Bobtail's Homemade Ice Cream - Chicago, IL

We didn't find a homemade ice cream place in Wisconsin, but we did end up at one in Chicago, thanks to the Yelp.com research I did a few weeks ago. Food research is fun, by the way! Here's Bobtail's website.

I tried something different (after sampling it first)--the Merlot ice cream with dark chocolate chips. The ice cream was really smooth and creamy. So good.

Here's the place (on Wellington & Broadway):



Mom got a vanilla w/ butter toffee swirls or something like that:

Dad got the Bobby Joe, which was something like espresso + ice cream + something. It wasn't really sweet so I loved it.



Brother got a Coca Cola in a glass bottle. No picture. I'd definitely go back there.

Gino's Thin Crust and Deep Dish (stuffed crust post later)

* Chicago *

Go here for the stuffed crust Chicago pizza post.

Since we to get up at 4am this morning to be ready for our flight back home, my family just ate pizza in our hotel so we could pack and get to bed early. The hotel's little TV ad thing said that Gino's, which happened to be just two streets away from us, came up with the original Chicago deep crust pizza recipe...so of course we had to try it. I had a list of pizza places to try based on online recommendations (I did a little food research, of course!), but we ended up going to Gino's and Bacino's (I'll make a post about this place later). Excellent choices, although I'm sure the other places also have delicious pizza.


Now this is deep dish. Way good crust too. Must be made of cornmeal cuz it was pretty yellow. It sorta tasted like cornbread...but more bready--if that makes sense (i.e., it wasn't as crumbly or soft as cornbread). Of course, if you hate crust, you might not like this style of pizza much, but I loved it. I'd eat it by itself.


So dark!


Thin crust vegetarian pizza:


Very thin compared to the deep dish. I liked the cornmeal-covered bottom. Wasn't amazing or that different than regular non-Chicago pizza. Still good though.


Wrote my name on the wall too:

...because you're supposed to:



Would I go back? Definitely!

Berkeley Bowl's Organic Crunchy Peanut Butter

I've been wanting to try Berkeley Bowl's peanut butter (yeah--they make a bunch of their products) for a while now. Finally gave in. NO SODIUM. Not much flavor if you like fancy things (it's just peanuts). It's also VERY sticky. Stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth sticky. And unsweetened. Still good, and I love the huge pieces of peanuts. I think I'd buy it again; I'm just not crazy about it by itself. I bet it'd be great for baking though!

Did you know "gelato" means "frozen"?

7.23.08
Gelateria Naia (Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley).
Many other locations. Website here.


Didn't Alex's gelato look good? I can't remember what he got. Nutella, Cioccolat Mortale, and...I dunno. Stuffed ourselves at Udupi (see Udupi Palace post) and then stuffed some gelato down too. I think we were trying to kill ourselves that night.



Currently my two favorite gelato flavors = Chocolate-Covered Cherry and Cioccolat Mortale (rich chocolate with bits of cookie or brownie-like thing):


Mitosis! Anaphase or telophase. Can't decide. Telophase. Mneumonics totally work. Ask me sometime...and you'll never ever forget the stages of mitosis.