Posted by Michael Nagrant, July 2, 2009 at 11:00 AM
"A great Negroni makes you want to munch like you just smoked a Snoop Dogg's bong worth of hash."
What do you get when President Obama's favorite chef (Tony Mantuano of Spiaggia) decides to do a restaurant side project at an art museum? Based on my first visit to Chicago's Terzo Piano in the Art Institute of Chicago's new modern wing, pretty much the usual second-rate food at usually ridiculously marked-up prices ($17 salads anyone?).
That said, while my first visit was punctuated by disappearing waitresses and clumpy, grainy-sauced, overcooked pasta with 2.5 morels in it and an uninspired trio of $19 sliders, Chicago food-writing vets like Phil Vettel of the Chicago Tribune and Penny Pollack of Chicago Magazine were foaming with delight.
So, who knows. One thing I do know, much like Big Texan chef Tim Love of Top Chef Masters, is how to get my drink on. And like any good mixologist (which I am not—I just play one in print), one of my favorite tipples is the utterly bitter Negroni. It's a killer tongue set-up for any meal. After a few sips of one, you're salivating like Spuds McKenzie surrounded by a group of TV babes wrapped in bacon-clad bikinis. A great Negroni makes you want to munch like you just smoked a Snoop Dogg's bong worth of hash.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, June 25, 2009 at 11:00 AM
Sepia restaurant in Chicago's West Loop is a testament to the success that can come from having a vision and sticking to it. While the idea of having one foot in the past and one foot in the future sounds like a bad tag line for a time-travel company, this is precisely the thing that makes Sepia, now more than a year old, still one of Chicago's hottest restaurants.
Owner Emmanuel Nony has stuck to his guns and successfully melded mod and old, whether it's in the interior design featuring crystal chandeliers shaded by spacey screens or the website theme music, which features a trip-hop remix of Billie Holiday crooning "God Bless the Child."
And when inaugural chef Kendall Duque announced plans to leave, Nony stayed on course with Duque's replacement by selecting Andrew ZImmerman, formerly of Del Toro and Mag Mile darling NoMI. Especially at Del Toro, Zimmerman's strength was taking a concept (Spanish tapas) that was more tired than a heart surgeon on his third night of call and reinventing it in a contemporary way.
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Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, June 22, 2009 at 2:00 PM
I was honestly a tad underwhelmed with the Logan Square Farmers' Market last year. There were too many pre-made food vendors, and not enough whole vegetables for me to buy and take home. I went back this weekend to see if I had caught the market too late in the season last year, or just on an off week. And luckily, I had. The Logan Square market was bursting from its seams with fresh vegetables, mounds of lettuce, and interesting stalls. It was a glorious Sunday.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, June 18, 2009 at 11:30 AM
Longtime Green City Market veteran fruit slinger Peter Klein, of Seedling Orchard in South Haven, Michigan, unveiled a hard cider a few weeks ago here in Chicago.
Like me, he's a huge fan of Normandy ciders and was inspired by the tipple to make his own. All apples for Klein's cider are hand-picked and pressed on a hydraulic press "soft" cider mill on his property. Seedling's hard cider is made from a mix that is heavy on tarter varieties and a fall blend of apples with good sugar content. He says, "Historically, I think we would like even more tart and tannic apples in the mix; but we don't grow these yet."
Klein adds, "If we have a good year, I would consider planting a cider-apple-specific orchard. Meanwhile, like we do with soft cider, I would love to look at varietals and seasonal flavors. I believe in France there are different terms for early-, middle-, and late-season ciders—and they taste and age differently."
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, June 11, 2009 at 11:15 AM
Andre Christopher, chef of Chicago’s new Grocery Bistro, is a man of many contradictions—a recent vegetarian convert who serves and cooks meat, and a guy who serves dinner for dessert and dessert for dinner.
And, though it’s intended as a savory appetizer, his latest creation—a seared molten lobe of foie gras coated with bits of Heath candy bar, swimming in Venezuelan chocolate and strawberry compote—would be just as good at the end of the meal.
I’ve met many a chef who has joked that you can serve foie gras, much like bacon, with pretty much anything and it’ll taste good. And as one who’s recently had a chocolate foie milkshake and crispy pork in foie gravy, I’d say that assessment is actually true. But this particular dish was definitely the clincher.
The Grocery Bistro
804 West Washington Boulevard, Chicago IL 60607 (map)
312-850-9291
www.thegrocerybistro.com
About the author: Michael Nagrant writes for Serious Eats from Chicago, where he also publishes Hungry magazine. Michael never met an organ meat he didn't like. He hopes to meet many more.
Posted by Michael Nagrant, June 4, 2009 at 11:15 AM
If I had a slice of bacon for every cute cheffy deconstruction of a classic dish that had gone wrong, I’d be bigger than Niman Ranch. Even if the deconstruction goes right, the gourmet-ing up of mac and cheese or PBJ has been done so much that it’s getting boring. Still, one chef whose deconstructions I never get sick of is Graham Elliot Bowles of Graham Elliot.
The cool thing about Bowles is he knows when to deconstruct and when to just leave classics alone. If he wants to use Pop Rocks, he doesn’t have some kitchen intern researching how to re-create Pop Rocks for a week, he just goes to the corner store and buys them. Sometimes you just can’t top an original, or, even if you can, it’s not worth alienating a kitchen crew trying.
Maybe my favorite deconstruction of the moment from Bowles is the Kung Pao chicken on his spring menu. Featuring a sweet, tongue-coating soy caramel glaze, spicy roulades of juicy real (read: not processed) chicken parts girded with crisp tempura-fried broccoli florets and crunchy peanut brittle, this is the kung pao of my dreams. For weeks since I’ve eaten it, I’ve actually refrained from ordering Chinese take-out (usually a regular once-a-week or more occurrence) because I know it will be a disappointment.
Graham Elliot
217 West Huron Street, Chicago IL 60654 (map)
312-624-9975; grahamelliot.com
Photograph from Bravo.com
Posted by Daniel Zemans, June 1, 2009 at 10:30 AM
It would be difficult to overstate the joy I got from attending the
All Candy Expo, the annual meeting/celebration put on in Chicago by the National Confectioners Association. The two-and-a-half-day spectacle gives candy companies a chance to introduce new products and tap into new markets; retailers a chance to discover products they have not sold before; distributors a chance to find new clients; and, most important, everyone a chance to try more different kinds of candy in three days than most people do in their lives. There were so many great things to try at the Candy Expo, and I feel the need to share a lot of it with the Serious Eats community. As a result, this is going to be a long post. I encourage you to grab a candy bar or two, make yourself comfortable and come along for an exploration of sugary goodness. I apologize in advance for the jealousy you are about to feel.
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Posted by Daniel Zemans, May 29, 2009 at 10:30 AM
Cochon 555 is a traveling series of food events featuring a competition of acclaimed local chefs cooking with heritage pigs. On Sunday night, the eighth in the 11-city tour was held in Chicago (the New York event was reviewed here on Serious Eats). Put on by Taste Network, an Atlanta-based company that does marketing and promotion for the artisan wine and cheese industries, the events serve three purposes. First, they increase awareness of heritage pigs and the food politics that go along with them. Second, they raise the profile of Taste Network. And third, the events serve as a fundraiser for charities related to the concept of eating locally produced, artisan-crafted foods. The Chicago event benefited Farms for City Kids, a Vermont-based organization active on the East Coast and hoping to get going in Chicago.
The participating chefs were Chris Pandel of The Bristol, Stephen Dunne of Volo, Patrick Sheehan of The Signature Room, Graham Elliott Bowles (in absentia) of graham elliott, and Sam Burman of bluprint. In addition to the pig, there were a few artisanal cheeses and wines for the eaters to peruse.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, May 28, 2009 at 11:15 AM
Grilled cheese, American style.
It’s always a fun trick to throw a hunk of halloumi on a fiery grill. Inevitably people who’ve never heard of the stuff start to freak out, wondering why you’re about to ruin a ball of perfectly good cheese by melting it into the hot coals below. Hell, I’ve had people actually pull a chunk off the grill with their bare hands with the same effort they’d reserve for rescuing a drowning person.
The cool thing about halloumi is it softens and the milk fats caramelize resulting in some awesome smoky sweet curd. The density and construction of the cheese is such that it never actually turns in to a bubbly disintegrating mass. There are plenty of cool cheeses that do this, including Wisconsin cheesemaker Brunkow’s Finnish-style Juustalepia (which I love to grill and set on toast with a touch of fresh jam). Argentina’s version is Provoleta.
I discovered the magic of Provoleta a few weeks ago when I stopped back in at Cafecito, a pan-latino café in Chicago’s West Loop. Cafecito already makes one of the best Cubanos and chimichurri topped steak sandwiches in the city, and so I don’t know if I’d ever have strayed. But owner Philip Ghantous, Cafecito’s enterprising owner spotted me, and slipped me a bit of his new sandwich offering like a pot dealer proudly pro-offering a new killer strain of bud. The cheese is topped with the same garlicky herby chimichurri from the steak sammie, roast red peppers and sandwiched in a crispy crackling grilled bread. If I ever lost my wits and became a vegetarian, this would be the sandwich that had done me in.
Cafecito
26 East Congress Parkway, Chicago IL 60605 (map)
312-922-2233; cafecitochicago.com
Posted by Daniel Zemans, May 27, 2009 at 8:30 AM
I learned two lessons at the 90th National Restaurant Association Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show, which was in Chicago from May 16 to 19. First, I got to physically see just how huge the restaurant industry is. Conceptually, of course, the size of the industry is fairly obvious, but knowing it and trying to take in the scope of products being sold at the thousands of booths at the NRA Show are two very different things. Second, food quality lags far, far behind profit as the primary concern of most in the industry. Again, probably a lesson most of us intuitively understand, but one that was really slammed home as I spent about five hours making my way around the NRA Show. Given the breadth of the show, that was not nearly enough time to see the whole thing, but it was more than enough to discover some new foods and products that caught my eye.
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Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, May 25, 2009 at 3:30 PM
I was a bit surprised to pop up from the Blue Line to find Federal Plaza in downtown Chicago filled with vendors. All of them were basically underneath the towering sculpture Flamingo by Alexander Calder. It was quite a sight, and a genuine Chicago moment. Last time I went to the market, the pickings were slim. Would I find success this time? There are still more stands selling flowers than food, but it's hard to get too upset while walking around.
At least the plants Smits Farm was selling were herbs ready for the kitchen. I need to restock. They had tarragon, parsley, thyme, and loads of basil. They promised me that as long as I watered them and kept them in the light, they would grow.
I still haven't used all the honey I bought from my last farmers market visit. But the honey they had at Lehmans Orchard from Niles, Michigan did look thick, unctuous, and incredible. As did their dried assortment of dried berries.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, May 21, 2009 at 11:00 AM
Chicago has an authentic taqueria on almost every corner, and at least half of those are authentically bad. But, with so many good options left over, the last thing you’d ever do is go snooping around sport bars and brewpubs for a good taco. And, I guess it’s true, I wasn’t looking for good tacos in those places, but in the course of my regular eating, err research, I’ve come across two extraordinarily good tacos.
