Near North Chicago Food Planet Tour

This past weekend while I was in Chicago for the marathon I was given the opportunity to go on a Food Tasting & Cultural Walking Tour with Chicago Food Planet Tours.

I love food tours! I recently went on a Chocolate Tour in Philadelphia with my mom and before that the Foods of New York Greenwich Tour with Aileen. I think they are a great way to see a city and learn about some great places to eat!

I was excited about going on a food tour in Chicago because there were so many different places we were going to check out with lots of different eats! I was also pumped to check out a different area of the city I hadn’t been to yet.

Our first stop on the tour was Ashkenaz Deli where the tour had set up for us a little make your own reuben station.

This was my first time trying a reuben, I had a few bites and it was pretty tasty.

Everyone loved their sandwiches!

It was a great first stop on the tour.

Next up we went to my favorite stop on the tour – Tea Gschwender.

Here we tried a sample of some of their fabulous iced tea.

It was amazing – the perfect treat to cool off during a warm day!

While we sipped on our tea, we learned a lot about tea and we got to smell lots of different flavors too!

Loose leaf tea rules!

While we sipped on our tea we walked to our next stop on the tour.

I did a little double fisting too. Best tea ever!

Next up we stopped in front of an major spot in history-

Ok, maybe not a major historical spot, but I thought it was pretty cool. Any guesses on what this is?

If you guessed –

The Original PlayBoy Mansion

You guessed right!

I think in another life all 3 of us would have been bunnies! Don’t the bunny ears look good on us?!

That was a fun pit stop! After that we continued on our way and took in the gorgeous scenery.

We made our way into the Old Town area.

And we ended up in The Spice House

We headed into a garden in the back of the shop and learned a little about some of the spices and seasoning offered there.

We learned about lots of different types of cinnamon.

We had sweet cinnamon and spicy cinnamon! Both yummy!

Next we hit up Old Town Oil which was my second favorite spot on the tour! I never thought I could get so excited about oil!

They had SO MANY different types of oils and vinegars. All sorts of different flavors for you to try!

I tried a bunch of different types of oils and vinegars. They were all so yummy!

My favorite was the Blood Orange oil. It was amazing!

Then we went down the street to The Fudge Pot.

There we got to try some awesome toffee. I had a few samples! 🙂

I heart chocolate. Nom Nom Nom.

We then began to walk off some of that chocolate and eventually passed by the famous Second City. Coolness!

After chocolate comes pasties from Delightful Pastries

Here we had some savory and sweet treats. Perogies and pastries! Yum!

Did I mention it was a beautiful day in Chicago for this tour?

We loved walking around the city checking out all the fun scenery.

The houses in this area are so pretty!

I want to live in an area where my mailbox has pretty flower boxes on each side! How cute is this?

We then made our way along Oz Park where statues from The Wizard of Oz outline the park. Obviously I love anything The Wizard of Oz – It is where the name of my blog comes from!

We did a little posing with some of the characters.

And then we hit up the last leg of our tour – What’s a Chicago Food Tour without some deep dish pizza?

I love me some Chicago deep dish and Bacino’s did not disappoint!

This spinach deep dish was delightful!

Nom Nom Nom!

I may or may not have had pizza every day during my trip last week!

Thank you so much to Chicago Food Planet Tours for this awesome tour! It was so fun to walk around the North End and try out some amazing eateries! Our guide was awesome, the route was awesome, a great time was had by all!

If you could go on a food tour anywhere in the world, where would you want to go?