If you
haven’t been to The Chicago Diner or heard of it, then you are missing
out. There are many times when I regret
not having gone vegan sooner. That is
particularly true whenever I think about how The Chicago Diner has been in my
backyard nearly my entire life and I never once went there until a few years
ago. They’ve been praised left to
right, been featured on television segments, and even have their own cookbook
out. Located on North Halsted, The Chicago
Diner is basically THE place vegans and vegetarians seem to go to whenever
they’re in town. Once you go there,
you’ll probably see why. Every time my
wife & I go there, we can’t help but stuff ourselves full of food.
We try to
make it a point to stop in whenever we’re in the area. We usually stop in either before or after
seeing a movie at Landmark Theatres, which is just a few minutes away. That was the case last Thursday.
My wife has
begun working overnights and since I had Thursday off, she suggested we see The
Grand Budapest Hotel (an amazing movie that has skyrocketed to my top 10
movies of all time) and get brunch at The Chicago Diner. I’m often slow and reluctant to wake up
before 9 on my days off, so since I’d have to be up anyway to pick her up from
work, I decided this would be an acceptable idea. Truthfully, it wasn’t that hard to convince me. Even now, my stomach is grumbling just
thinking about the food at The Diner.
Jump to
Thursday and we showed up to at The Diner twenty-minutes before they
opened. Yes, we’re just that intense
when it comes to our food. No, we don’t
consider ourselves ‘foodies’ (an abhorrent word if ever there was one – it just
elicits such snobbery.) but we just love to eat. Plus, with Chicago’s incredibly crappy traffic no matter what
time of day, I figured it’d be a good idea to leave earlier than needed.
We parked
across the street from the three-story building that The Diner is located in
and headed inside. The interior is
designed like any diner-styled restaurant with the usual decorations hanging
from the walls, booths lining one wall, bar stools at the counter across from
the booths, and small, square tables lined up in the middle. It’s really a fun and cool place to go for a
meal. It’s also fun to people watch,
whether that’s the other patrons or the employees. You’ll find your share everything from hipsters (at a vegan
place? NO WAY!) with their beards and black-rimmed glasses to your punk rockers
sporting all sorts of piercings, tattoos, and hair colors.
After
getting our much-needed coffee with soy milk, we dug into our appetizers: cinnamon buns. Good lord. That is one
thing I never get enough of as a vegan.
I used to eat so many cinnamon buns from Cinnabon that I am highly
surprised I never got diabetes a long time ago. I’ve had a few cinnamon buns as a vegan but a few just seem to be
mediocre. The best ones came from a
recipe my wife made but The Chicago Diner’s were nearly as good. At the very least, they were the best ones
I’ve had that weren’t homemade since going vegan.
We were so
hungry and had such a hard time making up our minds that the two of us ordered three
meals. My wife had her own meal – the
‘STK’ & eggs (seitan ‘steak’ and tofu eggs), I ordered the Big Bang
Breakfast, and we shared an order of ‘biscuit & sausg gravy’ (made with
seitan). I do not know how I finished
everything I ordered. I could’ve
exploded had I had another bite!
The
biscuits & gravy were good but not my favorite veganized version of the
meal. The gravy was good but overall
nothing mind-blowing like I’ve come to expect.
Don’t let that give you the impression that I didn’t wolf down my half
of the plate, because I did. I also
used the excess gravy on my ‘sausag’ patty and seitan ‘bacun’ that came with my
Big Bang Breakfast.
The Big
Bang Breakfast was really delicious! It
came with tofu ‘scrambled eggs’, toast, fruit, potato hash, and – as far as
their menu states – either the ‘sausag’ patty or the seitan ‘bacun’. However, either they messed up or changed
things because I received both. I was
not going to complain at all! Both were
really good and tasted good in the gravy.
The potato hash was probably my favorite on the plate. I could eat platefuls of that stuff. The tofu eggs were good but I prefer my
wife’s because she makes scrambled tofu eggs and throws in a ton of ingredients
– really jazzes things up and adds a lot of different flavors to the mix. As always, I did douse my tofu eggs in
ketchup, which helped give it more flavor.
(Damn, I just realized all of that made me sound like the food snobs I
loathe. I’m not, I swear! I’ll eat anything and enjoy it! I just have different levels of likes.)
My wife
somehow managed to finish her meal off with a shake. How she was able to finish a shake after all of that food is
beyond me. I really wanted one of their
shakes but I just couldn’t bring myself to have one. It really bummed me out because they have THE BEST vegan shakes
in the world! We always seem to get a
shake whenever we go there – it doesn’t matter how cold or hot it is,
either. If you go there, you MUST order
a shake. I love the mocha and despite
wanting to try others, I tend to order that whenever I’m there. It’s just too good to pass up.
All in all,
brunch was a fantastic idea! Plus,
parking was super easy that early in the day and it wasn’t as crowded as it
always is in the afternoons and evenings.
The Chicago
Diner also recently opened up a second location (not in the suburbs,
however. Do you hear me, Chicago
Diner?? Hmmm??) in Logan Square, but we have yet to go there. That may have to be rectified!
Well, that
about wraps things up. Has anyone else
been to The Chicago Diner? What are
your favorite meals or drinks?
Until next
time, keep calm and vegan on!
The Chicago Diner is located at 3411 N. Halsted, Chicago,
IL, 60657 & now at 2333 N. Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago, IL, 60647
You can follow The Chicago Diner on Twitter at
@chicagodiner
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