Jenn Hinkle (Chicago, USA)
Hot Bean Cooperative isn’t like some of the other wing places that have just one or two types. It’s got Korean, one-sided spicy, two-sided spicy, and something called biantai, among others. The cement walls are decorated with chalk pictures of spacemen and messages scrawled by diners. You definitely need reservations on the weekends. My friend brought me to Turay’s Place for the first time, and he said that Turay’s is about as authentic as it gets when it comes to food from the Ivory Coast. Except for my group, everyone else there was African. The food is stew-centric. There’s beer and great Ghanaian music. It feels like eating in someone’s living room. Don’t show up in anything but jeans, or you’ll feel out of place. It’s that casual.