Seconded Pho 888 on Argyle. 1137 W. Argyle St. My favorite Pho in Chicago. There's a curry soup there too and it's also amazing.
On the way there from the El, on the right there's a bar called the Rooster or the Red Rooster. Looks like the sort of place where you drink on a tab all month until your disability check and your social security check come in, then you turn those over to the barkeep and he gives you what's left over. If I was a drinking man, that seemed like the spot. Appropriate levels of despair and existential malaise roll out of the place like second hand smoke.
Also, when I used to live in Rogers Park, we'd get in the car and drive over to Siam Pasta over at 7416 N. Western Avenue. Oh, that's good Thai.
In summer there were mangoes at the Rogers Park Fruit Market that rivaled anything I have ever eaten. The big, red/yellow/green Mexican mangoes there were astonishingly perfect. I have picked them off of the tree in Costa Rica and had them not be as good as the ones I was buying there for $6.00 a case.
Seconded, also, the plethora of good taquerias in Rogers Park.
I liked it there until my car got shot.
That was bad, so I moved.