The first is the fish taco at Goose Island Clybourn, the flagship restaurant of Chicago’s local super-brewery. As of last year, the state of the fish taco in Chicago was so miserable, that Tribune scribe, and its current Cheeseburger Bureau Chief, Kevin Pang, launched a full blown viral marketing campaign replete with rubber teal blue Lance Armstrong style solidarity bracelets to support his efforts to find the best version. His findings were meager to say the least, and since then, few folks have answered his call. Now along comes Goose with a warm corn tortilla filled with freshly fried crunch tilapia nuggets coated in smokey chipotle mayo, zingy pico de gallo and a sprits of lime, maybe the best version in the city.
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SE contributor Michael Nagrant, oh he of Hungry Magazine, on the revamped menu at Chicago's Goose Island: "And the pork’s put to great use, maybe best on a grilled ham and cheese topped with a runny fried egg on pretzel bread kicked up with the sharp tang of pickled ramps, aka, spring onions." That sounds really good.
Posted by Michael Nagrant, May 7, 2009 at 2:00 PM
I used to think Seasonal Affective Disorder was something psychologists made up so that crazy people felt better about themselves. But, it was a hard won winter in Chicago, and the blankets of snow and the razor chafe of Lake Michigan squalls took their toll on me.
But, just as I was to fall upon an icicle dagger, my good friend, Aamir, the hard drinking non-pork eating Muslim that he is, saved me with beef salami. He’d been telling me about Romanian Kosher for years. In fact we endured an hour of bumper to bumper traffic on surface streets on a Saturday drive to visit the place a few years ago, only to find it closed (Being the silly goy I am, I did not realize shabbas is for rest, and not charcuterie).
And so, I’d been without their tasty housemade wares for years, until last week when Aamir bestowed upon me a ruddy medium hard cured beefy log of salami. Busting it open and peeling back the casing, I was rewarded with a waft of garlic perfume. It had a beautiful density, nice white fat marbling, and a touch of spice. It was, frankly one of the best salamis I’ve had. It didn’t take long before I slathered up some toasted Lithuanian dark rye with Boetjes mustard and piled on some pink meaty salami slices. Crunching on the thing, the singer Jewel and her popular refrain “Who will save your soul?” popped in to my head. At that moment, Romanian Kosher Salami would.
Romanian Kosher Sausage Company
7200 N Clark Street, Chicago IL 60626 (map)
773-761-4141
Posted by Michael Nagrant, April 30, 2009 at 11:30 AM
I’ve always been of the opinion that my word as a food critic should never be the last one. Sure, maybe I start the conversation with a review, but I’ve always wished and hoped that owners and chefs who disagree with my assessments let me know. I’ve always said I’d be happy to print such disagreements on my home website Hungry magazine, www.hungrymag.com.
I understand the subjectivity of a food experience as well as anyone, and while I try my best to get it right I’m just as fallible as anyone. One of the great things about the web is that the greater amount of aggregate information out there and its ability to give a fair and balanced picture, or in the case listed above, a chance to print lengthy responses, rather than short letters to the editor which may never be seen by the original readers of a review.
Still, given these circumstances, few owners and chefs have ever responded to my critiques. I understand why they might not, as certainly I suppose I could (and some writers certainly can be) capricious egotistical beings who might hold such a response against those folks for the rest of their career.
One person who did respond was Angela Hepler Lee, the owner of Veerasway, a mod upscale reinterpretation of Indian food in Chicago’s West Loop. I’d always been a fan of her upscaling of Mexican at De Cero, a gourmet taqueria, but my experience at Veerasway was filled with promise, but ultimately disappointment.
Lee had actually not disputed much of what I said, but agreed that she’d harbored similar concerns I’d written about in my review, but that her cooks at the time were dismissive of her protests. She invited me back sometime to check it out.
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"Alderman Bob Fioretti said Friday his Second Ward on the city's West Side has major crime problems, so he thinks the stand's name, Felony Franks, is simply not in good taste." [AP]
Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, April 27, 2009 at 6:30 PM
Few things in life content me more than a stroll through a farmers' market during peak season. I have dreams about strolling through Chicago's Green City Market and having to decide between the dozen varieties of carrots and apples. Those dreams are especially acute right now when there isn't actually very much to eat. Chicago's weather has been cold until recently (85 say what!), so while California is basking in goods all year long, we're still waiting for the real stuff to hit.
While the weather is still iffy, the Green City Market has been held at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, which seems like a perfect match. I visited the market two weeks ago, as to avoid the chaos that would have inevitably surrounded an appearance by Alice Waters. I just wanted some vegetables.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, April 27, 2009 at 10:25 AM
"Each pop of salty roe and greedy bite of sweet sea kissed crab flesh dances on your tongue until your brain explodes."
A few weeks ago, while on an anonymous reviewing mission at Avenues restaurant for Chicago Social magazine, I ate one of the best things I've ever eaten. Normally I'd wait for the review to come out, but the seasonal nature of chef Curtis Duffy's food, means this dish might be gone by then, and I wanted people to get a shot at it.
The dish in question is Duffy's King Crab, Steelhead Roe, Kalamansi, and Togaroshi. Though the name comprises a simple four ingredients, the thing is so complex, a hyper-speeded up video of the plating of the dish runs a full minute long.
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"Felony Franks—'Home of the misdemeanor wiener,' as one of its slogans says, and 'Food so good it's criminal'—is a project of Jim Andrews, who started hiring formerly incarcerated people at his West Loop-based paper wholesaling firm after employees who didn't have records caused 'all kinds of problems.'" [Chicago Journal via MenuPages]
Posted by Michael Nagrant, April 24, 2009 at 11:00 AM
"Maybe even better than the pork is a crunchy-skinned half chicken featuring what often seems like the impossible: simultaneously moist thighs, legs, and breasts."
Though my job is supposedly to find really great food experiences, I also have this really dirty habit of avoiding them. Usually it’s a mixture of procrastination or busyness, whereby I somehow miss the opening of a new spot, and before you know it, everyone, including my grandma, has blogged about how good the place is and how it’s become a Chicago classic—and then there’s no need for me to even try it.
Honky Tonk Barbecue in Chicago is one of those places. While my grandmother hasn’t yet Twittered me about the pulled pork, they’ve already won the usual accolades, not to mention that owner Willie Wagner garnered third place for pork shoulder at the 2008 Memphis In May World Championship Barbecue Contest.
So let me just jump on the smoking woodpile and confirm what everyone else has basically said: The meat here is sick. The pulled pork is succulent, wet, and smoky with a nice pink ring and a crunchy blackened bark. Unlike the meat at most spots around town, you do not need any sauce to flavor it. I usually make fun of the antisauce contingent, but truly, to sauce this delicate bit of pork candy is to commit treason against the state of pork perfection.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, April 23, 2009 at 3:30 PM
Banana cream pie from Hoosier Mama Pies.
Serious Eats impresario Ed Levine and his epic diet blogging almost ensnared me. You see, I’m not the skinniest cat in the room (and that room includes Garfield). While I’m not yet on the wagon, I read Ed’s missives for inspiration. When I do, they tend to have a mild deterrent effect on my eating prowess. Though, the deterrent effect of those posts is very much like the threat of confession when I was an eight year old Catholic.
Once you’ve assuaged your guilt in a short rap session with the priest in that veiled wooden box, you’re ready to bust out and start swearing and stealing candy from the corner store again.
But, I’m an adult now, supposedly in possession of a modicum of self control. So, when I drove by the new Hoosier Mama Pie Company storefront recently and stopped my Ford Escape, I paused for a moment and wondered if I’d really needed pie for breakfast. In fact I kicked “Jesus” out of the rubric and asked myself, WWELD (What would Ed Levine do?). I reasoned that he’d go in for a bite—just one, or two, and he’d put the rest of the pie away for a rainy day.
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Don't swing by Hot Doug's, the institutional Chicago hot dog joint, between April 27 and 30. They are protesting the 20th anniversary of the mandatory seatbelt law in Italy, according to their website. They will reopen on May 1.
Gapers Block reports on a couple of enterprising Chicagoans who have started a Hot Doug's delivery service called Hot Doug Drop. The service is unaffiliated with the restaurant, and charges $1 per dog for delivery. Hot Doug's owner, Doug Sohn, is not entirely on board.
Posted by Michael Nagrant, April 2, 2009 at 11:45 AM
Cordero con frijoles y arroz at D'Candela
My good friend Mike Sula, the intrepid food reporter for the Chicago Reader recently told the story of D'Candela, an Irving Park Peruvian joint. It reminded me that I had an incredible meal there last year, but never wrote about the place.
The touchstone is their charcoal roasted chicken, a golden crispy skinned number, juicy with brine and more secret spices (15) than the Colonel's bird. Save for the chicken at Papa's Cache Sabroso in Humboldt Park, I've generally been disappointed in Latin-flavored spit roasted birds. They always end up with dried-out, over-roasted breast and limp lifeless skin. D'Candela, however, is one of the best around.
My favorite dish here though is the cordero con frijoles y arroz, or lamb stew featuring succulent shards of meat and piquant peppers bathed in rich gravy. Add in a side of crispy tostones and the aji or mayo infused with Peruvian green peppers or the flaky egg washed empanadas filled with succulent piccadillo and sweet raisins, and you've got yourself one fine Peruvian meal.
D'Candela
4053 N. Kedzie, Chicago IL 60686 (map)
773-478-0819
About the author: Michael Nagrant writes for Serious Eats from Chicago, where he also publishes Hungry magazine. Michael never met an organ meat he didn't like. He hopes to meet many more.
Posted by Michael Nagrant, March 26, 2009 at 11:30 AM
"Czech food historically tends to be a peasant-fueling winter warming type of cuisine.."
Like many well-intentioned supposedly smart kids, I once thought I’d go to medical school. Then I took organic chemistry. It wasn’t that the nuances of covalent bonds or steric interactions threw me for a loop. I actually enjoyed the class and did pretty well. No, actually the moment of doom came in the first week when I entered Chem 1800, a Greek amphitheater-sized lecture hall at the University of Michigan filled with about 500 of peers.
But, Greece this was not, and there was no ingénue playing Lysistrata convincing Athenian women to withhold sex from their men to end war, but rather Dr. Brian Coppola. Coppola was the student's professor, a guy who eschewed hardcore research in favor of accessible effective pedagogy. He was so cool, there was a rumor, he’d even had pierced nipples.
On the first day of class, Coppola asked how many of us wanted to go to medical school, and I’m pretty sure 499 arms went up. It would have been 500, but I abstained out of embarrassment, even though this too was my secret ambition. That being said, seeing all those people hell-bent on being doctors, I started to realize I wasn’t so sure that’s where I wanted to go.
And many years and many jobs later, I find myself as a food writer, and while not my initial calling, it does give me the satisfaction that most doctors have, the ability to save. Though I save not people so much, as the occasional beleaguered restaurant. And frankly, I’m not sure whether I can really save a restaurant as much as I add a few cc’s of live-giving blood in the form of a few new patrons which hopefully lead to more.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, March 19, 2009 at 11:30 AM
You’d think a place named Ed’s Potsticker House would have great potstickers, but you’d be wrong. They’re actually kind of the chewy and underseasoned, and my guess is Serious Eats founder Ed Levine could make better “Ed’s Potstickers” at home with one hand tied behind his back. But that’s the charm of Ed’s, a Northern Chinese spot, which requires not so much as a secret handshake or a golden key to unlock its glory, but rather a good bit of persistence to patiently work your way through the War and Peace-sized menu.
