My brother and his wife live outside of Los Angeles. My parents live out east. The entire family has not visited Chicago at the same time in the summer before and we had never gone to Wrigley Field as a family before. Therefore, in honor of my father’s birthday we decided as a family to go to Wrigley Field and have the entire Wrigley experience. Part of that experience, at least in my mind, is eating before the game at one of the local restaurants. One teensy problem. My son and I cannot eat gluten or dairy and my brother and his wife are vegetarians.

So did we find a place to eat? Yes we did. We had a terrific lunch at Cozy Noodle. Cozy Noodle is a block from the stadium at 3456 Sheffield (Sheffield and Cornelia). It is a very cool, fun destination type place complete with a bathroom lined in Pez dispensers. It is also a very good Thai restaurant and even without reservations we easily explained our needs and were directed to dishes we could eat and offered accommodations to make others available. We ate well. Everyone enjoyed their lunch. I cannot remember the last time I had Panang Noodles. I think it has been five years. Yet I ate them here and was not ill.

There is no gluten-free menu. They make no warranties. You need to be able to explain that you can’t have anything marinated in soy sauce or fried in a common fryer as well as the more obvious sources of wheat and barley.

That said, I did not get sick. I feel fine and everybody enjoyed their meal. Cozy is also very reasonably priced, it offers many heart healthy vegan choices, and it is blessedly free of the drunks which can populate other dining establishments. I will go back there again the next time I am having lunch before the game.

If you want to check out the menu, here it is.

http://www.cozychicago.com/home/index.asp