In English, Mandarin Kitchen
There is a restaurant on Archer about where it leaves Chinatown. It is perhaps one of those cursed restaurant locations. For a while a place called Mandarin Kitchen served very good "real" Szechuan food (as compared with suburban Szechuan food) including a crispy chicken dish known by Chowhounds as gribenes chicken. Alas this restaurant is gone. A new restraurant is in its spot, and in English it is still know as Mandarin Kitchen. According to ReneG who has excellent resources, the place in Chinese is now called Da Jiang Nan Bei, meaning all over the county. It, however, specializes in the food of one part of the Chinese country, Shanghai. I've been twice and enjoyed nearly everything I've had except for the whole blue crabs. SethZ writes extensively about the fried fish with seaweed, which I did not know, but to him was an exemplar of Shanghainese cooking here.
The VI family celebrated the start of a new year last night, like good Jews, with Chinese food. And boy was it good Chinese food. Too much Chinese food at Mandarin Kitchen. There are three things I love about this place. First, it is entirely easy and simple to get the house speciality, Shanghai style Chinese food. There is no hidden menu, the specials on the board are translated (look on the board inside not by the door) and the staff appreciates your appreciation for eating the Shanghai food. Second, it is entirely easy to end up with way too much food. There are about 20 appetizers, mixed between hot and cold, and on one hand these dishes, alone are not that expensive, on the other hand, I want to order nearly everyone. Then, there is a page of family style dinners where you order 3 dishes for $23 (with soup), and most of the key items on the menu are availalbe on this page including eel. Yet, you cannot stop on this page because you also have to eat something from the page of noodles and rice cakes. Third, it is entirely easy to eat so well here as the cooking is superb in nearly every dish I've tried here.
Last night we had the following:
Salty vegegable with tofu (or salty tofu with vegetable, I cannot find my menu) - This is a favorite of the chowhounditas, an impossible to eat with chopsticks fine dice of tofu and seaweed (or something else green and vegetal).
Shanghai style fried tofu - This was not what I expected, well at lest not cubes of fried tofu I thought we pass off to the kids for some protein. It was a need RST to fully explain medly of tofu, some kind of strand, mushrooms and other fungi marinated in something red, I think similar to the Fukinese stuff that comes after making rice wine but without too much of the hard to handle "barnyard" aroma.
Soup - If you need another reason to order from the family choices, this soup was it, a light brown broth with soft tiles of tofu, seaweed and earthy mushrooms.
Pondfish in spicy bean sauce - I believe pond fish is carp, but the fish came out in thin slices, unusual for this kind of fish. BIG warning for small hidden bones, but if you appreciate the taste of freshwater fish, you will enjoy this fish greatly. The bean sauce is not that spicy.
Homemade sesame pancakes stuffed with bits of something yellow and fluffy - Very good
Soup dumplings with crab and pork - Very soupy. Strong crab roe flavor so you have to like that.
Homemade noodles with chicken and vegetables - This was the primo dish of the night, and if Mandarin Kitchen had nothing else good on the menu, I would adore this restaurant just for this dish. Chewy, toothsome noodles inflused with its sauce, garnished with lots of fresh vegetables and just a bit of diced chicken.
Chinese cabbage (baby bok choy) with bean curd sheets - Lots of vitamins and contrasting textures.
Salt and pepper shrimps - A very crisp version, the salt making more of a crust. They were good but not as good as Happy Chef, and the only dish I would not order again.
Mandarin Kitchen / Da Jiang Nan Bei
2143 S Archer Av
Chicago
Friday, September 17, 2004
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
My Big Fat Hyderbadi Wedding
Since I saw the revamped restaurant in the space at 2501 W. Devon, I've been anxious to try. Three things intrigued me. First, it proclaimed itself a branch of a restaurant with locations in California, Canada, etc. Although chains have their own issues, the notion that this place was good enough (or at least financed well enough) to expand made me want to try. Second, the buffet offered 20 items, and I am firmly in the more is better school of chow. Finally, the restaurant advertised an assortment of items typically not found on other buffets on Da'Bomb, South-Asian Muslim specialties like nehari and paya. With one last free Sunday before the chowhounditas religious school re-starts, we satisfied my wish this weekend.
Shahnawaz made me think I crashed some party. Not a posh, high caste affair, but a well intentioned, do our best party. There was a whole tandoor cooked leg of lamb, but you piled your slices on plastic plates. See what I mean. Likewise, this buffet included drinks, a sweet milk with pistachios, another milk flavored with strawberries (like you also see on Maxwell St.), salty lassi, and chai, but you drank them in styrofoam cups. And like a wedding, some of the stuff was very well done and some was just there. The salad plate featured fresher and more varied vegetables, including a relish of fine minced jalepenos. Very fresh vegetables also highlighted an oily, very spicy curry. I especially liked how the chunks of vegetables differed from the frozen peas and carrots seen on a lot of other buffets. There was lots of fresh made naan bread with puddles of melted ghee just the way my heat likes it. Then, there was a yellow dal tasting almost of glue (yet with really good carmelized onions). Both desserts, semolina halwa and kheer (rice pudding) sucked. Those drinks, however, made for great finishers.
As advertised, the buffet featured a bunch of Hyderbadi classics: nehari, haleem, sauteed lamb livers. The last was quite tasty even if a few pieces were tough. The haleem appeared to have no meat but was quite tasty and accented nicely by help yourself shreds of fresh ginger. The nehari, beef in a clove scented gravy suffered a bit from steam-table-itis. For one thing, you just could not pour it on your plastic plate in the right consistency. For another, it seemed a bit watery. On the other hand, I liked both tandoor cooked items. Much different than the typical buffet. Where others are food dye red, these are spice dominated. Even if you do not like well done lamb, this leg with sharp knife and tongs to assist you, make for great eating.
A lot of other families came to this party. We piled our plastic plates all over the place as we worked the lamb to its barest bone. Our music was more suitable for the prayer part of the festivities than the dancing party, but we still all enjoyed ourselves.
Shahnawaz
2501 W. Devon
Chicago, IL
773-743-6800
Since I saw the revamped restaurant in the space at 2501 W. Devon, I've been anxious to try. Three things intrigued me. First, it proclaimed itself a branch of a restaurant with locations in California, Canada, etc. Although chains have their own issues, the notion that this place was good enough (or at least financed well enough) to expand made me want to try. Second, the buffet offered 20 items, and I am firmly in the more is better school of chow. Finally, the restaurant advertised an assortment of items typically not found on other buffets on Da'Bomb, South-Asian Muslim specialties like nehari and paya. With one last free Sunday before the chowhounditas religious school re-starts, we satisfied my wish this weekend.
Shahnawaz made me think I crashed some party. Not a posh, high caste affair, but a well intentioned, do our best party. There was a whole tandoor cooked leg of lamb, but you piled your slices on plastic plates. See what I mean. Likewise, this buffet included drinks, a sweet milk with pistachios, another milk flavored with strawberries (like you also see on Maxwell St.), salty lassi, and chai, but you drank them in styrofoam cups. And like a wedding, some of the stuff was very well done and some was just there. The salad plate featured fresher and more varied vegetables, including a relish of fine minced jalepenos. Very fresh vegetables also highlighted an oily, very spicy curry. I especially liked how the chunks of vegetables differed from the frozen peas and carrots seen on a lot of other buffets. There was lots of fresh made naan bread with puddles of melted ghee just the way my heat likes it. Then, there was a yellow dal tasting almost of glue (yet with really good carmelized onions). Both desserts, semolina halwa and kheer (rice pudding) sucked. Those drinks, however, made for great finishers.
As advertised, the buffet featured a bunch of Hyderbadi classics: nehari, haleem, sauteed lamb livers. The last was quite tasty even if a few pieces were tough. The haleem appeared to have no meat but was quite tasty and accented nicely by help yourself shreds of fresh ginger. The nehari, beef in a clove scented gravy suffered a bit from steam-table-itis. For one thing, you just could not pour it on your plastic plate in the right consistency. For another, it seemed a bit watery. On the other hand, I liked both tandoor cooked items. Much different than the typical buffet. Where others are food dye red, these are spice dominated. Even if you do not like well done lamb, this leg with sharp knife and tongs to assist you, make for great eating.
A lot of other families came to this party. We piled our plastic plates all over the place as we worked the lamb to its barest bone. Our music was more suitable for the prayer part of the festivities than the dancing party, but we still all enjoyed ourselves.
Shahnawaz
2501 W. Devon
Chicago, IL
773-743-6800
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Maxwell Street Report - Sunday, 8/29/04
There have been some that wonder about array of mostly Mexican food served each week at the new "Maxwell Street Market (located on Canal Street). Is it a fetish for eating eyeballs or is it a source for really good, really special food. Yea, enough. How can anyone who takes time to eat at Maxwell call it anything less than delicious. Our walking feast the other day showed that. Here's a quick report:
- MIA - Two of the biggest, most talked about vendors were not there on Sunday. I am talking about the rico huarache people (or is that Rico's huaraches) and the "Come on in, come on in, masa specialists, El Colonial.
- Any ever realize there are not one but two purveyors of steamed beef head (which may include the ocular)? A while back, it was reported that the eyeball taco guys had opened a brick and mortar shop in Berwyn, El Chimbombo. I always assumed this was the place featured in the Gorilla Gourmet video. No. And on Sunday, that place and El Chimbombo stood across from each other, offering to give head. El Chimbombo made much more clear the offerings. If you knew Spanish, the words cheeks, lips and eyes were in big letters. The other guys kinda hide what's there. I skipped both.
- The Salvadoran place remains one of my favorite places to eat. Typically, we get there when long full, but on Sunday we went there first. So instead of being full before pupusas, we filled ourselves with pupusas of beans and chicharron with plenty of the free slaw and the hot sauce was very.
- A churro made fresh for you remains a churro really worth eating.
- Fresh zucchini flowers, day-glo bright, were so vivid they caught my eye from 10 feet away. It made a very healthy filling inside a fresh made quesadilla at the stand at the intersection of Maxwell and Canal.
- The pambaso at the stand further south, almost to the end of the market looks scary with its blood red chile sauce drenched bread but really gets its flavor from the fry that bread gets.
- I cannot resist the homemade flour empanadas with sweet filings, this time apple pie, sold amongst the cowboy clothes.
Maxwell Street offers the kind of street food you might find in various parts of Mexico. It's interesting because there are things not so much on offer at the neighborhood burrito stand including steamed beef head, birria and its consume, and huitalachoche. There are many places that still work from fresh masa, converting it into pupusas, huaraches, gorditas, empanadas, quesadillas and plain old tacos. You can get meat right off a charcoal fired grill and you can get meat from the nether regions of the cow. How can this not be good eating.
There have been some that wonder about array of mostly Mexican food served each week at the new "Maxwell Street Market (located on Canal Street). Is it a fetish for eating eyeballs or is it a source for really good, really special food. Yea, enough. How can anyone who takes time to eat at Maxwell call it anything less than delicious. Our walking feast the other day showed that. Here's a quick report:
- MIA - Two of the biggest, most talked about vendors were not there on Sunday. I am talking about the rico huarache people (or is that Rico's huaraches) and the "Come on in, come on in, masa specialists, El Colonial.
- Any ever realize there are not one but two purveyors of steamed beef head (which may include the ocular)? A while back, it was reported that the eyeball taco guys had opened a brick and mortar shop in Berwyn, El Chimbombo. I always assumed this was the place featured in the Gorilla Gourmet video. No. And on Sunday, that place and El Chimbombo stood across from each other, offering to give head. El Chimbombo made much more clear the offerings. If you knew Spanish, the words cheeks, lips and eyes were in big letters. The other guys kinda hide what's there. I skipped both.
- The Salvadoran place remains one of my favorite places to eat. Typically, we get there when long full, but on Sunday we went there first. So instead of being full before pupusas, we filled ourselves with pupusas of beans and chicharron with plenty of the free slaw and the hot sauce was very.
- A churro made fresh for you remains a churro really worth eating.
- Fresh zucchini flowers, day-glo bright, were so vivid they caught my eye from 10 feet away. It made a very healthy filling inside a fresh made quesadilla at the stand at the intersection of Maxwell and Canal.
- The pambaso at the stand further south, almost to the end of the market looks scary with its blood red chile sauce drenched bread but really gets its flavor from the fry that bread gets.
- I cannot resist the homemade flour empanadas with sweet filings, this time apple pie, sold amongst the cowboy clothes.
Maxwell Street offers the kind of street food you might find in various parts of Mexico. It's interesting because there are things not so much on offer at the neighborhood burrito stand including steamed beef head, birria and its consume, and huitalachoche. There are many places that still work from fresh masa, converting it into pupusas, huaraches, gorditas, empanadas, quesadillas and plain old tacos. You can get meat right off a charcoal fired grill and you can get meat from the nether regions of the cow. How can this not be good eating.
Monday, August 30, 2004
Bittersweet
The other day on Chowhound a few people (maybe as with their software you never really know) attacked the quality of service at the bakery-cafe, Bittersweet. Having just been there for a nice lunch with the family, I objected, having had fine service. Still, as I knew we were going back as part of the birthday celebration for the Condiment Queen, I promised to report back. And, the service was fine.
Using a team approach, the waiters took fine care of us. Giving us a few minutes from sit-down to decide but not so long as how much is there to decide on a five item menu. Drinks and soup came quickly, and when the soup came tepid, they were around enough to fix the problem. When we stayed at our table just a moment past when we should have arisen, they realized we wanted dessert. All of the time, they smiled and seemed happy to be surrounded by a store this close to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.
Now ask me about the food? Fine service, not so fine food. Never had food this mediocre at Bittersweet. The cesar salad lacked any power, the dressing tasting like mayonnaise. The sliced chicken on top got to be both bland and rubbery. The gazpacho was a nearly smooth version of tomato soup, not the can't taste the specific chunks of summer vegetables that the CQ herself makes. The ice cream was uncharacteristically heavy and one note-ish in its flavor (like frozen peanut-butter). Only the quiche and the best of show pecan roll met the usual high standards. Good thing I liked the service.
Bittersweet
1114 W. Belmont Ave.,
Chicago
(773) 929-1100
The other day on Chowhound a few people (maybe as with their software you never really know) attacked the quality of service at the bakery-cafe, Bittersweet. Having just been there for a nice lunch with the family, I objected, having had fine service. Still, as I knew we were going back as part of the birthday celebration for the Condiment Queen, I promised to report back. And, the service was fine.
Using a team approach, the waiters took fine care of us. Giving us a few minutes from sit-down to decide but not so long as how much is there to decide on a five item menu. Drinks and soup came quickly, and when the soup came tepid, they were around enough to fix the problem. When we stayed at our table just a moment past when we should have arisen, they realized we wanted dessert. All of the time, they smiled and seemed happy to be surrounded by a store this close to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.
Now ask me about the food? Fine service, not so fine food. Never had food this mediocre at Bittersweet. The cesar salad lacked any power, the dressing tasting like mayonnaise. The sliced chicken on top got to be both bland and rubbery. The gazpacho was a nearly smooth version of tomato soup, not the can't taste the specific chunks of summer vegetables that the CQ herself makes. The ice cream was uncharacteristically heavy and one note-ish in its flavor (like frozen peanut-butter). Only the quiche and the best of show pecan roll met the usual high standards. Good thing I liked the service.
Bittersweet
1114 W. Belmont Ave.,
Chicago
(773) 929-1100
Thus Goeth Popeye's?
I have never believed in the original or the sole. I've long believed that a restaurant can be copied, reproduced or otherwise extended beyond the ability of one person to cook on a regular basis. Exhibit 1 was always Popeye's Fried Chicken. Popeye's chicken did not taste good for a fast food restaurant. It was good tasting fried chicken. It had its gimmick, the undercoating of red pepper, but that was hardly the point. It was what you wanted in fried chicken, not stale and soggy, not greasy, not bland. Along side, you got awful but in a good way or was that good in an awful way, faux biscuits. The rest of the menu sucked, but did you care?
The Popeye's branch near the Brickyard Mall, on Grand near Narragansett, is awful, dreadful, awful. The chicken there tastes far from fresh, like it was purchased by a food broker haggling away merchandise just before their drop-dead dates (some pun intended). And it is small, dry and fried to a papery crisp that seems so unlike the Popeye's that made me believe. Is it this Popeye's or all Popeye's.
Oddly enough, I find myself needing to go to the Brickyard Popeye's because the Oak Park Popeye's is even worse, but the Oak Park Popeye's is so readily poor in a you can see we are not trying that I can see that this branch is a real exception to any franchise rules. The Brickyard branch has visible management, and I see this management a lot. I know they are trying for something. What I am not so sure about, are they trying to be Popeye's on the cheap, or are all Popeye's trying for the cheap?
What do you say?
I have never believed in the original or the sole. I've long believed that a restaurant can be copied, reproduced or otherwise extended beyond the ability of one person to cook on a regular basis. Exhibit 1 was always Popeye's Fried Chicken. Popeye's chicken did not taste good for a fast food restaurant. It was good tasting fried chicken. It had its gimmick, the undercoating of red pepper, but that was hardly the point. It was what you wanted in fried chicken, not stale and soggy, not greasy, not bland. Along side, you got awful but in a good way or was that good in an awful way, faux biscuits. The rest of the menu sucked, but did you care?
The Popeye's branch near the Brickyard Mall, on Grand near Narragansett, is awful, dreadful, awful. The chicken there tastes far from fresh, like it was purchased by a food broker haggling away merchandise just before their drop-dead dates (some pun intended). And it is small, dry and fried to a papery crisp that seems so unlike the Popeye's that made me believe. Is it this Popeye's or all Popeye's.
Oddly enough, I find myself needing to go to the Brickyard Popeye's because the Oak Park Popeye's is even worse, but the Oak Park Popeye's is so readily poor in a you can see we are not trying that I can see that this branch is a real exception to any franchise rules. The Brickyard branch has visible management, and I see this management a lot. I know they are trying for something. What I am not so sure about, are they trying to be Popeye's on the cheap, or are all Popeye's trying for the cheap?
