Tuesday afternoon I landed in Chicago with my brother Michael. We were both excited about the eating opportunities there. From all the research I had done on the Internet there appeared to be endless places to check out.

Our hotel was located in The Loop which is the downtown business district. These areas of a city cater to business people looking for quick lunches or business dinners. It’s not really the part of a city I would hit for the best food but we had no choice due to proximity. Michael and I needed to grab some film so we stopped off at Central Camera. We got to talking with the clerk about Chicago and various other things. He was a weird guy. Not weird in a bad way. He was one of those middle aged guys who works at a camera store so he is very techy and has an bizarre sense of humor that you don’t find funny but oddly appealing. I was convinced he was the right guy to direct us to our first meal. I asked him where we should eat and he recommended The Berghoff. He said it was a classic Chicago restaurant serving German food and brewed their own beer. Sounded like a can’t miss so we made our way over.

From the entrance to the rye bread they served to the beer flight I ordered everything about The Berghoff seemed on point. Michael ordered a Rueben and I got some some sausage sampler with potato and artichoke salad.

First to arrive was the beer flight. I remember traveling with my family somewhere on the East Coast when I was younger and my Dad ordered a beer flight at lunch. The beer flight he ordered had a stout which was the first time I had ever seen it. It also might have been the first beer lesson I received because prior to that I thought beer was Budweiser, Guinness, and Ale. I don’t know remember if my Dad enjoyed the flight he ordered that day but the one from Berghoff was disgusting. The only good beer was their special dark. The rest of the beers had this nasty after taste that I can’t really describe. The odd thing was four out of the five beers had this weird after taste. I ended up having to shot each one after my first sip to get them down.

The Berghoff continued it’s downward decline when the food arrived. The sausage dish I got looked worn out as if the Berghoff had just cooked the life out of every item on the plate. All the colors were muted and the only time I like my sausague/hotdog skin to split is from being cooked on a grill not boiled in water. I ate everything on the plate but both Michael and I agreed it was bad.

Michael’s Reuben was not much better. The ideal Reuben should be dripping with corned beef juice, melted swiss, and Russian dressing into your hands while you eat it. The Berghoff Reuben was bone dry. The only flavor you tasted was salt. Michael ate all of his too but was not impressed.

We grabbed the check and vowed to better research our food choices for the rest of the trip. There was no reason to eat bad “downtown” food. Our first experience of The Loop had me thinking it was like finding a good restaurant in San Francisco’s Financial District and that we were going to have to avoid it at all costs.