The Chicago Tribune is reporting:
Over the shouted objections of Ald. Joe Moore (49th), the ban's sponsor, the council used a parliamentary manuever to put the ordinance on the floor for a vote.
The council voted 37-6 to repeal the two-year-old ban, which critics argued had made Chicago--and the City Council--a national laughingstock.
And the folks at D'Artagnan just sent out an email blast celebrating. The D'Artagnan missive, after the jump.
Duck fat fries from Duck Fat Restaurant in Portland, Maine. Photograph from the Paupered Chef.
Duck, fat and fries are three words that please most people. Combining them is a very beautiful thing. Chef Amanda Freitag at New York City's The Harrison isn't the only one bathing spuds in quack-quack grease. She cuts hers with a malt vinegar mayo, given the duck fat's richness. After the jump, see what other chefs across the country are skipping peanut or cottonseed oil to embrace rendered duck fat.
It seems like every year one of my favorite Pakistani restaurants burns down. Two years ago it was Khan BBQ, my favorite spot to grab green chili slathered charcoal tandoor fired chicken boti. The fire turned what was once a dingy smoky cabbie joint, thick with smoke from poor ventilation, into a relatively elegant peach colored banquet hall with a chandelier that would be at home in the Taj Mahal.
Last year, apparently due to faulty wiring, my other go-to spot, Sabri Nihari, burned down. Unlike Khan BBQ, the new incarnation, a narrow El car-wide corridor of a restaurant outfitted with more mirrors than a ballet studio, is a step down from the old, pure white Liberace-like garishness of the old spot. The owners assured me this was a temporary location, though it’s been open for over a year now, so maybe not.
Screw the Michelin guide and its ilk. Like the SAT or personality tests, reductive rating systems that award mini constellations, forks, spoons, or pepper shakers can never see what's in a restaurant's heart.
The endurance of these systems often encourage readers to skip the meat of a review and go straight to the final number as an arbiter of whether they should call for reservations.
Some of these systems are just plain impossible. Consider the S. Pellegrino 50 Best Restaurants in the World. Did Gordon Ramsay U.K. really improve 11 spots in a year while its proprietor was out traveling the world berating and dehumanizing line cooks and restaurateurs? In one year, did Charlie Trotter's, which has been fine-tuning things for 20 years, really suck it up so bad as to drop from 31 to 38 and lose the title of Chicago's best restaurant to upstart Alinea?
In Chicago, we have not yet been blessed with a noodle god like Momofuku’s David Chang. We’ve instead had to settle for noodles from a handful of lower level deities, like Tony Hu at Chinatown’s Lao Szechuan or Vanna Gumtrontip at Spoon Thai. Last week, I discovered a new star to add to the mix. I may not actually know the star, as I didn’t get the chef’s name, but his fried duck noodle soup speaks quite well on his behalf.
Served at a new Argyle St./Little Vietnam storefront named Pho Xua, this bowl of soul is filled with a fresh nest of pliant egg noodles, a deep, rich ducky broth, and a fat, fried, crunchy-skinned duck leg, along with a garden of bok choy, scallions, and little earthy mushroom rafts. Slurping it down banished the seasonal mood swings I’d been indulging after a string of weeks of ubiquitous overcast, slate gray days of drizzle and chafing wind.
Chicago's Wings Around the World is like the Baskin Robbins of Chicken Wings. When they opened in January of 2007, they had 34 flavors of wings. A year and a half later, another twelve have been added to honor their motto, “Flavors to Infinity”. Abeng Stuart founded the spot and concocted the sauces with his mother Lorna Greene and his manager Andre Palmer.
What’s crazy is that this isn’t some spot where they throw chicken in the deep fryer and haphazardly toss the half soggy/half crunchy overcrowded fried chicken with a drippy Franks Red Hot Sauce and margarine glaze. Each of the 46 flavors spanning the international scene, from Jamaica (Fire Jerk, Rum BBQ) to Italy (Parmesan, Tomato Basil Pesto), is a study in balance and contrast. The selection is a thoughtful cornucopia of glazes and seasonings spiked with the right amount of heat, sour, and sweet. The chicken itself is uniformly crunchy if deep fried, or soft, pliant, and smoky if you get the wings grilled. Of course, on this stretch of 35th street lined with a Churches, Popeyes, KFC, and a local JJ Fish and Chicken chain, you gotta bring the goods if you want to survive more than a year.
