Slice of Life: Adventures In The Windy City!

Hello Everyone! I’m back with another Slice of Life post! Last month I took a weekend trip to Chicago and Northwest Indiana to visit one of my good friends Stephanie from the blog Life’s a Cup of Tea. Make sure to go and check out her blog!

Though the weather was quite hot, we started our weekend full of fun. I came into town on Friday and after meeting up with Stephanie, we headed down to Chinatown. Our first stop was lunch and we decided to dine at Slurp Slurp, per her recommendation. The restaurant has authentic and yummy hand pulled noodles dishes. The food is relatively inexpensive and you get a lot in each serving. I decided to get a bowl of Chicken Hand Pulled Noodle Soup. The bowl was so bigger than I expected it to be and the soup itself was filling. It was so delicious! On top of that we both shared some Pork Dumplings which were equally good.

After filling up on food we walked around Chinatown, checking out all of the shops in the area. I couldn’t wait to check out the K-Pop shop that I had heard about from a friend. It was a K-Pop music lovers dream filled with posters, clothing, all types of merchandise, and tons of albums. Though some of the items are a bit pricey I did appreciate the variety of things they had to offer, especially that they had newer and older albums. You can’t take pictures inside the shop, but I did manage to take some of the exterior.

After checking out some more shops we decided to get some Thai Rolled Ice Cream that we kept hearing about. Ice Max has such delicious ice at an amazing price. They had so many options to choose from and it was cool to see how they make each ice cream dish!

After ice cream we took the L train back to the car and got dressed up to go to a Jazz Club. Stephanie and I are big Jazz music fans so we were excited to go. There are lots of good Jazz clubs in Downtown Chicago, but we decided upon going to Andy’s Jazz Club. It’s one of Chicago’s historic and well-known Jazz clubs that offers dinning along with music performances. The band that performed that night was the East Hubbard Jazz Orchestra. They were fantastic and performed a number of Jazz standards, big band songs, and even some blues tracks. It was a great way to end the night!

Since Friday was a bit hectic, Saturday was more relaxed. We started our day by visiting the Pierogi Festival in Whiting, IN. It was a fun festival full of music, arts & crafts, and lots of pierogis (as you may have guessed). Never before had I seen so many styles and types of pierogis in my life! They even sold desert ones. The sun was blazing and the weather was hot, but the festival was still very crowded. I had a great time walking around, trying new foods, and people watching.

Later on that day we opted for something more relaxing and a place that had air conditioning. Being that we were both avid coffee/tea drinkers, Stephanie suggested that we go to on her local favorites Grindhouse Cafe. It’s such a cute and cozy cafe where you can get some tasty food and drink, while catching up with a good friend. What I enjoyed most about the cafe was its warm environment and variety of options.

We ended Saturday by shopping (one of our favorite pastimes) and getting some dinner. The next day was my final day of my weekend trip. We got up early, headed down to the city in search of breakfast and happened upon Lasalle café Luna. It was a nice little breakfast, lunch, and brunch restaurant with a great ambiance.

With time with one more stop before my departure we decided to visit Graham Crackers Comics, which I have previously visited on a trip before to Chicago. If you enjoy comics/graphic novels, this is one of the many shops you should check out when visiting the downtown area. It’s has so many comics to look at and it even has a cool little Indie section with books from local artists/writers.

All in all I had an amazing weekend and it was great to hang out with one of my best friends! Till the next time Chicago!

What trips have you been on lately? What spots, restaurants, and shops do you recommend when going to Chicago? Share your thoughts in the comment section. 🙂