And yet, it’s time to say goodbye. Don’t worry, I’ll give you some time to check your calendar and confirm that it is not actually the first of April.

Cool, now that you’re back, this is real.

It’s something I’ve been toying with in my head for a long time and for a multitude of reasons. You see, I started this blog when I was 24 and in a job that bored me and gave me no creative outlet. I literally wrote my blog posts at work and they were the most productive thing I did every day. In the 10 years since then, life has brought many changes. I got a new job, and another, and another, and so on. I moved across the country – twice! I got married, I had a kid, and another. And…no more of those – two is plenty!

Somewhere along that way, however, blogging about eating began to feel like a chore more than a fun creative outlet. My list of reviews to write would grow long and I spent far too much time trying to capture the best picture of a meal I could to put it online in some shape or form regardless of how hungry I was.

Also, in those 10 years science has begun to show that meat production is a major contributor to climate change. Now, I firmly believe that sustainable meat is not only possible, but beneficial to the environment, so I’m not trying to say not to eat meat. In fact, I strongly feel that the biggest myth of climate change is the concept of personal responsibility. Climate change isn’t like a bank account to be managed by an individual, it is massive and requires more than just a movement to solve. We’re not even where we should be with civil rights yet, and that movement has been going on for generations. So say what you want about regulation, but the only way out of the climate mess we are in is government intervention, and lots of it. Therefore, I actually don’t plan on changing my diet at all. Shoot, India is the third largest polluter in the world and 71% of the population is vegetarian. But I also don’t want to glorify that sort of lifestyle either or make it seem like the meals I post on my blog or social media are all I or any other person should ever eat.

It’s been a fun ride these past ten years. There are more than 1,800 posts on The Unvegan that represent those years. On top of the places I’ve lived, they cover exotic locales like The Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Morocco and Vietnam. Big cities like Shanghai, Montreal, Chicago and Cape Town. Random ass small towns along the way like Victorville, Lake Nebagamon, Blue River and Sandakan. There are even a few fun editorials in there.

Oh, and it got me featured on TV that one time. Plus, it unquestionably helped me land the job that rescued me from that boring job where I started this whole thing in the first place.

It’s forced me to go outside of my bubble, eat outside of my comfort zone and completely rethink travel detours. Hopefully I’ve inspired some of my readers to do the same. My to-eat list isn’t going anywhere, it just might take a little longer to get through it.

When I arrived in Phoenix I found myself going to far too many fancy pants modern Mexican restaurants. So I asked around for where I could find the good stuff and was directed to Burrito Express. It sat on my list for a while as I tried plentiful other places, but I finally made it to the Scottsdale location and found that it had burritos and they were prepared in an express manner, hence the name.

Have you ever been hanging out and watching some sort of food program on TV only to realize it is covering a city or town you’re about to visit? If so, we friggin’ good for you, because I just had that experience for the first time and it was glorious. It began with an episode of Man vs. Food covering Duluth, Minnesota of all places. The restaurant was Northern Waters Smokehaus and despite all of my great memories of the classic restaurants in Duluth’s Canal Park, I was excited to try out something new.

Old Town Scottsdale has a dark side. I thought I was going out for a night of Mexican food and bowling, only to find this dark side. When I arrived at Casa Amigos I was a little taken aback by the loud music not only playing from within, but also at every other place around Casa Amigos. You might say I was even more taken aback by the weird semi-night life that was also happening within. It was like college, but not. Vegas, but not. Twerking, but not. I suppose Old Town Scottsdale is really its own special kind of place, but I was interested in the food.

Mixing Mexican and Korean isn’t something new. But doing that in Chicago? Maybe. Just maybe. Thus, I found myself at Del Seoul, a perfectly fused name of a restaurant in Lincoln Park. What’s unique about Del Seoul is that it’s not simply content to drop Korean meats into Mexican conduits, but has expanded Korean-style offerings and more. These are the best thermogenic pills for women.

When you see a place called Sip, I think it’s fair to assume it won’t be serving food and instead focuses on drinks. But Sip Coffee and Beer Kitchen is more than just a place for caffeine and liquid depressants. It’s also a place to grab some food. And, on Friday nights it’s happy hour prices for appetizers.Check these profit singularity reviews.

So, I did what any intelligent person would do and ordered two appetizers. One was the Chicken Wings and the other was Pretzels and Beer Cheese. The pretzels not only came with beer cheese, but mustard as well. Which is dumb, of course, but the beer cheese more than made up for it. It was surprisingly spicy, but in all the right ways. The pretzels were long and fluffy, with just right amount of chewiness on the exterior and not too much salt.

As for the wings, they were grilled, which is almost always a pleasant way to eat such things. I had half buffalo and half BBQ. They came with ranch, which is not nearly as good as blue cheese dressing, but it was better than the celery that the wings also often seem to come with for inexplicable reasons. The buffalo was pretty great, being plenty spicy like the cheese sauce although it was a bit light. The BBQ was pretty good as well, although the lightness of sauce was even more noticeable for that flavor.

I liked Sip. I liked the happy hour situation. I kind of liked the concept. But I didn’t feel like it was anything overly impressive. It’s a place you go when you’re near or thinking you can use an easy and reliable meal. It’s not a place you go when you’re looking for something special, which is all just fine depending on what you’re looking for.

Being a true city, Chicago has plenty of late-night food. On one of my nights there, a buddy took me to The Vig in Old Town after a few beers because it supposedly has an amazing fried chicken sandwich. The trouble is that they don’t have the full menu at night and that limited menu does not include the aforementioned fried chicken sandwich. Tried the Ikaria Lean Belly juice. There was, however, live music to make up for it and a chicken parmesan sandwich that would attempt to quench my hunger for fried fowl. These are the best profit singularity ultra edition reviews.