What do you say?
Le Coq, Oak Park, Almost Perfect
I have a post almost done on a few recent meals at perfect restaurants. Until I reveal what I makes a restaurant perfect, I shall say of Oak Park's Le Coq, it is not. Still a place I enjoy greatly. The tight room looks about as picture perfect as possible, exact without the hyper-realism of say Lettuce Entertain You or Vegas. The changing menu always offers more more than one dish that sounds exactly what I want, and the choices are always so good that I have never gone for the bistro fall-back, the steak-frites. The service tries very hard and there is a sense of professionalism and savior faire that approaches continental. Finally, everything I have eaten there tastes very good.
On the other hand, I would prefer not to see asparagus on a menu in late August. I would like to see a couple of dishes, well at least one be a little risky. Not foam-food risky but bistro classic risky, kidneys in mustard sauce or pig's feet risky. My dish the other night came with french fries, really great, fresh cut french fries, but you know what they fries tasted most of? Parky's nearby. The same thin, brown, salty wonders sold at Parky's (ah if Parky's could have other food as good). Great fries, but I like my Parky's fries at Parky's and at a French place, I would like exceedingly classic, double-fried in suet, blonde French fries. And because of the very nature of Le Coq, it occasionally stumbles in its execution. The staff tries but occasional blunders, and can also get a bit testy. Sometimes a dish comes out too cold, something that has happened the last two times we visited Le Coq.
Luckily, I do not seek perfect restaurants. I seek meals like we had the other night at Le Coq. I have honestly never had a better Lyonaise salad than I had that night. A salad to convert Hat Hammond, the way Halina's soup converted him to soup. Garlic chicken with preserved lemons equaled the intensity of the salad, and buttery-crust apple tart made it a bistro ending. I like this place a lot.
Le Coq
734 Lake Street
Oak Park, IL
(708) 848-2233
I have a post almost done on a few recent meals at perfect restaurants. Until I reveal what I makes a restaurant perfect, I shall say of Oak Park's Le Coq, it is not. Still a place I enjoy greatly. The tight room looks about as picture perfect as possible, exact without the hyper-realism of say Lettuce Entertain You or Vegas. The changing menu always offers more more than one dish that sounds exactly what I want, and the choices are always so good that I have never gone for the bistro fall-back, the steak-frites. The service tries very hard and there is a sense of professionalism and savior faire that approaches continental. Finally, everything I have eaten there tastes very good.
On the other hand, I would prefer not to see asparagus on a menu in late August. I would like to see a couple of dishes, well at least one be a little risky. Not foam-food risky but bistro classic risky, kidneys in mustard sauce or pig's feet risky. My dish the other night came with french fries, really great, fresh cut french fries, but you know what they fries tasted most of? Parky's nearby. The same thin, brown, salty wonders sold at Parky's (ah if Parky's could have other food as good). Great fries, but I like my Parky's fries at Parky's and at a French place, I would like exceedingly classic, double-fried in suet, blonde French fries. And because of the very nature of Le Coq, it occasionally stumbles in its execution. The staff tries but occasional blunders, and can also get a bit testy. Sometimes a dish comes out too cold, something that has happened the last two times we visited Le Coq.
Luckily, I do not seek perfect restaurants. I seek meals like we had the other night at Le Coq. I have honestly never had a better Lyonaise salad than I had that night. A salad to convert Hat Hammond, the way Halina's soup converted him to soup. Garlic chicken with preserved lemons equaled the intensity of the salad, and buttery-crust apple tart made it a bistro ending. I like this place a lot.
Le Coq
734 Lake Street
Oak Park, IL
(708) 848-2233
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Silver Seafood
I have a tendency to pick my favorite restaurants by the amount of stuff served as well as the quality of stuff served. I do not mean big portions, although that helps. I mean stuff. For instance, I prefer Steve's Shish Kebab House for Middle-Eastern Food as much for the hand-chopped kefta and fresh made falafal as I do for the relish tray with Arabian giardianara, blop of vegetables over rice, and other things that come with the dinners. For Cantonese, Happy Chef makes the best head-on salt and pepper shrimps, but that is not why it is my favorite. It is my favorite for the always tasty left-over dim sum soup served before each dinner (no really conch slices and chicken feet make good soup) and the really not that tasty sweet and gritty bean soup served for dessert. I favor the places with the extras, but sometimes I favor a place without a bunch of extras. Just one thing special. Not even a dish. Just a sauce.
That was Silver Seafood at lunch today. We ordered steam clams. With this came the most wondrous of sauces. Any idiot could make this sauce: soy, sesame oil, jalepenos, ginger, scallion, a touch of black vinegar, but only an expert could make it as good as Silver Seafood did. Spicy, salty and oily, it stood as the perfect foil to the sea-ness of the clams. Only a few stray bits of shell and a touch of grit possibly halted the pleasure. When I finished the clams, I drank some sauce plain.
The rest was all done well too. We had "hollow vegetable" in garlic, not a light version. The vegetable sat in a pool of liquid similar in color and heft to pot likker from Southern greens. Softshell crabs in spicy-salt benefited from a huge amount of jalepenos and some very crabby soft-shells. The irony of lunch today is that I passed on the always delicious Thai Avenue for Silver Seafood because I had a bit of a gyppy tummy, and we ended up eating some spicy stuff--not Thai Avenue spicy--but spicy at Silver Seafood.
I am not an expert of the gradations of quality at Silver Seafood, but both times I have went, today included, it was about as good as I want (absent the dim sum soup).
Silver Seafood
4829 N. Broadway
Chicago, IL
773-784-0668
I have a tendency to pick my favorite restaurants by the amount of stuff served as well as the quality of stuff served. I do not mean big portions, although that helps. I mean stuff. For instance, I prefer Steve's Shish Kebab House for Middle-Eastern Food as much for the hand-chopped kefta and fresh made falafal as I do for the relish tray with Arabian giardianara, blop of vegetables over rice, and other things that come with the dinners. For Cantonese, Happy Chef makes the best head-on salt and pepper shrimps, but that is not why it is my favorite. It is my favorite for the always tasty left-over dim sum soup served before each dinner (no really conch slices and chicken feet make good soup) and the really not that tasty sweet and gritty bean soup served for dessert. I favor the places with the extras, but sometimes I favor a place without a bunch of extras. Just one thing special. Not even a dish. Just a sauce.
That was Silver Seafood at lunch today. We ordered steam clams. With this came the most wondrous of sauces. Any idiot could make this sauce: soy, sesame oil, jalepenos, ginger, scallion, a touch of black vinegar, but only an expert could make it as good as Silver Seafood did. Spicy, salty and oily, it stood as the perfect foil to the sea-ness of the clams. Only a few stray bits of shell and a touch of grit possibly halted the pleasure. When I finished the clams, I drank some sauce plain.
The rest was all done well too. We had "hollow vegetable" in garlic, not a light version. The vegetable sat in a pool of liquid similar in color and heft to pot likker from Southern greens. Softshell crabs in spicy-salt benefited from a huge amount of jalepenos and some very crabby soft-shells. The irony of lunch today is that I passed on the always delicious Thai Avenue for Silver Seafood because I had a bit of a gyppy tummy, and we ended up eating some spicy stuff--not Thai Avenue spicy--but spicy at Silver Seafood.
I am not an expert of the gradations of quality at Silver Seafood, but both times I have went, today included, it was about as good as I want (absent the dim sum soup).
Silver Seafood
4829 N. Broadway
Chicago, IL
773-784-0668
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
India by London in Chicago
Of all the great treats on Da'Bomb, one of the most impressive is the chicken chagra at Sabri Nehari. Quite unconventional, but surely a tribute to its hometown, Chicago. Like many an urban chicken shack, Sabri fries a chicken and then fresh from the fryer, doses it with Louisiana hot sauce. Now, at Harold's you will always find your chicken cut into parts unlike the whole fried chicken at Sabri, and at Harold's there is never a heavy hand of sub-continental spices to add a finishing touch to the chicken. Still, Sabri must have conceived their dish as a homage to their home town. I know and love the Chicago style South-Asian food.
What about London style right here in Chicago? While my thoughts of Ambla have been percolating in my mind for over a week, Lill on Chowhound scooped me. What she sez, especially the part about generous sampling. The halwa that we purchased had about the most ideal texture I seek in food. The way you chewed it yet did not crunch it. Unlike the other chat shops on Da'Bomb, Ambla is strictly take-out. To keep our afternoon thematically consistent, we followed up a visit to Ambla with a visit to Kabbabish of London.
While I am not going to look up or cite past Kabbabish reports, my memory is that it did not get raving reviews. And the store was empty near five, giving us even less incentive to enter. Really, if only because I organize my chowing as fodder for the blog, did we decided to try Kabbabish of London. And it turns out that fodder worked. We liked all this London style South Asian food. Now, while I can easily see how Sabri's Harold's influenced chicken chagra IS Chicago, I can less see how this was London style. Sure, the dishes had names like London Gosht and Birmingham chicken, but in execution, they did not seem that different. The individual dishes are pretty cheap, allowing us to order a fair amount. We liked everything we ordered, especially the seek kebabs that had a nice hacked meat texture instead of being finely ground. We also really liked the wet dishes, although you have to have a strong stomach for ghee, clarified butter. The nan and parantha were much better than the so called specialist loved by some a few blocks away. Like my friends at the Bangladeshi restaurant, the owners of Kabbabish of London eagerly engaged us.
I would offer that, from one afternoon on Da'Bomb, London is well represented in Chicago.
Sabri Nehari
2511 W. Devon Ave
Chicago
Ambla Sweets
2741 W. Devon
Chicago
Kabbabish of London
2437 W Devon
Chicago, IL
Harold's Fried Chicken
Multuple locations
Of all the great treats on Da'Bomb, one of the most impressive is the chicken chagra at Sabri Nehari. Quite unconventional, but surely a tribute to its hometown, Chicago. Like many an urban chicken shack, Sabri fries a chicken and then fresh from the fryer, doses it with Louisiana hot sauce. Now, at Harold's you will always find your chicken cut into parts unlike the whole fried chicken at Sabri, and at Harold's there is never a heavy hand of sub-continental spices to add a finishing touch to the chicken. Still, Sabri must have conceived their dish as a homage to their home town. I know and love the Chicago style South-Asian food.
What about London style right here in Chicago? While my thoughts of Ambla have been percolating in my mind for over a week, Lill on Chowhound scooped me. What she sez, especially the part about generous sampling. The halwa that we purchased had about the most ideal texture I seek in food. The way you chewed it yet did not crunch it. Unlike the other chat shops on Da'Bomb, Ambla is strictly take-out. To keep our afternoon thematically consistent, we followed up a visit to Ambla with a visit to Kabbabish of London.
While I am not going to look up or cite past Kabbabish reports, my memory is that it did not get raving reviews. And the store was empty near five, giving us even less incentive to enter. Really, if only because I organize my chowing as fodder for the blog, did we decided to try Kabbabish of London. And it turns out that fodder worked. We liked all this London style South Asian food. Now, while I can easily see how Sabri's Harold's influenced chicken chagra IS Chicago, I can less see how this was London style. Sure, the dishes had names like London Gosht and Birmingham chicken, but in execution, they did not seem that different. The individual dishes are pretty cheap, allowing us to order a fair amount. We liked everything we ordered, especially the seek kebabs that had a nice hacked meat texture instead of being finely ground. We also really liked the wet dishes, although you have to have a strong stomach for ghee, clarified butter. The nan and parantha were much better than the so called specialist loved by some a few blocks away. Like my friends at the Bangladeshi restaurant, the owners of Kabbabish of London eagerly engaged us.
I would offer that, from one afternoon on Da'Bomb, London is well represented in Chicago.
Sabri Nehari
2511 W. Devon Ave
Chicago
Ambla Sweets
2741 W. Devon
Chicago
Kabbabish of London
2437 W Devon
Chicago, IL
Harold's Fried Chicken
Multuple locations
Saturday, July 24, 2004
Mysore Woodlands vs. Udupi Palace
Da'Bomb hosts two South Indian restaurants of almost exact menu, the way dim sum places vary by only a bun or two. I've tended to favor Udupi on the south side of the street instead of Mysore on the north, but Mysore has many fans. We decided to give Mysore a shot last night. Right now, I'd say that I like the cooking a bit better at Udupi, but the portions are larger at Mysore and that might give it an advantage.
We ordered across the menu, in a way that probably no South Indian would, but there is too much good food to try at Mysore (or Udupi) and we just do not make it to these places enough to sample everything. So, we got an order of samosas, essentially for the chowhounditas, who have settled in pretty comfortably to the samosa as their single favorite food to eat. We got the thicker pancake, utthapam, loaded with soft cooked onions and topped with frozen peas and carrots, because that was what they were eating a lot in the Condiment Queen's book. We got the thinner, crisper pancake, dosai, with the standard yellow potato inside, because that is probably the dish of the house. Chicago Magazine once ran a picture of a boa constrictor sized dosai offered at Mysore. We got the channa (chick pea curry) battura because Dad loves the deflated basketball (as food God Jonathan Gold expertly describes them) puffy baturas. We got a non-regional bread, parantha stuffed with potatoes just because, and we got curd rice 'cause it sounded so good and well, what's a doggy bag for? Everything was good enough, although the batura was not quite as special as Udupi. Lighter, drier, it did not have that dual skin as much, of crisp and chew, that makes batura such a special bread. The samosas were thick and tasty, very tasty inside, but they seemed on their 3rd fry of the day. Still, as I say, the portions were generous and these are minor quibbles.
With this Atkin's nightmare come an assortment of sauces, dips and condiments: mint chutney, bracing and sneaking hot; coconut chutney, cool, grainy but also heavily spiced; a raita or yoghurt that had, we swear, pickles in it, not Indian pickles, but regular pickles; there was sambar, the soupy stuff with all sorts of things swimming inside, here a woody vegetable/herb that I mistakenly bit and then spent five minutes extracting stems from my mouth, and actual Indian pickle, a mixed breed with peppers and wonderful pieces of garlic that were whole but softened up by the process. You mix and match all these flavors with all scoopers.
The curd rice came out last, nearly after we had finished everything else. I guess it takes longest to prepare. I like that it came out last for a couple of reasons. First, this dish of rice, hidden bits of ginger and intense, probably home made curd, nails your tongue. Eat this and you are not really ready to eat another five courses. It finished the meal off well, dessert like in appearance, so creamy, but not sweet at all. Finally, it was, I am sure, the easiest dish to bring home, so of all the things to have a bit extra of, this was it. I would say, however, that it is the best dish in the house--and waiting for Zim to tell me where the best curd rice is on Da'bomb as I have not made a survey.
Mysore Woodlands
2548 W. Devon Ave.
Chicago, IL
773.338.8160
Udupi Palace (the batura is much better)
2543 W Devon Av
Chicago, IL
Da'Bomb hosts two South Indian restaurants of almost exact menu, the way dim sum places vary by only a bun or two. I've tended to favor Udupi on the south side of the street instead of Mysore on the north, but Mysore has many fans. We decided to give Mysore a shot last night. Right now, I'd say that I like the cooking a bit better at Udupi, but the portions are larger at Mysore and that might give it an advantage.
We ordered across the menu, in a way that probably no South Indian would, but there is too much good food to try at Mysore (or Udupi) and we just do not make it to these places enough to sample everything. So, we got an order of samosas, essentially for the chowhounditas, who have settled in pretty comfortably to the samosa as their single favorite food to eat. We got the thicker pancake, utthapam, loaded with soft cooked onions and topped with frozen peas and carrots, because that was what they were eating a lot in the Condiment Queen's book. We got the thinner, crisper pancake, dosai, with the standard yellow potato inside, because that is probably the dish of the house. Chicago Magazine once ran a picture of a boa constrictor sized dosai offered at Mysore. We got the channa (chick pea curry) battura because Dad loves the deflated basketball (as food God Jonathan Gold expertly describes them) puffy baturas. We got a non-regional bread, parantha stuffed with potatoes just because, and we got curd rice 'cause it sounded so good and well, what's a doggy bag for? Everything was good enough, although the batura was not quite as special as Udupi. Lighter, drier, it did not have that dual skin as much, of crisp and chew, that makes batura such a special bread. The samosas were thick and tasty, very tasty inside, but they seemed on their 3rd fry of the day. Still, as I say, the portions were generous and these are minor quibbles.
With this Atkin's nightmare come an assortment of sauces, dips and condiments: mint chutney, bracing and sneaking hot; coconut chutney, cool, grainy but also heavily spiced; a raita or yoghurt that had, we swear, pickles in it, not Indian pickles, but regular pickles; there was sambar, the soupy stuff with all sorts of things swimming inside, here a woody vegetable/herb that I mistakenly bit and then spent five minutes extracting stems from my mouth, and actual Indian pickle, a mixed breed with peppers and wonderful pieces of garlic that were whole but softened up by the process. You mix and match all these flavors with all scoopers.
The curd rice came out last, nearly after we had finished everything else. I guess it takes longest to prepare. I like that it came out last for a couple of reasons. First, this dish of rice, hidden bits of ginger and intense, probably home made curd, nails your tongue. Eat this and you are not really ready to eat another five courses. It finished the meal off well, dessert like in appearance, so creamy, but not sweet at all. Finally, it was, I am sure, the easiest dish to bring home, so of all the things to have a bit extra of, this was it. I would say, however, that it is the best dish in the house--and waiting for Zim to tell me where the best curd rice is on Da'bomb as I have not made a survey.
Mysore Woodlands
2548 W. Devon Ave.
Chicago, IL
773.338.8160
Udupi Palace (the batura is much better)
2543 W Devon Av
Chicago, IL
Thursday, July 22, 2004
Bombacigno's J & C Restaurant - One for Another Beefathon (fer sure)
I had to meet someone for lunch yesterday in the West Loop. You know you are not with Chowhounds when they suggest eating in Union Station. I countered with J&C's Bombacigno's. Actually, this was my counter to his counter. I originally suggested Lou Mitchell's, which had been countered with Union Station. Maybe it was clever subconscious negotiating on my part, because once I thought of J&C, I knew that was where I really wanted to go.