Rosario’s has a serious pig problem. There are little porky tchotchkes on the counter, statues of swine behind the counter, and a few huge piggy bank–looking porkers above the freezer case. Even the neon sign on the front of the building depicts a bunch of happy piglets jumping in to a grinder. Of course, I wouldn’t expect anything less from one of Chicago’s best Italian sausage makers.
Last week, Good magazine named Chicago’s Broadway as one of the tastiest streets in the U.S. Good magazine’s criteria said a best street features “exquisite food you can actually afford." Haute cuisine is out of the equation. That said, as usual, a bunch of dudes writing from the coasts (this time L.A.) get it wrong. Broadway’s not even the tastiest street in Chicago.
It may not even be in the top five. Off the top of my head, I say 18th Street, Devon Avenue, Clark Street, Halsted Street, and Milwaukee Avenue, amongst others, might be better. My gut says there’s no question that the real tastiest street of all though, is Western Avenue.
Western Avenue, which runs 23.5 miles, is the longest continuous street in the city of Chicago, but its strength goes beyond length. There’s a density and diversity that just can’t be beat.
Mercat a la Planxa: Jose Garces, former protégé of Stephen Starr and Douglas Rodriguez, took a break from building his mini-empire in Philly to unveil some Catalan tapas-style love on his hometown of Chicago at the newly refurbished Blackstone Hotel. The mod space outfitted with gleaming hexagonal tiles and mirrors etched with organic (think birds and leaves) motifs and bare hanging bulbs is one of the funkiest dining rooms to grace our austere storied hotels. The term “smoke filled rooms” actually originated in the Blackstone, and it used to refer to the cigar laden atmosphere in which party bosses once chose Warren G. Harding as a presidential nominee. Today it refers to the smoky romanesco sauces and salbitxada served with deep fried peppers, or the grill-marked succulent lamb chops and head-on shrimp from the grill. The rabbit agnolotti with black truffle may be my favorite dish of the year, and the restaurant itself is one of the best openings of 2008.
Rick Bayless, chef/owner of Chicago's Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, has me brainwashed. Inspired by his example for the last few years, I’ve been telling everyone that you either go regional Mexican or you go home.
If the shadow of a Chipotle and their swaddled infant-sized burritos fell across my path, I’d consider taking a shower. Scarfing down Oaxacan moles and Yucatecan puerco pibil meant I was living right; chewing on chimichangas and noshing on Nachos Belgrande, not so much. Then a few weeks ago, I discovered Mexican Inn.
Mexican Inn is a 47-year-old corner joint located in the shadow of the Chicago skyway. It’s in a south side neighborhood called the East Side, an island of land separated from the rest of the city by the Calumet River and surrounded by behemoth factories with flatulent smokestacks. The East Side is closer to Indiana than it is to downtown. It’s a place most Chicagoans never stop for, though many drive through when the tollway gets backed up.
When people find out I’m a food writer, they always ask me what my favorite restaurant is. I always respond that answering the question is like asking me who my favorite child is. I usually ask them what kind of food they’re looking for and give them a top three list of options for that particular cuisine.
Truth is, though, if some hungry felon held me up at gunpoint and needed to know my top five favorite spots, Hot Doug’s: The Sausage Superstore would absolutely make the list.
Owner Doug Sohn, a culinary school grad, brings his chops to bear on the humble hot dog. He serves the best Chicago style salad dog in the city. But, it’s not the basic dog I come for. It’s the duck fat fried French fries glistening with sea salt and the custom sausages with ridiculous luxury ingredients.
There are at least a thousand taquerias in Chicago city proper, though only about ten of them actually sear their meat and season it properly. Still, ten is a pretty hefty number. Hell, growing up in the suburbs of Detroit, we didn’t even have one good taqueria, only a second rate Chi-Chi’s serving up enchiladas “Cancun” filled with fake crab meat and krill-sized shrimp. Faced with this gluttony of “local” options, I wondered why I was driving 40 miles to check out a suburban taqueria. But I try not to leave any stone unturned when it comes to food tips, and I'd heard from a good source that the folks at Bien Trucha were tearing it up.
Photograph from Fabrizio Rizzo on Flickr
Whiskey can be an amazing or terrible cooking ingredient depending on who is using it. For example, Jack Daniels in the hands of an old college roommate led to some pretty obscenely terrible "bourbon burgers," "bourbon whipped cream," "bourbon marinated steaks," and "bourbon everything else he ever cooked"—and none of it could've been eaten in enough volume to fill you up before it got you trashed.
