Fat Kid Status

Food around Chicago is so delicious, I decided to document my adventures as a #FatKid

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Always have to eat dessert. Can’t skip on this mousse!

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At Stacked on 95 th street. Gotta love some brunch.

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Scratch Kitchen and Lounge in Fo Po on Madison street, just west of Chicago, is a cool little joint to hang out and watch a game. With plenty to choose from regarding a beer selection, it might take you a minute to decide what you actually want to eat.

From mac and cheese concoctions to types of French fries that can almost be meals themselves, I don't think that in the end any decision would be wrong.

I ordered the "It's All Greek To Me" lamb burger with cucumber sauce and onions. It tasted like a gyro. So delicious. The butter and garlic fries were a great addition to the burger that comes with a side of chips. They practically melted in your mouth.

Since we went on a Sunday the service was good and although there weren't many people in the place, it was loud due to the NFL game on television.

If you go there, let me know what you decide to eat and if you'd recommend it. I wish I would have gotten a mac and cheese dish. Oh well.

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Pozole! Delicious traditional Mexican food for my Tía Carmen's birthday. Doesn't get better than this.

White pozole with cabbage, avocado, lime and tostadas for crunchyness. Add some peppers for spice and bite. Yum!

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So, I forgot to take a picture of my food before eating it. I was pretty hungry during lunch today. We went to Eggy's a hidden restaurant off of Randolph Street in downtown Chicago. An urban family diner, as it is called, the selections there are brunch style. You have your choice of burgers, patty melts, soups, omelettes and pancakes.

As pictured above, half eaten, I had a tuna salad sandwich on an English muffin, covered in cheddar cheese with sweet potato fries. The fries were delicious, sweet and fresh. The tuna salad was tasty and delivered to my table open-faced.  

My co-workers had a variety of sandwiches, although as one person put it, the tortilla soup wasn't too good. I didn't have it. But I guess, you want to take it for what it is and plenty of diners have hits and misses. 

For being the diner it is, the prices are inflated, as you would suspect in the downtown Chicago area. It's expected. 

The atmosphere is cute and hip and they had West Side Story playing on their televisions. Automatic brownie points for the diversity and the fact that it was a musical. 

It's an easy place for lunch with a diverse menu for those people that have a hard time making decisions. If you go, let me know what you think. 

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I feel like everyone has had Leona's, especially living in Chicago. As a kid, my parents would treat us every Friday night by eating out. We rarely went out during the week. Sometimes it was the taco joint down the block, other times it was Giordano's pizza. But there were those occasional times we would hit up Leona's in Oak Lawn out on 95th street because, you know, we're real southwest siders like that. 

Anyway, today's my mom's birthday. She's crazy about lasagna. Ever since I could remember, my mom had a thing for Italian food and desserts. There's a wide selection here in the city for that kind of thing. 

After talking about how we didn't want to go out in the cold weather tonight, I decided, with some help, to pick up Leona's food and take it to my parents' house for the night. We decided on trays, since it would feed the eight of us that were attending tonight's dinner for a slightly cheaper price. Maybe it would have come out the same, we'll never know. 

Before I walked into the restaurant to pick up the food, my mom told me that the restaurant, the one on Taylor Street, called to remind us that the food was ready. Geez, I was just a bit late. But it's good that they called in case you really did forget. 

I waited for the fresh bread to be ready and headed to the house. I thought my mom had ordered her lasagna, but to my surprise, my mom said that they couldn't make lasagna because of the weather. WHAT?! I'm still unclear as to why they didn't have lasagna, since that didn't make much sense to me. 

Instead, they ordered what looked like macaroni and cheese lasagna. It was delicious. Along with that, as you can see above, we ate lemon encrusted chicken, a homemade salad and Leona's bread. Filling, to say the least! 

We cracked open a bottle of red Californian wine with dinner, and ended up having a successful birthday celebration for Momma! 

If you haven't eaten at Leona's, get there. There are plenty of places in and around the Chicago area. 

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The Appetizer

The #FatKidStatus started on none other than Twitter. If you know Chicago, you know we like to eat and eat and eat. Sometimes to the point of no return, where the only satisfaction is taking a walk around the beautiful city to let the food settle.

If you know us fat folks (and I use the word "fat" with love), you'll know that going out to eat is an all night affair that starts with lunch, goes to dinner then the dessert somewhere, whether it's coffee, tea or ice cream even in the middle of winter. Sometimes we skip the meal all together and go straight for the ice cream!

Regardless, I eat out a lot and like to try new things. The most you get around here are all those television shows about what to stuff your face with, but I'm going into the smallest of the small, the holes in the wall and the places on the south side people on TV never find, and on occasion the chain restaurants that we've all been to at least five times in our lives.

But sometimes, it won't be about the food but the service and the interactions I have with the people at said location. Either way, this should be fun.

So here's to you, Fat Kid. Your lifestyle is welcome here.

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2 Amigos on Chicago's north side is a pretty good place for Mexican food, whether plates or antojitos like burritos and tacos. Made fresh every day, the restaurant also makes pozole and menudo daily. No need to wait for the weekend!

The restaurant opened in 1985 and as it grew, it needed a larger place moving right across the street, now on the corner of Milwaukee and California.

The owner, Salvador, is a native of Zacatecas, Mexico and travels back often with hopes of retiring there some day. Stop in for a bite!