Locals Eat Chicago - Favorite Holiday Food | Episode 3

2020 hasn't exactly been a piece of cake and many of us have struggled to find that holiday spirit. But grab yourself a drink and come along on another episode of Locals Eat Chicago. For starters, let's stop by an outstanding Greek bakery that has been around for over 20 years. We're here for one of their specialties, the mellow macaroni cookie. Cue that holiday music. All right, so we came all the way to Great Town to try these cookies. Yeah, because it's the holidays, how could you not get holiday cookies, right? Exactly, especially if they have brandy in them. And orange and honey. And honey, yeah. They look like little loaves of bread and they smell really good. Like you get a really nice, you get a holiday aroma from it. It has that holiday aroma. See how it looks like a little loaf of bread? They are so good. Yeah, like I can see the walnuts on it. Let me give it a bite because Maria's like just devouring it. They melt in your mouth. Oh my goodness. It has a really nice honey flavor to it. And we haven't had breakfast yet, so this is delightful. Yeah, it's like breakfast. Oh wow, yeah, the orange flavor is a bit subtle. And like the brandy, you can't really get like, I guess the alcohol cooks down. Yeah. But yeah, the honey's a nice flavor. Yeah, so we just got the assignments to get some glog for Christmas, but they ran out in two hours. So I guess we got to be quicker next time. Yeah, so we're at First Slice and since we're getting some glog, might as well get some glog cake to go along with it. This year is coming to an end and we're so thankful to all the restaurants, bars and shops for staying strong and spreading a little joy during this pandemic. You're certainly a big part of what makes this city great. Just look at this line at Simon's, a tavern that is turning 90 this year. People came from all over for a taste of their glog. All right, so the next stop on our holiday food list is going to be visiting the Tamale Guy Chicago. Now everybody has a tamale guy in their area. Ours is named Claudio and he opened up his own place after, you know, visiting bars and pubs with his little red cooler and saving your butt with some delicious tamales. So we're going to be stopping by his spot and picking up some tamales for the holidays because we love tamales during the holidays. Look at this. This is the cooler where they would keep the tamales. That's cool. That's awesome. How crazy is it that these guys open their store during a pandemic and they sell out of some of their items too. So do come early. Moving on to another old school spot that has been open since 1942. Manny's Deli. This place has some really good food with comforting dishes to feed your wildest dreams. We came here for the latkes but it's really always hard to stick to just the one item. Let's say we might have gotten a few other things to enjoy off camera. Our final stop is La Petito. Opened since 1981. It was looking a bit quiet but we love this place. We love their antipasto, their deli meats and arancini. Maria also loves to come here for their coffee and cookies. So since dining in isn't really an option these days we had to take everything to go. This is kind of like a holiday edition of... Chicago takeout. Well, not really. We're still doing classics. Yeah, there was no option. So these are like holiday classics but at home. And we're starting with antipasto from La Petito. So we got an assortment. I think one salami, another one looks like pepperoni and I don't know what the third one is. I think it's capicola but I'm not entirely sure. Yeah, I'm not sure either and it didn't have a name so when we went to go choose I was like, yeah, can I get some of this, this, this and... Which is usually how we do it. Yeah, yeah. By what looks good. And then we got this one. It's like a mix of olives, pickled mushrooms and artichoke. Yeah. So it looks really good. I'm gonna start with this mushroom because it's calling my name. Mushroom. Yeah, I love mushrooms. Pickled mushrooms are really good too. You know what? I'm gonna grab one too. Oh, look at that. It's really big. I got a piece of artichoke there too. The brine is really good. You know what? Let me try this one. All right. So here we go. Let's see. I'll just keep going around trying all of them. Oh, that's nice. It has a nice peppery flavor to it. And the fat is just nice and smooth. It coats your tongue really nice. Like very buttery there. Wow, I like it. I know people do these really fancy charcuterie boards for Christmas. It's just the two of us. Yeah. So we just do three, three, three and like a little bit of cheese. And we're good to go. