Mystery Dining Dishcrawl Leaves Good Taste in Lake View

A new trend in dining is hitting Chicago.

Dishcrawl is an event that combines tastings from four different restaurants, all a short distance from each other.

The city had its first Dishcrawl in November and on Tuesday, fad came to Lake View.

A small group toured four restaurants near Clark and Roscoe streets, but until 48 hours before the event, those restaurants remained a mystery.

Participants buy tickets in advance and then receive an email detailing a meeting location. After a tasting at the first restaurant, the diners are led to the others, but usually don’t know the location until leaving the previous eatery.

Tickets sold out in less than two weeks for the Lake View Dishcrawl, breaking a new record for Chicago, organizer Tessa McLean said.

While some came to reacquaint themselves with Lake View restaurants, others were fulfilling a resolution to try new things.

Lake View resident Jenny Arr read about the event in Time Out Chicago. Her and friend Amber Hampton joined 33 other Dishcrawlers Tuesday night.

“At first I didn’t know what to expect,” Hampton said, adding that it seemed a little unorganized in the beginning not knowing where to go. “But by the second restaurant, I warmed up to it.”

“It’s also a kind of surprise, so that makes it fun,” Arr said.

Future crawlers should remember to order drinks upon arrival and bring cash for easy payment.

The crawls are usually capped around 40 people, but Tuesday’s topped out at 35, McLean said. That’s because she didn’t want the initial restaurant, Twist Tapas on Sheffield Avenue to get too crowded.

"We want to usually take people places that are comfortable, close together and something they might not have tried before,” she said.

That was true, as most crawlers hadn’t been or even heard of Bolat African Cuisine on Clark Street. There, participants sampled a Kenyan soup with cayenne spices and a Jollop Rice with fried Tilapia and plantains.

“I’d never had African food before,” said Hampton, who like Arr, loved the spicy flavors.

Bolat was the second stop and preceded Blokes and Birds and the neighborhood’s new kosher barbecue place, Milt’s Barbecue for the Perplexed.

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