It’s so much easier to zip downtown on the Blue Line at the new condo in Logan Square. When we were in Roscoe Village it took about an hour to get downtown, and now? 20 minutes about. One weekend in January Dallas and I went down to Macy’s so we could look at suits. Dallas had been reading a lot of mens magazines when he was travelling a lot and wanted to get a lighter gray suit. We ended up finding a great Michael Kors suit that was also a great sale price. Dallas got fitted for the suit and while it was getting tailored we went to grab some lunch.
Macy’s has a fancy food court. I went to Rick Bayless‘ Frontera Fresco a couple years ago, but we have never tried Marcus Samuelsson‘s Marc Burger or Takashi Yagihashi’s Noodles by Takashi Yagihashi. We chose the noodles.
Over at Chicagoist, Anthony recently posted a review of Noodles by Takashi Yagihashi. Dallas and I both weighed in on our opinions of the place. Basically the food was good, but expensive. Dallas got a soup and I got fried rice. We also tried a shrimp wonton appetizer. We were excited to see “pork buns” on the menu because we thought we’d be getting a small char siu bao, but the buns actually were like whole sandwiches. It was too much food, which also added to the reason that it was more than we expected to spend. I’d go back and just order less. I enjoyed the food.
The closest place to get a proper Char Siu Bao down town is at 65 Chinese Resturaunt near Madison & Wells (I choose not to acknowledge Wow Bow because they’re overpriced and small).
I like the Yagihashi noodle option at Macy’s, but agree that they’re a bit expensive. I really wish the Vietnamese place on Wabash didn’t go under years ago, as they were the only place downtown (as far as I know) to get a bowl of Pho for lunch.
Have you been to Dong Ky next to the Broadway market in uptown? You can get a fantastic bowl of noodles for under 5 dollars.
-r
mmmm, but those ‘pork buns’ look goooood…
Justine – the pork buns were great!
Richard – Wow Bao is good in a pinch and I’ve been in a pinch for a long time! When I think about it, I ate the most bao at dim sum when I lived in NY. We went often. Since I moved to Chicago I have been to dim sum exactly 2 times and neither time was near as good as I was used to. Do you have any dim sum suggestions? We should go some time!
2 times? We’ll have to fix that.
Happy Chef is my pick for Dim Sum in town. It’s crowded and always busy (which means fresh food is always coming out of the kitchen). My only issue is that they’ve decided to maximize floor space with tables and have ousted the carts. They still have the specials floating around with servers, but the bulk of the food is ordered via check-boxes and golf pencils on the Dim Sum menu. Also, the rice and noodle dish options are also cheap and delicious! I’ve never had a bad experience there.
If you head to Chinatown you can also stock up on Bao from the bakery for the week; imagine, big Bao for lunch at under $1 a pop…
Economically Delicious!
-r
ejshea.com – Erin Shea » Blog Archive » Things I Am Over // Dec 29, 2010 at 8:11 am
[...] Walking. So yesterday I really wanted some Mushroom Tofu Ramen from Noodles by Takashi Yagihashi. A good number of my Chicago friends know this place – it’s in the fancy food court at [...]