Consider that Ed’s was recently featured on Chicago’s popular Check, Please! restaurant review show and none of the folks (save the person who recommended it) who ate there picked any of the great dishes and, consequently, none of them actually liked it. Some part of me is okay with this, as Check, Please! is well-watched, and if everyone likes a restaurant on the show, that place inevitably ends up swamped with customers. The hubbub eventually dies down, but sometimes the old regulars get fed up with the swarm and don’t come back. The restaurant consequently suffers a grim fate, or at least a middling existence thereafter.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, March 12, 2009 at 11:15 AM
Photograph courtesy of Phillip Foss
Anya Von Bremzen recently wrote a piece in Food & Wine inquiring whether, with all the high end chefs slumming at the low end these days, we really need the pomp and circumstance of jacket-required, high-end fine dining anymore. She’d started thinking that we didn’t, but then a meal at Laurent Gras’ super sleek seafood boutique L20 threw her in a tailspin.
I can’t say I haven’t pondered the same thing many a time after a gross of cider glazed pork rinds and fish stew at Paul Kahan’s Publican or a perfectly roast chicken at Rob and Allison Levitt’s Mado here in Chicago. After all, after getting full on fabulous, though rustically prepared, tasty food, I didn’t even have to loosen the belt on my otherwise comfortable jeans, a feat my dress pants have required after more than a few multi-course extravaganzas.
That being said, one of Von Bremzen’s arguments for preserving fine dining is that the high end places, by virtue of their cost models, allow for experimentation and refinement at the highest level. The plates that come out at the high end inform the low end and lead to better dining experiences all around.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, March 5, 2009 at 10:45 AM
Don’t let the blue eyeshadow fool you. Kirsten Anderson, doughnut baker and owner of Chicago’s underground doughnut bakery, Glazed Donuts, can probably kick your ass. She’s a former bodyguard and mixed martial arts style fighter in addition to being a supreme baker. While I recently profiled her for the Chicago Sun Times, I didn’t talk a whole lot about her doughnuts.
They’re as killer as she is. You’d think a town of expanding waistlines like Chicago would be doughnut heaven, but alas, we have no Doughnut Plant like New York City, nor a burgeoning artisanal movement like the Pacific northwest, or a smattering of classic corner coffee parlors like Los Angeles. We do have Old Fashion Donut on the far South Side, but that’s about it.
Anderson’s filling that void with light, albeit deep fried, cake-style donuts in fantastic flavors like bacon maple, pecan pie, Chinese five spice chocolate, and orange spice. She also has a wicked sense of humor and recently whipped up drunken beauties like Irish Car Bomb and Champagne Chambord doughnuts for New Years.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, February 26, 2009 at 11:30 AM
For a long time, Gale Gand (Tru) and Mindy Segal (Hot Chocolate) have been the pastry queens of Chicago, and few have graced the firmament they inhabit. Over separate dining experiences in the last few months, I think I’ve finally found two heirs to the throne.
Elizabeth Dahl at Boka—who matches savory and sweet goods like blackberries and corn or buckwheat, and sorrel and blueberries—is so good, she actually outshines her more than competent savory cooking boss, nine year vet of Charlie Trotter’s, Giuseppe Tentori. Going back to a restaurant is generally an occupational hazard for me, as I rarely have time to cover all of the new stuff opening in town. That said, ever since I had her corn flan with blackberries, I’ve been dropping by and sending friends to Boka for dessert whenever I can. Of course, I’m not the only one who sees it this way, as she recently won Chicago’s local version of the James Beard awards, aka the Jean Banchet award for Best Celebrity Pastry Chef.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, February 19, 2009 at 11:15 AM
For a parent of a truculent two year old, there’s nothing more relieving than a restaurant that babysits and cooks for you. Of course, unless you count fast food chains where grown dudes dress up in furry character suits and entertain, or scare, your kids for a few minutes between bites of factory farmed cattle patties, there’s no such thing.
At least I thought so, but then I hit Café Sengal, a new French inflected West African eatery in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood.
I’ll admit that since my child can’t yet read, dining out with him is really the only thing I fear these days (outside of Sandra Lee). You never know when he's gonna up and scream like Jennifer Love Hewitt in a horror movie, go all David Copperfield and try to pull the tablecloth from under the place settings, or sneak his way into a fiery kitchen (he’s done this twice). So when he started pulling sugar packets out of the carousel at Café Senegal, I was sure he’d be coated in the sweet stuff in seconds flat. I grabbed it away from him, but one of the women working in the otherwise empty dining room told us it was okay.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, February 12, 2009 at 11:00 AM
My Serious Eats colleague Nick Kindelsperger recently posted an excellent recipe for shrimp and grits. And though I love to cook, I've been busier than Rachael Ray at a cookware convention these days. Though, with my appetite whetted for the southern classic, I did what every red blooded American male does when he can’t do it for free: I paid for it.
Not just any sandy, goopy mass topped with rubbery frozen shrimp would do. I turned to a guy I could trust for my fix: Chicago chef Randy Zweiban of Province. Zwieban lards Anson Mills organic grits with creamy Manchego and tops them with plump farm raised, perfectly cooked shrimp. The Anson Mills grits are both soft and creamy with a touch of toothsome grain. For those used to denture-soft, creamy glops, the range of texture yielded by the Anson Mill's grits make is so interesting to the palate, you don't really even need butter, milk, or any adulterant. That being said, I’ll take cheese on anything, and I appreciate Zweiban's overture.
What's cool about this dish is that it's not really a high end interpretation of the classic. It's basically the classic with a different type of cheese, honoring Zweiban's Pan-Latin cooking style.
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Since the Chicago restaurant L20 opened last May, chef Laurent Gras has been quite the blogger, sharing food porn shots of cotton candy radish soy and Cabernet Sauvignon film. From Chicagoist: "The blog is a great way to share what we’re doing with the outside world..." It's also why he gets only three to five hours of sleep a night.
Posted by Michael Nagrant, February 6, 2009 at 2:00 PM
This week's episode of No Reservations took place in Chicago, and except for Anthony Bourdain's jab against Chicagoans—where he said something like, “These are not small people”—it was one of the better chronicles of the Windy City’s tasty offerings. Local super-journalist and cook Louisa Chu served as Bourdain’s fixer and she definitely knows her stuff.
Reportedly, while they were here, Anthony and his crew ate at the Ramova Grill in Bridgeport, but no mention of Chicago’s supreme diner made the air. It should have. If you loved the segment on the die-hard irascible Burt Katz and his pizza at Burt’s Place, you would have loved a segment on the Ramova.
Founded in 1929, it’s the diner ideal—a place Edward Hopper, painter of Nighthawks, would have loved to be buried underneath had he known about it. Ramova is also a greasy spoon that once housed, and probably occasionally still does, greased palms, as it stands a few blocks north of the 11th Ward Democratic headquarters (the political birthplace of the Daley clan) in Bridgeport. It’s not hard to imagine old committeemen hunkered down in the high-backed wooden booths, filching swigs of coffee and plotting patronage moves under the cover of cigar smoke.
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Posted by Erin Zimmer, February 5, 2009 at 1:15 PM
"My manager has me on Twitter now, which reminds me, I should go update that."
Yesterday, we caught up with Stephanie Izard, last season's Top Chef winner. She's a busy woman, opening her new Chicago restaurant, The Drunken Goat, this fall, doing some spokeswoman work for Quaker Oats, and launching a podcast next week. We thought it was only appropriate to have goat with her. So over a plate of slow-roasted goat in Manhattan, we got to the bottom of this curiously named restaurant of hers, among other things.
Why a goat? And why so drunken? So it turns out my last name, Izard, is a type of goat found in the Pyrenees. Since I'm not the type to call my restaurant, "Stephanie's," I figured that was personal enough. The drunken part is because I called up my good friend Antonia from the show and was like, "How would you describe me?" And she said, "Uh, drunken?" She was just joking, but I love the Drunken Goat cheese, so it worked.
So you'll be serving goat (the animal and the cheese) at the restaurant, yes? Yeah, I just got back from Spain and found the cheese at this amazing market in Madrid. I was there with my friend, who was freaked out by all the animals' heads hanging everywhere. But I loved it.
How do you like your goat? Is it tough to prepare? Well, some goat is like, "Hey, I am goat." In the same way lamb can be lamby. But it shouldn't be like that. Since it's not as fatty as other animals, it can get dry, but I'll probably do mine ragoût-style, maybe over a polenta cake. Depends on the time of year. I also want to play with house-cured meats and have as much charcuterie as possible.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, February 5, 2009 at 11:15 AM
If mom or grandma was really in the kitchen at every "mom and pop"-style ethnic spot, I feel sorry for a lot of this world's children. Which is to say, either the mom shackled to the back of that steamy Vulcan stove can’t cook or, more likely, most proprietors are lying and carrying on the celebrated tradition of mining customers yen for family-related nostalgia for their own personal gain.
At Chickpea, a West Town Middle Eastern spot that opened last November, no one's lying, except maybe your stomach when it's full and tells you that you really shouldn't eat anymore. Co-owner Amni Suqi, mother of co-owner Jerry Suqi, sporting fresh cooking injuries like cuts and burns on her wrist, is very much in the kitchen. She's cooking a slew of daily specials like Lakhanni—collard greens stuffed with a tabbouleh-like salad—or Bathinjan Mihsgee—cored baby eggplants stuffed with herbed rice and minced lamb swimming in tomato broth—the kind of plates you're more likely to find in a Palestinian home than in your corner kebab shack.
My favorite though is the malfoof, cabbage leaves rolled with herbed rice, minced lamb, and garlic, and a touch of lemon. As a first generation polish kid, I know my stuffed cabbage, and the cabbage wrappers here are so delicate you're not sure if you’re biting into creamy agnolotti or truly a vegetable leaf.
Chickpea
2018 W Chicago Avenue, Chicago IL 60622 (map)
773-384-9930
chickpeaonthego.com
Posted by Robyn Lee, February 2, 2009 at 7:00 AM
Chicago is home to many great things. But the largest frosted Mini-Wheats cluster probably isn't one of them. There's no word on how the monstrosity tasted, but I would assume more like frosting, less like Mini-Wheats.
Posted by Michael Nagrant, January 29, 2009 at 2:00 PM
It says something about how far we've come as a food nation when you feel like you have to apologize for eating chicken makhani. Butter chicken is so ubiquitous that it's kind of become the crab rangoon of Indian food, the difference being that, at least from what I’ve read, it's actually a real Punjabi dish and not some Americanized bastardization. Though, from what I’ve learned about food origins, the copious amounts of cream and butter in this dish suggest it is an American- or European-influenced invention. But then again, who cares? What’s important is when done right, it tastes good.