And boy was it worth it. J&C's beef is one of the few that is a variation on a theme, the way Al's is. That is, there is the standard version of Chicago beef, which is epitomized by Johnnies, and then there is the distinctly different beef that is Al's. J&C's while not exactly like Al's, tastes a lot closer to Al's than any other beef I've had in Chicago. They also use a different bun, from Dakota Pride. It is a crisper, lighter roll, almost like a New Orleans po' boy roll. The effect of this roll is that it both falls apart at the seams yet stays very crusty on top. In fact the J&C sammy is a big mess, and the best way to eat it is with scoops of bread, the way, say you would eat Moroccan or Ethiopian food.
The other outstanding thing about J&C's is the cottage fries. Made to order, they also remind me slightly of Al's, with the same sweet flavor achieved from nearly burning the potatoes. The gilding of the lily here, thought, is that the gravy from the beef seeps all over your basket, rendering a lot of the fries limp, but infused with essence of beef.
Finally, like Al's, J&C's aint cheap. My beef, hot, fries, and bottomless cup of pop ran to nearly $10. Still, one of the best lunches in a while.
Bombacigno's J & C Restaurant
558 W. Van Buren Ave.
Chicago, IL
312-663-4114
I had to meet someone for lunch yesterday in the West Loop. You know you are not with Chowhounds when they suggest eating in Union Station. I countered with J&C's Bombacigno's. Actually, this was my counter to his counter. I originally suggested Lou Mitchell's, which had been countered with Union Station. Maybe it was clever subconscious negotiating on my part, because once I thought of J&C, I knew that was where I really wanted to go.
And boy was it worth it. J&C's beef is one of the few that is a variation on a theme, the way Al's is. That is, there is the standard version of Chicago beef, which is epitomized by Johnnies, and then there is the distinctly different beef that is Al's. J&C's while not exactly like Al's, tastes a lot closer to Al's than any other beef I've had in Chicago. They also use a different bun, from Dakota Pride. It is a crisper, lighter roll, almost like a New Orleans po' boy roll. The effect of this roll is that it both falls apart at the seams yet stays very crusty on top. In fact the J&C sammy is a big mess, and the best way to eat it is with scoops of bread, the way, say you would eat Moroccan or Ethiopian food.
The other outstanding thing about J&C's is the cottage fries. Made to order, they also remind me slightly of Al's, with the same sweet flavor achieved from nearly burning the potatoes. The gilding of the lily here, thought, is that the gravy from the beef seeps all over your basket, rendering a lot of the fries limp, but infused with essence of beef.
Finally, like Al's, J&C's aint cheap. My beef, hot, fries, and bottomless cup of pop ran to nearly $10. Still, one of the best lunches in a while.
Bombacigno's J & C Restaurant
558 W. Van Buren Ave.
Chicago, IL
312-663-4114
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
Movie Critics, Restaurant Critics or Jimmy Johns and Tasty Dog
There are two essential differences between movie critics and restaurant critics, or maybe better put, movie criticism and restaurant criticism. Movie critics, at least the mainstream ones like Roger Ebert (my trusted source), see pretty much every movie coming out. And while a good critic like Ebert has some subjectivity to his ratings (a good dumb comedy), he rates every movie against a golden mean. So, we know, which are good, which dreck. Food critics of equal stature, say a Phil Vettel, take an opposite approach. Of all the new places opened, they pick and choose which to report on, and many food writers state they just do not report on the bad places. These, we are left to find our own. Now, the other difference, obviously, is, as I have discussed in the past, foodie experiences vary so much. Did you get the "real" food, the VIP treatment. One person's damn favorite restaurant can be viewed by another as hardly worth the calories. That does not mean your opinion does not count, and we need to get them.
Restaurant critics should be a bit more like movie critics. Let's get the good with the dreck. Maybe then I would have never thought, well let's give Jimmy Johns a try. We had just left a pleasant few hours at family swim in Oak Park. We needed a quick meal and connoisseurship was not a priority. We planned on the nearby Tasty Dog, not a great hot dog stand, but edible enough. Then, we noticed the newer Oak Park Jimmy Johns, and given the hold that Tasty Dog has on us, we said, how 'bout Jimmy Johns.
I could tell from first glances that this was a stupid choice, I could see the turkey and roast beef had an unnatural pink glow, and the bread just looked squishy, but the chowhounditas were already cooing over the place (for some odd reason). It only got worse. As I told the kidz later on, it's no Subway. I mean at least Subway has a bunch of things to put on the sub to kill the taste. Jimmy Johns had only lettuce, tomato and some useless banana peppers to kill the cheap, over-processed meat. Not only that, the lettuce and tomatoes were so cold, it was almost as if eating the famous frozen salad at Trio.
Desperate to please our suffering palate, we crossed the street to Tasty Dog, victims to sign advertising: "We now serve softserve". Well, it was cold like the lettuce was cold. The lettuce had crunch though. I could have put an ice cube on an ice cream cone and got about the same experience as the Tasty Dog softserve.
VI eats AND writes about it, so you do not have to.
If you really need to mimic these experiences, both Tasty Dog and Jimmy Johns are on Lake Street in Oak Park just east of Oak Park Avenue.
There are two essential differences between movie critics and restaurant critics, or maybe better put, movie criticism and restaurant criticism. Movie critics, at least the mainstream ones like Roger Ebert (my trusted source), see pretty much every movie coming out. And while a good critic like Ebert has some subjectivity to his ratings (a good dumb comedy), he rates every movie against a golden mean. So, we know, which are good, which dreck. Food critics of equal stature, say a Phil Vettel, take an opposite approach. Of all the new places opened, they pick and choose which to report on, and many food writers state they just do not report on the bad places. These, we are left to find our own. Now, the other difference, obviously, is, as I have discussed in the past, foodie experiences vary so much. Did you get the "real" food, the VIP treatment. One person's damn favorite restaurant can be viewed by another as hardly worth the calories. That does not mean your opinion does not count, and we need to get them.
Restaurant critics should be a bit more like movie critics. Let's get the good with the dreck. Maybe then I would have never thought, well let's give Jimmy Johns a try. We had just left a pleasant few hours at family swim in Oak Park. We needed a quick meal and connoisseurship was not a priority. We planned on the nearby Tasty Dog, not a great hot dog stand, but edible enough. Then, we noticed the newer Oak Park Jimmy Johns, and given the hold that Tasty Dog has on us, we said, how 'bout Jimmy Johns.
I could tell from first glances that this was a stupid choice, I could see the turkey and roast beef had an unnatural pink glow, and the bread just looked squishy, but the chowhounditas were already cooing over the place (for some odd reason). It only got worse. As I told the kidz later on, it's no Subway. I mean at least Subway has a bunch of things to put on the sub to kill the taste. Jimmy Johns had only lettuce, tomato and some useless banana peppers to kill the cheap, over-processed meat. Not only that, the lettuce and tomatoes were so cold, it was almost as if eating the famous frozen salad at Trio.
Desperate to please our suffering palate, we crossed the street to Tasty Dog, victims to sign advertising: "We now serve softserve". Well, it was cold like the lettuce was cold. The lettuce had crunch though. I could have put an ice cube on an ice cream cone and got about the same experience as the Tasty Dog softserve.
VI eats AND writes about it, so you do not have to.
If you really need to mimic these experiences, both Tasty Dog and Jimmy Johns are on Lake Street in Oak Park just east of Oak Park Avenue.
Monday, July 12, 2004
Make that 8 Courses of Beef
The Condiment Queen is a varied, voracious and especially multi-culti reader. And luckily for me, her reading habits dovetail nicely with my eating habits (which are varied, voracious and multi-culti). When she reads an Indian book, well, its off to da'bomb for us. When it's like now, reading a Vietnamese book, well it was not soon before we made it too Argyle.
Not only did she have a hankering for Vietnamese, moments after we sat down at Nhu Hoa, our favorite combo Vietnamese-Laotian spot on Argyle, than she surprised me by stating she also had a hankering for the seven course of beef. Am I lucky or what. I'm no expert on 7 course of beef, having only had it once before on Argyle, but of the two, this was my favorite, if nothing else, the portions were bigger. Plus, I was spoiled, by the 8th course of beef.
I have helped widely disseminate (I think [ed. you hope]) the notion that Nhu Hoa makes the best papaya salad in Chicago. Yesterday's 8th course, papaya salad and beef jerky, exceedingly hot, confirmed my belief. Irregularly hacked papaya, some not fully loose so that they were papaya shards not papaya shreds, way too much fish sauce, way, way too much hot peppers (but Julie of Nhu Hoa loves to reward those who ask for their papaya salad hot) and really way too much food as we had seven more courses to follow.
Here they are, quickly, in the order they appeared: beef papaya salad, much different from the other papaya salad, tasting maybe a bit too much of perfume from a lavender like herb, the meat as soft as the jerky was hard; ground beef in la lot leaves, thin steak wrapped around pineapple. Both of these dishes are meant to be eaten with tons of accessories, lettuce, daikon, carrots, mint, basil, cilantro, you mix and match so much, no two bites taste quite the same; small meatballs presented in dishes about the size and shape as the condiment bowls at dim sum. Like all Vietnamese meatballs, these were a rubbery, but this delicious broth that bathed them well overcame that. Our favorite course, cubes of tenderloin, grilled (very well, it really picked up the grill flavor) on a bed of lettuce, cucumber and much better than usual tomatoes. Beef fondue, a plate of raw beef, flavored with ginger and a hot pot of onion scented broth. Finally, rice-beef soup, very Iron-Chefy, the way that it was both simple and artistic, the best congee, and actually, perhaps the 2nd best dish of the 7 (but they were all good).
It's $14.95 and its one of the best deals in town, even if you skip the 8th course.
Nhu Hoa
1020 W. Argyle
Chicago, IL
The Condiment Queen is a varied, voracious and especially multi-culti reader. And luckily for me, her reading habits dovetail nicely with my eating habits (which are varied, voracious and multi-culti). When she reads an Indian book, well, its off to da'bomb for us. When it's like now, reading a Vietnamese book, well it was not soon before we made it too Argyle.
Not only did she have a hankering for Vietnamese, moments after we sat down at Nhu Hoa, our favorite combo Vietnamese-Laotian spot on Argyle, than she surprised me by stating she also had a hankering for the seven course of beef. Am I lucky or what. I'm no expert on 7 course of beef, having only had it once before on Argyle, but of the two, this was my favorite, if nothing else, the portions were bigger. Plus, I was spoiled, by the 8th course of beef.
I have helped widely disseminate (I think [ed. you hope]) the notion that Nhu Hoa makes the best papaya salad in Chicago. Yesterday's 8th course, papaya salad and beef jerky, exceedingly hot, confirmed my belief. Irregularly hacked papaya, some not fully loose so that they were papaya shards not papaya shreds, way too much fish sauce, way, way too much hot peppers (but Julie of Nhu Hoa loves to reward those who ask for their papaya salad hot) and really way too much food as we had seven more courses to follow.
Here they are, quickly, in the order they appeared: beef papaya salad, much different from the other papaya salad, tasting maybe a bit too much of perfume from a lavender like herb, the meat as soft as the jerky was hard; ground beef in la lot leaves, thin steak wrapped around pineapple. Both of these dishes are meant to be eaten with tons of accessories, lettuce, daikon, carrots, mint, basil, cilantro, you mix and match so much, no two bites taste quite the same; small meatballs presented in dishes about the size and shape as the condiment bowls at dim sum. Like all Vietnamese meatballs, these were a rubbery, but this delicious broth that bathed them well overcame that. Our favorite course, cubes of tenderloin, grilled (very well, it really picked up the grill flavor) on a bed of lettuce, cucumber and much better than usual tomatoes. Beef fondue, a plate of raw beef, flavored with ginger and a hot pot of onion scented broth. Finally, rice-beef soup, very Iron-Chefy, the way that it was both simple and artistic, the best congee, and actually, perhaps the 2nd best dish of the 7 (but they were all good).
It's $14.95 and its one of the best deals in town, even if you skip the 8th course.
Nhu Hoa
1020 W. Argyle
Chicago, IL
Tuesday, July 06, 2004
Tasting Taste of Chicago
OK, I am gonna say, flat out, I love Taste of Chicago. I've been going for years, hell I've been going since I was getting into tussles at the Willie Dixon show when it was the (better) Chicagofest. So, I get to gripe a bit, which I will, but first let me report on what we had, and nearly all of it was good.
For those of you looking for the VI on where to eat, this post obviously does you no good. Sorry. I did 25 background investigations over the last ten days, hardly enough time to get all my postings done. Maybe some of this will help next year.
What we ate:
Samosa - Arya Bhavan - This is THE ethnic dish for the chowhounditas (except when Dad makes them get Samosa chaat at Sukhadia), and they pronounced this version as good as it gets. They ate it before I could even nibble.
Roti canai - Penang - The roti or pancake seemed a bit different than what you get in the shop. This was thick and flaky, like a really good scallion pancake instead of the airy and thin pancakes that I remember, but the portion of pancake also seemed bigger (at Penang, we always seemed to run out of pancake before the chicken curry). The curry here was deep and intense, reminding me of the stuff I love at the food court at Mitsuwa, that is to say probably from a box, but god I love that boxed curry.
Mustard Fried Catfish with 2 dipping sauces (hot and sweet mustard) - BJ's Market - Well, duh!
Toasted Ravioli - Tuscany - I know my peeves come in a sec., but toasted ravioli is a St. Lois thing. Do the Cardinals play at Wrigley. On the other hand, they tasted good, and the sauce was quite nice.
Cheese Pizza (thin) - Lou Malnati's - Hannah marveled at the fact that the cheese and tomato sauce were transposed.
Fried Chicken Wings - Harold's - There is no Harold's nearby, and when it has been ages since you had that dirty tasting bird, here really well fried too, well it really, really tastes good.
Jerk Chicken and rice and peas - VeeVee's - Not so hot. The jerk was dry and not so jerky, and the rice was dry and well not jerky either (and no dough bread, which is worth half the price anyways).
Cheesecake - Eli's Cheesecake - See Harold's above - When its ages between slices, it tastes really good.
Frozen banana - Aunt Diana's - I have a thing against frozen bananas, just do not like the flavor. In fact, as I told the chowhounditas, fresh bananas, banana flavor or banana flavored things (like banana cake) and frozen bananas all taste different. I'm really only keen on the middle. The Condiment Queen ate it.
Corn - one of the corn roasters - No elote
Curry fries - Abbey Pub - Really diligent readers of Vital Information will know that I carry around only a few great taste memories of my year in Cardiff, Wales. One of them is curry fries. Thick, double cooked, fresh potatoes with that slightly off taste that anyone who's been in a chip shop knows, covered with a sauce of commercial curry (see Penang above), and usually eaten with a tiny wooden fork. And, of course, these were so far from that, it made me rue every nostalgic thought in my body.
Cheezeburger - Billy Goat Tavern - Count me generally as a lover of these things, but it would have been better if it was hotter.
Bread steak sammy - Ricobene's - The best deal of the show. The taste portion of pretty darn fresh breaded steak was about as big as a regular portion. And you think that was a good deal, well they comped one of the kidz a portion of fries for helping them shanghai a runaway ketchup bottle. These were awesome fries too.
Pretty good score, huh? Here's the thing. I know I could have had nearly all of the stuff in better versions if I shopped around town. Hell, if I hung around the bar long enough at the Berghoff, ReneG would pop in with jerk 11 times better. But this was all in one day, one night actually. It was all over the world. Maybe a lot of fried stuff and too much curry, but I like fried stuff. I love curry. I'm back next year.
Now, my annual gripe. It can so easily be better, no? All the city needs to do is grab 1/2 the vendors at Maxwell Street. Something like the fresh made churros, well people would be thronging for that. It was cool that Penang was there, as Singapore has maybe the number one street food culture in the world. Why cannot Taste of Chicago borrow from all these street foods. Why cannot the Thai places make papaya salad or any of the other things commonly found on every street there. For RST, why could not Tuscany sell tripe sammy's? And a real eloterio, that would be cool...
OK, I am gonna say, flat out, I love Taste of Chicago. I've been going for years, hell I've been going since I was getting into tussles at the Willie Dixon show when it was the (better) Chicagofest. So, I get to gripe a bit, which I will, but first let me report on what we had, and nearly all of it was good.
For those of you looking for the VI on where to eat, this post obviously does you no good. Sorry. I did 25 background investigations over the last ten days, hardly enough time to get all my postings done. Maybe some of this will help next year.
What we ate:
Samosa - Arya Bhavan - This is THE ethnic dish for the chowhounditas (except when Dad makes them get Samosa chaat at Sukhadia), and they pronounced this version as good as it gets. They ate it before I could even nibble.
Roti canai - Penang - The roti or pancake seemed a bit different than what you get in the shop. This was thick and flaky, like a really good scallion pancake instead of the airy and thin pancakes that I remember, but the portion of pancake also seemed bigger (at Penang, we always seemed to run out of pancake before the chicken curry). The curry here was deep and intense, reminding me of the stuff I love at the food court at Mitsuwa, that is to say probably from a box, but god I love that boxed curry.
Mustard Fried Catfish with 2 dipping sauces (hot and sweet mustard) - BJ's Market - Well, duh!
Toasted Ravioli - Tuscany - I know my peeves come in a sec., but toasted ravioli is a St. Lois thing. Do the Cardinals play at Wrigley. On the other hand, they tasted good, and the sauce was quite nice.
Cheese Pizza (thin) - Lou Malnati's - Hannah marveled at the fact that the cheese and tomato sauce were transposed.
Fried Chicken Wings - Harold's - There is no Harold's nearby, and when it has been ages since you had that dirty tasting bird, here really well fried too, well it really, really tastes good.
