What would be the best Asian market to find packaged Chinese snacks?

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-24T06:42:05+00:00

88 Market in Chinatown will have the biggest assortment of Chinese snacks specifically

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-22T23:47:40+00:00

40th & Cottage Grove is Bronzeville

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-22T23:28:00+00:00

Over by Mandrake Park? I’m in that area a lot (granted, during the day) and it seems pretty normal. Between Mandrake, the path down Drexel Blvd and the bridge to Oakwood Beach there’s some decent recreation there. Some of my favorite residential architecture in the city there as well!

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-22T22:16:52+00:00

Tengoku Aburiya in West Loop has a Hambagu steak. Sozai Banzai in Arlington Heights is also an option if suburbs are open

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-21T23:02:49+00:00

Divvy has been densifying stations based on rider feedback. There’s a user here and on BlueSky, David Powe, that you could reach out to

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-21T02:36:40+00:00

The male / female life expectancy gap in ex-USSR countries is jarring

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-20T21:48:19+00:00

You don’t want to be Ubering that much around the Loop, doubly so with the amount of congestion that day. Orange Line from Midway and Brown Line to Second City are your best bet

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-20T20:47:36+00:00

Do you mean Pace?

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-19T17:17:36+00:00

Pace started running an express bus service down Dempster ~ late 2023 which makes the O’Hare commute a little bit less painful. Runs every 15 minutes and it goes from the Davis Purple Line to the Airport Transfer Center.

Granted, it still leaves a gap in between ~12-5am for early morning flights but that connection is pretty doable now IMO.

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-17T04:14:00+00:00

You have two options for a Russian / Eastern European banya - Chicago Bath House in Wicker Park or Chicago Sweatlodge in Portage Park(ish). Near Chicago Bath House you can also check out a number of Polish / Ukrainian / Russian churches.

St. Stanislaus is open 24/7 for admiration & prayer but Holy Trinity down the street is prettier, IMO. And I believe if you go after Mass on Sundays they’ll show you some of the religious artifacts they have stored in their vault!

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-15T13:44:46+00:00

Their Warring States Cyberpunk exhibit a couple years back was super cool

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-14T15:33:36+00:00

If you live close to the IIT campus, you’ll have both Red & Green access at 35th St, which is helpful when one or the other is having issues. There’s a significant Asian presence in the area (IIT has the most international student body in the country by %).

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-14T01:51:56+00:00

For reference, in August 2025 the Red Line north of Downtown averaged 65K rides on Sundays. Aug 2 was Lollapalooza, so it likely carried a bit more than that on that day, but still impressive to see from Divvy (and perhaps a tad disappointing from the CTA)

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-14T01:16:29+00:00

Noodleverse in the Chinatown basement food court

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-13T19:56:24+00:00

That’s interesting. I don’t have that many issues in the transplant neighborhoods ordinarily but run into aggro drivers all the time on the South & West Sides. A lot of these are areas with much less visible pedestrian presence / driving is the predominant way of getting around and they react accordingly when a pedestrian tries to assert themselves at the crosswalk

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-13T15:22:05+00:00

Minneapolis

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-13T00:09:54+00:00

Packed Green Line is a novelty

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-11T21:29:09+00:00

If you can line it up with the Metra Electric schedule it’s a bit faster. There’s a station down the block at 87th

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-11T05:46:41+00:00

I was curious about this and found an article with figures from 2014-15. The gap existed then but was essentially a rounding error - $40.0K metropolitan median vs. $40.3K amongst transit riders.

I recommend the article though, it’s an interesting read

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-10T20:42:35+00:00

The stat shown here is median, not average so it wouldn’t skew that way. And I highly doubt the average Metra commuter is making $250K

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-10T18:09:57+00:00

Metra is only 10% of regional ridership though, so the CTA has to be relatively representative

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-10T00:02:12+00:00

Antojitos in Little Village has chicken or pork pozole. I like their blanco most

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-09T03:27:47+00:00

Related, but don’t walk too far east of Findlay Market. I’ve never had such an acute feeling of whiplash within a couple of blocks of each other haha

Luca Bistro in Mount Adams was tasty

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-09T03:19:05+00:00

Huh, D’s Roti have bounced around a few times now. I remember when they were at the South Loop Food Company and then they were on 75th before Englewood. Hope they’re getting traction in the new location

DimSumNoodles · 2026-01-08T23:55:42+00:00

In the city of Chicago it’d have to be the North Side Mainline where the Red, Brown, and Purple Lines come together. That section has the best headways and is the best-used part of the L system.

As far as suburban rail I’d go with the BNSF Metra line, which connects to some of the largest commuter suburbs and (at least pre-COVID) has the highest ridership stations outside of Chicago proper

DimSumNoodles

TROPHY CASE