Guilt aside, for eating like a relative dilettante, I've been getting my chicken makhani fix up the block in Chicago's West Loop at a spot called Jaipur. While it’s not the best example in the city, it’s very good. What makes it really compelling is that it's usually part of an "all you can eat" affair that also includes freshly baked naan, creamy mutter paneer, fresh fried pakoras and samosa, and a rotating complement of other dishes. For that price, you’re not getting some stew of overcooked steam table items, but reasonable portions cooked fresh and brought tableside as you eat. There’s a healthy dose of spice (more if you ask for it) and the dishes aren’t dumbed down.
At $14, you won’t find a much cheaper buffet option in the city, and as far as I know, outside of maybe one or two ragtag Pakistani spots on Chicago’s Devon Street strip, you wouldn’t be able to put together the same à la carte quality for this price.
Jaipur
847 West Randolph Street, Chicago, IL 60686 (map)
312-526-3655
jaipurchicago.com
Actually, it's going to be called "Taste," according to indieWIRE. Documentarian R.J. Cutler says of his next project on Alinea's executive chef: “He's considered by many to be one of the greatest chefs in the world, and he’s had tongue cancer, and in battling the cancer, he lost the use of his taste buds on his tongue.” [via MenuPages]
Posted by Michael Nagrant, January 22, 2009 at 11:00 AM
Some part of me wouldn’t mind handcuffing some of the more extreme proponents of the locavore movement to a chair in my kitchen and feeding them a steady diet of Chicken McNuggets until they gave up their extreme dumpster diving ways. That being said, I do appreciate the underlying message of eating more locally for its ecological and improved flavor implications. As such, whenever I can secure good tasting fare from the local farmers and artisans, I do.
That’s pretty easy to do in the summer when the farmer’s markets are in full swing, but during the long slog of winter, unless you’ve got a freezer so big that Jeffrey Dahmer would be jealous and you’ve planned ahead, it’s a bit tougher.
But it’s not impossible. In fact, it’s a bit easier thanks to one local option I finally dragged my lazy butt over to a few weeks ago: Green Grocer Chicago in West Town. On the shelves you’ll find a beautiful assortment of the best of the best, including Tomato Mountain Farms organic jam (anything with raspberry is a favorite), Blue Marble dairy milk and cream (maybe the best tasting local milk in the Midwest), and Mint Creek Farm's beautiful, tender lamb.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, January 19, 2009 at 1:10 PM
The Barack Obama–Dixie Kitchen episode of Check, Please! is now available for viewing online at WTTW's website. So if you missed it on Friday evening or don't live in Chicago, there you go. Check Please! puts average Joes and Janes together, with each recommending a restaurant for the others to check out. The producers never aired the Obama episode because he was considered too polished and professional and was thought to have dominated the show. Dixie Kitchen: 5225 South Harper Avenue, Chicago IL 60615 (map); 773-363-4943; dixiekitchenchicago.com
Posted by Ed Levine, January 16, 2009 at 9:15 AM
"And when those duck fat fries at Hot Doug's call your name, Oprah, call or IM me instead. We can be our own mini diet support group."
Oprah Winfrey, whom I admire a great deal, recently fessed up on her show about her weight gain. She said that at that moment she weighed over 200 pounds. Now having gone on a very public diet this last year, I can relate to what she's going through. And I don't have to withstand the scrutiny of millions of adoring fans for an hour every day on national television.
So I have an idea. I don't want to sound presumptuous or anything, but I think Oprah and I should join forces in our public (yes, I know that her public is a helluva lot bigger than mine) quests to lose weight. Oprah and I can be blogging diet buddies. We can become the Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell of diet bloggers.
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MenuPages Chicago: "Could it be that the head restaurant reviewer for a major metropolitan newspaper decided to blow his anonymity out of the water by appearing on a highly rated, nationally aired television show featuring the signature dish of his hometown, with his cover being only the inversion of his highly recognizable name?" MP also notes Bobby Flay's praise: "'You guys are the best judges we've ever had... You guys should do this for a living.'"
Posted by Michael Nagrant, January 15, 2009 at 11:00 AM
January in Chicago means there are at least four months until prime grilling season. Maybe even five, as Chicago generally goes from face-numbing frigid winter straight to swampy summer in May, with nary a nod—except for a couple of drizzly, windy days—to spring. But right now my second floor window box is covered in a couple inches of prime snow dust, my windows are fogged by a roiling swirl of flakes, and my street, thanks to our cheap mayor Richard Daley, is an unplowed mess. Breaking out the grill is about the last thing I’d do.
Still, the palate knows no season, and it’s always prime time for smoky treats. There’s no lack of spots to secure such goodies in Chicago either, but last week I was reminded of one of my favorite grilled treats at Hai Yen, a cozy and clean Vietnamese joint up in Chicago’s little Vietnam neighborhood: Tom Cuon Thit Nuong. It may sound like a Peter Piper-worthy culinary rhyme, but it's actually grilled rolls of tender beef slices wrapped around creamy shrimp. This one-bite surf and turf comes straight from the kitchen with a sweet, charred caramelized skin perfumed with honey, lemongrass, and sesame. Dip them in a fish sauce-funked ponzu-style citrus sauce, take a bite, and you may never go back to the metal kettle and briquette show again.
Hai Yen
1055 West Argyle Street, Chicago IL 60640 (map)
773-561-4077
haiyenrestaurant.com
Posted by Michael Nagrant, January 8, 2009 at 10:45 AM
Contrary to popular belief, not all weird game meat tastes like chicken. Sometime it tastes like cow. Exhibit A: the reindeer sausage at Chicago’s wacky suburban sausage emporium Fredhots and Fries.
A couple of years ago, owner Fred Markoff introduced an Alaskan reindeer sausage topped with grilled onion and mustard, Maxwell polish-style (a polish sausage in lieu of the reindeer makes it a classic Maxwell). As with most extreme food related ideas, say Kobayashi throwing down 40 pounds of encased animal parts at the Nathan’s Famous dog contest, burning folks' tastebuds off with the hottest wings ever, or deep-frying Twinkies, the media stumbled over themselves to cover the moment. There was a whole spate of twisted fathers scarring their small children by lauding the fact that they just ate Rudolph.
But, as is usually the case (save the deep-fried Twinkie) the whole brouhaha was much ado about nothing. While the dog was good (I finally got around to trying the thing last week), it was relatively beefy and nondescript, and at $8.50 you’re wallet would be better off with a classic Windy City salad dog.
There are lots of other good things at Fredhots, but I think someone really should have covered the sweet potato fries: carrot-orange, crispy, thick stalks of yammy goodness dusted with sweet maple syrup and cinnamon spice. All other comers for me in Chicago have generally been overfried, limp, underseasoned, too crispy, and two thin. Weighing in at about half steak-cut thickness, with a crispy outside and pillowy inside, I've found a winner. Even the maple and cinnamon spice, which had the potential to be gritty and artificial tasted mellow, rich, and a blended part of the fry. And, more importantly, they decidedly tasted like neither cow, nor chicken.
Fredhots and Fries
1707 Chestnut Avenue, Glenview IL 60025 (map)
847-657-9200
fredhots.com
Posted by Adam Kuban, January 5, 2009 at 8:15 PM
The folks behind popular Chicago restaurant review show Check, Please!, just released a video teaser for a show they taped in August 2001 with then state senator Barack Obama. He talks about visiting the Dixie Kitchen, where 3 or 4 pancakes are "pretty dangerous," he says because they'll give you a food coma. "I've learned from some past mistakes that I have to be cautious." He also says he prefers simple food that tastes good—and is a good value—to fancy-pants settings. The full episode will air Friday January 16. The video, after the jump.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, December 19, 2008 at 4:00 PM
Macarons, two airy meringue half domes glued together with creamy filling, always seemed the province of dainty ladies who lunch. Unable to jet off to Pierre Hermé, the wonderful sweets boutique in Paris, on a moment’s notice, I figured that’s just how they’d remain.
Chicago, despite its many sugary accomplishments (including the apple fritter from Old Fashion Donut that's as big as my curly blond afro or the soothing Cake and Shake dessert of Mindy Segal at Hot Chocolate) is not a macaron capital. To my knowledge, outside of a few mignardise trays at the four-star level, no one really made a decent one.
Then a couple of weeks ago, Andres Lara, pastry chef of NoMi, launched La Boule de Noël, a temporary holiday macaron boutique held every Tuesday through Saturday from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m in the Park Hyatt. Located in what is generally a desert of serious eats (because of the high rents), this Mag Mile temporary store is a shopper’s godsend.
The daily selection changes but often includes hazelnut praline, gingerbread, salted-caramel pecan, and lemon varieties. My favorite was the coconut passionfruit. One bite transported me on a temporary tropical vacation.
Though I'll lobby for year-round sales, if you have a macaron hankering, you better get over to NoMi, because the whole affair closes as of December 31.
La Boule de Noel
800 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago IL 60611 (map)
312-335-1234
Posted by Michael Nagrant, December 18, 2008 at 1:30 PM
For the last few years, folks have debated whether Chicago has matched or eclipsed great North American food towns like New York, San Francisco, or Montreal. While the debate rages on, one factor against our pre-eminence as a serious food town was our lack of fringe specialty food shops.
Everyone knows the real top food cities reach a point of saturation where all the mainstream good restaurant ideas are taken and have been replicated a hundred fold and tweaked with zany minor iterations. Thus, the only way to be successful is to pursue culinary improbability, that brand of foodie entrepreneurship that spawns BLT cupcakes, deep fried mayonnaise, Kobe beef and foie gras-topped hamburgers, and Krispy Kreme milkshakes.
While it’s true Chicago has staked its claim to more than a few post-modern/molecular gastronomy emporiums, we’ve generally continued to cast our lot with an unending line of taquerias, hot dog stands, pizza shacks, and sushi joints. But, last week we finally entered the big time with Lakeview’s Meatloaf Bakery. While it sounds like the drug fueled dream of a character in some big ticket Hollywood movie, it’s the real deal here in Chicago—a storefront emporium that sells no less than eight types of gourmet meatloaf in appetizer form (aka "loafies"), full loaves, and, yes, the meat cupcake, aka "meatloaf baked in cupcake forms and piped with mashed potato frosting."
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, December 11, 2008 at 3:30 PM
Never underestimate the power of faux island-style decor and a super bright neon sign to signal potential serious eats. While such festive restaurant accoutrement usually is the Shakespearian case of protesting too much, in the case of Papa’s Cache Sabroso, a tiny restaurant that rocks the red neon and thatched roof patio, it’s actually a beacon for smokin’ hot Puerto Rican goodies.
Though, because there’s a joint serving crispy tostones and pigeon peas and rice on every corner of this part of Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood, I wasn’t expecting much. Throw in the fact that my first visit was on Halloween night and the skanky funk of a recently smoked fatty blunt hung in the air while a gaggle of pimps, ho-devils, and a dude with his head ostensibly chopped off were chowing down behind me, and you might even ask why I didn’t run away.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, December 10, 2008 at 11:30 AM
"Though I grew up with Dunkin' Donuts as my weekend snack, these days I’m more likely to hanker for a bagel."
Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of goyem, I will fear no lack of bagels, for thou foodie gods art with me. I figure if I repeat this mantra enough, it’ll eventually stick, but the truth is I’m pretty down on the lack of good Jewish eats in Chicago. Though we have a sizable metro population, only about 30 percent of the total Jewish population lives in the city proper.
There wasn’t always a local diaspora. In the mid 1800s, a significant number of immigrant Jews lived in the central loop, Pilsen, and the famed Maxwell Street Market area. While today it is primarily a Latino street market, it once gave rise to the Florsheim and Spiegel empires. But as was the norm, growing anti-Semitism forced many Jewish families toward the edges of the city, and in the early 20th century many of them (including the famed writer Saul Bellow) settled on the far west side, like in Humboldt Park, and on the far north shore in Rogers Park. Following WWII, the relative affluence accrued through multiple generations of settlements and the desire for single-family homes pushed the Jewish population even farther into the suburbs—like Skokie, Lincolnwood, and Buffalo Grove—where most reside today.
The good news is that most of these suburbs are city-bordering. Even if you can’t find a ton of great Jewish food (outside of Manny’s or Ashkenaz, and some might say 11 City Diner), you don’t have to go too far—though sometimes it’s just far enough—to find some.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, December 4, 2008 at 3:00 PM
Who needs denture-friendly filet mignon, artery-clogging mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, and out-of-season asparagus stalks as big as your left arm? In these uncertain economic times, if you can’t afford to pony up for a big fat prime hunk of cow, it ain’t no big thing. After all, the way I see it, Taqueria El Asadero in Chicago’s Lincoln Square neighborhood is the poor man’s Smith and Wollensky.
Amble in to this north side taqueria and you’ll find a sinewy man brewing fresh carnitas in a wobbly, ancient kettle filled with deep fryer fat. Next to him a wiry dude works the griddle, searing off marinated skirt steaks one at a time. They let the steaks rest for a few minutes, sprinkle them with salt, and slice them to order. Then they pile the caramelized meat, fat, and drippings into a fresh corn flour tortilla from local Pilsen spot, Tortilleria Del Rey. The crispy bits featuring a touch of pink interior basted in their own peppery juices. The cooks add a final sprinkle of onion and cilantro, and wrap the whole thing up in foil. Unwrap, sprinkle a touch of tomatillo jalapeno salsa and lime, and you’ve got yourself a portable steak dinner that’s as satisfying as and one fiftieth of the price of a night at your favorite beef emporium.
Taqueria El Asadero
2213 West Montrose Avenue, Chicago IL 60618 (map)
773-583-5563
Posted by Robyn Lee, December 1, 2008 at 9:45 AM
Check out this great comic by Chicago-based artist Lucy Knisley illustrating her and her boyfriend's 13-course meal at Alinea in all its pupil-dilating glory. If her drawings of the courses weren't enough—from the lamb stew in a bottomless cup to the dehydrated caramel dust with salt—she says, "the meal was probably the best meal I've ever eaten in my life." Considering that she wrote a book about exploring and eating in Paris, French Milk, she seems to be a food lover.
Related
Grant Achatz' Alinea Cookbook
'The New Yorker' Profile on Grant Achatz
Alinea's Most Exciting Food
Posted by Erin Zimmer, November 30, 2008 at 12:00 PM
Theo, a self-proclaimed five-and-a-half-year-old (at the prime age when half ages matter), has trouble pronouncing "agar" and needs a step stool to see over the counter, but he can cook from the Alinea cookbook (previously reviewed on Serious Eats). His brother James (nine-years-old) isn't professionally trained either, but doesn't fret over a recipe with pheasant, gray shallots, and burning oak leaves.
While some home cooks have expressed frustration with the unapproachable quality of the Alinea cookbook ("it took seven hours and produced eight bites of food") these two munchkins have proved them wrong. It doesn't hurt that their father is Nick Kokonas, the business partner of Grant Achatz, Alinea's head chef. Both videos on both sides of the argument, after the jump.
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Posted by Kerry Saretsky, November 29, 2008 at 12:00 PM
As we dig deeper and entrench ourselves in the recession, sales of such "basic" foodstuffs as Campbell's soup, Spam, and Kraft mac and cheese have seen an upswing. But for some, even those can be a luxury.
But ad agencies Leo Burnett/Chicago and Starcom remind Chicago shoppers that "Food shouldn't be a luxury." To drive donations to the Greater Chicago Food Depository, news ads picture such pantry staples as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, soup, and broccoli posing for beauty shots with coiffed and coutured models.
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Posted by Erin Zimmer, November 21, 2008 at 12:15 PM
A year and a half ago, Mike Sula of the Chicago Reader embarked on a project. The Whole Hog Project would follow three mulefoot pigs (Edna, Erma, and Endive) from birth (on a Wisconsin farm) to death (at a slaughterhouse) to an afterlife (at Chicago's Blackbird restaurant). The hairy oinkers, known for having uncloven hooves like mules, would be spotlighted in a fancy six-course dinner.
"I've never seen my food walking around before," his friend and and videographer throughout the project, Mike Gebert of Sky Full of Bacon, admitted. Why were they putting themselves through this? Mulefoot pigs are an endangered American breed that, two years ago, only had 200 to their name. While eating an endangered animal seems like a bad idea, farmer Linda Derrickson debunked this theory: “If you treat them like a zoo animal they’ll become zoo animals." To foster the animal's genetic vitality, you actually should eat them.
In an era of blogging and meta-blogging—when old-fashioned reporting can fall by the wayside—it was touching to stop and watch Sula's story unfold, in both words and Gebert's videos. Watch both parts of the Whole Hog Project, after the jump.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, November 20, 2008 at 3:15 PM
Sometimes when you get pretty much everything you want, the few things you can’t get take on a much bigger sense of importance than they deserve. This has generally been true regarding beer in Chicago. Home to great local breweries like Two Brothers, Goose Island, Three Floyd’s—and not to mention mega-stores like Sam’s and Binny’s replete with aisles and aisles filled with more craft brewed beers than there are stuffed animals at an FAO Schwarz—you’d think we’d be sated.
But, no, we're not. For years, we longed for that Texas export Shiner Bock or the sweet lager of Brooklyn Brewery, and more recently the brews of Bell’s from Kalamazoo, Michigan, when they lost their distributorship. In these parts, securing a box of New Glarus Spotted Cow (not sold outside of Wisconsin) is akin to scoring a bag of premium of Humboldt County’s top notch kush. But, while some of these brews have been worth the wait, most of them weren’t much better or more distinctive than our bevy of homegrown options.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, November 13, 2008 at 5:00 PM
Vernor’s Ginger Ale, the green labeled brew which once had a crazy bearded Viking gnome as its mascot, is pure elixir of liquid nostalgia. While I grew up in Detroit, it was the ubiquitous beverage that filled the basement fridge at my Polish grandparent’s house. I still remember peering over a glass of the stuff for the first time and getting knocked over by stinging carbonated ginger droplets that shot up my nose. This still applies. Try huffing a freshly poured glass of it today and it’ll kill your nostril hairs like Chinese mustard.
In addition to drinking Vernor's Ginger Ale all the time, every late November we’d head out to the annual Detroit Thanksgiving Day parade and eke out a spot on the curb across from the old Vernor’s factory on Woodward Avenue. Sweaty from my Michelin Man-puffy snowsuit and David Bowie Ziggy Stardust-period worthy moon boots, I’d stare at the Vernor’s logo and long for a draught.
The Vernor’s folks left Detroit years ago (much like me) and secured national distribution. And so, living in Chicago, it’s easy enough to find the stuff in the grocery store these days. Finding it in a restaurant, on the other hand is impossible—that is until Steve’s Deli opened a few weeks ago.
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A veggie burger may not pass for a meat-based burger, but that doesn't mean it tastes bad. Monica Eng of the Chicago Tribune shares her picks for best veggie burgers around the city, in creative categories such as "Tastiest Pick for Mushroom Haters," "Best Sweet Potato Veggie Burger," and "Tastes Most Like a Chicago Hot Dog."
Posted by Michael Nagrant, November 7, 2008 at 5:30 PM
Dim sum in these parts has basically jumped the shark. While we’re no Vancouver or San Francisco, we have a couple of really solid options, Phoenix and Shui Wah. Problem is like every brunch spot in the city, they’re so popular, you usually spend more time getting jostled by other fanny pack clad patrons waiting for a seat in the lobby than you do eating.
As a result, my dim sum consumption is pretty much in line with my green leafy vegetable consumption, which is to say, pretty much zero. Last Sunday, though, I pulled myself out of bed, won the culinary lotto, and found myself with only a five-minute wait at Shui Wah.
Shui Wah is home to the best chicken feet in town, pretty damn good “Baby bone-in satay," a Mongolian-style beef in gravy (though I’m not sure which beefy “baby” it is, since I’ve never asked, though sometimes you just don’t want to know), and lots of crisp fried and steamed dumplings.
There’s one particular dish, though, that I was just reminded of this particular morning that trumps all others: salt and pepper squid. The Shui Wah salt and pepper squid (aka protein fries) are rice flour–dusted, deep-fried, and sprinkled with seasoning salt and so much MSG that they basically taste like fried chicken sticks.
Plates of these goodies disappear from tables like McDonald’s french fries from their red cardboard pouches after you leave the drive-in window. They’re so good that, a few days ago, I’m pretty sure I ate Verne Troyer’s weight in squid sticks. Better yet, I didn’t even mind getting jostled by fanny packs.
Shui Wah
2162 South Archer Avenue, Chicago IL 60616 (map)
312-225-8811
Posted by Michael Nagrant, November 6, 2008 at 3:30 PM
Nothing says "junior high prom" to me like a fine square of tiramisu, which is to say it's the meal-ending hallmark of every meal I ever ate at The Olive Garden. That's also to say that since I became a serious eater, I've generally ignored the dessert and relegated it to the pile of other 1980s fine dining hits, such as the crab cake and the caprese salad.
So imagine my surprise when I found myself scanning the pastry case at the old school bakery D'Amato's on Grand (they still bake bread in a coal burning oven) and impulsively selecting out a square of tiramisu. I don't know what happened, but now that I reflect on it I think maybe it was the dessert version of buying a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 or Boone's Farm a few years after high school graduation—you know, just to see if it was really that bad.
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Posted by The Serious Eats Team, November 4, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Eater Chicago isn't happening. Which makes us all a little sad—in some ways. All the news of openings and closings and comings and goings would have been well-handled by the Eater formula. An Eater site would have been a sort of recognition that Chicago had truly made it as a food city. Alas, it wasn't meant to be.
So, aside from our own regular coverage of Chicago eats, we wanted to list some of our favorite Chicago food blogs.
- Hungry Magazine: Serious Eats contributor Mike Nagrant helms this bona fide food magazine. He and his contributors update daily with a new review, think piece, recipe, or food memoir, always accompanied by great photography
- MenuPages Chicago: Edited by Helen Rosner, this aggressively updated site has got some sharp and funny writing—the Review Revues, the news roundups, and the original content make it a daily stop. A nearly unhealthy obsession over Grant Achatz and Michael Nagrant
- Drive-Thru, by Gapers Block, is a good-looking all-around smart Chicago food blog
- 312 Dining Diva: Aggregates the press releases like nobody's business. The daily posts are a must-read for knowing who'll be at the clubs, which chefs are on the move, and where to find dining and drinking deals around town. It's pink
- Time Out Chicago: OK, so it's a print magazine, but not only is all the weekly content available online, but there's also the TOC blog that seems totally plugged in: They're the ones who broke both the appointment of Ari Bendersky to helm Eater Chicago—and the news of the site's indefinite postponement
- LTHForum: Not a blog, but a super-active forum that's the place to go for up-to-the-minute news on openings, closings, chefs, and special events
Did we miss any?
