Nibbles and Gulps

La Quebrada - The new menu still irks the Condiment Queen as she longs for her calamari ajillo botana. Me, I may be happiest at La Quebrada with the most basic stuff, the antojitos on the back page. Yesterday, I had two tacos cesina and a sope with the unctuous barbacoa de chivo. As Hat Hammond notes, a hand-made tortilla makes any taco, and La Quebrada might make the best tortilla in Illinois. The taco cesina is more than tortilla though. It is a totally successful medley of chip-chopped cesina, refried beans, pico de gallo and guacamole in that hand-made tortilla. The sope does not approach the absolute pleasure of the blue van, but it is still plenty good, with the sope blend of crisp and toothsome. A dollop of Quebrada's deep chipolotle salsa topped the sope and added to the package. Five locations.

Freddy's - Notice a pattern here? More and more, I am convinced that Freddy's is the best food store in Chicago. The level of artisanship and just flat out realness is found almost no where else in Chicago. A lot of places make their own fresh sausage, but at Freddy's, they make their own capicolla, salami, sopresseta and hams as well as their own breads too. Each day there are platters of food wholly reminiscent of Italy. Freddy's can pretty much fit in as a store in Italy. Yesterday, I picked up a round bread I have never seen there before. In texture, it resembled almost their ciabatta, but it was not as dry. It looked and tasted nearly exactly as the baked in the floor breads from Argo Georgian Bakery on Devon, but with a bit more stiffness and not as much yeast. A great bread. 1600 S. 61st Ave
Cicero, IL

Siam House - I've had some outstanding food at this restaurant in Niles that caters as much to Chicago's Thai community as it does to just plain lovers of Thai food, but that outstanding food avoided us the other night. As I mentioned on Chowhound, I did not work hard enough to get Thai-Thai. I know treasures lie buried in Siam's menu for next time. Still, at least one dish impressed me on Sunday, a half-chicken grill roasted and oozing Thai juices. 7742 N. Milwaukee Ave, Niles, IL

D.S.D. Delicatessen & Imports - One of these places you pass hundreds of times and you never think to enter only later to say why kind of places. A Serbian deli offering five (at least) varieties of red pepper spreads and the other basics of Euro important--chocolate wafer cookies, sour cherries in syrup, etc. In back are the meats. They roast and hack pigs, visually ultra-appealing with orange stiff skin, and they make a variety of smoked products. They eagerly sliced bits for me to try, practically forcing me to buy a garlic salami and two kinds of dry sausage. We put the product in the trunk, but within 20 minutes of driving, the entire car reeked Serbian. 3818 W. Lawrence, Chicago

Salam - With a bunch of restaurants around the Kedzie - Lawrence intersection, why do we almost always eat at Salam. Salam is not one of these restaurants run by one or two whirlwinds. Five or six fella's work at Salam at a time, and the effort shows. For instance, I had gone in back to use the restroom. And in back is the reason to go to Salam. Buckets of chick peas soak for hummus, fatah and other items, a bunch of collapsed, roasted eggplants stand ready to be baba ganoushed, and one of those five or six fella's worked a big bowl of fresh spinach for pies. He did confess that the pastry sheets came from next door, but he also stated that since this shop made their own phylo, the pies would be totally hand-made. Great minced jalepeno salsa too. 4636 N Kedzie Ave, Chicago, IL

The Sweet Shop Next to Salam This place seems to change owners and names every few years. Always, it sells high quality Middle-Eastern sweets. I am always torn between two: rectangles filled with a sweet cheese and triangles filled with a gooshy custard. Typically, I give in and buy both. On the other hand, I tried these little fried balls soaked in syrup, looking tempting near the register. I will have no problem avoiding these lead bombs again.

Le Coq - On Chowhound, some people said bad words about Le Coq in Oak Park. I disagree. Is Le Coq the perfect restaurant, hardly. Is it an ideal restaurant, damn close for sure. People have attacked their service, and we (well me as Ms. VI thought I was verging on nuts) rather challenged the service. I told them that I pretty much hated all American versions of chocroute garnie, would I like theirs. And I still ordered the dish. I also needled them for the lack of morels in the morel mushroom sauce on the asparagus. And the waiter did get a bit huffy, but I mean come on, it's not that hard to know the difference between a morel and a button mushroom. While I stopped arguing my apparently no win point, he did return with a small dish of more mushrooms, with a few more morels. Regardless, three things make this place near ideal. First, this may be just another bistro around town, but the dishes always taste of the chef. This is not restaurant doing French because that seems in. This is a crew grounded in actual French style food, and they create dishes that always strike me as a notch or two better than they need to be. Second, I was so pleased that the menu spoke spring and spoke spring pretty loudly. Asparagus and peas and morels and young cabbage were all over the place. And done so well too. The grilled asparagus with morel mushroom sauce, even with the miser's portion of morels drove home my fetish of seasonal eating. Every aspect of this dish exploded in my mouth. I weep from such real food. Third, this place knows value. I weep from such prices at Le Coq. Only a few dishes edge over $20. The rest are comfortably in the tens. The appetizers are priced realistically. Foie gras, OK, that costs a bit more, but if you want something else, like the asparagus, well you can get by for a lot less. Given the quality in the kitchen, the low prices are weep worthy. 734 Lake Street, Oak Park, IL