Jerk Chicken and rice and peas - VeeVee's - Not so hot. The jerk was dry and not so jerky, and the rice was dry and well not jerky either (and no dough bread, which is worth half the price anyways).
Cheesecake - Eli's Cheesecake - See Harold's above - When its ages between slices, it tastes really good.
Frozen banana - Aunt Diana's - I have a thing against frozen bananas, just do not like the flavor. In fact, as I told the chowhounditas, fresh bananas, banana flavor or banana flavored things (like banana cake) and frozen bananas all taste different. I'm really only keen on the middle. The Condiment Queen ate it.
Corn - one of the corn roasters - No elote
Curry fries - Abbey Pub - Really diligent readers of Vital Information will know that I carry around only a few great taste memories of my year in Cardiff, Wales. One of them is curry fries. Thick, double cooked, fresh potatoes with that slightly off taste that anyone who's been in a chip shop knows, covered with a sauce of commercial curry (see Penang above), and usually eaten with a tiny wooden fork. And, of course, these were so far from that, it made me rue every nostalgic thought in my body.
Cheezeburger - Billy Goat Tavern - Count me generally as a lover of these things, but it would have been better if it was hotter.
Bread steak sammy - Ricobene's - The best deal of the show. The taste portion of pretty darn fresh breaded steak was about as big as a regular portion. And you think that was a good deal, well they comped one of the kidz a portion of fries for helping them shanghai a runaway ketchup bottle. These were awesome fries too.
Pretty good score, huh? Here's the thing. I know I could have had nearly all of the stuff in better versions if I shopped around town. Hell, if I hung around the bar long enough at the Berghoff, ReneG would pop in with jerk 11 times better. But this was all in one day, one night actually. It was all over the world. Maybe a lot of fried stuff and too much curry, but I like fried stuff. I love curry. I'm back next year.
Now, my annual gripe. It can so easily be better, no? All the city needs to do is grab 1/2 the vendors at Maxwell Street. Something like the fresh made churros, well people would be thronging for that. It was cool that Penang was there, as Singapore has maybe the number one street food culture in the world. Why cannot Taste of Chicago borrow from all these street foods. Why cannot the Thai places make papaya salad or any of the other things commonly found on every street there. For RST, why could not Tuscany sell tripe sammy's? And a real eloterio, that would be cool...
Monday, July 05, 2004
Cold Stone Creamery
Damn if I wanted to like this place. It is so corporate. Seems so much like the product of numerous market tests. On top of that, if has been blessed with several shots of publicity on TV Food Network. And did I mention, the staff had that Starbucks like zombie efficiency and nice-ness? Wait, it gets even worse, the location I tried was on Halsted in the heart of the destroyed Maxwell Street neighborhood, nearly on the spot where Jim's Hot Dog existed, talking about haunted, but, take all that dark-side stuff away, and you'll find some pretty damn good ice cream.
For those who have not been caught by the Cold Stone lure, the main shtick is mix-ins done on the cold stone. The cold stone is super-cooled so that the staff can play with your ice cream, mixing in things, without ever loosing too much. There are about 20 mix-ins including fudge and caramel sauces. Everyone gets one free mix-in. Still, in some ways, the mix-ins detract from the goodness of the ice cream. I found the ice cream expertly straddled typical fatty American ice cream with softer, more intense Euro or gelato style ice cream.
I've updated the ice cream list to include my thoughts on Stone Cold Creamery.
Damn if I wanted to like this place. It is so corporate. Seems so much like the product of numerous market tests. On top of that, if has been blessed with several shots of publicity on TV Food Network. And did I mention, the staff had that Starbucks like zombie efficiency and nice-ness? Wait, it gets even worse, the location I tried was on Halsted in the heart of the destroyed Maxwell Street neighborhood, nearly on the spot where Jim's Hot Dog existed, talking about haunted, but, take all that dark-side stuff away, and you'll find some pretty damn good ice cream.
For those who have not been caught by the Cold Stone lure, the main shtick is mix-ins done on the cold stone. The cold stone is super-cooled so that the staff can play with your ice cream, mixing in things, without ever loosing too much. There are about 20 mix-ins including fudge and caramel sauces. Everyone gets one free mix-in. Still, in some ways, the mix-ins detract from the goodness of the ice cream. I found the ice cream expertly straddled typical fatty American ice cream with softer, more intense Euro or gelato style ice cream.
I've updated the ice cream list to include my thoughts on Stone Cold Creamery.
Friday, July 02, 2004
Morning Toast
I had forsaken morning toast for a few weeks, not so much because of fealty to Dr. Atkins (perchance, never!), but for lack of good bread in the house. Mostly I was using our bread for the field special sandwiches, and Welsh rabbits and such discussed below. Well, this week got back to normal, with some very good morning toast.
Bread: Whole Foods round white loaf. It's not my favorite Whole Foods' bread. This bread after day one is really only good for toast, as the crust all but evaporates, but it does toast up fine, with a dense texture and light crumb.
Butter and Jelly: At the same time, I unwrapped a new butter and a new jelly. The former was Kerrygold Irish imported butter, the latter was Ararat Amermenian sour cherry jelly, which like the Condiment Queen's signature clafouti, contains pits. Now, what a mix, just absolute pure chemical combination, producing utter satisfaction. Yet, I was somewhat stumped. Was it the butter base or the jelly topping. Which was driving the joy. I am sure a lot has to do with the ideal mix of ingredients--I hear Armenians and Irish are great friends, but eventual the CQ sussed out some secrets. I buy, often, my jelly based on the ingredients, and I ascribe to the rule, the fewer the better (and an odd side note, it is often the cheaper, less yuppie jellies, especially the imported ones, that will be free of citric acid, pectin and such; I adore the label, like this Ararat: sour cherry, sugar.) Still, it turns out there was a mystery ingredient. Like the bracing green nam prik dip sold at Thai Grocery on Broadway, the Ararat jelly label was not purely true to what was inside. Turns out there is a hint of cinnamon and maybe some nutmeg or other spice too. It is this spice, floating ably in this soupy jelly, that combines with pools of butter (for the Kerrygold seems to always melt into pools) that I now realize produces in the palate.
I had forsaken morning toast for a few weeks, not so much because of fealty to Dr. Atkins (perchance, never!), but for lack of good bread in the house. Mostly I was using our bread for the field special sandwiches, and Welsh rabbits and such discussed below. Well, this week got back to normal, with some very good morning toast.
Bread: Whole Foods round white loaf. It's not my favorite Whole Foods' bread. This bread after day one is really only good for toast, as the crust all but evaporates, but it does toast up fine, with a dense texture and light crumb.
Butter and Jelly: At the same time, I unwrapped a new butter and a new jelly. The former was Kerrygold Irish imported butter, the latter was Ararat Amermenian sour cherry jelly, which like the Condiment Queen's signature clafouti, contains pits. Now, what a mix, just absolute pure chemical combination, producing utter satisfaction. Yet, I was somewhat stumped. Was it the butter base or the jelly topping. Which was driving the joy. I am sure a lot has to do with the ideal mix of ingredients--I hear Armenians and Irish are great friends, but eventual the CQ sussed out some secrets. I buy, often, my jelly based on the ingredients, and I ascribe to the rule, the fewer the better (and an odd side note, it is often the cheaper, less yuppie jellies, especially the imported ones, that will be free of citric acid, pectin and such; I adore the label, like this Ararat: sour cherry, sugar.) Still, it turns out there was a mystery ingredient. Like the bracing green nam prik dip sold at Thai Grocery on Broadway, the Ararat jelly label was not purely true to what was inside. Turns out there is a hint of cinnamon and maybe some nutmeg or other spice too. It is this spice, floating ably in this soupy jelly, that combines with pools of butter (for the Kerrygold seems to always melt into pools) that I now realize produces in the palate.
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Really Good Average Mexican Food
Or is it really average good Mexican food? You know things are really crankin' in Chicago's Mexican food scene when you can walk away from a place with hand-made huraches, hand-made tortillas for tacos en canasta and, well not the advertised 10 salsas to try, but 4 very nice ones, and you walk away saying, pretty good. You think about the deliciousness of fresh masa, but you also wonder, were the walls of the gordita just a bit too thick. The hurache is broad and flat and filled with beans that taste better than they look, but the huarache also tastes a bit thin in the mouth. It is not the robust pleasure of chew that is the rico huarache at Maxwell Street. Those crated up tacos have semi-exotic fillings like chicharron in a surprising spicy sauce, whipped potatoes and chorizo blended into one modern contraption and a mixed dice, that included, I believe, hot dogs, but the homemade tortillas were also dunked just a few seconds too long in the grease before hitting the griddle.
I wonder now if I'd be as picky about say, Dona Lois, the very first Mexican place I touted on Chowhound. It's a slightly similar store that also combines folded fresh masa with a bit of grease, but the fact that I can be so picky is a pretty nice thing.
La Chilangueada
5131 W. Fullerton
Chicago, IL
773-237-6638
Or is it really average good Mexican food? You know things are really crankin' in Chicago's Mexican food scene when you can walk away from a place with hand-made huraches, hand-made tortillas for tacos en canasta and, well not the advertised 10 salsas to try, but 4 very nice ones, and you walk away saying, pretty good. You think about the deliciousness of fresh masa, but you also wonder, were the walls of the gordita just a bit too thick. The hurache is broad and flat and filled with beans that taste better than they look, but the huarache also tastes a bit thin in the mouth. It is not the robust pleasure of chew that is the rico huarache at Maxwell Street. Those crated up tacos have semi-exotic fillings like chicharron in a surprising spicy sauce, whipped potatoes and chorizo blended into one modern contraption and a mixed dice, that included, I believe, hot dogs, but the homemade tortillas were also dunked just a few seconds too long in the grease before hitting the griddle.
I wonder now if I'd be as picky about say, Dona Lois, the very first Mexican place I touted on Chowhound. It's a slightly similar store that also combines folded fresh masa with a bit of grease, but the fact that I can be so picky is a pretty nice thing.
La Chilangueada
5131 W. Fullerton
Chicago, IL
773-237-6638
Eat Local!
Let us count the ways...
Via The Chicago Tribune (registration required):
The Guide to Eating Organic In and Around Chicago," recently issued by the Organic Food Network, offers a resource for diners and cooks on the prowl for organic foodstuffs. The listing includes farms, farmers markets, restaurants and supermarkets. Also included is the "Summer 2004 Guide to Local Organic Produce." (Some information is online at organicfoodnetwork.net.) For a copy send a check or money order for $6 payable to Organic Food Network, P.O. Box 4086, Wheaton, IL 60189. You will see that organic/local produce, meat, etc. is out there and not just at the Green City Market or Evanston. According to the Organic Food Network, local organic farm stuff can be found at farmer's markets in Naperville, Orland Park, Kankakee, Woodstock, Crystal Lake, Wilmette, Park Forest, and Wheaton (and more).
This is an amazing resource of things available in Illinois, I bet you had no idea so much was out there.
Terra Brockman can often be found selling the wares from her brother Henry's farm at the Evanston Farmer's Market. Her organization, Land Connection, is a great resource.
Seven Generations Ahead works on environmental issues as well as sustainable food issues, but just for us foodies helps bring local produce such as organic meat to Oak Park. I am in the process of joining. You should too!
How local is London? Still, Fergus Henderson is my idol and role model. I look at his menu daily to see how I should eat.
Let us count the ways...
Via The Chicago Tribune (registration required):
The Guide to Eating Organic In and Around Chicago," recently issued by the Organic Food Network, offers a resource for diners and cooks on the prowl for organic foodstuffs. The listing includes farms, farmers markets, restaurants and supermarkets. Also included is the "Summer 2004 Guide to Local Organic Produce." (Some information is online at organicfoodnetwork.net.) For a copy send a check or money order for $6 payable to Organic Food Network, P.O. Box 4086, Wheaton, IL 60189. You will see that organic/local produce, meat, etc. is out there and not just at the Green City Market or Evanston. According to the Organic Food Network, local organic farm stuff can be found at farmer's markets in Naperville, Orland Park, Kankakee, Woodstock, Crystal Lake, Wilmette, Park Forest, and Wheaton (and more).
This is an amazing resource of things available in Illinois, I bet you had no idea so much was out there.
Terra Brockman can often be found selling the wares from her brother Henry's farm at the Evanston Farmer's Market. Her organization, Land Connection, is a great resource.
Seven Generations Ahead works on environmental issues as well as sustainable food issues, but just for us foodies helps bring local produce such as organic meat to Oak Park. I am in the process of joining. You should too!
How local is London? Still, Fergus Henderson is my idol and role model. I look at his menu daily to see how I should eat.
Monday, June 28, 2004
There's Always Room for Salt n' Pepper Shrimps!
My dearly departed grandmother was in no way the inspiration for my obsession with food. One could say I am a foodie in spite of my grandmother instead of because of my grandmother. I have strong memories of her particular way of cooking skirt steak in the toaster oven, particularly bad that is, and I also have strong memories of dishes I really did not partake, but learned about through my dad, especially her vile cornflake chicken and her viler brisket. To this day, with just a bit of egging, my dad will describe in loving detail the three day process of over-cooking, soaking with whole onion, and leaving in grease that produced the treat that was my grandmother's brisket. Ask him. Yet, yet, as I say, everyone has a dish, their cole slaw, their source of redemption. My grandmother's was jello, preferably en mold. Her motto was, you always have room for jello. Well, yesterday, as we were wrapping up an ample sampling of the dim sum at Happy Chef, they came around with plates of whole, head-on, salt and pepper shrimps. And of course, who does not have room for Happy Chef's salt and pepper shrimps, head-on.
I've always known, of the places I have tried in Chicago, that Happy Chef's were the best salt and pepper shrimps. These are shrimps to make you crave shrimp head. Fresh, crisp, slightly spicy, not marred by grease. You eat everything but the last bits of tail. I've not know about the dim sum at Happy Chef until yesterday. I would say that not everything rose to the satisfaction of the whole shrimps, but it was a very well done dim sum nonetheless. Solid. It is a hybrid dim sum. There is a sheet to fill, with choices, like most of these sheets, that do not make full sense. There is shrimp dumpling and steamed shrimp dumpling (both in the steamed category); baked egg tart and baked custard egg tart, pan fried pork bun and pan fried pork dumpling. And you think that's confusing, there is also a 2 page listing of mysterious noodles with offerings like hong tol e-fu noodle and ha-moon rice stick noodle. We got the hong tol e-fu noodle just to see what it was (not big deal at $3.88) Still, there are a few things in plates, off menu, that get paraded around the room.
We had filled up pretty well. From the sheet we got some really good shrimp with pea pod green dumpling in a yellow wrapper and ultra hot steamed shrimp dumpling puffing with shrimp air. I liked the eggplant slices with black bean more than the Condiment Queen that came from the pass-arounds. Sesame balls, also off-menu, were chewy and big. We passed on the Chinese broccoli in oyster sauce because, based on sight and aroma, we mimicked a nearby table and got a big plate of Chinese broccoli showered with garlic. Those hong tol-e-fu noodles were a big old bowl of thick chewy noodles underneath a layer of egg white. It turned out to be a good way to get some protein into the chowhoundita who was with us (the other on a birthday jaunt to Navy Pier). We were past full when they started passing the salt and pepper shrimps around the room. Who, however, does not have room for Happy Chef's salt and pepper shrimps. The great news, especially for the chowhoundita, was the extra ten minutes needed to eat the shrimps also kept us there for some very hot, very fresh, very delicious custard filled, sweet top buns.
Happy Chef may be a great, probably the best, Cantonese style place in Chinatown, but do not go there for creature comforts or atmosphere. Ms. VI complained all morning about the plastic tablecloths sticking to her knees. A small price, alas for making room for salt and pepper shrimps.
Happy Chef
2164-2166A S. Archer (in the Chinatown Mall)
Chicago, IL
312-808-3689
PS
It has been sadly reported that the delicious Mandarin Kitchen recently closed. Well, a restaurant has recently opened in its place. It is called, well in English, it is still called Mandarin Kitchen, yet in place of the former Szechuan style place, is a Shanghai style place. There is the full range of typical Shanghai stuff on the English menu including two kinds of soup dumplings, various cold dishes, pork leg, lion's head meatballs and eel. There is also a nice sounding deal of 3 dishes for $22.95. The women I chatted up were very nice. I'll give it a scout and if its good, maybe arrange a group meal.
My dearly departed grandmother was in no way the inspiration for my obsession with food. One could say I am a foodie in spite of my grandmother instead of because of my grandmother. I have strong memories of her particular way of cooking skirt steak in the toaster oven, particularly bad that is, and I also have strong memories of dishes I really did not partake, but learned about through my dad, especially her vile cornflake chicken and her viler brisket. To this day, with just a bit of egging, my dad will describe in loving detail the three day process of over-cooking, soaking with whole onion, and leaving in grease that produced the treat that was my grandmother's brisket. Ask him. Yet, yet, as I say, everyone has a dish, their cole slaw, their source of redemption. My grandmother's was jello, preferably en mold. Her motto was, you always have room for jello. Well, yesterday, as we were wrapping up an ample sampling of the dim sum at Happy Chef, they came around with plates of whole, head-on, salt and pepper shrimps. And of course, who does not have room for Happy Chef's salt and pepper shrimps, head-on.
I've always known, of the places I have tried in Chicago, that Happy Chef's were the best salt and pepper shrimps. These are shrimps to make you crave shrimp head. Fresh, crisp, slightly spicy, not marred by grease. You eat everything but the last bits of tail. I've not know about the dim sum at Happy Chef until yesterday. I would say that not everything rose to the satisfaction of the whole shrimps, but it was a very well done dim sum nonetheless. Solid. It is a hybrid dim sum. There is a sheet to fill, with choices, like most of these sheets, that do not make full sense. There is shrimp dumpling and steamed shrimp dumpling (both in the steamed category); baked egg tart and baked custard egg tart, pan fried pork bun and pan fried pork dumpling. And you think that's confusing, there is also a 2 page listing of mysterious noodles with offerings like hong tol e-fu noodle and ha-moon rice stick noodle. We got the hong tol e-fu noodle just to see what it was (not big deal at $3.88) Still, there are a few things in plates, off menu, that get paraded around the room.
