Absolute BBQ - traditional Indian Cuisine

No this is quite typical. I went to college in Texas. Was accustomed to good BBQ. Moved to Denver, the BBQ was (and still is) ass. I missed it so much, I eventually bought a smoker to learn to make my own. Even early on in my learning curve, I could make things superior to any of the "good" places in Denver. Fast forward 15 years. We travel to see family out of state, and have been able to go to St. Louis, Austin, and KC in the last handful of years. We went to the best of the best BBQ restaurants, including Franklin's BBQ in Austin. My BBQ stands up to ANY of them. The absolute only thing I can't beat is Franklin's brisket. But my ribs, chicken, sausage, and pork all were better than even Franklin's. My wife rolls her eyes at me still when I want to go try a "new" BBQ place. Because

Apparently I forgot to finish the caption lol. Texas twinkies but instead brisket I used steak and cream cheese for the filling. I smoked to T-bone steaks cut them into bite sized pieces and continued to chop down to small pieces. Mixed in a bowl with a block of cream cheese. Stuffed in the cored out full peppers. Wrapped in bacon. Smoked for around 90 minutes and for the end I put on some BBQ sauce to tack them up! Absolute perfection everyone loved them was just like hutchins BBQ if you’ve been there.

Easier to say the ones I do like, they're all the urban suburbs: Oak Park, Evanston, Forest Park, Elmwood Park, Cicero, Berwyn, Norridge, Harwood Heights, Skokie. Everywhere else I have range from "there's a couple hidden gems but could find something similar in an urban area" to absolute disdain. But I'm addicted to pro-urban stuff like Strong Towns, Not Just Bikes and City Nerd so I'm always going to hate the vast majority of sprawling suburbs. Oh and extra dislike for Naperville, if there's ever a place that has one cute ideal pocket of citylike strong town vibe and then 150k people living in modern subdivisions driving to get to said pocket while acting like they live in that cute pocket then it's Naperville.

Okay. My favorite spots. Williamson's in New Lenox. It's off of route 30 and I 80. It's pricey but their food is amazing. I even convinced my sister to have her rehearsal dinner there and i celebrated my birthday there last year. Big Pauly's Wood Fired Pizza in Plainfield near route 30 and 59. My household calls this the fancy pizza but I am a firm believer in the smell test for food. I had delivered this a couple of times and it always smelled amazing so I asked my partner about trying it and we did. It's amazing. Domo 77 is a hibachi/sushi place in Naperville. It's off of Ogden and 59. It's amazing. Cho sushi in Shorewood. Off of 59 and Vertin Blvd. Sushi Ya in Joliet off of Jefferson and 129th Infantry. Both of these sushi places are very good. Cho has good ramen and sushi Ya h

Same here!! I love birding this time of year. Nelson Lake Loop in Batavia and Springbrook Prairie Loop in Naperville have been my absolute favorite winter walks. Springbrook also has an awesome off leash dog park area :)

DuPage Children's Museum in Naperville. I took my niece there last year (she was 4 at the time) and she loved it. Had an absolute blast!

If you don't need to be in Chicago proper and want to live somewhere with a large Indian community, this report is very in-depth, though a bit outdated: https://www.advancingjustice-chicago.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/SAAPRI-2013-Making-Data-Count.pdf From Wikipedia, which is a less insane version of the above (is, no unlabeled density maps lol): "Within the metropolitan area, the towns of Oak Brook, South Barrington, Lincolnwood, Hoffman Estates, and Glendale Heights have the five highest concentrations of South Asian Americans. Chicago, Naperville, Schaumburg, Aurora, Skokie, and Hoffman Estates have the highest absolute numbers of South Asian Americans." For within Chicago, other than West Ridge (Devon Ave/Little India), which not only has restaurants/grocery stores but community

Support: Sanguche in Naperville. Before I found this place I didn’t know that I love Peruvian food. Not a mediocre item on the menu! Support: Fire It Up Tacos in Naperville. Not a traditional taqueria by any means, but EVERYTHING is made from scratch and the food is great. Support: Traverso’s in Naperville. Now the only remaining location. Solid Italian cuisine and is packed every weekend for a reason. Avoid: Hooters in Aurora. Pickup orders are an absolute shit show and have been since the start of the pandemic. I get that restaurants have been struggling with this, but others have seemed to figure out how to manage yet this place continues to be a disaster.

Looking for Italian beef. Fox Valley area.

Any recommendations? Doesn't need to be the absolute BEST, but I'd rather go somewhere with a bit more character than somewhere like Portillos. Fox Valley Mall area, so east Aurora, Naperville rt. 59, Even Oswego. Don't want to go too far outside that area though. Edit: typo

If I had it to do over again, I'd really try to make Evanston work. Instead we live in the AH/MP area, which is also nice but probably more family-oriented. I personally would stay in Cook County vs. Lake or DuPage, but that's just me. The further out counties feel much more "keeping up with the Joneses" to me. Naperville is the absolute epitome of that.

Add to that, with over 150k population, Naperville is an absolute pain to drive around.

I used to live in 'the thrill'... one of my absolute least favorite places in the world. Also.. don't forget that they ripped out the real grass and replaced it with fucking turf downtown naperville.

All I am hearing from people living downtown right now is "are you planning on leaving". Can we give the Woke folks a statue to distract them, and let the police do their job and clean up the crime? We don't want to become 1970's New York. For those of us with options it will be irritating as we move. For the impoverished in the city, it will be an absolute disaster. Then the woke crowd goes back to Naperville and moves onto the next Ice Bucket Challenge or searching for Kony again.

MingHin has a location in Chinatown in Chicago and another location in Naperville. The absolute best, especially for dim sum on the weekends!

Naperville is an easy target, if you're aiming for things that are predominantly white, affluent, and a little vanilla. It also is more new money, compared the older money in the North Shore. To some people, those three things are the absolute worst characteristics you would ever want in a city. To others, it's clean, safe, has good schools, has a (relative to other suburbs) decent nightlife, and a strong tax-base with commensurate infrastructure.

Most suburbs along a Metra line have decent to good downtown's. Many of them have been revitalized in the past decade as well from the influx of new families wanting walkable neighborhoods. While Naperville has a great downtown that can rival any small city, Rt 59 is the absolute worst example of suburban hell.

Just saying, if a school in Evanston, Wheaton, Naperville, or Winnetka didnt have a nurse those people would flip an absolute shit. But Chicago teachers ask for one and its like they demanded the abilition of the state and beheading of the bourgeoisie.

Swung by there today and it was absolute madness. We opted to walk around downtown Naperville instead.

CHICAGO IS ABSOLUTE SCUM OVERRUN BY ANIMALS AND MONSTERS. I WANT THEM ALL TO DIE GOD BLESS THE CPD. IM SO GLAD I MOVED TO NAPERVILLE.

I used to live right down the street from Schmaltz Deli, in Naperville. They have the absolute best reuben sandwich in the world. Comes with a delicious pickle too. I'm in NC now, you lucky bastard. Edit: Another place I recommend if you are just passing through and enjoy a good pizza, is Uncle Petes. It's a hole in the wall pizza place. But I guarantee that you will never find another pizza in the world that will compare. It's right down the road from there off of Ogden, heading towards the square.