Cheap Eats for Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

I know this is broad topic, but full disclosure, I am currently doing research for my second Food Network show, titled "24 Dollars/24 Hours" which premiers in Sept.

Pretty self explanatory, but we begin shooting next month in the Twin Cities, then Cleveland, Chicago, DC, Boston and NYC. I want Chicago to shine, immensely, and of course, I look to the LTH community for advice. My tally has to be under $24 with tax and tip, for all three meals (not just sandwiches, thank god). I did it very successfully in LA, so I know it's possible here. I have some ideas so far, but need a brain boost, just so many options:

Breakfast: Palace, Moon's

Lunch: Arepo's, Nottoli's, Moon's, Saigon Sisters, Any Carnitas joint in Pilsen

Dinner: Asadero in Melrose Park, Golden Steer

There are so many in my brain but my brain don't work so good, but I'm only doing 3 joints and I really want to make em' count. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

With Love,

Jeff

Since you have listed a few spots outside of city proper...
The Business Lunch Special at Pita Inn without chicken, and a small Baba Ghannouj immediately pops into my mind as the best sub 7.00 (out the door) lunch I can recall. Rumor has it that their Milwaukee Avenue location is the worst one.

Falafel sandwich with hummus and bowl of lentil soup is a great $7 lunch at Taste of Lebanon up on Foster.

seebee wrote:Since you have listed a few spots outside of city proper...
The Business Lunch Special at Pita Inn without chicken, and a small Baba Ghannouj immediately pops into my mind as the best sub 7.00 (out the door) lunch I can recall. Rumor has it that their Milwaukee Avenue location is the worst one.

I can't speak to the Milwaukee Ave one since I frequent the one in Wheeling. However, I will say that I wholeheartedly agree that the business lunch special at Pita Inn is a ridiculous deal for $4.

Take the Pita Inn special for lunch and hit Honey 1 for the tip/link combo for dinner and you're well under budget without anything resembling a sandwich.

$7 gets you the combo lunch special (or a ton of other options http://www.salamchicago.com/menu.html) at Salam on Kedzie if you're prepared to trek up to Albany Park.

Combination Lunch Special $6.95
Customer's number one choice. a combination of chicken taouk, ticka kabob, shawerma and falafel. Served with falafel, salad, fresh pita bread and choice of side.

My personal choice over Pita Inn.

My pick for dinner would be Sun Wah - soup & a plate of roast pork over rice, or maybe some roast duck noodles. Plenty to pick from there.

White Castle!

And then on a more serious note - Maxwell Street Market.

Congrats on your new show!

Andrew's in Park Ridge has some great value for dinner. I would add that into my list for the pork chops.


http://andrewsopenpit.com/

Elegance in Meats in Northbrook has gourmet type carry out lunch specials on weekdays for around $7 which includes 2 generous sides and a roll and butter. A different menu every week, here is this weeks non-sandwich items:


MONDAY:
CHICKEN KABOBS…6.98
SPINACH LASAGNA…6.98
TURKEY & STUFFING…6.98
SIRLOIN LONDON BROIL…6.98

TUESDAY:
CHAR CRUSTED NY STRIP STEAK…6.98
GRILLED PORK ROAST…6.98
TURKEY CUTLET WITH RED EYE GRAVY…6.98

WEDNESDAY:
MIXED GRILL ( LAMB CHOP & BRATWURST)…7.29
BEEF STROGANOFF…6.98
CHICKEN MARSALA…6.98

THURSDAY:
BRAISED LIVER & ONIONS…6.98
BAKED MEATLOAF…6.98
CUBAN STEAK & POTATOES…6.98

FRIDAY:
GLAZED SALMON FILET…7.29
HUNGARIAN GOULASH…6.98

http://www.chicagolandcatering.com/menus/?page_id=4
 
Elegance in Meats
in the White Plains Shopping Center
3135 Dundee Rd.
Northbrook, IL

847-480-MEAT (6328)

Lunch: La Chaparrita or Tierra Caliente

Congrats on the show!

I'm bummed you're not doing SF. One can eat oneself absolutely bowlegged in The City for next to nothing. Wait - save San Francisco for the the second season!