Posted by Michael Nagrant, October 30, 2008 at 2:45 PM
Diamonds may be a girl’s best friend, but for this hungry reviewer, nothing puts a glint in this serious eater’s eye like roast meat on a spit. I know because this afternoon I ignored a pharaoh’s ransom of gold and diamonds and ran straight for a rotating sizzling hunk of golden chicken schwarma.
Never having worked downtown, what I don’t know about Chicago Loop lunch could fill a handful of blog entries, and so I had to rely on my best friend Aamir, a regular Windy City skyscraper denizen, when we met for lunch today. Aamir is so discriminating and enthusiastic an eater that I’m pretty sure he’s the only non-pork eating person in the world that I’d still trust with the responsibility of feeding me well.
Aamir guided me through the dreary drizzle of a day, under the rusty girders of the elevated train tracks, and shuttled me in to the Jewelers Mall, a co-operative of jewelers hawking rows upon rows of anything that gleams. The shiniest thing though is the Oasis Café, a tiny lunch counter in the back of the mall. If you ever saw the episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations where he goes to a café by the Rungis market where all the hard working blood-spattered butchers chow after a shift, Oasis is kind of like that, except instead of meat-merchants, you’re surrounded by Rolex salesman.
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Posted by Erin Zimmer, October 30, 2008 at 11:45 AM
Photograph from Josh Bancroft on Flickr
Take the kids out of the room for this one. Yesterday, Chicago's 18th Ward alderman Lona Lane proposed an ordinance to city council prohibiting the sale of any frozen dessert from a vehicle operating in the 18th Ward.
According to the Chicago Reader's blog Food Chain, her explanation:
You see them exchange something at the window of the truck but they didn't have any ice cream. So I assumed that they were dealing drugs. I'm not saying every truck is doing that but I prefer them not to be in the 18th Ward. That way we're sure that they are not.
A Drumstick with a side of powdery unknown substance? Won't somebody think of the children? Lane is also responsible for proposing a ban on pet chickens.
Update: The ordinance passed and will go before the full council on November 5!
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, October 23, 2008 at 3:00 PM
Pretty Province
Manzanita Trees at Province
Randy Zweiban, formerly of Norman Van Aken’s Miami outpost Norman’s and Chicago’s Nacional 27, opened up his new spot, Province, last week. When I spoke with Zweiban recently he said he’d chosen “maybe the worst time in the last 150 years to open a restaurant.” He wasn’t worried though, saying his former mentor Van Aken always used to ask why, if the restaurant business was so hard to make money at, was there a restaurant on every corner in America? Hard to argue with that. That being said, Zweiban’s new LEED certified dining room featuring reclaimed wood, cork, a breathtaking ceiling mounted grove of petrified Manzanita trees, and mouth-watering food photography from Laurie Proffitt is pretty inviting. The food featuring Zweiban’s famous ceviches should also be a hit. 161 N Jefferson Street
Chicago IL 60661 (map); 312-669-9900; provincerestaurant.com
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, October 16, 2008 at 3:45 PM
In Chicago, mole—the Mexican mother sauce made from dried chiles, ground seeds or nuts, and assorted spices—has almost become as ubiquitous as our famous hot dogs and deep-dish pizza slices. It seems every two-bit taqueria features it. Of course, very few of them are serving up the kind of legendary stuff made for hours by bent over old ladies with just a molcajete mortar and pestle) and a rickety old metal pot in a Oaxacan plaza.
More likely, most of these moles are coming from some dried reconstituted mass-market paste. But like anything else, when the big boys get involved and start diluting the marketplace, it’s harder to see what all the fuss is about. After all, if Miller Lite was your first sip, you’d probably swear beer off forever. (Unless you happen to be Nick Lachey.)
But when you want the craft beer equivalent of a great mole in Chicago, everyone knows you go to see chef Geno Bahena. Unfortunately, Bahena’s an itinerant dude; in the last few years he’s spent time in California and when he came back to Chicago, he was often without a restaurant kitchen to call home. Thankfully though, he’s now back with a new spot in Logan Square called Real Tenochtitlan.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, October 9, 2008 at 2:30 PM
You know how some people play drinking games where they take a shot every time a character on a television show does a particular thing (for instance, every time Rachael Ray says yum-oh)? Well, let’s say you substituted bacon for a shot of alcohol. If you did and you threw down a rasher of crisp pork belly every time you saw a rib, hot dog, wing, or pizza shack that said they had the “best [insert food item] in the world”, you’d have had more massive coronaries than Dick Cheney by now.
The sad thing is, I think this works at least once. I mean, how can you ignore such hyperbole? And what if they’re right and you just passed up the chance to have the best piece of deep fried chocolate fudge cheesecake on a stick on earth? As a Serious Eater, it’s basically your duty to verify any and all “best ever” claims.
So you can imagine when I saw a sign claiming “The best jerk chicken” at D’s Irie Kitchen on Chicago’s southside, I immediately found myself wolfing down spicy chicken from a styrofoam clamshell and finger lickin’ in a rocky parking lot while watching a plume of smoke rise from the rooftop of D’s neon green painted confines.
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Esquire names Chicago's modern seafood restaurant L2O as 2008's Restaurant of the Year in their November issue coming out next week. [via MenuPages Blog] Related: Take Two: A Quick Look at Two of Chicago’s New Restaurants
Posted by Erin Zimmer, October 7, 2008 at 3:45 PM
A photo of Stephanie Izard, the winning Chicagoan of last season's Top Chef, appeared on the show "What's Cookin' with the Republicans!" without her consent, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. The show features a cooking segment inside a local Chicago restaurant, followed by a roundtable discussion led by Cook County Republican Tony Peraica, who is also running for Cook County State's Attorney.
The logo features Izard next to Peraica, but Peraica had no clue who she was.
The show's producer and fellow Republican Dan Schmitt said he picked her because she resembled one of his old girlfriends, and overall, "looked generic."
Posted by Michael Nagrant, October 2, 2008 at 3:15 PM
Urban Belly, a new noodle shop from former Charlie Trotter disciple and haute chef Bill Kim, opened a few weeks ago. Some folks saw it as Chicago's answer to David Chang and Momofuku noodle bar. While I thought the pork belly ramen with its star anise overtones was really good, I was disappointed in the crab udon, which I had to season myself. More than anything else, I was disappointed at the price point—I didn't feel that $13 for a bowl of noodles and broth was fair, especially when I could get similar things from Vietnamese and Japanese spots around town for $6 to $7.
That being said, I haven't been able to get Kim's dumplings out of my mind, possibly some of the better Asian dumplings around. Freshly steamed, they're light and wrinkly and filled with all manner of goodies, from tender shards of duck perfumed with pho spices to cilantro flecked pork. My favorite are the slightly gamy rich lamb laced with brandy dumplings tossed with toasted fennel and nestled on a bed of edamame. Even at $7 for four, I'm of the mind that you can charge whatever you want if you offer a unique food item, and you just won't find these anywhere else.
Urban Belly
3053 North California Avenue, Chicago IL 60618 (b/n W Barry Avenue and W Nelson Street; map)
(773) 583-0500
urbanbellychicago.com
Posted by Adam Kuban, September 26, 2008 at 5:45 PM
The restaurant gossip and news blog Eater, which started in New York City, then expanded to San Francisco and L.A., is launching a Chicago site. And they've just named their editor: Ari Bendersky. Eater Chicago's tentative launch date is October 15.
According to his bio on the Huffington Post:
Ari Bendersky is a lifestyle, music and entertainment journalist with nearly 15 years of experience. He's written for the Associated Press, RollingStone.com, Chicago Tribune, the Advocate, Health, and many more national and regional publications, including UR Chicago, where until recently, he served as editor-in-chief.
Here's his Facebook page. Go make friends! [via MenuPages Chicago]
Posted by Michael Nagrant, September 25, 2008 at 11:15 AM
You can’t always eat glazed chicken feet or stinky tofu or braised cold tendon in chili oil. Sometimes you just want an honest crab rangoon. But then you think, am I going to lose my serious eater’s card for indulging in American Tiki-craze Trader Vic-inspired goodies like deep fried wonton-wrapped cream cheese studded with fake krab meat and scallions?
Such was my state of mind a few weeks ago when I sidled into the vinyl booths at the 40-plus years old Lincoln Square Chinese restaurant Shanghai Inn. The décor alone was an homage to the American-Cantonese almond boneless chicken serving palaces of my youth.
Chinese zodiac placemats, check. Paper lanterns, check. Fortune cookies, check. This was the kind of place Ralphie and his family from the 1983 classic A Christmas Story would most definitely be happy mowing down on some Beijing duck after those rabid dogs ruined their turkey dinner. Décor aside, would the food be good?
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, September 24, 2008 at 8:30 PM
Photograph from roboppy on Flickr
New York food critic Alan Richman should not be writing about Chicago hot dogs. But, that’s what happened in his GQ piece last week, as we've previously mentioned. Richman swooped into the Windy City, ate a dozen or so dogs—and by his own admission, cut them up like a street food dilettante with a plastic knife—and deigned to decree four of them so wonderful “even New York should be in awe.”
Along the way, Richman, the man I like to call the Marilyn Manson of food critics (I feel he’s a public opinion puppeteer fully aware of both sides of an issue, but intent upon picking the side that incites the most controversy) took as many shots at Chicago and our dog vendors as he could.
Among the many insults, he suggests that most Chicago dogs get pulled from a pot of hot water, saying that’s what New Yorker’s call a “dirty water dog.” While many certainly get pulled from a steam bath, there’s a big difference between your average New York street vendor dog and an honest Chicago restaurant dog.
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Posted by Erin Zimmer, September 18, 2008 at 7:00 PM
Mustard ice cream on braised pineapple with coconut foam, pineapple tuille, and mustard sauce at wd-50 in New York. Photograph from roboppy on Flickr.
Molecular Gastronomy doesn't have to be scary as it sounds.
As our Chicago correspondent Michael Nagrant points out at Hungry Mag, frying an egg in a skillet "southern grandmother style" is molecular gastronomy. The egg proteins get friendly with other molecules. The runny yolk solidifies. Molecular gastronomy—in action! Done.
Then you have Alinea chef Grant Achatz and his idea of molecular gastronomy. Before dining at Alinea, Nagrant thought the experimental foams and mousses might "reinforce or mimic the alienation of the world, leaving us more cold and unsettled than we were before." Cold and unsettled: nobody wants to feel that at the table. But that was before he ate at Alinea.
Just because it's sciencey doesn't mean molecular gastronomy has no "soul" or "classic roots." For Nagrant, the food "evoked real and personal memories of seasons past." Are you still skeptical of molecular gastronomy? Prefer the runny yolk option? Or could coconut foam remind you of a childhood emotion or past summers?
