There are all sorts of pleasures in eating experiences. There is the canoodle with your honey; a meals made special from the libations alongside; high rollin' steak with buddies in Vegas; a work dinner closing a big project. Walking into lone restaurant on an industrial stretch of Roosevelt and finding the best restaurant in Chicagoland means something as does a multi-course degustation. Still, I find special pleasure, as I noted the other day, in sitting down with a bunch of likeminded folks and ordering for all of you, a few steak sandwiches, extra garlic butterine, and a side of relishes. Anyone can have a good meal, but hounding is about having it all at the table. Follow a very special Mexican meal with steaks coated in garlic butter. It is possible.
We had it all last week in another adventure down river from Chicago: hand made caramels and caramel apples from Dan's, very special chicken legs in green mole and beef with green tomato at Ameer Tapatio and steak sammy's, extra butterine (and three relishes) at Merichka's. I would say that the scenery along IL Route 83 alongside the Des Plaines River is suprisingly, gorgeously, bluff-y, and the food in and near Joliet is well worth the schlep.
I am incapable of heading toward Joliet without stopping at Honey Fluff Donut's, especially as they have a special of $3.50 for a dozen donuts after 2 PM. I negotiated hard to include a portion or apple fritters, the LTH house treat it seems, in my dozen. We settled on 8 "real" donuts and 2 fritters. Unfortunately, these donuts tasted like they were priced to go, not a showcase at all. My donut stop put me behind schedule, and my pleasure in taking the slow way, put me even further behind. I missed entirely Dan's Candy, benefiting, however, from Dickson's proxy purchases and SteveZ's pictures.
Dan's Candy:
I would say of Dan's, great caramel apples, great plain caramels, so-so caramel with nuts. For whatever reason, the caramels with nuts had a distracting chemicalish flavor.
On to Ameer Tapatio. As much pleasure as Ameer Tapatio gave me, I could not avoid some frustration. After the house-made salsas, after the salad, after the guisado of beef and fresh green tomato, after the 12th plate of home made tortillas, but during the wonderfully complex green mole, it boiled over. How could any summary of Mexican restaurants in Chicagoland, as Chicago Magazine recently attempted, skip this place. Sure, there was no lavish tequillas menu, and I do not think any of the workers knew Rick Bayless, but this place should be included. First of all, it is no secret at this point. Mugs did the hard work, finding this gem amongst the strip malls on the road out to the prison. It has been written about often on Chowhound and LTHForum. Second, it is truly fine Mexican food. You do not walk into a strip mall restaurant and normally expect a mole composed of about 10 ingredients including romaine lettuce, radish greens, pumpkin seeds and tomatillo's. And at that same dinner to have another sauce made with the linguistically similar but very different (botany speaking) green tomato. I am sorry. My anger at Dennis Wheaton diminished ever so slightly, my pleasure.
Here's the res entomado (beef in a sauce of green tomatoes)
And the chicken legs in green mole
We moved quickly upon the closure of Ameer Tapatio to Merichka's. I s'pose at one point, Merichka's was roadhouse in the mold of the late Horwath's, but like Horwath's, it is now surrounded by development. Merichka's menu of steaks, relishes, cracker baskets and $3 mixed drinks remains very old school. The house specialty at Merichka's is butterine, a mixture, we think, of butter, margarine, and fresh garlic. As much butterine as you can handle glistens the bread on the house steak sandwich. You can also get a hamburger done butterine style, which of course we did. Steak dinners come with relishes, but we had to order them on the side. Pickled beets, kidney beans and cottage cheese, the always amazing ReneG amazed me by downing a good portion of that cottage cheese with his steak sammy. I did not notice if doused it in butterine. We dispersed quickly back up river.
Sorry, I do not have the addresses handy.
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