Name Your Next Athon

One of the participants in last year's Allnightathon recently e-mailed me to ask if a repeat was planned soon--afterall the longest day of the year does loom soon. Still, I have tried to never quite repeat an athon, and besides, Cathy2 and Psychef have taken fine ownership of the eat at the proper time mission. So, I am not quite sure what to propose, so I am asking for assistance.

To review, we have had the following athons:

24 hours of chow - Bop around the city for a full day, seeing what tastes good

Southsideathon - A variety of foods obtained from south side restaurants taken to the 63rd street beach and consumed while playing bocce ball.

Westernathon - End to end, eating along the longest street in Chicago

Allnightathon - When the clock falls back, there is an extra hour, and we took advantage to expend 13 hours of eating in 12 hours.

Mil-Walk-ee - On foot, up Milwaukee Avenue from Polish breakfast to super dogs.

Italian Beefathons I and II - Is Johnnie's the best?

Jolietathons I and II - The most interesting eating downriver

So, here's the few ideas I have, but I am not wedded to any:

Taco crawl

Another interesting chow street or intersection like Da'Bomb, Lawrence and Kedzie or Belmont and Central

How many ethnic places can one find in 24 hours. This is the one that most intrigues me.

Rob

Vital Information wrote:How many ethnic places can one find in 24 hours. This is the one that most intrigues me.

You know, I'm not quite sure what you mean by this, but it conjures up some sort of scavenger hunt or competition where people break up into teams and scour the city for I'm not quite sure what. I'm intrigued also.

Aaron Deacon wrote:but it conjures up some sort of scavenger hunt or competition where people break up into teams and scour the city for I'm not quite sure what.

Exactly my thought as well, with some component including going to any of the Harold's Chicken Shacks. Documentation by menus, digital pictures and some souvenir. I could easily see one member of the team with either portable internet access (Bob S?) or an OnStar rep directing via internet and mapquest by cellphone.

U of Chicago has a similar event, can anyone offer a guideline of what they do?

What fun!

Cathy2 wrote:

Aaron Deacon wrote:but it conjures up some sort of scavenger hunt or competition where people break up into teams and scour the city for I'm not quite sure what.

Exactly my thought as well, with some component including going to any of the Harold's Chicken Shacks. Documentation by menus, digital pictures and some souvenir. I could easily see one member of the team with either portable internet access (Bob S?) or an OnStar rep directing via internet and mapquest by cellphone.

U of Chicago has a similar event, can anyone offer a guideline of what they do?

What fun!

I was not thinking so much in terms of a contest, in fact I was thinking that a certain amount of planning would be done ahead of time, but now that you suggest it, it sounds pretty cool, forming teams, each armed with a camera or such, and then setting off to document and eat at as many ethnic places as possible in Chicago.

I would suggest, but am open, that we include national regions for instance one could count Spoon Thai (Bangkok or regular Thai Thai), Thai Avenue (Issan Thai) and Sticky Rice (Nothern Thai), but not count specific dishes within a region, say a pho place and a bahn mi place. Then again, I do not want to quibble on details. I do like the contest very much!

Rob

Vital Information wrote:So, here's the few ideas I have, but I am not wedded to any:

Rob,

Great idea, name the next Athon!

I'll put on my thinking cap and bounce an idea or two off of you.

Enjoy,
Gary

how about "Restaurant Roulette"-athon in groups, determining the next place while eating at current location. maybe all groups starting from a central spot? (sorry - i can't find the link to that post, but i think some of you may remember it)

leesh

I kind of like the taco-athon suggestion. There's certainly a plethora of taquerias to visit and tacos are ideal for such an event - small (won't get all filled up) and cheap (won't go broke).

I've been thinking about the Cermak Saunter-a-thon, specifically hitting Cermak from say 5400 West to Harlem at 7200 West. Lots of new Mexican and old Czech and ending at Harlem-Cermak Mall, home of an Italian Market and lots of strange sculptures, including my favorite.

Ann Fisher wrote:I've been thinking about the Cermak Saunter-a-thon, specifically hitting Cermak from say 5400 West to Harlem at 7200 West. Lots of new Mexican and old Czech and ending at Harlem-Cermak Mall, home of an Italian Market and lots of strange sculptures, including my favorite.

I mentioned the same thing to ReneG the other day.

Lots of good choices!

Rob

leesh wrote:how about "Restaurant Roulette"-athon in groups, determining the next place while eating at current location. maybe all groups starting from a central spot? (sorry - i can't find the link to that post, but i think some of you may remember it)

leesh

David 'The Hat' Hammonds Restaurant Roulette post.

Another suggestion might be to have a drawing of a culture and each person has to bring a dish "they" have never eaten from that culture to a party somewhere. We might end up with multiple cultural dishes to and have a tasting.

(quote is from the New Jersey thread)

Vital Information wrote:

Rich4 wrote:Enough chow worthy of a Newarkathon. Enjoy...

Speaking of next athons, it would be cool for you to lead your proposed Newarkathon one day. As Will and Cathy2 did with KC, maybe it is possible to find really cheap airfare.

