm wrong someone please jump in

the city instituted regulations about a decade back that pretty much wiped out all the food carts. no huge loss, but i miss the roasted chestnuts.

However, at any given festival you'll find a lot of street food, and during the summer there's pretty much one somewhere all the time...the trick is finding them.

The point for a tourist is, it's hardly worth checking them out compared to other things (Maxwell Street excepted). In the same amount of time it would take you to find the Humboldt Park vans, you could get to any number of excellent Mexican restaurants in Mexican neighborhoods, and that's what you should focus on. It's not like New York (or Paris or any number of other places) where the neighborhood you'd be in anyway will turn out to have cart vendors with all kinds of delights strolling around.

However, at any given festival you'll find a lot of street food

. . . and the annual Kristkindlmarkt in Daley Plaza should be starting up around Thanksgiving. A good event to put on your schedule if you're fond of street food.

Sadly, along with a decent farmers market, Chicago lacks in this dept.

99% of the carts in Manhattan are vile. I know, I get stuff from them all the time. (They are better than the ubiquitous salad bar/"deli"/convenience store thingies that abound.) Chicago street food requires one to step over a threshold into a place like Marianao or Al's, or Salam, or C. Leon. I'll take it.

... the roses among the thorns. Still would be nice to have the option to find other roses. With as livable as this city is, it's still a shame.

Jazzfood wrote:Sadly, along with a decent farmers market, Chicago lacks in this dept.

chicago doesn't have decent farmers markets?

I think relative to size, and in comparison to other smaller cities, Chicago's farmers markets are lacking. Even Green City is pretty small, and it's essentially just produce. Nothing in winter.

ab wrote:I think relative to size, and in comparison to other smaller cities, Chicago's farmers markets are lacking. Even Green City is pretty small, and it's essentially just produce. Nothing in winter.

Green City Market is open around the year: http://www.chicagogreencitymarket.org/

I've been to noteworthy farmers markets in some smaller cities, and I think ours are decent. Not necessarily better, but not significantly worse either.

OTOH I was recently in a smaller city on the West Coast and found a pastry shop whose selection puts any of ours to shame.

I've been to all kind of farmer's markets across the country including NYC and I don't see anything lacking in our major markets. As far as winter markets, what do you get there? Soap and overpriced salsa?

OTOH, nsxtasy - you are right, this town is severly lacking in the pastry/bakery dept.

There's an article about Chicago street vendors (or "venders" ) here, and it mentions how many licenses the city has issued of each major type.

They are not permitted in parts of the city where they would cause traffic problems, which is why you don't see them in the downtown area.

On weekends there are a number of Mexican street vendors around the intersection of Milwaukee and Washtenaw.

teatpuller wrote:the city instituted regulations about a decade back that pretty much wiped out all the food carts. no huge loss, but i miss the roasted chestnuts.

Me too

teatpuller wrote:the city instituted regulations about a decade back that pretty much wiped out all the food carts. no huge loss, but i miss the roasted chestnuts.

Am I the only person in Chicago who feels that more and more "the City" wants us to live in Disneyland instead of a dynamic urban space? As a lifelong Chicagoan with great pride in this city, having lived in other places (New York for example), I think our town would benefit from having more street life. At the least, given the current economy, issuing more licenses for vendors and relaxing some of the laws would create more jobs!

Anyways. There is a great fruit vendor on Pratt and Clark in Rogers Park that does awesome fruit cocktails for ridiculously low prices. They stick around until the colder months but eventually close up shop until spring. Y'all should check it out.

Habibi wrote:Anyways. There is a great fruit vendor on Pratt and Clark in Rogers Park that does awesome fruit cocktails for ridiculously low prices. They stick around until the colder months but eventually close up shop until spring. Y'all should check it out.

The vendor is usually at Morse and Clark. They were out there until just a couple of weeks ago.

Somewhat tangential, but some might be interested to know that last week an alderman managed to ban ice cream trucks in her ward, for an unsurprisingly ridiculous reason.

nr706 wrote:Get thee to Maxwell St. Market on Sunday morning, Roosevelt & Des Plaines, for some of the best Mexican street food on the planet.

What he ^ said.

Our farmers mkts are a joke in comparison to Santa Monica (by which all others are judged), San Francisco, Portland Oregon or even Kansas City Mo. Why is it that Chicago can't support a large and varied (key words, large and varied) farmers mkt?

I also strongly believe that a vibrant street scene contributes to a dynamic city. Seems to be lost on our aldermen (the ones wearing leather jackets or furs that banned foie gras).

