Chicago Day #2 - Cupcake Day

Do you think it was a bit excessive to have 4 cupcakes in one day? What if I told you three of them were minis and I only ate half of a big one?

Well, day 2 started out with breakfast at Sugar Bliss. Cupcakes could be considered breakfast, right?
Hands down, these were the best cupcakes we had on the trip. I had the pumpkin cupcake with cream cheese frosting and a vanilla/vanilla cupcake. Seriously, fab. Kelsey also got the vanilla and she got the chocolate with vanilla frosting. This is a definite must-go next time you are in Chicago. And it is conveniently located across the street from the old Marshall Fields.

The next stop on our agenda was shopping in Lincoln Park. We had mapped out two cupcake places, but were kind of cupcaked out, so we only went to Swirlz. Both Kelsey and I got the Twixie on the far right. However, I also tried the Key Lime, which I was thinking about getting. (They had samples -- couldn't say no.) My review on both was that I prefer a true icing, not a whipped cream based icing. So...I guess I should have gone with the carrot. It wasn't bad. Just not my favorite. However, of course, taste is subjective and I think Kelsey liked hers.

We were both dying for real food by now (we took our Twixie to-go for a snack...we didn't eat it in the store.) So while walking around looking for lunch we came across Toast. It was really small and trendy, and I didn't want to draw all kinds of attention to myself taking pictures of my food. However, I LOVED what I got. I got a ground chicken "burger" with gouda and carmelized onions stuffed in it. Seriously awesome. I had a side of fruit, as I thought I might die from no fruits/veggies in days and then Kelsey and I both got a mango mimosa. Yum!

We tried to make reservations for dinner, but missed the boat there. So we had an hour and a half wait for a table. Thank goodness we got there at 5:30 ; ). While walking around we came across another cupcake shop called More that we wanted to try. It turned out it was cupcake happy hour and they had all kinds of liquer infused mini-cupcakes that they were giving away for free. I had the pina colada and Kelsey got the margarita. I think at this point we were about to die a death of a thousand cupcakes, but took one for the team and ate ours. The verdict - eh. Again, a whipped cream based topping. I am sure if I would have tried something else it might have worked out. There is always next time. I didn't take a pic since I wasn't buying anything, but I swiped this one off the More website. For dinner we went to Rick Bayless' Frontera Grill. Below is my biggest - omg, I might die this is so good - appetizer. It was "queso." But I was shocked when they brought it out. Nothing like the queso I am used to. The closest description is that it was like a seasoned, melted swiss cheese with seasoned fajita chicken over it. It was served with homemade tortillas and two salsas. I wish I knew how to make this. I could have it for dinner every night.

For my entree I got Tacos al Carbon. The meat was well-flavored and it came with fresh corn tortillas and was quite good as well. However, I don't think anything could live up to the queso.
I will wrap up our trip tomorrow! We only had brunch, but I did take pics!