If you tried to think of the most random list of Chicago restaurants you could come up with, we doubt you could do better than the 15 spots chosen to participate in this year’s Taste of Chicago as single-day pop-ups. The idea is to attract restaurants which don’t want to crank out millions of items over the whole five-day festival but would do a single day, and the restaurants chosen (with the help of Check, Please!) are certainly an interesting bunch well representing the diversity of the city. It’s just, when you look at three of them side by side each day, they seem almost surreally incongruous as head to head choices— hmm, Arun’s upscale Thai food or Austrian pastries? Gelato, raw food or fried chicken? A Navy Pier insiders’ upscale concession or a kitchen helping train the homeless? (And then there’s the odd thing that two south side Caribbean-Latin American spots turn up on the same day.) Hey, but whatever it takes to save us from more deep-fried cheesecake and butter-drenched corn on the cob on a stick, not to mention, a chance to check out Arun’s at way below its customary prices. The list of restaurants and dates is below. [The Stew]
July 11
Beat Kitchen
Jin Ju
Marie’s Pizza
July 12
Inspiration Kitchen
Riva
Tre Kronor
July 13
Café Trinidad
Garifuna Flava Caribbean Restaurant
LM Restaurant
July 14
Arun’s
Austrian Bakery
The Nile Restaurant
July 15
Caffe Gelato
Karyn’s on Green
West Town Tavern
