Entries tagged with 'seafood'
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[Photograph: Michael Nagrant] Though we are surrounded by the azure majesty of Lake Michigan, Chicago is generally not a seafood kind of town. Fed-Ex and dry ice have done wonders for the scene, but it's still pretty rare to find great oysters here. Even all the upscale spots around town that have raw bars are wildly inconsistent. Still, anticipating a recent road trip to New Orleans, I couldn't get the idea of raw oysters out of my head and I wanted to do a little pre-trip eating. But, where to go? I settled on the Coq D'Or in the Drake Hotel on the Magnificent Mile. It's the sister lounge to Drake's famous Cape Cod Room where Jack Benny, Marilyn Monroe,...
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[Photographs: Nick Kindelsperger] Hagen's Fish Market 5635 W. Montrose Avenue, Chicago IL 60634 (map); 773-283-1944 The Short Order: Fresh seafood, whether freshly fried or gorgeously smoked. Want Fries with That? Of the fried options, the fries don't really stand out. Want Ketchup? Nope, just their zippy tartar sauce. During my visit at Hagen's Fish Market, a man walked in with a rather large trash bag full of fish. He casually tossed in on the scale, said he'd like it smoked, and then walked away. This may seem a little odd for just an average fish market—but Hagen's isn't a traditional fish market. Sure, they sell fish, but they're really good at cooking it too. That's precisely why I, and...
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The best seafood is nearly always the freshest seafood. And the best shrimp are the freshest shrimp—right? Maybe not. Here are five reasons why frozen shrimp may actually be better.
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[New York Times] When I was about two years old, my favorite food wasn’t chocolate, or Cheerios, or anything else expected from a toddler. It was smoked bluefish pâté. During the summer in Massachusetts, when my parents and their friends would sit out on the patio with wine and hors d'oeuvres, I would crawl under the table and sneak off with the pâté—to devour with a spoon, out of adult sight, just me and the tub of seafood spread. Old habits die hard, and while I'll now give that pâté the dignity of a cracker to rest on, I still have a soft spot in my heart for bluefish. Sure, it’s a bit oily, a bit less delicate than...
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Note: Today, a quick post that really evokes a sense of place. Food writer Cheryl Sternman Rule takes us on a fishing expedition in Alaska. Enjoy! —AK Photographs by Cheryl Sternman Rule When the server set the salmon carpaccio in front of me, I felt like whispering in her ear. "Just so you know," I’d say, "this fish and I have met before." And it was true. A day earlier, on Prince William Sound in southeastern Alaska, I’d bore witness as the commercial fisherman on whose boat I was riding netted three sockeye, pulled out their gills, and tossed them to the bottom of her bow-picker. There was blood, yes, but there was also something beautiful about the process—its simplicity....
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In Standing Room Only, the author visits Chicago's best seatless eateries. Have at it, Nick. Calumet Fisheries 3259 E 95th St, Chicago IL 60617 (map); 773-933-9855 The Short Order: Intoxicating smoked shrimp and freshly fried seafood. Want Fries with That? They're available, but opt for more fried shimp. Want Ketchup? Go for the mild and hot sauces. I must have taken the wrong exit, because after a few odd turns off the I-90, I found myself in industrial Northern Indiana, the landscape spiked by massive smokestacks and decaying metal bridges. I figured I was somewhere between Hammond and Gary, not exactly two places I visit often. I was on the lookout for a simple seafood shack, and all I had...
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Fish is complicated. You can have this one, but not this, and eating that Chilean seabass, oh dear, that might give you awful karma forever. In this beginning of a two-part series on fish, the always enlightening podcast Sky Full of Bacon visits Supreme Lobster, one of the country’s largest fish distributors. SFOB producer-writer-editor Michael Gebert goes behind-the-scenes to understand how the company moves thousands of pounds of fresh fish a week. He talks to sales rep Carl Galvan, who's so passionate about selling the good stuff, he keeps his chef clients updated on Twitter (@chicagofishdude). So much of the seafood discussion is difficult for consumers to navigate but this 22-minute video offers a clear perspective on what happy...
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The Trader Joe's pirate mascot seems like a pretty easy-going, Hawaiian shirt-wearing guy, until Greenpeace dubs him Traitor Joe. The environmental NGO has devoted a website to the grocery chain's greenwashing, or sneaky ways of marketing products as "green" and environmentally-friendly that aren't. This isn't a protest against pita chips or frozen dumplings—no, the campaign is targeting the red list seafood that Traitor Joe sells from his treasure chest (er, freezer case), singling out the Chilean sea bass and orange roughy. Traitor Joe likes to get his message across in the form of karaoke and Twitter ("Arrrg, I'm at the Brooklyn Trader Joes selling delicious ocean destruction," he recently tweeted.) In response, the real Joe has stated: "We intend...
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The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) recently came out with an updated Sustainable Seafood Guide that includes tips on selecting safe and sustainable seafood and what types of seafood to avoid....
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What's that above? The "face" of a Jenny Haniver, the dried body of a ray or skate that has been modified to look like a grotesque little creature. I've stashed a full photo of two of them after the jump. It's slightly demonic/Texas Chainsaw-looking and possibly horrifying. Click through at your own risk....
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