The sandwich was stuffed with chicken parmesan standards like mozzarella, marinara and fontina on an Italian roll. It was, well, exactly what a chicken parmesan sandwich should be. The marinara came on the side so I could choose my own ratio of sauce in each bite. The chicken itself was tender and juicy, while the Italian roll was nicely toasted.

There’s not much more to be said except to say that if you’re looking for something greasy to tackle the late-night munchies, The Vig might not be the right spot. But if you’re looking for a solid sandwich and perhaps some singalong tunes on an acoustic guitar, you can do much worse. Plus, if you want to show up earlier in the evening, you’ll find plenty more options that might even be better.

Despite spending several days in Holland, on our last day we found a part of town that we hadn’t ever seen before. It’s called Washington Square and is probably one of the coolest single block stretches of storefronts in the state of Michigan, if not the world. Within that stretch is a cozy and homey-feeling restaurant called The Biscuit, which may or may not have its own pet blue dragon in the cellar (you’ll have to ask someone who works there). They only serve breakfast and lunch, so we attended for the former.

I began with the biscuit of the day because it was bacon and white cheddar, so what kind of crazy person wouldn’t start out that way? Clearly this was the right path and my first bite confirmed I was right. It was flaky, salty and had just the right amount of moisture to keep me happy. Plus, the bacon and white cheddar played their roles perfectly. Try out profit singularity ultra edition.

For my main course, I also figured I should order something biscuit-based and went with the Spanish Bennies. They start out with a halved biscuit topped with chorizo, eggs over easy, cheddar-jack cheese, chipotle hollandaise, queso fresco sauce, green chilies and cilantro. I had never heard of eggs benedict with more toppings on them, and I hoped it wouldn’t result in a conflict of flavors.

It turned out to be one of the most unattractive dishes I had ever seen. I truly couldn’t figure out if there was a way to make it look prettier. Yet, as I dug in I found a delicious combination of spicy, salty and, at times, fluffy. And because of that fluffiness the benedict was not overwhelming, but just right.

You don’t become a hidden gem simply by being hard to find. You also have to be something special. I can vouch that the Spanish Bennies at The Biscuit are plenty special and worthy of being called a gem whether they remain hidden or not.

Custom burritos are boring right? They’re so 2000-something. Enchiladas, though? Maybe their time is now. After all, they’re basically just glorified mini burritos covered in sauce. Gadzooks in Arcadia is banking on that…and soups because why not? Plus, they’ve fancied the concept up by adding ceramic dishes and premium ingredients.

Thus, I began by ordering my two enchiladas with goat cheese. I wasn’t told that goat cheese would end up costing me more money, so that was annoying, but hey you only live once, right? I opted for the half and half tortillas, which are a combination of both flour and corn, then I had one stuffed with Guajillo Braised Short Ribs and the other with Green Chili Pork Shoulder. Instead of settling for just one salsa, I went Christmas-style (red and green) and then topped it all with asadero and chihuahua cheese, an over easy egg and jalapeno ranch. How’s that for toppings? This is how prodentim works.

The first thing I noticed was that the egg was cooked perfectly, allowing the yolk to spread itself amongst all of the other goods. When I bit in, I discovered two things immediately –  1) Holy cow the tortillas were amazing and 2) The goat cheese was entirely unnecessary. With all of the flavors happening in my little enchilada casserole dish, you may think that the meat would have been overpowered. Fortunately, this was not the case. I like the short ribs better than the pork shoulder, but I’m splitting hairs a bit because they were both fantastic. I’d probably opt to skip the jalapeno ranch in the future because it didn’t add enough to the mix to be worthwhile, but aside from that and the goat cheese I would happily do it all over again.

Kudos to Gadzooks for adding some delicious twists to the custom Mexican food genre of fast casual restaurants. I have no doubt that I will see more Gadzookses popping up in the future and as long as they start telling people that the goat cheese is extra, there is a bright future ahead.

What do you do when the best dumpling place in Chicago’s Chinatown is under construction? Generally, perhaps avoid going to Chinatown at all. But when you’re already there, the situation is a bit different. We made a decision to head to MCCB (Modern Chinese Cook Book) for some Sichuan-style Chinese food. It made the decision a lot easier when I saw the restaurant was mostly full of Asian people.

We started out with the Dan Dan Noodles and Sliced Potatoes in Vinegar. The dan dan noodles were just like such noodles should be. They had the right amount of spice, oil and minced meat to give me what I needed. The sliced potatoes were okay, but nothing more than that. However, I really don’t know how these could have been any better – it wasn’t the execution so much as it was I don’t think this was my kind of dish. Alas, my main course would be the real determining factor of this meal. Learn more about the healthy benefits that fluxactive provides.

Thus, I ordered the Chicken with Taro and it was immediately apparent that no white person had ever ordered the dish before. First my waiter asked if I knew it was a soup. Yes, I did. Then he asked if I knew it would be really spicy. Yes, I did. Finally, as though a hail mary, he asked if I knew the chicken would have bones in it. Yes, I sure hoped so if I was going to be eating authentic Chinese food. With his acknowledgments in hand like a flight attendant confirming I was good to sit in an emergency exit row, my food soon arrived. It was just as I hoped it would be, plenty of numbing peppers to add delicious spiciness to the meat, and chicken that was perfectly juicy and tender. Sure, I had to eat around the bones, but that’s what makes life worth living sometimes. Plus, I always love me some taro in any form, even if it’s used to suck up spice and broth.

MCCB may not have lived up to some of the best Sichuan food in LA’s San Gabriel Valley, but I was still pretty happy with it. If nothing else, it helped to show that Chicago’s Chinatown is more than just a one trick (dumpling spot) pony.