CHICAGO DIVISION:
#3: Depot
I've never eaten at Maxwell St. Depot during the day. I'm pretty ok with that. It would probably be worse than a disappointment. The prime time to go to Depot is 3 AM. It's not easy to find a driver who a) is sober, b) wants to drive a carload of drunks, and c) wants to eat Depot sober. The Depot menu is pretty standard: hot dogs, sausages, burgers, porkchop sandwiches. Everything is cooked on the same grill. Everything gets loaded with the same greasy-- really greasy-- onions. Nothing fancy, but it tastes fantastic, more so if you don't consider the agony that's coming the next day.
#6: Italian Sub, Fiore's
I actually had to look up the name of this Italian market, because I just knew it as "that place that has really good subs." My first year out of college, I was kind of suffering for lack of local good food choices. I was living in Chicago's Ukrainian Village, and sausages and peirogis lost their charm pretty quickly. It was a lucky break that I found Fiore's, which did what every deli in the world should be able to do, but most can't: pile a sub roll with half a dozen cold cuts, some giardanara (sp?) peppers, some oil. Also, it should be oversized. Nothing better than picking one up on the way home from work, and getting home and unwrapping this beautiful football of meat.
WINNER: Depot. An italian sub can be replicated. Depot cannot.
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