Congrats, Jeff. We're all really happy for you!

Just to throw in some breakfast competition for Moon's and Palace, how about the Deuces breakfast at the Ohio House Coffee Shop for $4.95?

Lunch Special for $4.95 at Siunik Armenian Grill at 4839 Oakton in Skokie:

1 Lula (kefta), 2 chicken pieces, 2 steak pieces, with rice pilaf, salad, hummus. Great deal!

Hi Jeff,

Congrats!! I've really enjoyed your shows.

Few recommendations of the top of my head, all < seven dollars or so:

Maxwell Street - just about anything
Brasa Roja – great Colombian meal specials for ~5 bucks
George’s Grill Kabab – Iraqi style Shawarma sandwiches for exactly 5 bucks after tax
Huaraches Dona Chio – massive and outstanding huaraches
El Mercado Market – Sack of empanadas
Artopolis – Artopita with side salad

Saigon Sisters’ banh mi are more than double the price of Nhu Lan's, so given the budget, I’d lean toward the latter.

Good luck!!

In the Loop-Oasis Cafe $5.99-6.99 any of their specials during the week for lunch. My favorite is Tue-Moroccan Chicken. Oven roasted chicken, , with baked potato, onions and spices over yellow rice, and a little salad.

You can have anything on the menu at Ghareeb Nawaz on Devon. I can't think of a better deal anywhere. Check the posts on this site and check the menu on the restaurant's website.

Athena wrote:$7 gets you the combo lunch special (or a ton of other options http://www.salamchicago.com/menu.html) at Salam on Kedzie if you're prepared to trek up to Albany Park.

Combination Lunch Special $6.95
Customer's number one choice. a combination of chicken taouk, ticka kabob, shawerma and falafel. Served with falafel, salad, fresh pita bread and choice of side.

My personal choice over Pita Inn.

My pick for dinner would be Sun Wah - soup & a plate of roast pork over rice, or maybe some roast duck noodles. Plenty to pick from there.

Agree with either Pita Inn for the business lunch (on Dempster--the original) or Salam for lunch and definitely with Sun Wah for dinner, always amazing food for a small price. You could do beef chow fun (the "small" is ridiculously large) for $6.50 or spend even less for a large, delicious wonton or dumpling soup. And speaking of soup, you could do far worse for lunch than a bowl from Smak Tak for $3.50 (a really big bowl plus bread and butter).

I think there are many good choices for Chicago cheap eats. We really enjoy your current show, Jeff. Good luck with the next one.

I love Pita Inn, but I'd like to toss in another middle eastern candidate: Dawali Mediterranean Kitchen

Their "Classic Felafel" sandwich has amazing fried cauliflower and eggplant on it for only $4.95. Great hummus too - well garnished. Ooh! and a really great cucumber yogurt salad! Yeah, this place is good. deserves a little more love, IMO.

http://www.dawalikitchen.com/

there are 2 locations, Albany Park and Lincoln Park (I am only familiar with the Albany Park branch)

I highly endorse the Sun Wah recommendation too - there are a number of great cheap options on their menu.

For breakfast, what about Svea, on Clark Street in Andersonville? I don't think anything on the menu is over $10, with most of it much cheaper. You can get pancakes topped with lingonberries for only $5.

It's not a place that I go to frequently, but it was a fave of my parents, because of the low cost:
Andrew's Open Pit in Park Ridge (Dempster & Potter): http://andrewsopenpit.com/
$8.95 for 1lb of pork chops or wood-roasted chicken, with soup or salad and choice of potato or rice. (I think it had been $6.95 until recently -- absurdly cheap)

Thanks Guys! All these are Grand ideas. Keep em' coming. As always, since this television, it helps if the locations are run by interesting folk, families and characters. Good interviews as we say in the business.

TGFLTH

Jeff

Here would be my day:

Pannenkoeken for breakfast

Cemitas Puebla for lunch (the owner is a character, which would be good)

Sun Wah for dinner - noodle dumpling soup and some roast pork over rice

All three are pretty "Chicago-esque" and very good and cheap.

chunker wrote:Lunch: La Chaparrita or Tierra Caliente

Congrats on the show!