On the other hand, give Dirk Flanigan, chef at the Gage in Chicago, a bottle of Jameson and a brisket and he'll make you a serious sandwich that is so obscenely good, you'll have no problem getting stuffed on it.
Chicken boti at Khan BBQ
When looking for serious ethnic spots, I find if you're the only white anglo dude in the joint, you're probably in the right place. Khan BBQ, on Chicago’s Devon street—a strip of Pakistani, Indian and orthodox Jewish bakeries, restaurants, and clothing shops—is one of those places.
It shouldn't be, as I and a few others have written about the perfume of coriander from the tandoors, the puffy stacks of Naan bread, and the grilled succulent meat over the last couple of years. Yet, last week when I stopped by for a bite, the dining room was filled with the usual smattering of cabbies and Pakistani families.
With Quartino, Osteria via Stato, and now A Mano all slinging cured meats, Chicago’s downtown lunch arena is sporting more sausage than the Chicago Bears locker room after a big game. A Mano, the newest of the triumvirate, is helmed by Bin 36 veteran chef John Caputo and offers a wide selection of salumi, including the handiwork of Seattle’s sausage king, Armandino Batali. In addition to the charcuterie, A Mano features all manner of Italian-focused goodies from wood-fired pizzas to zingy crudo.
I stopped in at Takashi, a month-old spot in the former Scylla space in Bucktown, last Friday night. The restaurant’s namesake, chef Takashi Yagihashi is a 2003 James Beard Best Chef Midwest award winner. He’s slinging an Asian-French fusion that includes crisp sweetbreads in arimasansho (Asian green peppercorns) and sake, soy, and lemongrass marinated chicken fried in duck fat.
I’m still on the fence about the spot, mostly as a function of value—this place offers a lot of $14 small plates that are barely satisfying for one person. Portions fall somewhere between amuse bouche and appetizer quantity and would make more sense at $7 or $8 a pop. That said, the flavors and execution are spot on. People have been making comparisons between foie gras and sweetbreads for years, but other than both being offal meat, that’s where the similarities ended for me.
Technically, the empanadas at Lincoln Park’s Lito’s Empanadas are not balls, rather more like half moons. But they’re definitely deep fried and good. Colombian-born Carlos Escalante and his wife, Eve, used to make the deep fried stuffed dough packets for raving friends, earning so much cred that they finally opened a legit business. Based on some early buzz and the allure of a shoe box sized storefront selling nothing but empanadas I stopped by to sample the wares on Friday.
Rolled, stuffed, and deep fried fresh daily, the crust, which has a crispy and dimpled exterior like a McDonald’s apple pie wrapper and a melty, moist, and pliant interior reminiscent of the inside of a fresh custard donut, is probably the best of its kind in Chicago.
You gotta have bulletproof glass, utilitarian decor, and a grizzled soul man stoking an aquarium-style smoker or a black pit drum with hickory and fruitwoods to have great barbecue, right? In Chicago, until about two years ago, this seemed the rule.
In these parts, good ‘cue was predominantly an African American community–driven affair. Finger-lickin’ piles of ribs sandwiched in clamshell styrofoam that are so good you wolf them down while leaning against your car came from unremarkable storefronts on the city’s south side (save Honey 1).
So when Smoque BBQ opened last December on the north side with a ton of accolades, lines out the door, and media coverage second only to that of Britney Spears’s affairs, I was skeptical. Were people (me included) covering the ‘cue so heavily because it was coming out of a clean well-lit space in an upper middle class Chicago neighborhood from white people, or because it was genuinely good?
Photograph courtesy of Ron Kaplan
It's often said Chicago is a city of neighborhoods. Taking it a step further, it's also a city of sandwiches, as each of those neighborhoods, whether it's the Will Special in Dunning, Al's Italian Beef in Little Italy, or the Bari prosciutto and mozzarella in West Town, has its own distinctive bread-and-meat combo.
In Logan Square, my new obsession is the juicy olive-studded ropa vieja or braised beef piled high with a smattering of lettuce on crisp grill-marked water bread from El Cubanito.
I've had some great moments at Cafe du Monde, the legendary beignet stand in New Orleans. That said, most of those moments are rooted in nostalgia for the Big Easy, rather than for the stand's doughnuts and coffee. Occasionally you'll score some beignets fresh out of the deep fryer, where the confectioners' sugar melts into a gooey glaze, but sometimes they're just lukewarm and flat. Likewise the much-lauded chicory coffee, which is brewed in big commercial urns, tends to run bitter.
