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Health & Fitness

In Town Tourist: Dine+Drink Around The World

The In Town Tourist takes you on a dining adventure to three great Chicago neighborhoods!

 

Welcome to the In Town Tourist  - a blog to help you find fun and enjoyable activities for you and your family to enjoy in the Chicagoland area.  A little about me - I'm Stew Campbell, a Buffalo Grove resident. My wife Robin and I have three sons - one at University of Illinois, and two more at Stevenson High School.  We are avid tourists - we love travel and adventures, and we make sure that the fun doesn't stop when we are in town.  Hence, I am the In Town Tourist.

In the In Town Tourist, I will be telling you about fun and adventures that my family and I have enjoyed in the Chicago area.  Generally speaking, most are inexpensive, and most, but not all, are family oriented as well.  My wife is the master at uncovering these adventures - and we hope you enjoy, and try some In Town Tourist fun of your own.  With the advent of Groupon, Living Social, Daily Steals, Daily Swoop – the deal of the day sites, there are so many different ideas that come to us.  Additionally, we are always seeking fun and FREE things to do in our fair city as well.  Note, my intent of this blog is to not be a review site but instead to share fun and ideas with you.   Sit back and enjoy the ride!

Our first In Town Tourist adventure comes to you via Living Social.  This week, we went on a Living Social Adventure – Dinner + Drinks Around The World.  Living Social Adventures is a new “product” of the Living Social company – which, like Groupon, offers “deals of the day” on their website and via email.  In a different twist, Living Social puts on these adventures themselves – they have staff that joins you, take care of the transport, and well, make the whole thing a very fun and seamless adventure!

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The Dinner + Drinks Around The World was a trolley tour that took us to three great Chicago neighborhoods – Greektown, Chinatown and Pilsen, aka “little Mexico”.  In each location, we went to a landmark restaurant  - appetizers in Greektown, dinner in Chinatown and dessert in Pilsen.

We took the 5:30 PM tour – they also had 6:30 and 7:30 tours - and were picked up at 646 North Franklin St. in the River North area – a great beer bar, Hop Haus, is at that location.  After arriving at 4:30 and enjoying a good Goose Island Matilda, the trolley arrived about 5:15 and we were greeted by Brian and Nikki – two very energetic Living Social staffers who were our hosts on the trolley for the evening.

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From there, the trolley made its way to The Parthenon restaurant in Greektown (314 South Halsted Street – just west of the Kennedy Expy.)  for appetizers of  hummus with pita, saganaki, the traditional flaming cheese appetizer, and of course – shots of ouzo.  The hummus was wonderful – not a traditional all-chickpea hummus – tasted like it had eggplant in it like babaganoush.  And of course the Parthenon waiters did their usual showy presentation of the saganaki by dousing sizzling platters of sauteed Greek sheep's milk kasseri cheese with brandy and igniting it – a burst of flame and a shout of Opaa!  - then they extinguish the flame with fresh lemon juice and it is bon appetit time.  Ouzo, if you’ve never had it, tastes like “Good n Plenty” candy – a black licorice/anise flavor, and while sweet, is not syrupy.  It is classified as a liquor not a “liqueur” as it is usually 80 proof/40 percent alcohol.  Good stuff.  This is the first time I’ve had it with food and it really went well with the saganaki.  We usually drink it as an after-dinner drink.

From there, it was back onto the trolley for a 15-minute ride down to Chinatown. Chinatown is located just north of the Stevenson expressway and just east of the Dan Ryan expressway in Chicago – the “centerpoint” of the Chinatown district is the corner of Wentworth Ave. and Cermak Rd. We went to the Triple Crown restaurant – it is a Hong Kong-style Chinese restaurant right in the heart of Chinatown by the ”gate” and the Chinese cultural center.  At the Triple Crown we were served Tsingtao beer, plus a HUGE plate of food that included an egg roll, black bean chicken, spicy green beans and a mountain of fried rice.  My father-in-law can’t drink beer, so they were very accommodating and brought him a plum wine instead – which the Living Social host, Kate, said tasted “like Manischewitz”. 

After that, it was a short drive in the trolley over to Pilsen. This was my first foray into Pilsen, and I have to admit, I always thought it to be a dangerous neighborhood – but the area we were in was full of gentrified new/rehabbed housing, art galleries and such, plus the traditional Mexican businesses, and didn’t have that “dangerous” feeling at all.  Pilsen is on the near-southwest side and is basically across the Dan Ryan expressway from Chinatown – west of the Ryan, north of the Stevenson. The trolley brought us to Cuernavaca, a large Mexican restaurant that is just east of the intersections of West 18th Street and Racine Ave. At Cuernavaca, we were served Mexican pastries – which was basically fried tortilla with cinnamon sugar – delicious!, a rice pudding and then your choice of Kahlua with coffee or Horchata cocktails which was a Mexican rice milk mixed with vodka.  We loved the pastries, were “so-so” on the rice pudding, and of course, enjoyed the Kahlua. No one in our party tried the Horchata cocktail.  Cuernavaca is also known for their immense margaritas – these things were as big as your head, and while we didn’t have one, we were told they were delicious!

After that, the trolley motored us back to River North and the Hop Haus to wrap the evening.   All in all, a great night – very reasonably priced and tons of fun.

I would strongly recommend going on the Living Social site and checking out their Adventures - they seem to be very organized and have a number for sale – they are all for a limited time and they introduce new adventures frequently.  For those outside of Chicago, Living Social Adventures is in 30 cities across the USA so far.

Happy touring!

Stew Campbell, In Town Tourist

(notes about this adventure:  Living Social Adventures shows the list price as $105 - we bought it for $49 per person as an email special.  Definitiely sign up for their email blasts.  This adventure was 21 & over only due to serving alcohol.)

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