I love Chicago, was born and raised here and love living here again after a nearly 20 yr absence but I believe the above statements to be true. More of an observation than complaint.

i'm not going to keep fighting this battle myself...but i've lived in sacramento, my wife is from LA, I've lived in KC, been to the portland market, brother lived in NY, i lived in DC, sis in law lives in raleigh, we lived outside of madison....i'm sure there are others bangor, maine had a very nice market....

you cannot compare the farmers markets in chicago to those on the west coast. they have a completely different climate and can grow things all year long and all kinds of fruit we could never grow.

our farmer's markets (oak park, lincoln park, downtown, evanston, etc) are just fine. we get fruit from michigan which kills anything you can get in KC.

what, exactly are you wishing our farmer's markets would provide?

Teatpuller, I totally agree. Virtually every 'hood in the city and every suburb has a market - some big, like Evanston, some small, like the charming Tuesday market at Ravinia. Every one is different, with different strengths - I love the Wednesday market at Lincoln Square for its flowers (and for its produce prices!). These three are my go-to markets from May til November. Saves a trip to Madison, too.

(Another big plus on all three of the above: AMPLE PARKING, and free, for the most part. Also, for the carless, all three of the foregoing are really close to public transportation, even Ravinia - the Metra station is literally but a block away.)

I agree with Teatpuller too. I haven't seen the ones mentioned above, but this year I went to one across the bay from San Francisco in Oakland. It was good, with a nice variety of mostly produce and some non-produce stuff (not entirely food). About the only difference I noted from ours was that they had 2-3 food vendor trucks similar to what we see at our art fairs; I forget exactly what, may have been funnel cakes or something along those lines, nothing spectacular. I'm not criticizing theirs; it was a nice farmers market. But not different from (or superior to) the ones we have here.

That's exactly what I'm doing. Comparing them to other markets. And ours are "just fine". When the ones I mentioned are "just fantastic". Big difference.

Jazzfood wrote:That's exactly what I'm doing. Comparing them to other markets. And ours are "just fine". When the ones I mentioned are "just fantastic". Big difference.

I just don't see it.

A few weeks ago, I went to the farmers market in Madison. It's America's largest producers-only farmers' market, with some 150 vendors at a time. It covered the square (the four streets around the state capitol) and it was certainly huge - much larger than the biggest ones here. The quality was similar to ours, with extremely fresh produce and other products. However, I didn't get the feeling that there was a whole lot of farm product there that we couldn't get around here. For example, they had, I don't know, maybe 20-30 vendors selling tomatos where ours might have half a dozen. Once I got through one side of the square, after that it seemed like just more of the same. Although it was enormous, I didn't get the feeling that it was any more "fantastic" than ours, or that there were many food products available there that I couldn't find at ours. (But if you happen to be up in that direction, it's fun to see. So is breakfast at Marigold Kitchen, right off the square. )

I can see both sides of this "arguement" as I have seen and been party to a few of the issues discribed. While, I definately agree that the Chicago area has plenty of farmers markets, I don't know of another city that has the number I've seen..just southwest are: (Palos, Orland, Tinley, Evergreen Park, Oak Lawn, etc) However they are usually summer only and 1-2 times per month. In regards to the crux of this arguement I believe is the idea of a large, year-round, PERMANENT market, open daily.

Also, due to the city of Chicago's adversity to street food, largely due to sanitation issues I believe, there has been a perhaps an "over-condemnation". While a youth, I used to work both at the Cal Park concession stands as well as the ubiquitious three-wheel icecream carts that we rode up and down the lakefront. Now, I think they are no more.

I think that the city has decided to over regulate, in a somewhat "Big Brother" way, the consumption of commestibles. I truely believe that if the regulations in place now, had been previously, you would be now missing out on quite a few Chicago institutions we still enjoy. I'm sure Rene G would be the source to more actually advise on this issue, but just from my limited experience (south side) there are a number of endeavors that began on the "streets" and made "legitamate" concerns. Which we will not see again, due to the proliferation of city regulation. Finally, I will add that due to many problems (packing plant issues?), the city had perhaps a less than stellar reputation, and wanted to change the public perception.

Just my two cents...

Jazzfood wrote:Our farmers mkts are a joke in comparison to Santa Monica (by which all others are judged), San Francisco, Portland Oregon or even Kansas City Mo. Why is it that Chicago can't support a large and varied (key words, large and varied) farmers mkt?

If you're talking about California, you are talking about a different world, produce-wise, IMO. I visit the Hollywood farmers' market when staying with family in LA, and am always blown away by the variety of produce there. The midwest is just never going to have a lot of those items. I don't think it's fair to compare on that level.

I also think the food offerings at the Hollywood market are outstanding, that's not something you couldn't theoretically get somewhere else. I just happen to like the street and cheap food in LA, and the ambience of sitting around outside or semi-outside eating. It's more inviting out there, more of the year. (I loved that covered farmers market that is now somewhat eclipsed by The Grove, not to be confused with The Glen out here. Oh wait. The two of them are to be confused with each other. Never mind.)