FoodNerd!

my first solo meal in chicago

Not particularly auspicious, but there it is. I moved off my friend's couch and into her friends' empty apartment way up in Rogers Park. My first night there, I tried to pirate someone's wireless from the apartment, but no dice, so I ventured out to find an internet cafe. 8 or 9 really long, cold blocks later, schlepping my heavy-ass laptop, I finally found one, a Starbucks that was going to make me pay for a T-Mobile subscription. F that. By now I am one hungry, cranky little camper, but there has been nothing in the way of places to eat, which I find bizarre for a residential neighborhood. So I hump it back to the one place I did see, a Giordano's pizzeria. And I vaguely realize, somewhere in my hindbrain, that this is a stuffed-pizza place, and is at least theoretically a Chicago specialty, so all is not lost. Unfortunately for me, Chicago stuffed pizza takes 30 minutes to hit your table. I talked to tallasiandude on the phone (sorry, i know talking on the phone in restaurants is really bad, but the place was nearly empty and I was really quiet, I promise) to stay distracted. The pizza was actually pretty good, with a nice crunchy outer crust and good sauce flavor and lots of cheese, kind of like an Uno's pizza without all the extraneous grease. I've been eating the second half of the thing each morning for breakfast, one slice at a time in my empty, borrowed kitchen. It gets me through the hour-plus trip down to the office, whereupon I eat a supplemental breakfast. :-)