Posted by Michael Nagrant, September 18, 2008 at 2:30 PM
I've always wanted a tattoo, but I've also been hung up on that whole "my body is god's temple" thing. It's not that I'm particularly religious, but when you've gone 30 years with a clean slate of skin, inking up seems like a big commitment. Where do you start? What do start with? On the other hand, tattoos are only as permanent as you are, which despite the morbidity of saying so, isn't very permanent. Might as well get over the whole clean slate thing and have some fun.
Still, our impermanence can be relatively long, so you'll still want to have some ink that says something about you that you can live with. In my case, the short list of things I'm pretty sure I'll be enamored with forever include my son and bacon. No disrespect to my wife, whom I love very much, but there's always the possibility that my love of bacon may eventually drive her away, and so there's no reason to take chances with that.
Overwhelmed by Bacon Love
The thing is, I've begun to doubt the role of bacon in my life. Like everyone else, you like to think you're unique and interesting or that you've found some particularly cool niche that no one knows about. Everyone loved bacon for a while, but about 10 years ago because of cholesterol concerns and all that, the love for it was a bit underground. It was like loving Murmur-era "Radio Free Europe" Athens, Georgia, REM. But during the last five years or so, the love for bacon became a gluttonous free-for-all. It was like when the album Out of Time came out, and damn if you didn't lose your religion regarding Michael Stipe.
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Posted by Ed Levine, September 17, 2008 at 5:00 PM
Photograph from roboppy on Flickr
GQ columnist Alan Richman hit what his Chicago hot dog-loving buddy called the dozen best franks in that hot dog-crazed town, but he didn't seem to love any. In fact, after reading his story twice, I don't think he got why Chicago residents are crazy about their tube steaks. His biggest problem: the way the hot dogs, loaded down with all the requisite Chicago toppings—chopped onions, sport peppers, tomato, pickle, and celery salt—fall apart when you bite into them.
Richman hoped to file his top five list, but couldn't even find five good enough to make the cut. He liked the Wiener's Circle, Byron's, Rockstar Dogs, and Hot Doug's. He refers to Superdawg in his story, but clearly didn't love it. In fact, he called what was delivered to his car in the famous Superdawg box, a "horror."
Ouch! Did he go to Gene and Jude's, my other favorite Chicago hot dog spot, conveniently just a few minutes from O'Hare? Fess up, Richman.
We also need our Chicago bureau chief Michael Nagrant to weigh in on this crucially important issue. And the rest of the serious eaters as well.
Though our man Michael Nagrant did a bang-up job on his eating guide to Chicago last week, the people wanted to hear his take on the best Italian beef. (How could we leave that one out?) He weighed in, complete with a metaphor to Slim Shady. (Scroll down to see.)
In response to Michael Nagrant's Chicago City Guide, well-known Chicago gastronome Michael Gebert posts his own city guide. Menupages compares both guides to one another to show what both Mikes agree and disagree on.
Posted by Michael Nagrant, September 11, 2008 at 7:30 PM
Editor's Note: Back again with another Serious Eats City Guide, this time we check in with Michael Nagrant, our normal Chicago go-to guy. As you probably know already, he checks in with us regularly, and also publishes Hungry magazine. Michael has still never met an organ meat he didn't like, and hopes to meet many more. As always, chime in with agreement, or feel free to alert us to any Chicago eats we've overlooked.
Best Deep-Dish Pizza
Burt's Place. Photograph by santheo on Flickr
The butter crust deep dish at Pizano's has less heft and more flavor than gut bomb tourist attractions like Gino's and Giordano's, and you won't throw your back out lifting a slice. Burt's Place and Pequod's Pizzeria Sicilian bakery style pies with their airy bread crust and caramelized cheese haloes also match up.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, September 11, 2008 at 3:30 PM
Indian food has gotten its gourmet due with Tabla in New York and, maybe not quite as luxuriantly, but quite aptly, with Marigold and Veerasway in Chicago. Pakistani food, though, not so much. It seems the only place to score the tasty bits from Karachi and Lahore in Chicago is at no-frills cabbie joints. On the other hand, as a frequenter of such places, I can’t really complain too much because when I find a good one, I never have to fight for a seat.
Last night, I found myself at one such place, Bismillah, a Ravenswood cabbie joint. Due to the red and white draperies shrouding all the windows, the place looked like it was closed. Fortunately, I dropped in to find a boisterous crowd of folks, many in salwar kameez hovering over steaming bowls of keema, haleem, and fresh, bubbly tandoor-caramelized naan and chapati.
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Posted by Allison Hemler, September 10, 2008 at 9:00 AM
We can never get enough bacon. A bacon cupcake? Bring it. This organic bacon peanut butter chocolate cupcake gets whipped up by Michelle Garcia at the Bleeding Heart Bakery in Chicago. She's dear to my heart: I've seen her episode of Food Network Challenge: Extreme Cakes way too many times. In a perfect world, this would count as breakfast. [via Chicagoist]
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Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, September 9, 2008 at 3:45 PM
I skipped this week's Green City Market in Chicago in favor of the much closer, and much smaller, farmers' market in nearby Wicker Park. I was a little worried about the findings, and whether it would be as inexpensive as Green City can be. A few weeks ago I visited the Logan Square farmers' market and was disappointed in the number of stands, the insanely high prices, and the lack of much actual produce to buy.
But Wicker Park Farmers' Market was a much better stop. And according to the signs, it was time for apple season. Nichol's Farm, which also operates at Green City, had dozens of varieties—my only worry was what exactly to buy. I settled on a Cox's Orange Pippin, a red Gala, and a Macoun. They were all eaters, so the wife and I devoured the trio when we walked back up to our apartment in Bucktown.
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Posted by Robyn Lee, August 30, 2008 at 5:00 PM
Roy is right; the "black shit" is awesome.
I don't know who the hell Roy is or if I can trust his palate, but according to him the Korean restaurant San Soo Gap San in Chicago is "the greatest restaurant in the entire world." And after reading his maniacally enthusiastic review accompanied by photos labeled in a way that seems more appropriate for a sports recap, I almost agree with him. He may not give the most illustrative descriptions—he refers to the kalbi sauce as "mysterious brown goo that makes everything better"—but he tells you what you need to know: that [x food] tastes good. Now I want to feast on "egg disc things" and brown goo-slathered short ribs. (Warning: Watch his introductory video at your own risk.)
San Soo Gap San
5247 N. Western Avenue, Chicago IL 60625 (at Farragut Avenue; map)
773-334-1589
Posted by Michael Nagrant, August 28, 2008 at 4:45 PM
If Edward Hopper were Korean, he probably wouldn’t have modeled his famous Nighthawks painting after a Greenwich Village diner. Rather, he might have considered Susie’s Noon Hour Grill in Chicago’s Rogers Park. Susie’s doesn’t have much neon but there’s an ample flat-top, a vintage Pepsi cooler, and plenty of cheesy décor including some disturbing clown paintings.
The food is a mix of American breakfast diner standards like pancakes and bacon with Korean stalwarts like pa jun and bulgogi. Sometimes the two cultures meet in owner Soon Lee’s (she also goes by Susie) kimchee omelet. There’s plenty of good stuff at Susie’s, including Lee herself—a charming grandmotherly type who does everything from washing dishes to taking and cooking the orders.
I stumbled upon Susie’s Noon Hour Grill last week and ordered an array of dishes—all pretty good, but I was really intrigued by the chop chae. Generally the chop chae I’ve come across is a nondescript mass of super-salty limp noodles, flaccid vegetables, and steamed meat. But not this.
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As contracts with "refreshment car" vendors run out (the last one expires Friday), the regional rail network has chosen not to renew them: "The commuter rail line has decided to shut down its rolling taverns, ending an era that hearkens back to the days when executives in gray flannel suits climbed aboard club cars and lubricated the journey home with martinis."
Posted by Adam Kuban, August 27, 2008 at 11:00 AM
"Free ice cream. Cool ZIP code."
I have no idea what ice cream has to do with 90210, but the CW network has come up with a stunt to promote the revival of that icon of '90s teen dramas:
To promote its already much-hyped ZIP Code revival, The CW will give away 100,000 ice cream novelties over the Labor Day weekend. The network has hired ice cream trucks to drive around waterfront locations in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago to distribute the tasty treats.
The story at TV Week says there will likely be ice pops and "something from the chocolate family."
We'll be fine as long as there are no sideburn-shaped creamsicles.
Posted by Michael Nagrant, August 21, 2008 at 3:45 PM
Every writer suffers from at least a touch of melancholy. As a food writer, though, my touches of depression are not from anything as pedestrian as the existential weight of the world. Rather, at least once a week or so, I freak out that I’ve discovered all there is to discover in the world of serious eats.
This usually happens late at night, when I’ve been co-opted by fatigue and a frozen pizza. I start counting mediocre tacos and limp burgers I’ve had over the year, just to find the handful of truly transcendent goodies here in Chicago. Somehow, I can ignore that there are more restaurants in Chicago—not even counting satellites like bakeries, food trucks, and artisanal groceries—than I can ever hope to visit in a lifetime. But, the burden still comes, as if someone told me pork disappeared from the planet entirely.
Inevitably, there’s always a new dish, a new bite that rouses me from my F. Scott Fitzgeraldean funk. This week’s cure comes courtesy of Isla Pilipina in Chicago’s Lincoln Square neighborhood. As the name suggests, the restaurant is a celebration of culinary thrills from Manila—and the biggest of all is a Filipino-style fried, cured pork called tocino.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, August 14, 2008 at 11:00 AM
Bad pho doesn't mean the rest of the menu isn't worth trying.
Even though one burned down last week due to an unfortunate fire, it feels like there are almost more Vietnamese restaurants on or near Chicago’s Argyle Street in the Little Vietnam neighborhood than there are in Vietnam itself.
Over the years I’ve slurped down bowls of steamy pho from the majority of them as frequently as the McKenzie brothers drink beer. I figure the basic meaty broth of pho is a good indicator of the rest of a Vietnamese restaurant’s fare. If a spot uses prepackaged broths, they likely don’t care about putting out good food. If they make the broth from scratch and offer fresh-cut herbs, then I’m usually on to something bigger. Turns out that’s not quite a foolproof plan—at least not at New Saigon where the pho isn’t exactly transcendent.
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Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, August 11, 2008 at 4:00 PM
I was woken up at approximately 1:30 on Wednesday morning by the sound of thunder and what looked like fireworks going off outside my window. When I raced over to the TV to check out what was going on, I saw a massive red blob stretching across nearly half the state, heading straight for Chicago. The storm had only begun. Somehow, I managed to continue sleeping through the storm and when I woke up later that morning, the sky was blue. I decided to head off to the farmers' market, not thinking that much about the storm.
I never imagined the storm would cause so much damage. As I walked up to Chicago's Green City Market, limbs covered the grass, enormous trees were downed, and some had been violently split. My thoughts went from, "What's fresh?" to, "Will the market even be open?"
Luckily, everything in the market was set up. Besides a few twigs I had to step around, the market was in top shape and had a lot to give.