We had filled up pretty well. From the sheet we got some really good shrimp with pea pod green dumpling in a yellow wrapper and ultra hot steamed shrimp dumpling puffing with shrimp air. I liked the eggplant slices with black bean more than the Condiment Queen that came from the pass-arounds. Sesame balls, also off-menu, were chewy and big. We passed on the Chinese broccoli in oyster sauce because, based on sight and aroma, we mimicked a nearby table and got a big plate of Chinese broccoli showered with garlic. Those hong tol-e-fu noodles were a big old bowl of thick chewy noodles underneath a layer of egg white. It turned out to be a good way to get some protein into the chowhoundita who was with us (the other on a birthday jaunt to Navy Pier). We were past full when they started passing the salt and pepper shrimps around the room. Who, however, does not have room for Happy Chef's salt and pepper shrimps. The great news, especially for the chowhoundita, was the extra ten minutes needed to eat the shrimps also kept us there for some very hot, very fresh, very delicious custard filled, sweet top buns.
Happy Chef may be a great, probably the best, Cantonese style place in Chinatown, but do not go there for creature comforts or atmosphere. Ms. VI complained all morning about the plastic tablecloths sticking to her knees. A small price, alas for making room for salt and pepper shrimps.
Happy Chef
2164-2166A S. Archer (in the Chinatown Mall)
Chicago, IL
312-808-3689
PS
It has been sadly reported that the delicious Mandarin Kitchen recently closed. Well, a restaurant has recently opened in its place. It is called, well in English, it is still called Mandarin Kitchen, yet in place of the former Szechuan style place, is a Shanghai style place. There is the full range of typical Shanghai stuff on the English menu including two kinds of soup dumplings, various cold dishes, pork leg, lion's head meatballs and eel. There is also a nice sounding deal of 3 dishes for $22.95. The women I chatted up were very nice. I'll give it a scout and if its good, maybe arrange a group meal.
Thursday, June 24, 2004
VI's Retro Kitchen
I do not usually write about my kitchen exploits, well mainly 'cause there aint much to write about. Lately, however, I've been on a roll, so I thought I'd share.
First, came this dish inspired by the kidz and the Condiment Queen. Seems she can create for them, perfectly wonderful dinners from bread, cheese and microwave. And even though this rather cheesy cheddar seemed fine as is, I got to idea to, well, rarebit it, or as I was to later learn, rabbit it. One of those Musso and Frank/Fergus Henderson (its on the St. John menu pretty much daily) that I adore but never think to make. I knew instantly where to look: Joy of Cooking, which I forever think of as the joy of eating because I think it less a book on cooking as a book on eating well. Sure enough, there was a Welsh Rabbit recipe, and a simple and easy one at that. With makeshift double boiler from a stainless steel bowl and saucepan, I went to work on grating a pound of cheddar. Lucky me, the chowhounditas soon thought that a fun job, and took over. They also took over the job of pulverizing the mustard seed (Penzy's) into ground mustard. So, I mixed the royale, as we chefs would call it, one egg, a bit of worcestershire sauce, a tiny shake of curry powder (Penzy's hot), a slightly heavier shake of paprika (Penzy's half-sharp), that mustard dust, and a small pour of Valentina brand hot sauce. The process goes like this: in the double-boler, melt a tab of butter, add the grated cheese, melt, add beer, I used 3/4 bottle of Berghoff dark, traditionally it should be stale ale, keep mixing, there is some rules about wooden spoons and mixing directions but I used a whisk and went wily-nily, finally, add the royale and mix until incorporated. I ate on toasted, buttered, English Muffin (Trader Joe's). Only later did I learn, in research, that I was only supposed to toast only one side of the bread. I should note, as good as the kidz plain melted cheese was, this was better.
Second, inspired by a big bag of shrimps the CQ had boiled up, I got the idea to make shrimp louie, which is really just an excuse to eat Russian dressing. Ah, I love Russian dressing, as much for its taste as for its pure alchemy and the way it allows me to partake in two less favorite foods, mayonnaise and catsup. Would you eat your salad with plain catsup or plain mayo? Would you put catsup on a turkey sammy? Yet, combine the ingredients and you would (I would). Here's how I did. I took about 5 Trader Joe's cornichons and minced them. I took glops of mayo, ketchapeno, cocktail sauce, and Tapatio hot sauce and combined. I tasted and refined until it tasted "right", but in fact it did not taste right. It tasted a hell of a lot better than most Russian dressing. My shrimp louie was also a lot better because we had pretty large shrimps and Ms. VI boiled them up with some interesting spices. For the bedding, I used Trader Joe's baby romaine. I garnished with a hot house tomato that came with one of our CSAs. Great.
Third, inspired by what to do with extra Welsh Rabbit, I made a hot brown sammy. Using the easiest cooking method known, I microwaved excellent Niman Ranch bacon (made at least some of the time with pork from my friends the Wettsteins). I took a thick slice of Fox and Obel semolina bread (thanks Aaron), added F&O turkey (the best I know), then the leftover cheese sauce. I nuked to melt the cheese, then stuck it under the broiler, or salamander as us chef's say. Unfortunately, the cheese did not brown up, but it surely tasted fine. Even better because I completely surrounded the sammy with fresh shelled, buttered farmer's market peas. I was so awed by my creation, that even though I was eating alone, I kept to my knife and fork, euro style.
Fourth, now we have extra Russian dressing, I think a Field's Special Sandwich, that great, not always on the menu dish, of the Walnut Room. Eerily, a CSA box we got yesterday (which I have some gripes about, but that's for another post), contained a head of iceberg lettuce. Perfect. So it went, buttered semolina bread (thanks Aaron), Jarglesburg cheese, F&O turkey, 1/2 head of lettuce, overflowing dressing (as per Field's), and two strips of Niman bacon. We had no hard boiled egg, but I forgot to put on some of the olives that we had (Trader Joes). Needless to say, great as the above.
I do not usually write about my kitchen exploits, well mainly 'cause there aint much to write about. Lately, however, I've been on a roll, so I thought I'd share.
First, came this dish inspired by the kidz and the Condiment Queen. Seems she can create for them, perfectly wonderful dinners from bread, cheese and microwave. And even though this rather cheesy cheddar seemed fine as is, I got to idea to, well, rarebit it, or as I was to later learn, rabbit it. One of those Musso and Frank/Fergus Henderson (its on the St. John menu pretty much daily) that I adore but never think to make. I knew instantly where to look: Joy of Cooking, which I forever think of as the joy of eating because I think it less a book on cooking as a book on eating well. Sure enough, there was a Welsh Rabbit recipe, and a simple and easy one at that. With makeshift double boiler from a stainless steel bowl and saucepan, I went to work on grating a pound of cheddar. Lucky me, the chowhounditas soon thought that a fun job, and took over. They also took over the job of pulverizing the mustard seed (Penzy's) into ground mustard. So, I mixed the royale, as we chefs would call it, one egg, a bit of worcestershire sauce, a tiny shake of curry powder (Penzy's hot), a slightly heavier shake of paprika (Penzy's half-sharp), that mustard dust, and a small pour of Valentina brand hot sauce. The process goes like this: in the double-boler, melt a tab of butter, add the grated cheese, melt, add beer, I used 3/4 bottle of Berghoff dark, traditionally it should be stale ale, keep mixing, there is some rules about wooden spoons and mixing directions but I used a whisk and went wily-nily, finally, add the royale and mix until incorporated. I ate on toasted, buttered, English Muffin (Trader Joe's). Only later did I learn, in research, that I was only supposed to toast only one side of the bread. I should note, as good as the kidz plain melted cheese was, this was better.
Second, inspired by a big bag of shrimps the CQ had boiled up, I got the idea to make shrimp louie, which is really just an excuse to eat Russian dressing. Ah, I love Russian dressing, as much for its taste as for its pure alchemy and the way it allows me to partake in two less favorite foods, mayonnaise and catsup. Would you eat your salad with plain catsup or plain mayo? Would you put catsup on a turkey sammy? Yet, combine the ingredients and you would (I would). Here's how I did. I took about 5 Trader Joe's cornichons and minced them. I took glops of mayo, ketchapeno, cocktail sauce, and Tapatio hot sauce and combined. I tasted and refined until it tasted "right", but in fact it did not taste right. It tasted a hell of a lot better than most Russian dressing. My shrimp louie was also a lot better because we had pretty large shrimps and Ms. VI boiled them up with some interesting spices. For the bedding, I used Trader Joe's baby romaine. I garnished with a hot house tomato that came with one of our CSAs. Great.
Third, inspired by what to do with extra Welsh Rabbit, I made a hot brown sammy. Using the easiest cooking method known, I microwaved excellent Niman Ranch bacon (made at least some of the time with pork from my friends the Wettsteins). I took a thick slice of Fox and Obel semolina bread (thanks Aaron), added F&O turkey (the best I know), then the leftover cheese sauce. I nuked to melt the cheese, then stuck it under the broiler, or salamander as us chef's say. Unfortunately, the cheese did not brown up, but it surely tasted fine. Even better because I completely surrounded the sammy with fresh shelled, buttered farmer's market peas. I was so awed by my creation, that even though I was eating alone, I kept to my knife and fork, euro style.
Fourth, now we have extra Russian dressing, I think a Field's Special Sandwich, that great, not always on the menu dish, of the Walnut Room. Eerily, a CSA box we got yesterday (which I have some gripes about, but that's for another post), contained a head of iceberg lettuce. Perfect. So it went, buttered semolina bread (thanks Aaron), Jarglesburg cheese, F&O turkey, 1/2 head of lettuce, overflowing dressing (as per Field's), and two strips of Niman bacon. We had no hard boiled egg, but I forgot to put on some of the olives that we had (Trader Joes). Needless to say, great as the above.
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
Sukhadia Update
The other day, as I was stuffing myself with samosa chat, bhel puri and other things from the recently re-opened Sukhadia Sweet Shop on da'Bomb, I mentioned to the Condiment Queen my growing belief that Indian-Pakistani-Bangladeshi (shall we call it Sub-Continental?) food was the world's greatest. Yes, there is no truffled Bresse chicken which some foodies will argue is the greatest treatment of food and the reason behind France's superiority, nor is there (is there?) any Michelin starred restaurants in India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh, another standard for cuisine greatness. But I measure my cuisines (to the extent I do) on quantity over quality. I love Sub-Continental food because there is so much of it. I mean so many kinds of it. Just compare the assortment of food at Sukhadia to say, Wiener Circle.
Sukhadia is one of several snack or "chat" shops on da'Bomb. Chat shops come in two varieties based on the religion of their owners. Muslim owned shops, like Tahoora Sweets, feature plenty of meat, for instance you can get your samosas filled with ground beef. Hindu owned shops fill you up with grains and vegetables. Sukhadia is the latter. The grains include small cakes made of corn flour and chickpea flour, buttery pancakes stuffed with vegetables (parantha's), puffy fried bread with sides, puri, and crunchy grains drenched in sauces, bhel puri. Vegetables are mainly spicy chick peas and sauteed potatoes. Since everything is really cheap, you can try a lot. Order as in a Mexican bakery. As to knowing what things are, ask, the people behind the counter will explain, and when in doubt, just point to the food displayed behind the counters or on the color menu.
Sukhadia closed for about 6 months. I believe they took over a small store next door. They used the extra space to move the open kitchen towards the back and spread out the tables. They made the place a bit more spacious, but there are still not that many tables--hence the sign advising 20 minute total per table, and the chaotic ordering system remains. It took 4 attempts to get our chai.
The gradients between da'Bomb chat shops may be subtle, but ordering aside, Sukhadia has no glaring problems. Now, it is possible to get some bad tea on da'Bomb. Zam-Zam's was so terrible we tossed it out, wasting the 75 cents. That's for another post.
Sukhadia Sweets
2559 W Devon Avenue
Chicago
(773) 338-5400
The other day, as I was stuffing myself with samosa chat, bhel puri and other things from the recently re-opened Sukhadia Sweet Shop on da'Bomb, I mentioned to the Condiment Queen my growing belief that Indian-Pakistani-Bangladeshi (shall we call it Sub-Continental?) food was the world's greatest. Yes, there is no truffled Bresse chicken which some foodies will argue is the greatest treatment of food and the reason behind France's superiority, nor is there (is there?) any Michelin starred restaurants in India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh, another standard for cuisine greatness. But I measure my cuisines (to the extent I do) on quantity over quality. I love Sub-Continental food because there is so much of it. I mean so many kinds of it. Just compare the assortment of food at Sukhadia to say, Wiener Circle.
Sukhadia is one of several snack or "chat" shops on da'Bomb. Chat shops come in two varieties based on the religion of their owners. Muslim owned shops, like Tahoora Sweets, feature plenty of meat, for instance you can get your samosas filled with ground beef. Hindu owned shops fill you up with grains and vegetables. Sukhadia is the latter. The grains include small cakes made of corn flour and chickpea flour, buttery pancakes stuffed with vegetables (parantha's), puffy fried bread with sides, puri, and crunchy grains drenched in sauces, bhel puri. Vegetables are mainly spicy chick peas and sauteed potatoes. Since everything is really cheap, you can try a lot. Order as in a Mexican bakery. As to knowing what things are, ask, the people behind the counter will explain, and when in doubt, just point to the food displayed behind the counters or on the color menu.
Sukhadia closed for about 6 months. I believe they took over a small store next door. They used the extra space to move the open kitchen towards the back and spread out the tables. They made the place a bit more spacious, but there are still not that many tables--hence the sign advising 20 minute total per table, and the chaotic ordering system remains. It took 4 attempts to get our chai.
The gradients between da'Bomb chat shops may be subtle, but ordering aside, Sukhadia has no glaring problems. Now, it is possible to get some bad tea on da'Bomb. Zam-Zam's was so terrible we tossed it out, wasting the 75 cents. That's for another post.
Sukhadia Sweets
2559 W Devon Avenue
Chicago
(773) 338-5400
Friday, June 18, 2004
Real Meat in Chicago
Organic and local meat is easily available in Chicago.
The best bet, probably, is the weekly Green City Market on Wednesday's in Lincoln Park. On any given week, there are at least a few organic meat vendors such as Heartland and Joel Rissman. Last year, the product tended to be a lot of hamburger, but this year there are more vendors and the vendors are bringing more varieties of stuff.
The Wettstein's, who I mention below, make a few trips up to Chicago and Oak Park to deliver the meat. You can order in advance what you want or you can take what they have. They sell beef, pork, lamb, chicken (available June through December), turkey, duck and I bet if you plead your case, one of those guinea hens. They also make pork patties, pork sausage, brats, bacon and ham. Alternatively, instead of picking as you go, they are initiating a monthly CSA. Each package would contain a month or so worth of meat. Each month differs in what they bring, although I have to say, you're gonna have to like hamburger. Finally, you can purchase 1/2 cow or a 1/4 cow and get it processed yourself--they deliver it to one of 4 lockers in central Illinois, the rest is up to you. They will be at the Green City Market this week, but are not there every week. There number, BTW, is 309-376-7291
Rissman does a monthly delivery to Oak Park.
One of my fetishes/fantasies is to obtain the parts as well as the meat in this process. I've made the argument before about respecting the beast, but I also believe that if we order and eat the Fergus parts, nose to tail, we increase the profit for the farmers. Otherwise this stuff would probably just be sloughed off to the dog food people. I've got the Condiment Queen agreeing to make me chopped liver and perhaps even some pate--I know the same thing, but think of them as different recipes and different animals, but as I mentioned in another post, she's balking at the headcheese.
Rob
Organic and local meat is easily available in Chicago.
The best bet, probably, is the weekly Green City Market on Wednesday's in Lincoln Park. On any given week, there are at least a few organic meat vendors such as Heartland and Joel Rissman. Last year, the product tended to be a lot of hamburger, but this year there are more vendors and the vendors are bringing more varieties of stuff.
The Wettstein's, who I mention below, make a few trips up to Chicago and Oak Park to deliver the meat. You can order in advance what you want or you can take what they have. They sell beef, pork, lamb, chicken (available June through December), turkey, duck and I bet if you plead your case, one of those guinea hens. They also make pork patties, pork sausage, brats, bacon and ham. Alternatively, instead of picking as you go, they are initiating a monthly CSA. Each package would contain a month or so worth of meat. Each month differs in what they bring, although I have to say, you're gonna have to like hamburger. Finally, you can purchase 1/2 cow or a 1/4 cow and get it processed yourself--they deliver it to one of 4 lockers in central Illinois, the rest is up to you. They will be at the Green City Market this week, but are not there every week. There number, BTW, is 309-376-7291
Rissman does a monthly delivery to Oak Park.
One of my fetishes/fantasies is to obtain the parts as well as the meat in this process. I've made the argument before about respecting the beast, but I also believe that if we order and eat the Fergus parts, nose to tail, we increase the profit for the farmers. Otherwise this stuff would probably just be sloughed off to the dog food people. I've got the Condiment Queen agreeing to make me chopped liver and perhaps even some pate--I know the same thing, but think of them as different recipes and different animals, but as I mentioned in another post, she's balking at the headcheese.
