Taste of Chicago 2010

Despite living in the Chicago suburbs for a good 23 years of my life, I never made a point to visit the Taste of Chicago, the yearly festival held at the end of June in Grant Park. I have been to the Auto Show, the Air and Water Show and the Fourth of July fireworks celebration, but never the Taste. I decided that 2010 would be a good time to experience of of the city's most well known traditions.

I didn't mind the crowd at the event and I thought taking the Rock Island Metra to LaSalle Street, and walking to Grant Park from there, was very fun. I can deal with the heat too, but the event proved to be financially frustrating.

To taste some of the food from the most well-known or little-known Chicago restaurants, you need to buy tickets. You can get 12 tickets for $8. There is no deal for mass purchases either. 48 tickets would still cost $32.

The best way to taste a variety of samples is to go with the taste portion from some of the stands. Taste portions are a small sample of one of their favorites that cost 3 or 4 tickets.

I began with a taste portion of bruschetta from Lou Malanati's stand. That was the best idea I had all day. They gave you a great piece of bread covered with tasty tomatoes. That was well worth the three tickets.

Tasting a hot dog with one sport pepper from Gold Coast Dogs seemed to be a waste of seven tickets. The dog was good, but the price seemed to be too high.

The biggest ripoff came from Harold's Chicken, who only gave me one small hush puppy and a small piece of chicken that was more bone than meat for four tickets.

Some of the pizza slices I tried were pretty small for four tickets too. I was glad to see the Original Rainbow Cone as the most popular ice cream place there.

There were two live bands on hand as well.

Going to the taste can also be a dangerous thing, as their were a few stabbings on State Street the past two days.

I like the idea of the Taste and Ocean Spray and Crush did a great job giving out free samples of soda. I wouldn't make it a yearly event, but I could see myself going back sometime.