Nearly every stand had a pile of corn sitting out front, ready for the picking. The corn was almost exclusively sweet bi-color. Nichol's Farm and Orchard from Marengo, Illinois, told me that no other kinds of corn would arrive, but I could "expect a lot more corn in the future."
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Though the musical acts packed their bags and left Chicago last weekend, Lollapalooza is still in the air—in the form of new BYOB sushi restaurants. Rollapalooza just opened in Boystown, further proving that sushi makes for some pretty lame puns. Despite the allusion, the music here isn't so hot according to one Yelper: "Nobody at 10PM on a Friday night wants to hear 'You Light Up My Life' and a Lionel Richie medley."
Posted by Michael Nagrant, August 1, 2008 at 3:30 PM
The huarache, sort of like a Mexican version of pizza, is a sandal-shaped flatbread made of corn masa. My favorite is usually from Chicago’s Maxwell Street Market, where sunbaked abuelas hand-pat big balls of corn meal with their crinkly-skinned hands, throwing their efforts on the grill until the air fills with corn perfume. Problem is, the market is only open on Sunday, so if I get a mid-week hankering for a transcendent huarache, I’m out of luck—that is, until I discovered Huaraches Dona Chio.
Located in a basement level storefront, Huaraches Dona Chio is a rock bottom affair decor-wise. There's a big rug that says “copier” with a knit image of a photocopy machine that looks like it was stolem from the set of Office Space. (PC load letter, anyone?)
Unlike the aesthetics inside, the food is top-notch Mexican from the Distrito Federal, also known as Mexico City. From puffy corn picadillo-stuffed gorditas to slightly floppy corn tortilla tacos, they have it all. And the huaraches are a street food lover's dream.
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Posted by Jamie Forrest, July 29, 2008 at 1:15 PM
Photograph from mjkmjk on Flickr
Carr Valley Cheese won big at this year's American Cheese Society competition, held in Chicago last weekend. The renowned Wisconsin company, family-owned for more than a hundred years, won Best in Show for their Snow White Goat Cheddar, along with 17 other awards including third runner-up overall. Second place went to Virginia's Meadow Creek Dairy for their incredible washed-rind Grayson, a cheese similar to Taleggio or Livarot.
Down a bit from last year's record-breaking 1,209 entries, this year saw 1,149 cheeses in the competition. Thirty tireless judges tasted each one, evaluating aesthetic criteria (taste, texture and aroma), and technical criteria (how well the cheese is made).
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Posted by Erin Zimmer, July 28, 2008 at 7:30 PM
Last week, Time Out Chicago hosted a create-your-own hot dog contest, judged by none other than encased meat overlord Doug Sohn of Hot Doug's. After 2,235 votes were cast, software consultant Kevin Haas from Portage Park won with his "New Chicago" entry, which carried 42% of the vote.
Mexican chorizo sausage, Asian pear chutney, Indian paneer cheese, chili mustard, served on a multi-grain roll. As the original Chicago dog reflected our immigrant heritage (Greek, Italian and Jewish immigrants), this encased meat reflects our new and future immigrant population. Latinos now account for 1 in 4 city residents, our Asian population is expected to grow over a third in a matter of a decade, and India presents the third largest group of new immigrants to Chicago. This new sausage celebrates this new Chicago.
That's pretty sociologically deep for tubular meat. How would you represent your city in hot dog form?
Team up your eating powers for a discount: if 11 people—perfect strangers are fine—join the Hai Yen Group Discount group at thepoint.com, they'll all get 25% off their final bill for lunch on August 13. Pretty cool concept. [via Gapers Block]
Posted by Michael Nagrant, July 25, 2008 at 1:00 PM
Whoever coined the phrase, “Ain’t no thang, but a chicken wang” was clearly a careless philosopher. Because, after a lunch of jerk wings at Ja’s Jerk Chicken in Chicago’s Garfield Park neighborhood, I’ve found some wings that are quite clearly the thang. In fact, two hours after supping on them, my lips are still delighted, if not a touch inflamed, by the chili burn from their jerk sauce.
Anyone considering collagen injections should just consider a weekly order of these instead.
Ja’s has no tables or even the stainless steel chest-high counter—a Chicago staple found at beef stands and rib shacks everywhere. I had to dine with the styrofoam clamshell while holding the wings precariously perched on the console of my vintage scooter—by vintage I mean 1994 Honda Elite—underneath the Lake St. Green Line elevated train. Still, even with the train spitting the occasional drop of El juice as it roared by, I was hardly bothered. I was too busy sucking my way to the chicken bone.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, July 18, 2008 at 3:15 PM
At one point, Chicago's Le Passage was sort of the windy city's modern version of Studio 54. It had a storied history of celebrity appearances, exclusivity, and general craziness. Fast forward to last November when the club changed hands and the VIP section transformed into The Drawing Room, a modern cocktail lounge.
Much has been written about the Drawing Room's food coming from Nick Lecasse, a chef who recently beat Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard in a head-to-head cooking battle with his excellent foie gras with pickled fennel and kumquat gastrique. It's all deserved praise. My recent visit yielded some favorites, including a jerk-spiced quail and fresh housemade gnocchi tossed with farmers' market vegetables and a pan jus. But the real object of my affection on that particular visit was their Japanese Julep.
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Posted by Robyn Lee, July 17, 2008 at 1:30 PM
coloribus.com
A McDonald's in Chicago is featuring a billboard of a giant egg that cracks open at 6 a.m. and stays open until 10:30 a.m. to represent the time that eggs are available on the menu. It's a cool way target early risers, but as for the post-breakfast crowd, they'll just see a giant white blob. [via BuzzFeed]
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Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, July 14, 2008 at 8:00 PM
The ground was a little soggy this Saturday from an earlier rainstorm, but beyond some muddy shoes the weather was warm and welcoming for my first excursion into Chicago's Green City Market. Advertised as the city's only sustainable market, not to mentioned home to regular cooking lessons from notable Chicago chefs, I absolutely couldn't wait to experience it for the first time.
Sure enough, as soon as I walked in I was given a cute little cup of cherry porridge with sweet Israeli cous cous, a creation from Jason Hammel and Amalea Tshilds of Lula Cafe. Luckily. I've visited that excellent restaurant before, and this was a great reminder of their remarkable menu. What a perfect way to start shopping.
Not that I needed any help. The only thing that could have held me back was my own lack of imagination. Whether it was a mountain of berries, elk meat, or fava beans, I felt overwhelmed in the best possible way.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, July 11, 2008 at 10:30 AM
Last week while driving down an empty road in Midlothian, just south of Chicago city proper, I spotted a knotty pine wood cabin and a sign featured a dancing pig that said “Hog Wild." As soon as I saw that sign, I squealed my tires and headed to the parking lot. Though I haven’t quite affixed the bumper sticker yet, I always brake for smoke.
Smoke, however, isn’t exactly what I got, except maybe in liquid form. With no pink ring to be found on the ribs at Hog Wild, I definitely wasn’t getting the slow version.
What I did find was a monster thick, salty, sweet pork chop as big as Thor’s silver hammer. It was nothing like the humble child’s fist-sized, succulent chops smothered in caramelized onion or served with a side of apple sauce and sour cream from my youth. Like Barry Bonds who one day had gone from lanky Pirate to San Francisco giant with a superhero torso, this bad boy crept up on me. Pink at the bone, brined and juicy, and featuring a California highway-like system of griddle marks, it was one of the better pork chops I’ve had in Chicago.
Hog Wild
14933 Pulaski Road, Midlothian IL 60445 (b/n 148th Place and 150th Street; map)
708-371-9005
hogwildpitbar-b-q.com
Posted by Michael Nagrant, July 10, 2008 at 8:27 AM
We figure there will be some hardcore Apple faithful in Chicago ready to line up outside the Apple Store on Friday morning to get their hands on a new iPhone 3G as soon as it's out. We asked Michael Nagant, our Windy City contributor and the editor of Hungry Magazine, for some of his top choices near the Apple Store here.
Wow Bao: Like a shiny new iPod, steamed Asian-style yeast buns here offer the ultimate functionality. Portable and stuffed with goodies like spicy kung pao chicken and barbecue pork, they'll fuel you for hours of intense line-waiting. The whole-wheat version filled with edamame will probably keep you most spry. Fight the heat and wash down the buns with Wow Bao's spicy-sweet homemade ginger ale. 835 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611 (map)
You wouldn't expect to find healthy and quick sustenance at a mall food court, but this Water Tower Place market is the grand exception. The Foodlife Market , which features one of the most diverse salad bars around, is your best bet. (Don't miss the herb-filled Green Goddess dressing). If you don't DYI, head to the Eat Greens kiosk to score a protein-filled Cobb or a sweet and tangy Asian Chicken salad. 835 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago IL 60611; 312-335-3663; foodlifechicago.com
Sayat Nova: It's almost a shame you won't have time to slink into the white grotto booths here, but at least these Middle Eastern flavors are portable. Try the lulla kebab pita filled with sweet, spiced smoky beef and lamb shawarma, onion, and tomato. The beefy perfume is so good it may lull linemates to grab their own sammie, thus moving you ahead in the queue. 157 East Ohio, Chicago IL 60611 (map)
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Serious Eats Mobile
Now's a good time to mention that you can view this guide on Serious Eats Mobile: m.seriouseats.com. And because Serious Eats Mobile supports commenting, you can supply live eats intel from the field, from whatever device you're about to upgrade out of. It's as easy as thumb-thumb-thumb-Post a comment!
Posted by Michael Nagrant, July 3, 2008 at 11:00 AM
Nothing says 4th of July like a smoky cookout. Unfortunately for city dwellers here in Chicago, outdoor space for monster barbecue gatherings comes at a premium. Likewise, because the Fourth is a major national holiday, hopping over to your local barbecue shack isn’t really a viable alternative, as most of them would be closed.
Thankfully, we’ve got no shortage of restaurant-owning Chinese immigrants here in Chicago who happen to be fond of ignoring major American holidays and keeping their places open. There are a lot of options to check out, but after lighting a few hundred sparklers and popping off a brick or two of Black Cat fireworks, my personal 4th of July Chinese barbecue spot of choice in Chicago is Sun Wah BBQ.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, June 27, 2008 at 11:15 AM
Perennial
From the team that opened popular spots Boka and Landmark comes this farm fresh-focused American-style bistro. The kitchen is helmed by chef de cuisine Ryan Poli, formerly of Butter, named by Esquire as one of the best new restaurants in 2005. When Butter closed, Poli headed to Spain to study pastry and hone his savory chops once more under the Spanish new wave, with stints at El Celler de Can Roca and Alkimia in Barcelona. Though he's also worked for Ferrán Adrià disciple Sergi Arola at La Broche and done time at the French Laundry under Thomas Keller, Poli is one off those chefs who believes culinary learning is a lifelong process.
When we spoke with him recently, he told us that he's excited about his pork tenderloin with corn and fava bean succotash, and roasted corn spoon bread (aka poor man's souffle). Appetizers run about $10, with most entrees around $20. 1800 N. Lincoln Avenue, Chicago IL 60614 (near North Clark Street; map); 312-981-7070; perennialchicago.com
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