Tierra Caliente - Fine.


<stingy> But don't you DARE give up La Chaparrita to the general public.</stingy>

And Elegance in Meats is a great place, but I wouldn't "showcase" it. Don't get me wrong. I really like the place, but it's more like comfort food at grandma's house than gourmet, in my opinion. The place is great, please don't get me wrong, but it doesn't pop into my head as a place where the food is just insanely good for the price. I've posted about it a few times as one of the better lunch joints in the area on the right day for the right menu selections. Just an opinion. Again, I really like the place, don't get me wrong.

$6.95 gets you a delicous bowl of mul naeng myun, buckwheat noodles in a chilled beef broth with pickled daikon and hard-boiled egg, at Cho Sun Ok, possibly Chicago's greatest (and oldest?) Korean restaurant. There isn't a better way to beat the heat on a scorching Chicago summer day.

Cho Sun Ok
4200 N. Lincoln Ave.
Chicago, IL 60618
http://chosunokrestaurant.com/index.html

Forgot to add, you get a whole bunch of panchan with that $6.95 bowl of slippery noodles.

cheffjeff wrote:Thanks Guys! All these are Grand ideas. Keep em' coming. As always, since this television, it helps if the locations are run by interesting folk, families and characters. Good interviews as we say in the business.

TGFLTH

Jeff

You really need Pita Inn in Wheeling on the short list. If the guy at the cash register is not a "character," then I don't know who is. He is always pranking the customers in line. ALWAYS. Pay with a credit card, he pretends like he is going to hand you change. He will be talking to someone placing an order on the phone, and look directly at someone in line waiting to arder and ask the person on the phone "What can I get for you?" If a woman pays with a credit card, his schtick is to ask them to sign the receipt, and write their phone number on the back. For me, it's always, "Hello seebee, what was the name on your pickup order seebee? Sorry, seebee, I didn't hear you, what was the name on your order, seebee?" The guy is pretty funny when he catches a noob off guard - which is about 85% of the time. I know others here know what I'm talking about.

seebee wrote:

chunker wrote:Lunch: La Chaparrita or Tierra Caliente

Congrats on the show!

Tierra Caliente - Fine.


<stingy> But don't you DARE give up La Chaparrita to the general public.</stingy>

I PROMISE to not feature Chaparrita. I'll keep that one for us.

Tierra on the other, just shot there for Sandwich King season 3. Even got to man the trompo for lunch. For a foodman, it's the adrenal equivalent of racing a Ferrari F430 around a track for an afternoon.

Jeff,

You really should hit up the Maxwell Street Market. It's a Chicago treasure. I can't speak for other parts of the country, but there is frankly nothing like it out here in the five boroughs of NYC.

Habibi wrote:Jeff,

You really should hit up the Maxwell Street Market. It's a Chicago treasure. I can't speak for other parts of the country, but there is frankly nothing like it out here in the five boroughs of NYC.

There's a mini version of it (sort of) in Red Hook.

http://www.redhookfoodvendors.com/vendors.html

You may be trying to avoid sandwiches, but man, hard to leave Ba Le off of a cheap eats thing. I think they're even cheaper than Nhu Lan, and much cheaper than Saigon Sisters. In the same neighborhood, Pho 777 has a bunch of pho options for $7. Tank is a little more than that.

Nuevo Leon is pretty popular already, but their combinacion platter has a tamale (pork), a taco (beef), a tostada (bean) and an enchilada (cheese) for 6 bucks, and it's BYOB. Most "combo plates" at other Mexican restaurants run 10 bucks or so (for example, El Cid's is a taco, tostada and enchilada w/rice and beans for $10.95).

I think a meat pie from Pleasant House is a meal's worth of food, and those are 8 bucks.

The Veggie burrito at Irazu is a 5 dollar monstrosity (I can't eat the entire thing, and I'm a 200 lb guy). However, the bleached-and-spiky-haired one has already featured them on his show so you probably don't want to do that.

And concurring with others, Maxwell Street Market.