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Is Your 'Hood Hot Dog Heaven or Sushi Central? Chicago Foods Mapped

By Tanveer Ali | March 4, 2015 5:29am | Updated on April 8, 2015 10:30am

CHICAGO — Every neighborhood has pizza and fast food. But what type of food does your neighborhood have in a higher concentration than the city average?

We asked Yelp to crunch the numbers on their listings and help us map what the most disproportionately popular restaurant type is in each of Chicago's neighborhoods.

That is, what type of food is offered far more frequently in your neighborhood than it is citywide.

Our map doesn't show what the most popular type of restaurant is in each neighborhood. (Otherwise, it would be all pizza, burgers and fast food.) Instead, it compares the types of restaurants in a given neighborhood to the city as a whole.

Edgewater, for example, is home to a much higher ratio of Thai restaurants than the rest of the city. Compared with Chicago as a whole, Hyde Park's restaurant scene features disproportionately more vegan restaurants. And if you wanted your pick of Irish cuisine, chances are you'll find a place in North Center.

For an even more detailed look at the data, check out this map.

See similar maps of Manhattan and the United States.

Some highlights:

• Unsurprisingly, neighborhoods like Pilsen and Little Village are home to a disproportionate amount of Mexican restaurants compared with the city as a whole. But the neighborhood where Mexican food is disproportionately most popular is the Southwest Side's Gage Park (1,294 percent more than the city average.)

• Chinatown, of course, has a huge concentration of Asian cuisine. How much? There are 30 times more Chinese restaurants there than in than the rest of Chicago.

But the North Side has an impressive array of Asian restaurants too. Korean cuisine tops the list of most disproportionate foods in four neighborhoods: Lincoln Square, Andersonville, Albany Park and North Park. Vietnamese is very popular in Uptown and Lakeview. Thai tops the list in Edgewater, while Pakistani food wins in West Rogers Park.

• Polish tops the list in four neighborhoods known for their Polish traditions: Avondale, Belmont Central, Dunning and Norwood Park.

• Downtown has a high proportion of both steak and salad restaurants.

What do you notice in this map?

 

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