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If you know me, you know one thing. I like bacon. A lot. I even once made bacon brownies. They were delicious.
So, of course, when I heard about Baconfest Chicago there was no way I wasn’t going to go.
The day was split up into two shifts and my friends and I chose to go to the second shift: a bacon extravaganza lasting from 3pm to 6pm on Saturday. We got there slightly before three, were handed a bacon lollipop and went to check out the bacon perfume. Then we headed in further to check out the bacon venders.
There were bacon cookies and bacon popcorn and bacon syrup (to make bacon flavored chocolate milk and Pepsi) and bacon cupcakes (my favorite was the BLT) and bacon belts and bacon donuts and free jars of Baconnaise.
And of course, bacon.
And that was just the first floor!
We headed upstairs for more bacony goodness!
First up was to redeem a drink coupon. I went with a spicy and bacony blood mary.
And then it was on to the main ballroom for bacon-chef-apalooza: twelve area restaurant chefs cooking up the best of the best in bacon dishes…and here’s what we ate!
Bacon Rillettes, Coddles Egg Dressing, Pickled Ramps, and Bacon Fat Griddles Brioche Croutons Southwater Kitchen
Gnocchi with Pancetta Ragu Piccolo Sogno
Hominy with bacon, pork belly, jalapeno, and cheddar Lula Cafe
Bacon Snickers Bar Atwood Cafe
Bacon Ice Cream with carmel and candy bacon Chalkboard
Irish Breakfast with Pork Belly, Blood Sausage and pickled cabbage leaf Paddy Long’s
Bacon tacos Primehouse
Spring pea bacon and pecorino salad The Purple Pig
Bacon and cod sausage Eve Restaurant
Pastrami-style bacon with kimchee coleslaw The Signature Room
This one was supposed to be a lyonnais salad with pork belly, but they ran out of salad, and we got the last pieces of bacon Balsan
Pork belly with peas and braised onions Vie
After bacon, bacon, and more bacon, it was time for, well, more bacon! We had bacon sangria and a bacon vodka and chocolate milk (surprisingly very tasty). And then went back downstairs for more samples and to buy some bacon. I ended up with a pack of Spencer’s Irish Back Bacon which I had sampled and loved because it was a little meatier than I’m used to.
It was an awesome day of bacon awesomeness. And I think I am still in a bacon coma.
Have I used the word “bacon” a record number of times in this post? Yeah, this was a lot even for me! It’s hard to say which dish was my favorite as I quite enjoyed them all. The bacon ice cream was delicious. The Irish breakfast was yummy and I think they win my vote for the fact that I ate something with the term “blood sausage” in the description. I liked Vie’s pork belly. I liked the tacos. I liked Southwater’s dish and I liked the gnocchi…I think I pretty much just liked bacon.
