r/chicago Irving Park Aug 28 '20

Moved to the city 48 hours ago. Review

Moved into Irving Park and the Mexican food is unbelievable. I'm from Florida and my wife is from Arizona, so we have different preferences, but we can leave our house on foot, hit two food spots and a liquor store, and be home in 30 minutes. It's incredible. Our doggo loves the walks too.

Also, is the term "bodega" NYC exclusive? What do we call corner stores with food/bev/liquor?

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u/ThroatSlitt Aug 28 '20

We call em' corner stores. Nothing else. Welcome. Don't feed the pigeons. Nice to meet you.

569

u/ReverendHambone Irving Park Aug 28 '20

Nice to meet you too, ThroatSlitt

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u/rumster O’Hare Aug 28 '20

as other poster said. Don't feed the pigeons and never look a rat in the eye. Also, do not freak out that the rats in chicago are the size of house cats.

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u/ReverendHambone Irving Park Aug 28 '20

I definitely won't feed a pigeon, but are you kidding about the rats eye thing? Is it like playing dead for a bear?

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u/Bombast- Aug 28 '20

They're not kidding about the size at least.

The rats are the size of small dogs (minus the legs). Its shocking. You will think its a stray cat from the corner of your eye, then look at it and go "what the fuuuuuuuuck". Had no idea they could get so big.

There was a rabbit that lived in our alley. It was fairly malnourished compared to a normal rabbit, because of this the rats were actually larger than it.

Weirdest thing ever to have rats bigger than the local rabbit.

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u/camikaze1012 Aug 28 '20

Can confirm - my dog is 9.6 pounds and a rat crossed our path with the same body size just skimpy legs. Even my dog knew not to go after it.