Ethnic Tour of Albany Park

As I'm sure I've mentioned in the past, I live in the neighborhood of Chicago known as Albany Park. It's a little rough around the edges, but generally, I'm pretty happy here.

I found the neighborhood through my realtor when I was looking to buy a condo four years ago, and only considered it because of how much more I could get for my money. The neighborhood is gentrifying very slowly, and while I'm thrilled at what gentrification does for my property value, I'm afraid the character will be chased away with the sketchy creatures.

What gives Albany Park its charm are the immigrants who have always populated the area. The neighborhood was developed by the Jewish community, as evidenced in the facades of several of the buildings. It has been Greek, it has been Hispanic, and it has been German. Today, the neighborhood is known as Chicago's most ethnically diverse. While most of the Jews and the Greeks have gone away (the Jews moved north, the Greeks southwest), Romanians, Bulgarians, Croatians, Bosnians, Serbians, Filipinos, Guatemalans, Mexicans, Persian, Vietnamese. Koreans, and Cubans live in about five square miles.

Certain streets are dominated by certain cultures in Chicago, but that's not quite true in this area. For example, Lawrence Avenue has it's share of Korean restaurants, but it also hosts the remnants of the old Greektown and borders what is left of Lincoln Square - the old German neighborhood.Here is a Greek coffee house, right next to a restaurant that I think might be Serbian.

And directly across the street is a Korean hair salon.



This lovely building is the Thai cultural center, also located on Lawrence, just to the west. The Thai people have added much to the neighborhood, and much to my thighs, since some of the best restaurants around are Thai.

Check it out - Thai Oscar has Japanese food and a Sushi bar. I've had better Sushi, but the Tom Yum here is pretty fantastic.

Speaking of Asian, this display always grosses me out.


Moving further west, we have this gem:


How often do you reckon you see a sign in English, Spanish, and Arabic? Apparently, this is one of three places left in Chicago where one can go and pick out a chicken, while it is still living, and they will slaughter, bless, and clean it for you; or you can take it home and do it yourself. From time to time there are signs in the window announcing that they have live rabbits, too.


I suspect this place has a lot of out-of-towners confused. It's smack dab in the middle of Lincoln Square and is full of normal convenience items and German products. And yes! The people inside are very happy! I've asked them.



Now, let's hear it for the Lebanese! They have exceptionally fine cuisine with lots of vegetarian options -
- and the Persians, who are situated just across the street on Kedzie. This place doesn't have quite as many vegetarian options, but they have the best hummus in town. They won't admit it, but I also know that the cheese they serve as an appetizer is Bulgarian sheep's milk cheese.

If you're losing your orientation a bit, yes, I've been bouncing back and forth, east to west. Right now, we're west. We're about to go back east and return to Lawrence Avenue.

Because of the exceptionally stinky selection of raw, dead animal on display here, I don't often go to the Lindo Michoacan. They do have an excellent produce selection though. In fact, this is the first place I ever bought nopales.


Not being a huge fan of ice cream, I have never visited the Penguin. I do like the sign though.

I guess it is hard to see the cute pengie, especially since he isn't actually on this sign, but on the building itself. I'm not exactly sure why I didn't photograph the penguin, but I suspect it is because I thought it was cooler to show that the Argentine ice cream place was next to more Korean businesses, and um... gas.


I've also never been here:



Tagine is a new addition to the neighborhood. It's a cozy little Moroccan place that still has no liquor license. In Chicago, that often means you get to bring your own wine.


And with Tagine, this short tour comes to an end.

I realize I've completely skipped over the domestic offerings of Albany Park - but I can't see the purpose of wasting bandwidth on Walgreen's, McDonald's, Subway, and Starbucks. We used to have a KFC, but joy of joys, it went under about a year ago.