Hot Dogs at Hot Doug's

Yesterday, I had my first experience at Hot Doug's and I was impressed. This restaurant specializes in a variety of hot dogs/sausages and has a diverse "affordable gourmet" menu that is constantly rotating. I opted for the traditional Chicago style hot dog as well as a corn dog- Not very adventurous :) I'm not a huge hot dog gal, but these were absolutely delicious. We also tried the fries, which are fried in duck fat on Fridays/Saturdays- Also delicious!

Apparently, the line is usually out the door and around the corner during lunch time but luckily we beat the rush. We arrived close to 11 a.m. and probably only had to wait about 10-15 minutes to order. By the time we left at noon, the line was much longer.

If you haven't tried Hot Doug's you MUST! While it's a little difficult to get to without a car (it's located in the Chicago Avondale neighborhood), the food is totally worth it. The best part (besides the food) is that it's not too pricey. I will definitely be trying Hot Doug's again.

Currently Loving: Fall 2012!

Fall is my all time favorite season- colorful leaves, boot weather, pumpkin spiced lattes, football, CANDY CORN- the list is endless! This past weekend I went home to see my fam in Wisconsin (so this entry is technically a "Meredith in the Suburbs" edition). While I was home, my little sister and I did a couple fall crafts including painting pumpkins, planting mums, and candy corn filled candle hurricanes. A few pictures from my fun fall filled weekend above.

Chicago Pizza & Oven Grinders

Oven grinders is a little hole in the wall type place with AMAZING food! They are famously known for their "pizza pot pies" available in a 1/2 pounder or full pounder size. My favorite items on the menu are actually the Mediterranean bread and the Chef salad (both pictured below). The salad comes with two delicious dressings- sour cream garlic and sweet and sour poppyseed (the poppyseed is my personal fave).

This place does not take reservations and you usually need to wait a bit to get a table- especially on a Friday or Saturday night during dinner time. Every time I've been here the hostess is amazingly able to remember the order in which people arrived- he never writes anything down. This made me a little stressed out at first (heaven forbid that I have to wait longer for my pizza pot pie!) but surprisingly he seems to know what he's doing and the wait always go by very fast. If you haven't been here I would definitely check it out.