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Let's dig into the next item. So one of the items we got, as you know, it was the latkes from Manny's. But Nabil wanted to try the Hanukkah sandwich. It's something someone from Instagram created. It's basically two latkes with pastrami. Nabil got corned beef because he prefers corned beef. Yes. I mean, if that doesn't scream holidays, I don't know what does. That is definitely a holiday sandwich. And I'm going to make it a tradition to eat it. Wow, that's a good mix. Good job, dude, from Instagram that decided to do this. Does it need cheese? What do you think? It's good. That's really good. So the next item on our holiday list is tamales. And tamales are made of masa, which is made out of corn. And they're usually filled with chicken, pork, and some of them are even sweet. And the tamale guy was sold out of the sweet one. So you can imagine how good those got to be. Yeah. So I think you got the chicken one. And this is no, wait, wait. So this one is chicken with the green sauce. I think it was. And that one's pork with the red sauce. Oh, okay. Yeah. The thing I like about this one is the masa also has a flavor. Like sometimes the masa will just taste like corn. And then the savoriness you get from the filling. But here the masa has flavor and the chicken does too. Yeah. I mean, it might be the sauce, but I get some flavor from the masa, which is really good. It's not dry like other tamales. I can see why during the holidays, people would like to get together and do tamaladas and make these tamales. Those are really good. These should definitely be a staple in everybody's holiday meal. Yeah. We don't do tamalada type things for pasteles, right? Well, maybe like a couple of ladies might get together and do them. Yeah. So in Puerto Rico, we have the pastel, which is kind of like a tamale. And although they might not do a tamalada or a pastelada, some people do get together during the holidays and make a bunch of them. Yeah. See, it's really good. No, try this one. I mean, this is the best one. The chicken one? Let's see. You can see that's the pork with the red sauce. Yeah. This one's good. The flavor is a little bit more subtle. Yeah. And you can taste it more in the chicken one. I think it's because of the green sauce. This is the winner. The chicken one with the green sauce. Yeah. This one's not bad at all. This one's really good. And yeah, these tamales are a bit softer than other tamales that we've had where they might taste a little bit dry, but these are really good. All right. Last but not least, alcohol. It's the holiday. Yeah. Like what's a holiday without alcohol, right? So we got this glock from Simon's Tavern in Andersonville, which has a Swedish background. And this is something that a lot of people drink during the holidays. And it's kind of like a mulled wine. And you're supposed to drink it. I think like warm to kind of like heat you up from the cold melons. And they gave us almonds, livers and raisins. Yeah. I don't know if that was supposed to go in here or it was supposed to put it. You're supposed to put it in the individual glass you're going to be drinking. But I think you can warm it up slightly and then add this stuff. Maybe. But I'm just going to try. Room temperature glock it is. Oh, let's see. You don't need to warm that up. Yeah, it does have a nice sweet, like a sweet wine aroma. Yeah. I should have brought another glass. Oh, yeah, this is really nice. That's really nice. Like you get a hint of the spices, but it's smooth. It's not like one of these really dry wines. It hits you like boom. I'm wine. It reminds me of Porto a little bit with literally other things. Yeah. Oh, and another classic from Andersonville. Glock. You have to go to first slice for these. Yeah. All right. I'm going to dig in. You can see it like at the bottom. Yeah, you can see it at the bottom. That's that's Glock cake, right? Yeah. Glock isn't too intense. It's not too intense. It's it's it's there. Like it's not subtle. Cake is nice and sweet. But if you don't like too overly sweet things, this might be a little bit too much for you. But it's pretty good. I like it. All right, switch. Chicago tradition is something very unique to Chicago. And you can definitely give this as a gift. Yeah, I mean, it makes it seem like it makes the holidays better. All right, guys, that's going to be it for this video. Let us know what you guys have for the holidays in the comments down below. And as always, thank you so much for watching and see you in the next one. Bye.