Rob
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
No Finer Shwarma
Then the chicken shwarma served at Pita Inn (is there?). Really, is there anything finer in the Chicago area for the price then Pita Inn's chicken shwarma? How so? They begin with chicken breasts skinned totally. No surprises of slime effect the eating. These breasts get enough marinade to turn them yellow and lend enough undertone to an essentially bland meat--I'll return to the condiments in a second. Pita Inn then cooks the shwarma ideally. Unlike some other stalwarts, including Salaam, which is still a really fine shwarma, this shwarma gets cooked totally on the vertical grill. When shwarma gets even some heat in a pan on the stove, it greases it up, and you lose crucial crust. With Pita Inn's method, each shard of shwarma gets plenty of crisp crust, but nary a piece gets dry and there is no residual grease. Finally, you dress the meat with as much of Pita Inn's two sauces as you want. There is white, tahini based, a bit gritty, and there is red, not Zim hot, but perky. There are all sorts of secret ingredients within the red sauce that it reminds me of a good Mexican salsa instead of the one note players that usually accompany Middle Eastern food (and do not get me wrong, those one noters, like Salaam's green sauce, are plenty good, what's wrong with one note if it is played well?) And could there really be a finer shwarma?
Wait, let me add, Pita Inn serves the shwarma two ways that I absolutely adore, and lucky me, the Condiment Queen adores these two ways as well, and I do not have to choose. First, they serve it on a bed of finely diced romaine lettuce with a bright vinaigrette. You get contrast between hot and cold and even more flavors to perk up the meat. Second, they serve the meat on a bed of hummus, which again adds more flavors and also a bit of moisture. I prefer these two options to Pita Inn's standard plates. I have nothing against their fluffy yellow rice, but the thin cuttings of iceberg lettuce are just plate wasters. The above two options present much better deals.
Pita Inn has other locations but I was at the Skokie branch:
3910 Dempster, Skokie
Tel: (847) 677-0211
Then the chicken shwarma served at Pita Inn (is there?). Really, is there anything finer in the Chicago area for the price then Pita Inn's chicken shwarma? How so? They begin with chicken breasts skinned totally. No surprises of slime effect the eating. These breasts get enough marinade to turn them yellow and lend enough undertone to an essentially bland meat--I'll return to the condiments in a second. Pita Inn then cooks the shwarma ideally. Unlike some other stalwarts, including Salaam, which is still a really fine shwarma, this shwarma gets cooked totally on the vertical grill. When shwarma gets even some heat in a pan on the stove, it greases it up, and you lose crucial crust. With Pita Inn's method, each shard of shwarma gets plenty of crisp crust, but nary a piece gets dry and there is no residual grease. Finally, you dress the meat with as much of Pita Inn's two sauces as you want. There is white, tahini based, a bit gritty, and there is red, not Zim hot, but perky. There are all sorts of secret ingredients within the red sauce that it reminds me of a good Mexican salsa instead of the one note players that usually accompany Middle Eastern food (and do not get me wrong, those one noters, like Salaam's green sauce, are plenty good, what's wrong with one note if it is played well?) And could there really be a finer shwarma?
Wait, let me add, Pita Inn serves the shwarma two ways that I absolutely adore, and lucky me, the Condiment Queen adores these two ways as well, and I do not have to choose. First, they serve it on a bed of finely diced romaine lettuce with a bright vinaigrette. You get contrast between hot and cold and even more flavors to perk up the meat. Second, they serve the meat on a bed of hummus, which again adds more flavors and also a bit of moisture. I prefer these two options to Pita Inn's standard plates. I have nothing against their fluffy yellow rice, but the thin cuttings of iceberg lettuce are just plate wasters. The above two options present much better deals.
Pita Inn has other locations but I was at the Skokie branch:
3910 Dempster, Skokie
Tel: (847) 677-0211
Monday, June 14, 2004
Down on the Farm - Henry's and the Wettstein's
Before Sophia and I had a chance to dig into the pot luck lunch, a documentarian from Farm Aid asked if we could talk for his camera. He wanted to know what everyone was looking to get out of Saturday's tour. I told that since I was so into eating, I might as well understand a bit about the start of the whole cooking process. I never got a chance to tell him how great the day was and how much I learned.
As our tour guide, Tara (Henry's sister) correctly told us, we were in a bit of Eden in the middle of Illinois. The bulk of the ride down I-57 contains what you mostly expect of Illinois, a lot of nothing, and faux farms as Tara would tell us again and again, the huge anti-agriculture, bio-tech dependent, soil-less (and soul-less) farms planted with endless rows of soy and corn. The world changes as you approach Henry's Farm. You first encounter the county seat of Eureka. College home of RR, and if this town did not already exist, those endless processions would have surely created it. Outside of Eureka, the grounds turn decidedly un-Illinois, with many a rolling hill. Seems one of the last glaciers spent a few extra years here and carved up this land to look more like our state to the north. This accident of nature is one of the primary factors for Henry's Farm. One of the first things I learned on Saturday.
Hills and valleys are not very conducive to large scale agri-business. Perhaps even out of necessity, this county has been organic for a while. In fact, the second thing I learned was that neighboring Henry's Farm was several acres of organic wheat farmed by an octogenarian and his son. Now, did you even know that anyone grew wheat in Illinois, let along organic wheat. Oddly, though, the entire production of this organic wheat went last year to Canada. We did learn that a portion of Henry's farm, the upper, flatter fields, had once been farmed in the Illinois way. This is when we really learned what soil-less and souless soil meant. All our cides used by farmers drive the life out of their soul. With all the nasty critters and fungi and weeds go all the earthworms and bacteria and such that make the soil alive. Tara told us that when Henry first sought to plow his field for organic crops, he could not get an contraption through the hard soil. He had to use nature, hay crops with deep seeking roots, to turn the soil, bring it back to life. Henry's lower field, isolated by a stream and forest, never saw hard agriculture.
What a vista when you end the deerpath and gaze up the lower 40. My mind instantly replaced the crops with rows of grapes because this field looked like a classic European vineyard. Instead it was full of a portion of the 450 varieties grown yearly by Henry. As we poked around the fields we learned how the crops are rotated yearly, that nothing stays in the same spot, and that hay--which we learned was a generic term for any grass fed to animals in the winter--was included in the rotation. Firstly, the crops were moved to control pests. If certain worms attacked the tomatoes one year, they could be well controlled by planting the tomatoes somewhere else, fooling the dormant larvae when they arrived the next year. The hay attacked as fertilizer, getting that patch of soil rich in nitrogen for next year's vegetables. We got to sample some of the more unusual things growing down there including the peppery Madras podding radish (as it sounds you eat the pod not the root) and weeds like amaranth and lamb's quarter. We also learned, new to me at least, that cultivated dandelion was actually chicory bred to look like dandelion, but since this was totally organic pastures, we also got to try actual wild dandelion (as well as much more delicious actual wild raspberries). Another in the long line of things we learned was the reason for the dog houses around the fields. Come harvest time, spot and fido and the rest would be keeping the fields free of any unwanted guests.
We went up and down some of the biggest hills in Illinois to get to the storybook farm of the Wettstein's. With their 8 kids, 18 goats, tree swing, free-roaming chickens, pet raccoon (an interesting story), flock of sheep, flock of sheep protector llama, stray kitten, herds of cattle, boxes of bees, cages of rabbits, grain towers filled with their own organic feed, wandering ducks, suckling pigs and angry sows, barns a plenty, a few gardens, wells with nasty water, and assorted tractors parked here and there, this was THE storybook farm. I so admire what they are doing, and as Sophia and I later worked out, these folks could pretty much live off of their farm, needing perhaps salt and coffee extra. Even the fuel for their outdoor grill could come from their timber fields.
For me, the chowhound, it seemed like one big buffet. What did I want for supper? It was there. Incredulous that they simply released the guinea fowl and quail, I asked twice, about them. Do not you know guinea would command big bucks back in Chicago? I am going to do my best to order and eat their beef, chicken, turkey, eggs (what Henry's Farm sells at the Evanston Farmer's market), maybe even roast a goat. The Condiment Queen, will not, so far, agree to make me headcheese from one of their piggies even though there is a recipe in a Diana Kennedy book she just got at the Brandeiss bookfair. I'll post later on some ways to obtain the Wettstein's organic meat in Chicago.
Before Sophia and I had a chance to dig into the pot luck lunch, a documentarian from Farm Aid asked if we could talk for his camera. He wanted to know what everyone was looking to get out of Saturday's tour. I told that since I was so into eating, I might as well understand a bit about the start of the whole cooking process. I never got a chance to tell him how great the day was and how much I learned.
As our tour guide, Tara (Henry's sister) correctly told us, we were in a bit of Eden in the middle of Illinois. The bulk of the ride down I-57 contains what you mostly expect of Illinois, a lot of nothing, and faux farms as Tara would tell us again and again, the huge anti-agriculture, bio-tech dependent, soil-less (and soul-less) farms planted with endless rows of soy and corn. The world changes as you approach Henry's Farm. You first encounter the county seat of Eureka. College home of RR, and if this town did not already exist, those endless processions would have surely created it. Outside of Eureka, the grounds turn decidedly un-Illinois, with many a rolling hill. Seems one of the last glaciers spent a few extra years here and carved up this land to look more like our state to the north. This accident of nature is one of the primary factors for Henry's Farm. One of the first things I learned on Saturday.
Hills and valleys are not very conducive to large scale agri-business. Perhaps even out of necessity, this county has been organic for a while. In fact, the second thing I learned was that neighboring Henry's Farm was several acres of organic wheat farmed by an octogenarian and his son. Now, did you even know that anyone grew wheat in Illinois, let along organic wheat. Oddly, though, the entire production of this organic wheat went last year to Canada. We did learn that a portion of Henry's farm, the upper, flatter fields, had once been farmed in the Illinois way. This is when we really learned what soil-less and souless soil meant. All our cides used by farmers drive the life out of their soul. With all the nasty critters and fungi and weeds go all the earthworms and bacteria and such that make the soil alive. Tara told us that when Henry first sought to plow his field for organic crops, he could not get an contraption through the hard soil. He had to use nature, hay crops with deep seeking roots, to turn the soil, bring it back to life. Henry's lower field, isolated by a stream and forest, never saw hard agriculture.
What a vista when you end the deerpath and gaze up the lower 40. My mind instantly replaced the crops with rows of grapes because this field looked like a classic European vineyard. Instead it was full of a portion of the 450 varieties grown yearly by Henry. As we poked around the fields we learned how the crops are rotated yearly, that nothing stays in the same spot, and that hay--which we learned was a generic term for any grass fed to animals in the winter--was included in the rotation. Firstly, the crops were moved to control pests. If certain worms attacked the tomatoes one year, they could be well controlled by planting the tomatoes somewhere else, fooling the dormant larvae when they arrived the next year. The hay attacked as fertilizer, getting that patch of soil rich in nitrogen for next year's vegetables. We got to sample some of the more unusual things growing down there including the peppery Madras podding radish (as it sounds you eat the pod not the root) and weeds like amaranth and lamb's quarter. We also learned, new to me at least, that cultivated dandelion was actually chicory bred to look like dandelion, but since this was totally organic pastures, we also got to try actual wild dandelion (as well as much more delicious actual wild raspberries). Another in the long line of things we learned was the reason for the dog houses around the fields. Come harvest time, spot and fido and the rest would be keeping the fields free of any unwanted guests.
We went up and down some of the biggest hills in Illinois to get to the storybook farm of the Wettstein's. With their 8 kids, 18 goats, tree swing, free-roaming chickens, pet raccoon (an interesting story), flock of sheep, flock of sheep protector llama, stray kitten, herds of cattle, boxes of bees, cages of rabbits, grain towers filled with their own organic feed, wandering ducks, suckling pigs and angry sows, barns a plenty, a few gardens, wells with nasty water, and assorted tractors parked here and there, this was THE storybook farm. I so admire what they are doing, and as Sophia and I later worked out, these folks could pretty much live off of their farm, needing perhaps salt and coffee extra. Even the fuel for their outdoor grill could come from their timber fields.
For me, the chowhound, it seemed like one big buffet. What did I want for supper? It was there. Incredulous that they simply released the guinea fowl and quail, I asked twice, about them. Do not you know guinea would command big bucks back in Chicago? I am going to do my best to order and eat their beef, chicken, turkey, eggs (what Henry's Farm sells at the Evanston Farmer's market), maybe even roast a goat. The Condiment Queen, will not, so far, agree to make me headcheese from one of their piggies even though there is a recipe in a Diana Kennedy book she just got at the Brandeiss bookfair. I'll post later on some ways to obtain the Wettstein's organic meat in Chicago.
The Sonargaon Restaurant - Chicago's Only Bangladeshi Place
When I compiled the Indian and Pakistani restaurants for the forthcoming Slow Food guide to Chicago, I also included Chicago's lone Bangladeshi place. I included Sonargaon not just because of its unique Bangledeshi/Bengali specialties, but because it did them so well. It also did the more ubiquitous tandoori specialties darn well too.
About a week ago, the VI family had another delicious, guide book worthy meal at Sonargaon. We went about 50-50 between Bangladeshi specialties and tandoor food. From the Bengal side, we got a dish I have been wanting for a while, the fish ball curry or fish kufta. Even the best fish balls often taste a bit too much like cat food. As the popular Yiddish proverb states, if gefilite fish was so good, why did God invent horseradish sauce? Alternatively, many a fish ball, especially those of the far east tend to be of the rubber variety. The ethereal pike quenelle is rarely encountered on local menus (although if chef's followed my urging to use more local products it *would be*). Anyways, that was a lot of words to say what these fish balls were not. There were instead airy without being unsubstantial. Fishy without being cheap. An orange thick sauce provided the proper counter. Our other fish dish was a simpler yet equally delicious grilled one. Sonargaon takes great pride in serving fish from Bengali waters. My instinct tells me that they should be seeking non-frozen things, but I cannot argue with the results.
They continue to put out dishes just as good from the tandoor. I really know of no better chicken tikka in Chicago. We followed Zim's recommendation for the tandoor cooked eggplant. And this is hardly anything more than tandoor cooked eggplant. The eggplants sit in the clay oven long enough to be pliable and then get worked with a hint of masala. Much denser and creamier than baba ganoush, but with a similar smokey taste. And of course, who does not think a fresh parantha a better scooper than mere pita?
It was a very quiet night at Sonargaon when we visited. Musharaf, one of the partners, spent a long time at our table, telling us about Bangladesh, Bangladeshi food, his wife who would be soon coming to America, and life at the Palmer House Hotel, where he also worked. An astute businessman, he asked for input on his restaurant. I offered the most sanguine of advice, I hope. Don't change. Do not take the lack of customers today as a sign that anything was wrong. Keep on doing it this way, and they will come. And I also said, add a few more Bangladeshi things to the menu (i.e., they were making their haleem, the grain and meat dish, in a Pakistani manner instead of the Bangladeshi way.) I hope he follows my ideas.
The Sonargaon Restaurant
2306 W. Devon
Chicago, IL
(773) 262-8008
When I compiled the Indian and Pakistani restaurants for the forthcoming Slow Food guide to Chicago, I also included Chicago's lone Bangladeshi place. I included Sonargaon not just because of its unique Bangledeshi/Bengali specialties, but because it did them so well. It also did the more ubiquitous tandoori specialties darn well too.
About a week ago, the VI family had another delicious, guide book worthy meal at Sonargaon. We went about 50-50 between Bangladeshi specialties and tandoor food. From the Bengal side, we got a dish I have been wanting for a while, the fish ball curry or fish kufta. Even the best fish balls often taste a bit too much like cat food. As the popular Yiddish proverb states, if gefilite fish was so good, why did God invent horseradish sauce? Alternatively, many a fish ball, especially those of the far east tend to be of the rubber variety. The ethereal pike quenelle is rarely encountered on local menus (although if chef's followed my urging to use more local products it *would be*). Anyways, that was a lot of words to say what these fish balls were not. There were instead airy without being unsubstantial. Fishy without being cheap. An orange thick sauce provided the proper counter. Our other fish dish was a simpler yet equally delicious grilled one. Sonargaon takes great pride in serving fish from Bengali waters. My instinct tells me that they should be seeking non-frozen things, but I cannot argue with the results.
They continue to put out dishes just as good from the tandoor. I really know of no better chicken tikka in Chicago. We followed Zim's recommendation for the tandoor cooked eggplant. And this is hardly anything more than tandoor cooked eggplant. The eggplants sit in the clay oven long enough to be pliable and then get worked with a hint of masala. Much denser and creamier than baba ganoush, but with a similar smokey taste. And of course, who does not think a fresh parantha a better scooper than mere pita?
It was a very quiet night at Sonargaon when we visited. Musharaf, one of the partners, spent a long time at our table, telling us about Bangladesh, Bangladeshi food, his wife who would be soon coming to America, and life at the Palmer House Hotel, where he also worked. An astute businessman, he asked for input on his restaurant. I offered the most sanguine of advice, I hope. Don't change. Do not take the lack of customers today as a sign that anything was wrong. Keep on doing it this way, and they will come. And I also said, add a few more Bangladeshi things to the menu (i.e., they were making their haleem, the grain and meat dish, in a Pakistani manner instead of the Bangladeshi way.) I hope he follows my ideas.
The Sonargaon Restaurant
2306 W. Devon
Chicago, IL
(773) 262-8008
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
LA Burgers
Much to the chagrin of my daughters, the chowhounditas, I tried to do a pretty definative tasting of LA burgers on my recent trips there (See here: and here). The LA Times recently weighed in with a bit more info
[registration required]
Much to the chagrin of my daughters, the chowhounditas, I tried to do a pretty definative tasting of LA burgers on my recent trips there (See here: and here). The LA Times recently weighed in with a bit more info
[registration required]
Monday, May 24, 2004
George's First Reports
Friends: Paris is truly the film capital of the
universe. Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes, which
has yet to open in the US, is playing on eight screens
here. It may have a couple week run at the Music
Box when it finally comes to Chicago, unless Bill
Murray mania wins it the attention it deserves.
Murray is in only one of the ten or so ten minute
segments of this series of shorts that Jarmusch has
been filming over the years, all invovling two people
sitting and drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes or
alluding to such, but he overhwelms the film, which
abounds with Jarmusch's delightful,off-beat humor.
Murray is rip-roaing hilarious playing himself as a
waiter serving a couple of hip-hop artists and begging
them not to tell anyone he's working as a waiter, as
he drinks coffee from the pot that the hip hop artits
dont care to drink. They know the perils of caffeine,
and nicotine as well. My traveling companion Jesse
and I were hurting from our laughter.