Rob

I would like to do a Newarkathon; all day event on a Saturday.
Would go something like this:
9:00am - 12:00noon fly to Newark
train to Hoboken
Italian bakeries, delis, pizza places
walking/sightseeing to build more appetite
train to Newark
Brazilian cafe's, restaurant, and the big churrascaria/rodizio place (eat there if you don't want seafood)
Spanish huge blow out dinner, incl. shrimps in garlic sauce, paella, mariscada en salsa verde. Incredible shellfish; you will shake your head no whenever you see Iberico again.
9:00pm - 11:00pm flight back
all public transportation, no car necessary
see New Jersey thread for more infohttp://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=1499

If there's demand for the trip, I'd be happy to help plan. The food is worth the trip.

After reading this article:
Chicago Trib Article

and remembering this thread How about a all night Freeganathon.

Just kidding. I'm sorry, but what kind of person would actually do this?

Flip

Hi,

I heard this during a recent lecture introduction and thought this could be an excellent focus for a future -athon. A BBQ crawl where you try BBQ from different cultures:

1. Chinese Dim Sum for BBQ pork
2. Vietnamese grilled pork chops
3. Mexican BBQ: castillo de Res and/or Al Pasteur?
4. Thai grilled chicken
5. German Bratwurst

Those are just some ideas for starters.

How 'bout a pickle-athon?

Cathy2 wrote:
U of Chicago has a similar event, can anyone offer a guideline of what they do?

What fun!

As a former Scav Hunt participant, I can only say that the amount of planning, money, time and sheer insanity that go into the U of C's Scav Hunt could not -- well, SHOULD not -- be repeated in the name of food.

That said, I can offer a few logistical suggestions. The actual hunt begins with the distribution of the lists at midnight on a Wednesday (er, Thursday) and concludes with judging on Sunday. One of the more interesting elements of the Scav Hunt is the road trip. Usually, the teams that compete are big - ranging from 20 people to 100+ per team. For the road trip portion, a couple of members of the team are chosen to take the road trip, while the rest of the team works on the local items. One year, my boyfriend (now husband) drove all over the midwest (MN, ND, southern IL, MO and MI) with three friends for the road trip. I believe another year involved a jaunt to New Orleans.

If the Food Scav Hunt idea takes off, it might be fun to incorporate some sort of mini-road trip into the festivities. Or, if people would be up to it, just do an "a-thon" in a midwestern city -- something like a Milwaukee-a-thon?

Hope this helps!

Just to be different why not a karaokeathon.Believe it or not,karaoke has been mentioned at least three times here.Twice spelt karaoke,once karoke.Share your dulcet tones.

Hattyn wrote

Share your dulcet tones.

Shecky

Sometimes sharing is scaring

Johnny soju live at FDLT

If only we were voice interactive!

More former Scav participants on LTH!

Although I went from a winning team (Max Palevsky) to a team of lovable losers (Shoreland) last year, I still love Scav. Although I stayed in Hyde Park last year, I planned the route for the Road Trip participants, which went through my home region of Bergen County, New Jersey. My favorite item from last year's list (aside from the one where two friends of mine were handcuffed to each other from Thursday through Sunday) was the hot-dog stands in the quads, inspired by Hot Doug's (WELCOME BACK!!!!) and requiring me to dress up in a hot-dog suit and play "Subservient Wiener" at least once.

But as for my ideas for the Athon, may I suggest a Tour de Ethnoburbia. Mexican from Forest Park or Cicero, Jewish deli from Skokie or Highland Park, Polish from Niles, Middle Eastern from Bridgeview, Indian from Schaumburg-Hoffman Estates, Lithuanian from Lemont, Chinese from the west suburbs?

Have you considered 'Eating a continent'. A day of all South American or Asian or African or European? Antarctica, not so much.

Sybarite wrote: Antarctica, not so much.

You know, there are certain people on this board who would view that as a challenge. Personally, I don't know or care how to cook a penguin, but someone's tried it, and I'm sure someone posting here is resourceful enough to find a record of it.

I'd like nothing better than to swim through the ocean with my mouth open looking for krill, but the buggers are too fast for me.

Hi,

At one point in my life, I was the proud owner of about 80 cans of krill direct from the USSR. Yes, we actually did eat them over a long period of time.

Regards,

I'm not so bold as to suggest a Da'Bomb/Clark-Taqueriathon, but it is good to know there are other residents of Rogers Park here on this board (constant visitors for food notwithstanding). Welcome aboard, Sybarite.

--Dan

I don't know if you've tried it yet but there's a (relatively) new Venezuelan restaurant on Clark/Devon that I want to try but don't want to eat at alone (can't try enough things that way). If you are ever in the mood, let me know (open invite to the list). They're closed mondays, open every other night as best I can tell.

I can walk there but the area has moderately decent parking.

Sybarite,

Here's some info on Caracas Grill.

Cheers,

Aaron

Sybarite wrote:Have you considered 'Eating a continent'. A day of all South American or Asian or African or European? Antarctica, not so much.

I was thinking Africa. The differences between Ethiopian, Nigerian, and north African are pretty vast. Too bad we really don't have much in the Moroccan/Tunisian/Egyptian veins to mine.

That brings me to another strip that skewers a lot of different taste sensations: Clark (and Broadway) from Irving north. Tacquerias, African, Cuban, Thai, Vietnamese, etc.

Out_

rien

I just joined today having searched for your forum since a Reader article last fall. Just read the posts about the -athon and am already excited by the possibilities! I'm glad I found you.