Al's Italian Beef

Al's Italian Beef
169 W. Ontario St.
Chicago, IL
Neighborhood: River North
Al's Italian Beef website

The third restaurant featured on the Chicago episode of Man vs. Food (Lucky's and Gino's the other two) is Al's Italian Beef, another historic Chicago staple that has received a bunch of accolades and recognition over the years.


If it's good enough for Man vs. Food, we figured we should give Al's a shot. I don't consider myself an expert on Italian beef, so I'm not one to say whether this is the best Italian beef around. I got my sandwich dipped and topped with both sweet and hot peppers. While the sandwich is delicious, it is sloppy and messy as hell, but I guess that is expected. Jenn got the veggie sub, which was possibly the only vegetarian option on the menu. We also got the cheese fries, which were tasty yet dangerously artery-clogging.

Italian Beef and Cheese Fries

Veggie Sandwich

Al's Italian Beef is good fast food, but not great. Al's is greasy, messy, fattening food, but hey, isn't all fast food? Despite this, it is still a Chicago staple and worth a visit or two. We give Al's Italian Beef a 7.6 out of 10.
Quality of Food: 7.7
Value: 8.2
Atmosphere: 7.0
Customer Service: 7.4
Overall: 7.6

Portillo's

Portillo's
100 West Ontario St.
Chicago, IL
Neighborhood: River North
Portillo's website
Every once in awhile we get a craving for fast food burgers and fries, and instead of settling for low quality garbage like McDonalds and Burger King, we go to places like Portillo's. Portillo's is a fast food joint with multiple locations throughout the Chicagoland area, and specialize in hot dogs, hamburgers and Italian beef. While we normally don't review chain restaurants, we thought Portillo's would be an exception.


I got the bacon cheeseburger and crinkle fries. The burgers are pretty good for fast food. Nothing great, but certainly a step up from typical fast food burgers. All ingredients tasted fresh, which is often uncommon for fast food. They also had a number of vegetarian options on the menu including veggie sandwiches, tuna sandwiches and a number of soups and salads. Jenn got the grilled veggie sandwich: veggies, including grilled portabella mushrooms along with fresh mozzarella piled on grilled focaccia bread. The bread was fresh and chewy and the cheese was warm and gooey (sandwich not pictured).

Bacon Cheeseburger with Crinkle Fries

So next time you have a craving for fast food in Chicago, choose Portillo's instead of the usual junk. While you may have to pay a few dollars more than for something similar from McDonalds or Burger King, Portillo's is well worth it. We give Portillo's an 8.4 out of 10
Quality of Food: 8.4
Value: 8.6
Atmosphere: 8.4
Customer Service: 8.2
Overall: 8.4

Gino's East

Gino's East
633 North Wells St
Chicago, IL
Neighborhood: River North
Gino's website
One of our goals with this blog is to discover and critique interesting, unique and relatively lesser known restaurants in Chicago. But every once in awhile we have the desire to experience the popular, well-known Chicago restaurants that every tourist has on his or her "things to do in Chicago" list. Right up there with the Willis Tower and the Bean, perhaps one of the most popular destinations in Chicago is Gino's East.


Jenn and I ventured to Gino's on a late afternoon on a weekday, so it wasn't too busy. There were aspects of Gino's atmosphere that we both liked and disliked. Like: the fact that visitors can leave their autograph on walls, tables and basically any other available surface. Dislike: the dark ambiance was a little too dark for us, especially for a 2 o'clock lunch. We ordered our pie and had to wait a whopping 45 minutes, but our waiter at least warned us that it would take that long. Another complaint is how pricey their pies are. Seeing as its a well known Chicago pizza establishment, we understand that people come here for that experience and history (and hopefully for the pizza itself), and not for its value. Well aware of this, we decided to share a small 8" cheese pizza, no toppings, no appetizers, no drinks, and our bill still came out to over $20, tip included. Based on the value factor alone, we would probably not come back.


The pizza itself was decent. Good, but not great. We really liked the sauce, which was chunky and tangy. There was too much cheese and the crust was flaky and buttery, but nothing that great. It probably would have been better with some toppings to negate the volume of cheese. Like most deep dish pizza, it was very filling and the 8" small was enough to fill us up. We enjoyed the pizza for the most part, but there are definitely better places to get pizza in Chicago. Overall, Gino's is a pricey tourist attraction with decent but not great pizza. We give it a 7.6 out of 10.
Quality of Food: 8.0
Value: 6.8
Atmosphere: 7.3
Customer Service: 8.3
Overall: 7.6