It was a great way to rest our legs this afternoon
after spending all morning wandering around Paris on
our bikes with Jesse leading the way showing me all
his favorites places from when he spend 6 months here
as a student two years ago. Many of those favorite
sites were the many, many movie theatres that abound
here. Some offer a monthly pass letting one see
everything on their multiple screens, some of which
may be a part of a chain, for 18 or so Euros. There
is one that has a weekly triple feature starting at
midnight that concludes with breakfast, all for ten
Euros. Brown Bunny, last year's Cannes show-stopper,
which also awaits a US release, is playing. And there
is the usual Jarmusch retrospective going at one of
the theatres. He is a virtual deity here, or at least
royalty. One review referred to him as The Prince of
Independent Cinema. One of the first things Jesse did
when we began our explorations this morning after
arriving last night was to purchase the weekly booklet
that lists all the movie theatres and what's playing.
It is mind boggling. The Cannes poster, a tribute to
Marilyn Monroe's uplifted dress, is already on
display, even though the festival doesnt start for
nearly two weeks and is 500 miles away. But it is a
great national event and celebration. If we werent
headed there it would be difficult not to go movie
crazy, especially since we have crashing privileges
with a friend of Jesse's from his time here who lives
in the shadow of Sacre Coeur in Montmarte.
The bike is also celebrated here. As we biked the
21 miles from the airport to Montmarte last night on
our fully loaded bikes a passing bicyclist greeted us
with the exclamation "Bon Courage." As I guarded our
bikes this morning while Jesse was in the American
Express office changing money, the Bob Matter of Paris
came over and told me about a gathering of cylists
that happens on every Friday night, not just the last
Friday of every month as happens elsewhere across the
world. Even tho its not called a Critical Mass, my
new friend Michel said the bicylists proceed to take
over the streets, including the Champs Elysees, and
have a jolly good time like Crtical Massers the world
over. He said last Friday they had over 750 cyclists
and enthusiastically encouraged us to join in. He
even had a map that he gave me showing its starting
point just a block from Notre Dame. This 60 year old
gent went on on like some disciple preaching the
gospel of the bike, saying what a joy and how
worthwhile it is to ride and expressing great glee
over the three months of biking Europe that Jesse and
I have ahead of us. He said France is "late" on
bicycles compared to Holland and Denmark and Sweden,
but it is trying to catch up. But one thing France
isnt "late" on is the Tour de France, which he also
gushed over. He said he had his picture taken last
year with two of Lance's teammates on the Champs
Elysees at the conclusion of the race. He's never gone
to the mountains to witness first hand the dramatics
of the race, so he couldnt help but pound me on my
back to congratulate me for coming all the way from
America to do just that. He said he'd be rooting for
Lance to win number 6, just as I will be.
One more day in Paris and then on to former
Chicago bike messenger and Critical Masser Florence in
Tours, maybe a two day ride away.
Later, George
Friends, All early indications are France is a touring
cyclist's paradise. Except for having to set up our
tents in the rain twice, we have no complaints
whatsoever. Camping wild has been a snap, once in an
apple orchard and last night down a tractor path
alongside a field into a bit of a forest. We didnt
even have to wiat until the cover of dark to make our
camping clandestinem and for that we are grateful as
its not getting dark here until 9:30, All that extra
daylight will be nice later on when we are stronger
and can ride without tiring, but we're still finding
our legs. Jesse says his legs are just getting used
to their first real touring experience and they need
to be broken in like a young colt to the saddle.
Before long they will be eager to be at it and wont
want to stop.
The roads have been narrow and without any
shoulder, but the French appreciate and applaud anyone
on a bike, so they slow and wait patiently, if they
must, to pass us. The only disadvantage to the lack
of shoulders is there is no place for the abandoned
bungee cords and neckerchiefs and other stray items i
usually find along the road to turn up. But the
narrow country byways make for the most idyllic of
cycling. Whenever there is a squiggle in the road
ahead I imagine the l89 strong pelton of the Tour de
France ahead snaking down the road in all its
colourful splendor. There are fields of bright yellow
flowers of a soy bean in bloom along the road that
every Tour de France photographer would want to
include in the foreground of his shot of the peloton
racing past. The Tour in its 90 years has ridden just
about every road of France. A farmer we talked to for
about half an hour our first day on the road
mentioned, without us asking, that the Tour had passed
his farm 3 years ago. Its alway heartening to know tht
we are riding roads that many of the cycling greats
have also ridden. In Iceland the question I had for
everyone I met was if they ate putrefied shark meat.
Here it will be, when last did the Tour de France pass
here. And I imagine everyoe will brighten and have a
fond memory.
France is also a touring cyclist's dream with the
great variety of food it has to offer. The deli's in
the supermarkets all have tabouli and quiche lorraine
and potato salad, but not mere potato salad, but
potato salad with bits of ham. The French tuly love
food and when they have a passion for something, such
Friends, No one warned us when we went on line
yesterday at the LeBlanc library that it closed at
noon for lunch, thus the abrupt end to my previous
message. We were in a separate internet room with 8
computers that we had all to ourselves except for one
other person. We couldnt have been happier. We had
our lunch with us and had settled in for what we hoped
would be a couple hour break from the road. When we
were informed it was closing time, it was closing
time. We did manage to find another library at 5 pm,
but it had only one computer and closed at 5:30. We
were thwarted at another town in the middle of the
afternoon whose lone store that offered the internet
was inexplicably closed. As Jesse and I sat in the
tiny square of the small town waiting for the office
to open, we watched a parade of locals come by the
shop, check the door and walk off. In 30 minutes we
saw at least 20 people come and go, a veritable cross
section of the town. It was as entertaining as a Tati
movie watching their varied reactions of frustration.
After five or six, we couldnt help but laugh as each
person approached, anticipating their reaction. It
was better than being on the internet.
Anyway, when I left off yesterday, I was
commenting on the French devotion to meat, and was
about to add that friend Florence, who is a
vegetarian, deferred to the ways of her country and
put out a spread of meat along with cheese when we
overnighted with her and Rashid in Tours two days ago.
She said her family and friends think something is
seriously wrong with her after returning from America
a non-meat eater after being away nearly 20 years.
Jesse and I didnt need meat, but Florence thought we
might after biking 150 miles from Paris in two days,
so went overboard in welcoming us. We joyously arrived
at their apartment at 6 p.m., and gabbed non-stop
until nearly 2 a.m. like long lost friends who havent
seen each other in years, when, in fact, it had only
been ten months since she and Rashid had left Chicago.
Even if there hadnt been plenty to catch up on,
Florence and I could carry on for hours trading war
stories from the seven years we fought together on the
same battlefield--the streets of Chicago as bicycle
messengers. Jesse, too, could chip in a few stories
after messengering in Philadelphia for the past two
months. It was a shame that Jesse and I have no time
to spare to make it to Cannes, so we had to be off the
next day. Florence was off to school the first thing
in the morning, but Rashid was able to give us a quick
tour of Tours before we were on our way. Florence
even let him use her super light aluminum racing bike
to lead us around. This is the heart Chateau country
and Tours had one to offer, though it was quite
pint-sized compared to some of the monstrosities we
had seen as we bicycled along the Loire River.
From Florence our next destination is Craig
MacDonald, another Chicago bicyclist who lives six
months of the year in a town of 50 about 40 miles
north of the Mediterraen about 350 miles south of
Tours. I have a couple of bicycle parts to deliver.
We were hoping to be able to spend more than an
evening with him as Craig said he had loads of roads
he'd like to bicycle with us, but once again it
doesnt look as if time will allow. We arent making as
good time as we had hoped due to the rolling terrain.
We climbed over 4500 feet yesterday in 88 miles and
today in 30 miles we have climbed 2100 feet already.
Fortunately the temperature is cool, not even 60, so
we're not overheating, but it is extra cool in the
early morning. When it's raining, it's almost as cold
as Iceland in July.
We were saved having to set up camp in the rain
last night, but just barely. We camped just outside
Guret, which will be one of the finish line cities for
this year's Tour de France. We camped in a field that
was staked out for construction alongside the raod the
Tour riders will pass. Today we are riding roads that
will be part of the Tour's longest stage, 150 miles
from Limoges to St. Floret. I havent decided if I
will return to witness these stages or not. I'm
looking forward to being part of the throngs alongside
the road cheering the riders as they pass after a
truck driver today cheered me as he passed on a long
climb just as he would one of his favorite riders.
The race touches all here. Rashid even admitted to
being captivated by the hours of television coverage
he watched last summer, even tho he never really had
an interest in it when he was living in Chicago. He's
looking forward to watching it on tv again this July.
We go in to a couple of bakeries every day, Jesse
for a baguette and pastries and whatever, and I for
their more nutritional fare--quiches and potato
patties and pate's in a biscuit and other surprises.
They are always a delight giving a distinct local
flavor, and Jesse, with his fluency in French, often
has an interesting conversaton when we have the shop
to ourself. An older guy in the pastry shop in the
town with the closed internet shop told us about
visting Chicago. He said it wasnt anything like the
movies--it was clean and didnt have any gangsters.
Jesse is protecting me from any suggestions of
anti-Americanism I might have detected with my minimal
French. So far, everyone has been charming and
conversational. Jesse is greatly enhancing the
experience and saving me countelss frustrations, they
they too can be very telling aspects to one's travels.
But I will have a chance to experience France on my
own when we split off and Jesse heads to Berlin where
his girl friend will be studying this summer.
Later, George
Friends: Paris is truly the film capital of the
universe. Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes, which
has yet to open in the US, is playing on eight screens
here. It may have a couple week run at the Music
Box when it finally comes to Chicago, unless Bill
Murray mania wins it the attention it deserves.
Murray is in only one of the ten or so ten minute
segments of this series of shorts that Jarmusch has
been filming over the years, all invovling two people
sitting and drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes or
alluding to such, but he overhwelms the film, which
abounds with Jarmusch's delightful,off-beat humor.
Murray is rip-roaing hilarious playing himself as a
waiter serving a couple of hip-hop artists and begging
them not to tell anyone he's working as a waiter, as
he drinks coffee from the pot that the hip hop artits
dont care to drink. They know the perils of caffeine,
and nicotine as well. My traveling companion Jesse
and I were hurting from our laughter.
It was a great way to rest our legs this afternoon
after spending all morning wandering around Paris on
our bikes with Jesse leading the way showing me all
his favorites places from when he spend 6 months here
as a student two years ago. Many of those favorite
sites were the many, many movie theatres that abound
here. Some offer a monthly pass letting one see
everything on their multiple screens, some of which
may be a part of a chain, for 18 or so Euros. There
is one that has a weekly triple feature starting at
midnight that concludes with breakfast, all for ten
Euros. Brown Bunny, last year's Cannes show-stopper,
which also awaits a US release, is playing. And there
is the usual Jarmusch retrospective going at one of
the theatres. He is a virtual deity here, or at least
royalty. One review referred to him as The Prince of
Independent Cinema. One of the first things Jesse did
when we began our explorations this morning after
arriving last night was to purchase the weekly booklet
that lists all the movie theatres and what's playing.
It is mind boggling. The Cannes poster, a tribute to
Marilyn Monroe's uplifted dress, is already on
display, even though the festival doesnt start for
nearly two weeks and is 500 miles away. But it is a
great national event and celebration. If we werent
headed there it would be difficult not to go movie
crazy, especially since we have crashing privileges
with a friend of Jesse's from his time here who lives
in the shadow of Sacre Coeur in Montmarte.
The bike is also celebrated here. As we biked the
21 miles from the airport to Montmarte last night on
our fully loaded bikes a passing bicyclist greeted us
with the exclamation "Bon Courage." As I guarded our
bikes this morning while Jesse was in the American
Express office changing money, the Bob Matter of Paris
came over and told me about a gathering of cylists
that happens on every Friday night, not just the last
Friday of every month as happens elsewhere across the
world. Even tho its not called a Critical Mass, my
new friend Michel said the bicylists proceed to take
over the streets, including the Champs Elysees, and
have a jolly good time like Crtical Massers the world
over. He said last Friday they had over 750 cyclists
and enthusiastically encouraged us to join in. He
even had a map that he gave me showing its starting
point just a block from Notre Dame. This 60 year old
gent went on on like some disciple preaching the
gospel of the bike, saying what a joy and how
worthwhile it is to ride and expressing great glee
over the three months of biking Europe that Jesse and
I have ahead of us. He said France is "late" on
bicycles compared to Holland and Denmark and Sweden,
but it is trying to catch up. But one thing France
isnt "late" on is the Tour de France, which he also
gushed over. He said he had his picture taken last
year with two of Lance's teammates on the Champs
Elysees at the conclusion of the race. He's never gone
to the mountains to witness first hand the dramatics
of the race, so he couldnt help but pound me on my
back to congratulate me for coming all the way from
America to do just that. He said he'd be rooting for
Lance to win number 6, just as I will be.
One more day in Paris and then on to former
Chicago bike messenger and Critical Masser Florence in
Tours, maybe a two day ride away.
Later, George
Friends, All early indications are France is a touring
cyclist's paradise. Except for having to set up our
tents in the rain twice, we have no complaints
whatsoever. Camping wild has been a snap, once in an
apple orchard and last night down a tractor path
alongside a field into a bit of a forest. We didnt
even have to wiat until the cover of dark to make our
camping clandestinem and for that we are grateful as
its not getting dark here until 9:30, All that extra
daylight will be nice later on when we are stronger
and can ride without tiring, but we're still finding
our legs. Jesse says his legs are just getting used
to their first real touring experience and they need
to be broken in like a young colt to the saddle.
Before long they will be eager to be at it and wont
want to stop.
The roads have been narrow and without any
shoulder, but the French appreciate and applaud anyone
on a bike, so they slow and wait patiently, if they
must, to pass us. The only disadvantage to the lack
of shoulders is there is no place for the abandoned
bungee cords and neckerchiefs and other stray items i
usually find along the road to turn up. But the
narrow country byways make for the most idyllic of
cycling. Whenever there is a squiggle in the road
ahead I imagine the l89 strong pelton of the Tour de
France ahead snaking down the road in all its
colourful splendor. There are fields of bright yellow
flowers of a soy bean in bloom along the road that
every Tour de France photographer would want to
include in the foreground of his shot of the peloton
racing past. The Tour in its 90 years has ridden just
about every road of France. A farmer we talked to for
about half an hour our first day on the road
mentioned, without us asking, that the Tour had passed
his farm 3 years ago. Its alway heartening to know tht
we are riding roads that many of the cycling greats
have also ridden. In Iceland the question I had for
everyone I met was if they ate putrefied shark meat.
Here it will be, when last did the Tour de France pass
here. And I imagine everyoe will brighten and have a
fond memory.
France is also a touring cyclist's dream with the
great variety of food it has to offer. The deli's in
the supermarkets all have tabouli and quiche lorraine
and potato salad, but not mere potato salad, but
potato salad with bits of ham. The French tuly love
food and when they have a passion for something, such
Friends, No one warned us when we went on line
yesterday at the LeBlanc library that it closed at
noon for lunch, thus the abrupt end to my previous
message. We were in a separate internet room with 8
computers that we had all to ourselves except for one
other person. We couldnt have been happier. We had
our lunch with us and had settled in for what we hoped
would be a couple hour break from the road. When we
were informed it was closing time, it was closing
time. We did manage to find another library at 5 pm,
but it had only one computer and closed at 5:30. We
were thwarted at another town in the middle of the
afternoon whose lone store that offered the internet
was inexplicably closed. As Jesse and I sat in the
tiny square of the small town waiting for the office
to open, we watched a parade of locals come by the
shop, check the door and walk off. In 30 minutes we
saw at least 20 people come and go, a veritable cross
section of the town. It was as entertaining as a Tati
movie watching their varied reactions of frustration.
After five or six, we couldnt help but laugh as each
person approached, anticipating their reaction. It
was better than being on the internet.
Anyway, when I left off yesterday, I was
commenting on the French devotion to meat, and was
about to add that friend Florence, who is a
vegetarian, deferred to the ways of her country and
put out a spread of meat along with cheese when we
overnighted with her and Rashid in Tours two days ago.
She said her family and friends think something is
seriously wrong with her after returning from America
a non-meat eater after being away nearly 20 years.
Jesse and I didnt need meat, but Florence thought we
might after biking 150 miles from Paris in two days,
so went overboard in welcoming us. We joyously arrived
at their apartment at 6 p.m., and gabbed non-stop
until nearly 2 a.m. like long lost friends who havent
seen each other in years, when, in fact, it had only
been ten months since she and Rashid had left Chicago.
Even if there hadnt been plenty to catch up on,
Florence and I could carry on for hours trading war
stories from the seven years we fought together on the
same battlefield--the streets of Chicago as bicycle
messengers. Jesse, too, could chip in a few stories
after messengering in Philadelphia for the past two
months. It was a shame that Jesse and I have no time
to spare to make it to Cannes, so we had to be off the
next day. Florence was off to school the first thing
in the morning, but Rashid was able to give us a quick
tour of Tours before we were on our way. Florence
even let him use her super light aluminum racing bike
to lead us around. This is the heart Chateau country
and Tours had one to offer, though it was quite
pint-sized compared to some of the monstrosities we
had seen as we bicycled along the Loire River.
From Florence our next destination is Craig
MacDonald, another Chicago bicyclist who lives six
months of the year in a town of 50 about 40 miles
north of the Mediterraen about 350 miles south of
Tours. I have a couple of bicycle parts to deliver.
We were hoping to be able to spend more than an
evening with him as Craig said he had loads of roads
he'd like to bicycle with us, but once again it
doesnt look as if time will allow. We arent making as
good time as we had hoped due to the rolling terrain.
We climbed over 4500 feet yesterday in 88 miles and
today in 30 miles we have climbed 2100 feet already.
Fortunately the temperature is cool, not even 60, so
we're not overheating, but it is extra cool in the
early morning. When it's raining, it's almost as cold
as Iceland in July.
