This bar is all about simplicity. Cheap but strong and drinks, interesting crowd, amazing vinyl only dj's playing dance songs you think you know but you really don't, and a great bouncy floor from all the people dancing to New Order late into the night. Nothing fancy and it's really dark. I go there way too much.
The 95th floor of the Hancock tower is a noisy, faux-classy tourist trap bar/restaurant, but the elevator ride (94 floors at 1800ft/min) and the view make it worth spending money on an expensive cocktail at the bar.
This is Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's first domestic structure in the United States, and it is a beautiful example of Minimalism. The house is located outside Chicago, but is worth the drive and the tour guides are pretty great. Due to flooding, the house and the property will undergo major preservation changes beginning in the next decade, so it's hard to tell how long the house will remain in it's current state.
Chicago is a gigantic open-air museum of hand painted signs and murals where you can still find gold leaf lettering in shop windows and ghost signs litter the city's brick walls. This handmade sign is on the wall of a Mexican garage near my apartment.
The ONLY place to get fresh fish, H Mart is a mecca for Asian (particularly Korean) ingredients. Their huge store, out in the suburbs, was a haul, and their recent opening in the loop has made me super happy. Gorgeous range of seafood, marinated meats, kimchi, green tea mochi, korean fried chicken, soju, enoki mushrooms, purple yam; this place is da' bomb (in the best sense)!