Greedy Eaters: Baconfest Chicago 2012

One word describes Baconfest Chicago....AWESOME!!!

Greedy Eater 2 and I went to Baconfest Chicago yesterday. We have been waiting for this day to come for a couple of months, and it was well worth the wait.

Baconfest was held at the UIC Forum. We attended the lunch session that was between 12:30pm and 3:00pm. We checked-in around 10:45am. We each got a canvas bag, a map of the restaurants, and 6 drink (i.e. alcohol) tickets. Bottled water was available for free. After check-in, we proceeded to stand in line outside of the building to wait for the lunch session to start.

Greedy Eater 2 and I weren't sure how big the portions would be. Greedy Eater 2 was in charge of grabbing the food, and I was in charge of taking pictures of the food. There were 55 restaurants for the lunch session, and we ate at 27 of them. There were also 18 vendors, and we managed to check out 4 of them.

Overall the food was great! We would definitely go back again. We highly recommend anyone who loves bacon to try to attend this event at least once. It's well worth the time and money.

Here's what we ate:

Burger Bar Chicago: Pork Palooza Burger - Berkshire pork burger topped with candied cherrywood smoked pork belly, Jarisberg swiss, red onion pickles, smoked mustard glaze.
Review: This was awesome. We could have eaten a couple of these.

Mrs. Murphy & Sons Irish Bistro: Bacon Shepherds Pie
Review: This was actually pretty good. They were so small, that we could have eaten at least 4 more. The Pork Palooza Burger is also included in the picture below without the top bun.

Public House: Chicken-fried bacon, kimchi slaw, sweet & sour sauce.
Review: This was good. It was difficult to cut this due to the coating. The kimchi slaw and the sauce was a good combination with the bacon.

Roots Handmade Pizza: BLT Pizza - Canadian bacon and chopped bacon under the Quad Cities mozzarella blend cheese, topped with shredded lettuce and diced tomatoes.
Review: This was one our top favorites. You can't go wrong with a lot of bacon on pizza.

La Madia: Bruschette of Bacon Lardon, spinach, balsamic, and ricotta salata
Review: These were pretty good. The bread wasn't really hard. Two bites was all that was needed for this.

Paddy Long's: Bacon Grenades - Mini bacon bombs beer-battered and deep fried
Review: This was our top favorite. We could have eaten these all day.

LOKaL: Potato-bacon pancake with apple compote
Review: This was very different. The compote with pancake was an interesting combination.

Custom House Tavern: Smoked pork sausage, smoked blue cheese & bacon slaw with pickled mustard seeds
Review: By looks alone, this dish almost looks frightening. Greedy Eater 2 liked this more than I did.

Chicago q: Smoked Bacon Baklava - Brined and hickory/apple-smoked pork belly layered between phyllo sheets topped with honey sugar glaze.
Review: This was our second favorite. It was a great mix of sweet and salty. This was another dish we could have eaten more of.

Benny's Chop House: Nueske's bacon and pork head cutlet with Michigan spring ramp kimchi on buttermilk biscuits; togarashi spiced pork rind fries; Benny's bacon-inspired cocktail.
Review: The size of this dish was the equivalent of a small meal for a child. All three items were really good. The cocktail had grapes with bacon. The biscuit took up reserved space we had in our stomach for bacon.

Chizakaya: Baconomiyaki - Japanese-style stuffed pizza with Nueske's bacon, napa cabbage, pickled ginger, scallion, shrimp, nori, and bonito flakes.
Review: This was very good. All of the ingredients tasted well together.

Inovasi: Quick cured and braised belly, Anson Mills farro verde, Argyle St. spice, wild ramp salsa.
Review: We weren't sure about the taste of this dish. This turned out to be a pretty good dish. The salsa was really good.

Bistro Campagne: Roasted pork belly with bacon apricot marmalade and bacon almond brittle.
Review: I'll be honest, the pork belly's presentation didn't look so great, but the flavors meshed well together. The sweetness of the marmalade and the tenderness of the pork made this a nice tasting dish.

Hopeleaf: Bacon rillette-stuffed arancini (cooked with bacon stock and Ommegang Three Philosophers), fava bean/ramp puree, preserved lemon, radish, and frisee.
Review: This was a sleeper dish. It looked mediocre, but it wound up tasting good. The arancini and the puree was a good combination.

Flo and Santos: Peppered bacon-wrapped pork wing with a bourbon coffee barbecue sauce.
Review: One word...delicious.

Lillie's Q: Bacon custard filled bacon beignet with a Cafe Du Monde coffee and chicory bacon syrup.
Review: Both Greedy Eater 2 and I ate these before I had a chance to take a picture. So I had to take a picture of the chef putting them out on the table. We could have eaten these like tic-tacs. These were great.

Pleasant House Bakery: Bacon and pork pie with bacon fat crust
Review: Looks definitely can be deceiving as this dish shows. One bite was enough.This was served cold. We weren't real crazy about this dish.

Red Butter: Bacon-chile gulab jamun topped with bacon-pistachio brittle
Review: This was a great dessert dish. Could have eaten more than one.

Chalkboard: Bacon Cheesecake
Review: This was another dish that looked good, but tasted bad. The dish needed to be colder or set longer.

Spacca Napoli: Pea, Bacon, and Pecorino Salad - Bacon, fresh peas, sugar snap peas, pea shoots, pea sprouts, extra virgin olive oil, fresh lemon juice, pecorino romano.
Review: Even though there was a lot of ingredients in this dish, it was a nice, refreshing salad.

Union Sushi + BBQ: Panko bacon with baby arugula salad served with a bacon reduction and house-tonkatsu sauce
Review: A bite into the panko bacon provided a mouth full of grease. Having a mouthful of grease isn't 100% a bad thing, but it definitely wasn't expected.

N9NE Steakhouse: Topless bacon and steak slider on brioche with pickled pepper horseradish creme sauce and microgreens.
Review: This was another dish that could have been eaten like tic-tacs.

May St. Cafe: Double-chocolate flan with cherry-smoked bacon, rum-cured cherries with berries
Review: This was a really good dish. This had more of a sweet taste than a bacon taste.

Moderno: Homemade bacon cannoli, shaved reggiano, crushed pea powder and wasabi peas on the end.
Review: This was a good dish. The cannoli was light and crispy.

Pure Kitchen: Arabica coffee-cured bacon, black olive puree, scotch & coffee crunch, peppermint.
Review: This dish looked very enticing, until the first bite. There wasn't an urge to try another bite of this dish. This was served chilled which just ruined the taste.

The Cooking Chicks: Variety of desserts such as lemon, white truffle.
Review: You can't go wrong with sweets. These were good for reviving the taste buds.

West Town Tavern: Bourbon-bacon caramel corn
The Bacon Lady: Bacon rice crispy
Review: Both of these were good. The popcorn had more of the bourbon and caramel taste than bacon. For the bacon rice crispy, you could definitely taste bacon.