That being said, last week while dining at Powerhouse (215 N. Clinton St.), one of Chicago's newest restaurants, I found a set of doughnuts that I wish Cafe du Monde served. Tater tot–size fluffy sweet potato dough nuggets glazed in brown butter sauced with a creamy pool of cinnamon sabayon studded with arrop (candied glazed aged pumpkin bits) and toasted pepitos. While it's primarily a sweet dish, the saltiness of the toasted pumpkin seeds melds with the heady fragrance of cinnamon and the sweet sugar and satisfies every kind of taste receptor on your tongue. If you close your eyes, the pumpkin and sweet potato perfume from the dish transforms your banquette into a fall farmhouse hayride.
For a city/metro area with 9,000,000+ people, Chicago has a dearth of good egg rolls. You can find great Szechuan braised tendon, head-on salt and pepper shrimp, and a celebration of the diverse fungal bounty of Yunnan province down in Chinatown, but a personal dynasty's length search for sublime crisp deep-fried won ton skin pockets in this same 'hood have turned up nothing.
Instead, I have to turn to the Filipino Uni-Mart grocery on the northside for my fix. Ford the stainless steel shelves filled with salty and sweet shrimp and squid chips and you'll be rewarded with a take-out counter filled with pork glazed in thick syrupy adobo; orange laquered barbecue chicken; beefy, brothy oxtail-studded kare-kare, and a host of Filipino favorites. The object of my affection, though, is the golden fried Philly blunt–size lumpia Shanghai filled with moist pork. Snap one open and a garlicky perfume that roils about your nostrils should take care of any vampire infestations you might have.
As much as I love to cook, my annual holiday party usually requires mis en place for 50, which means the culinary army of one that is me usually limits the homemade goods to two or three passed hor d'ouevres. The lumpia is one of my standbys for filling out the rest of the menu. Last year I bought 150 rolls, and they were gone in the first hour.
Address: 5845 N. Clark, Chicago IL 60660 (map)
Phone: 773-271-8676
Sometimes you just want to give the clueless a beat down. Monday night, I'm sitting at the Sepia restaurant bar, sipping one of bartender Peter Vestinos's Fig and Almond Old Fashioneds (fig- and almond-infused Woodford Reserve bourbon, fig and cranberry bitters, muddled cherries, and oranges). Vestinos infuses the bourbon with figs for four days and adds the almonds in the last 24 hours to capture their essence without transforming the liquor into Amaretto. The cranberry bitters are homemade, too.
As I sipped and perused a long list of amazing cocktails made with fresh ingredients and homemade concoctions, wave after wave of people order vodka. It might as well be a bathhouse in Moscow. You got guys trying to flash their cajones and wallet endowment through their vodka orders, "Oh yeah, buddy, I'll take your Ketel One and tonic and I'll have two Grey Goose and tonic with a Belvedere chaser." There's an occasional Laphroaig and ice order punctuated by a token chardonnay, but it seems like there have been only two orders over the course of an hour from Vestinos's cocktail list. The bulk of cocktails that pass across the wooden bar top are vodka-based.
The cookbook pimps are out in full force. As is the case every fall, publishers aiming to capitalize on the Christmas shopping season and the subsequent loosening of foodie purse strings, release a trove of culinary related tomes and celebrity driven cookbooks. The authors of said cookbooks get sent on book tours, drop in on big food cities, sign some of their wares, and, depending on their celebrity, get courted in various media outlets and at hot local dining spots. As such, authors return the hospitality by giving a shout out to their hosts and friend’s restaurants in whatever city they are visiting. According to the Chicago Tribune’s excellent food blog, The Stew:
Time Out Chicago announces the winners of its First Annual Eat Out Awards.
Editor Heather Shouse says, "the challenge wasn’t finding amazing food and drinks in Chicago—it was narrowing down the best from a break-out year. Local chefs achieved national acclaim, pizza parlors aimed for authenticity, and mixologists brought the farm to the bar, spiking cocktails with herbs, fruits, and vegetables. Our 25 Critics’ Picks Awards honor everything from the year’s best play on surf-and-turf to the city’s fiercest culinary crusader."
The magazine's online poll for the Readers Choice Awards got almost 4,000 votes, proving that Chicagoans really are serious eaters!
Subscribe to our RSS Feeds:
All of Serious Eats, Talk, Required Eating, Videos, Eating Out, Recipes
Subscribe by email:
