u/ChicagoJim987

Chicago has lost many great restaurants and I want to remember some of my favs, a lot of them were my favorite lunch spots too and most disappeared around covid.

My Thai at the Presidential Towers was amazing. They had incredible noodle dishes and a fantastic duck and rice dish to die for.

Venice Cafe was my go to for a nice Italian lunch. They had a great value chicken and angel hair dish that was my favorite.

The buffet on the second floor of the Opera House was always a weekly visit. They never disappointed for variety and value.

65 was hands down my favorite downtown Chinese restaurant. It had authentic flavors, cooked by actual Chinese chefs!

Away from downtown I miss a lot of the Korean restaurants that used to pepper Chicago - Song Do, the AYCE BBQ; and a whole host of family owned ones that have long gone. Only Cho Sun Ok remains from the old days, replaced by more modern/upscale places that do too much cheese!

Not a lost restaurant but a lost dish is the goat stew from Woo Chon, a Korean place. I was so addicted to that dish, we went there twice a week and one day, out of nowhere the chef changed and the dish was never the same.

Melrose in boys town had a diner that had a cabbage soup that I miss to this day! And Clark's was another late night favorite diner of mine, we don't see to many 24hr places any longer sadly.

The lesson is that if you have a favorite dish, keep eating it before it disappears! Does anyone have favorite dishes they still miss?

I'm lucky enough to live within walking distance of Park to Shop on Broadway, a fantastic grocery store with fresh vegetables, mushrooms, fish and meat along with all the usual dried and preserved staples of Asian food.

Not only is the quality generally pretty good but the prices are incredible, even with inflation. Marianno's charges $1 each for shallots whereas they sell a bag for about the same price. Today, we mangoes are in season and soon, I hope, lychees. All at a fraction of the cost of other stores.

One thing I've noticed is that the food goes moldy much quicker than that from Mariano's and Jewel, but I'm wondering if that's actually a good thing: it must mean less preservation chemicals or whatever they do.

Are there any other good "ethnic" grocery stores that are also worth exploring?

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