The Devon Market is between Broadway and Clark on Devon and has a terrific variety of produce and general products.
Having lived 2 blocks away from it for close to 4 years it’s taken me a long time to get used to it for more than sundry items. A friend of mine made a great soup from Nigel Slater’s Appetite cookbook. (THAT cookbook is another absolute must and I’ll get to it in detail later).

The recipe called for whole anise, lemongrass, fresh fennel, fish
sauce among other things and I was dying to make it. Dominicks had
nothing. Dried lemongrass, fennel seed, crushed anise.

Devon had it all. They also have dried, semi-dried and fresh peppers…
anchos, poblanos, hungarian wax peppers (listed as banana peppers but
really hot).

For an ensuing stir-fry kick they provided a variety of chinese rice
cooking wines, rice noodles, and Baby Bok-Choy… not the huge unruly
bok-choy. And the produce is beautiful. I have actually on several
occasions used it in photos.

The chicken is safe. I have not tried the lamb brains, cow’s feet,
tripe and myriad other delicacies they stock. Whole shrimp, whole
tilapia, etc. It intially is kind of weird but once you’re used to it
you love it.

They do also carry a ton of Slovakian, Serbian, Hungarian, Mexican,
Thai, uh… almost everything. Miscellaneous items from mason jar lids
for pickling to stone mortar/pestle combos for guacamole.

A secret item is the $8.99 750ml of Moskovskaya Osobaya (the Russian distillery). Apparantly the
original Czarist vodka before Stolichnaya became so popular. It’s made
by Stoli.

1440 West Devon Avenue
Chicago, IL 60626
(773) 338-2572

–Josh Brusin