We were saved having to set up camp in the rain
last night, but just barely. We camped just outside
Guret, which will be one of the finish line cities for
this year's Tour de France. We camped in a field that
was staked out for construction alongside the raod the
Tour riders will pass. Today we are riding roads that
will be part of the Tour's longest stage, 150 miles
from Limoges to St. Floret. I havent decided if I
will return to witness these stages or not. I'm
looking forward to being part of the throngs alongside
the road cheering the riders as they pass after a
truck driver today cheered me as he passed on a long
climb just as he would one of his favorite riders.
The race touches all here. Rashid even admitted to
being captivated by the hours of television coverage
he watched last summer, even tho he never really had
an interest in it when he was living in Chicago. He's
looking forward to watching it on tv again this July.
We go in to a couple of bakeries every day, Jesse
for a baguette and pastries and whatever, and I for
their more nutritional fare--quiches and potato
patties and pate's in a biscuit and other surprises.
They are always a delight giving a distinct local
flavor, and Jesse, with his fluency in French, often
has an interesting conversaton when we have the shop
to ourself. An older guy in the pastry shop in the
town with the closed internet shop told us about
visting Chicago. He said it wasnt anything like the
movies--it was clean and didnt have any gangsters.
Jesse is protecting me from any suggestions of
anti-Americanism I might have detected with my minimal
French. So far, everyone has been charming and
conversational. Jesse is greatly enhancing the
experience and saving me countelss frustrations, they
they too can be very telling aspects to one's travels.
But I will have a chance to experience France on my
own when we split off and Jesse heads to Berlin where
his girl friend will be studying this summer.
Later, George
George Writes and Bikes - From France
Vital Information is pleased to put out the writing and reports of George, the incredible biker. George occasionally gets around Chicago as a messenger, but whenever he gets a chance, he hits the world. Recent adventures include Iceland, Thailand, the Western USA and South America. You should well enjoy these reports.
Vital Information is pleased to put out the writing and reports of George, the incredible biker. George occasionally gets around Chicago as a messenger, but whenever he gets a chance, he hits the world. Recent adventures include Iceland, Thailand, the Western USA and South America. You should well enjoy these reports.
Saturday, May 22, 2004
Ned Beatty in the Kitchen
Last night, in a hurry to get to a party at the chowhoundita's school, we slapped together some turkey sandwiches (very fine turkey from Fox & Obel, thanks for asking). With about ten minutes to spare, I hauled out a cabbage and made cole slaw. That's what I do. I make cole slaw.
Everyone should have a dish. Thousands of Frenchmen know how to expertly swirl an omelet pan in such a way that the eggs always avoid the ashes of the Gitane. After all, in the other hand one would expect to find a glass of wine. Wiseguys learn red gravy as they go to the mattresses, and if they get caught, they fry steaks on the hot plate with garlic literally sliced razor thin. Whether seeking seduction or a sit-down or just a way to moisten up that turkey sammy, I make cole slaw.
It is not a dish that brings accolades. John Kass has not contacted me to take my five step cole slaw process. I cannot, like my friend Joan, impress people with birthday cole slaw. Cole slaw is never a star dish. It is the Ned Beatty of cuisine. You recognize the face each time, even as it takes on new accents, but you are not at the movie because of him. It seems odd, perhaps for some to think of me as committed to such an unassuming dish, as unassuming is surely not they way I am typically described.
Cole Slaw appeals to nearly everything I want and need out of the kitchen. First of all, it is cheap. I can almost always buy a cabbage for under a buck, and that one cabbage will always create as much cole slaw as I need. In fact, cabbage is a rather spiritual vegetable is it not. I mean ever notice how one tiny cabbage, smaller than a Chicago softball can suffice for both teams, the umpires and most of the cheering sections. I believe that cabbage was the food described in the bible as manna, as today it makes a fine topping to those twin desert staples, falafel and shwarma. Cabbage also appeals to my fetish for eating seasonal and eating local. I fantasize about going a whole winter with eating pretty much only cabbage from my root cellar, the way a Hasid wears the clothes of the shtetl, just to do it like they did it. For another thing, cole slaw plays to my kitchen skills. Rather, I shall say, cole slaw barely taxes any kitchen skill. I can take my chef knife, almost core the cabbage and then blast away like I have real knife art 'cause there is hardly a way to screw up cutting the cabbage for cole slaw. And if it does not work one way, I just turn the pieces around and try another. I've made cabbage with thin shreds, chips, platelets, food processor mince, box grater grate and all manner in between. Who cares.
No matter how I slice the stuff, I can make it taste good. I learned how to make cabbage from my mother, who unlike me, has a more impressive dish, rack of lamb. Hers is a no lose formula: salt, sugar, mayonnaise and vinegar mixed in parts until it tastes good. Of course, being a cole slaw specialist, I moved on from the basics. I'll add things. I mix up mayo with oil. I'll make it spicy. I'll make it garlic heady. With cole slaw, I can be of a thousand places. Yellow mustard and I've made it Carolina style [ed is that not Memphis style?]. Caraway seeds and it is something Nordic. Rice vinegar and not much else and is summo, Japanese cole slaw. The variations go on. If I was Chef G at Trio, I would make cabbage ice cream with aerated mayonnaise foam, but I am not. I am Ned Beatty.
Last night, in a hurry to get to a party at the chowhoundita's school, we slapped together some turkey sandwiches (very fine turkey from Fox & Obel, thanks for asking). With about ten minutes to spare, I hauled out a cabbage and made cole slaw. That's what I do. I make cole slaw.
Everyone should have a dish. Thousands of Frenchmen know how to expertly swirl an omelet pan in such a way that the eggs always avoid the ashes of the Gitane. After all, in the other hand one would expect to find a glass of wine. Wiseguys learn red gravy as they go to the mattresses, and if they get caught, they fry steaks on the hot plate with garlic literally sliced razor thin. Whether seeking seduction or a sit-down or just a way to moisten up that turkey sammy, I make cole slaw.
It is not a dish that brings accolades. John Kass has not contacted me to take my five step cole slaw process. I cannot, like my friend Joan, impress people with birthday cole slaw. Cole slaw is never a star dish. It is the Ned Beatty of cuisine. You recognize the face each time, even as it takes on new accents, but you are not at the movie because of him. It seems odd, perhaps for some to think of me as committed to such an unassuming dish, as unassuming is surely not they way I am typically described.
Cole Slaw appeals to nearly everything I want and need out of the kitchen. First of all, it is cheap. I can almost always buy a cabbage for under a buck, and that one cabbage will always create as much cole slaw as I need. In fact, cabbage is a rather spiritual vegetable is it not. I mean ever notice how one tiny cabbage, smaller than a Chicago softball can suffice for both teams, the umpires and most of the cheering sections. I believe that cabbage was the food described in the bible as manna, as today it makes a fine topping to those twin desert staples, falafel and shwarma. Cabbage also appeals to my fetish for eating seasonal and eating local. I fantasize about going a whole winter with eating pretty much only cabbage from my root cellar, the way a Hasid wears the clothes of the shtetl, just to do it like they did it. For another thing, cole slaw plays to my kitchen skills. Rather, I shall say, cole slaw barely taxes any kitchen skill. I can take my chef knife, almost core the cabbage and then blast away like I have real knife art 'cause there is hardly a way to screw up cutting the cabbage for cole slaw. And if it does not work one way, I just turn the pieces around and try another. I've made cabbage with thin shreds, chips, platelets, food processor mince, box grater grate and all manner in between. Who cares.
No matter how I slice the stuff, I can make it taste good. I learned how to make cabbage from my mother, who unlike me, has a more impressive dish, rack of lamb. Hers is a no lose formula: salt, sugar, mayonnaise and vinegar mixed in parts until it tastes good. Of course, being a cole slaw specialist, I moved on from the basics. I'll add things. I mix up mayo with oil. I'll make it spicy. I'll make it garlic heady. With cole slaw, I can be of a thousand places. Yellow mustard and I've made it Carolina style [ed is that not Memphis style?]. Caraway seeds and it is something Nordic. Rice vinegar and not much else and is summo, Japanese cole slaw. The variations go on. If I was Chef G at Trio, I would make cabbage ice cream with aerated mayonnaise foam, but I am not. I am Ned Beatty.
Friday, May 21, 2004
Hot Hot Tofu - So Dong Tofu
So Dong Tofu House – This place pretty much serves one thing, tofu soup. There are about 8 varieties on the menu, but at the end of the day, they hardly matter. You get this steaming, I mean steaming crock of filled with very fresh, soft tofu hiding under a very scary coating of red chili broth. You crack an egg into this cauldron. The heat sterilizes this for you do not worry, and you enjoy at the pace your Western tongue can stand. With your hot hot (both) tofu, you will get another crock of rice. You let your rice sizzle for a bit, creating a bottom layer of crispies known in the trade as “raspa”, then transfer your rice to a stainless steel metal bowl. Oddly to you (maybe), you then wash out the raspa with your hot tea. Eventually, you’ll be taking micro-sips from your 3 bowls, tofu, rice and barley soup with rice krispies. Panchan, again, is your only relief. It is a very intense and satisfying meal. 3307 W. Brn Mawr Chicago, IL
So Dong Tofu House – This place pretty much serves one thing, tofu soup. There are about 8 varieties on the menu, but at the end of the day, they hardly matter. You get this steaming, I mean steaming crock of filled with very fresh, soft tofu hiding under a very scary coating of red chili broth. You crack an egg into this cauldron. The heat sterilizes this for you do not worry, and you enjoy at the pace your Western tongue can stand. With your hot hot (both) tofu, you will get another crock of rice. You let your rice sizzle for a bit, creating a bottom layer of crispies known in the trade as “raspa”, then transfer your rice to a stainless steel metal bowl. Oddly to you (maybe), you then wash out the raspa with your hot tea. Eventually, you’ll be taking micro-sips from your 3 bowls, tofu, rice and barley soup with rice krispies. Panchan, again, is your only relief. It is a very intense and satisfying meal. 3307 W. Brn Mawr Chicago, IL
Todai Today
Not wanting to ruminate in front of a computer today, I accompanied the Condiment Queen to the edge city around Woodfield for some errands. We thought about Shaw's but ended at Todai the chain "seafood" restaurant in the mall. Think you come to this place for the all you can eat sushi? Maybe. But really come to Todai for the cookies. I do not know if I have had finer cookies in a restaurant.
We arrived at Todai a few minutes before opening. Not only does this negate too much waiting, it gets you a loud greeting and a bow from the staff. Then, one by one they lead you past the stations: desserts (try our special tofumitzu we were told), tempura, noodles, soup, hot food, fruit, salads and the reason for most other people, the sushi. My instinct said to start with hot foods, that with a buffet nothing hot could really be that good soon. Yet, my sense of meal decorum made me eat some salads first. Then the hot foods. Then the sushi. Then the cookies.
Last week on the listserv that a lot of Chicago foodies subscribe, there was debate on the nature of Asians in a restaurant as a mark of splendor. Todai would be the ideal location for the dueling positions to duke it out. For one thing, the majority Asian clientele was clearly to my trained eye soley Japanese. It represented a mix of peoples. For another thing, what do all these people know about food? Clearly, Todai speaks to various Asian sensibilities, some I understand, some remain hidden to me. The place is large, bright, technologically advanced and designed to the extreme. All it is missing is some Pokemon cards and a few hello kitty tchotkes to complete the scene. It seems a bit Vegas too, but having been to Asia and having been to Vegas, I know the difference.
OK, does Asian sensibilities mean fake crab and small shrimp. Todai uses a lot of both. I avoided the former and handled the latter fried twice as tempura and with breading fine. Most of the sushi tasted fine too. The kind of sushi that tastes very fine as all you can eat, but maybe not what you want at Katsu or Heat. The sushi selection included conch, mackerel with lemon zest, squid, snapper and a few other things that made this more than just combination A, so I liked also the fact that I could sample. Of the salads, they achieved about a 33% success rate, which is astonishing low for salad, stick with the winners, seaweed and cucumber and shredded cabbage. I took small samples of filet mignon with broccoli, chicken tempura and green lip mussels in the very Asian style of hot mayo, and as small samples, they were fine. None of that stuff would be worth a meal. Still, what I liked most about Todai, and most makes me want to return, the cookies and other desserts.
Know what? I skipped the tofumitzu (but could not resist another chance to say tofumitzu--if you know me as well as Ms. VI or the chowhounditas, you might know that I'm gonna spend the rest of the night, maybe the rest of the weekend saying tofumitzu.) I did not skip much else on the sweet table. Those used to mochi and fried green tea ice cream may be surprised by the dessert aesthetic in Asia. What Japan did once to European cars, they have also done with European desserts. Re-created them, yet accentuated the absolute details. Little jewels of cheesecake, cherry tart and almond bars seemed far better than their models. No place, however, does Japan out France France though is in the cookies. Dream cookies. Cookies that linger over your tongue for seconds then evaporate into thousands of molecules of chocolate, sugar and butter, so much butter.
Sushi and cookies, perhaps my execution menu.
Todai is in the Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, IL
Not wanting to ruminate in front of a computer today, I accompanied the Condiment Queen to the edge city around Woodfield for some errands. We thought about Shaw's but ended at Todai the chain "seafood" restaurant in the mall. Think you come to this place for the all you can eat sushi? Maybe. But really come to Todai for the cookies. I do not know if I have had finer cookies in a restaurant.
We arrived at Todai a few minutes before opening. Not only does this negate too much waiting, it gets you a loud greeting and a bow from the staff. Then, one by one they lead you past the stations: desserts (try our special tofumitzu we were told), tempura, noodles, soup, hot food, fruit, salads and the reason for most other people, the sushi. My instinct said to start with hot foods, that with a buffet nothing hot could really be that good soon. Yet, my sense of meal decorum made me eat some salads first. Then the hot foods. Then the sushi. Then the cookies.
Last week on the listserv that a lot of Chicago foodies subscribe, there was debate on the nature of Asians in a restaurant as a mark of splendor. Todai would be the ideal location for the dueling positions to duke it out. For one thing, the majority Asian clientele was clearly to my trained eye soley Japanese. It represented a mix of peoples. For another thing, what do all these people know about food? Clearly, Todai speaks to various Asian sensibilities, some I understand, some remain hidden to me. The place is large, bright, technologically advanced and designed to the extreme. All it is missing is some Pokemon cards and a few hello kitty tchotkes to complete the scene. It seems a bit Vegas too, but having been to Asia and having been to Vegas, I know the difference.
OK, does Asian sensibilities mean fake crab and small shrimp. Todai uses a lot of both. I avoided the former and handled the latter fried twice as tempura and with breading fine. Most of the sushi tasted fine too. The kind of sushi that tastes very fine as all you can eat, but maybe not what you want at Katsu or Heat. The sushi selection included conch, mackerel with lemon zest, squid, snapper and a few other things that made this more than just combination A, so I liked also the fact that I could sample. Of the salads, they achieved about a 33% success rate, which is astonishing low for salad, stick with the winners, seaweed and cucumber and shredded cabbage. I took small samples of filet mignon with broccoli, chicken tempura and green lip mussels in the very Asian style of hot mayo, and as small samples, they were fine. None of that stuff would be worth a meal. Still, what I liked most about Todai, and most makes me want to return, the cookies and other desserts.
Know what? I skipped the tofumitzu (but could not resist another chance to say tofumitzu--if you know me as well as Ms. VI or the chowhounditas, you might know that I'm gonna spend the rest of the night, maybe the rest of the weekend saying tofumitzu.) I did not skip much else on the sweet table. Those used to mochi and fried green tea ice cream may be surprised by the dessert aesthetic in Asia. What Japan did once to European cars, they have also done with European desserts. Re-created them, yet accentuated the absolute details. Little jewels of cheesecake, cherry tart and almond bars seemed far better than their models. No place, however, does Japan out France France though is in the cookies. Dream cookies. Cookies that linger over your tongue for seconds then evaporate into thousands of molecules of chocolate, sugar and butter, so much butter.
Sushi and cookies, perhaps my execution menu.
Todai is in the Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, IL
Thursday, May 20, 2004
My Damn Good Chow Day
GWiv wrote about his fine chow day last Saturday. I've rather pressed with irks, real and perceived, to get to my damn good chow day, but here is is.
The chow day part of the day began when we parked our car near the Zim house and caught the aroma of Hecky's just begging to gurgle. Oddly, when the Hecky's stuff first gets going, it smells a lot more like bacon than anything. We did not eat any Hecky's, but it put us in the mood for good food to come.
We shopped the Evanston Farmer's Market with Ms. Zim. It was my first ever visit to this market often cited as the best in the area. Guess what. It's not. If I accessed the markets on the following factors: community feel, availability of fresh donuts, Hayes coffee, specialty produce, organic produce, meat, overall selection, and donuts, well I got to pick Oak Park. It was still a great market. We got award winning, odors not contained in the plastic provolone cheese, Michigan asparagus, rhubarb, and radishes. I admired the morel mushrooms at not one but two vendors, and also envied Green Acres from Indiana that has stuff not found in Oak Park. Still, I missed my donuts and Hayes coffee. Really, in my view, the market also seemed a bit disjointed, a bit less community like, but maybe that was 'cause I ran into no neighbors.
From the market we had some home-made chai from Zim, who made the tea too weak because of bad influences from his mother. We then had a very fine lunch at Thai Home Made. Thai Home Made has nicely translated its menu, so there is no risk of not know what to get, and all of our dishes were heady with fish sauce, so I thought we got it pretty good. After lunch, however, the waitress told me that they did not really make the food Thai style for us. That if they did, it would have been spicier. I guess if the food we had sucked, I would have been pissed, but as the food did not suck, how much could I care. Pork shoulder salad, Chinese broccoli with browned bits of garlic, satay, chicken laab, chive dumplings, bamboo shoot salad--a very green version, different than Thai Avenue's, fried chicken wings. Nothing stood out as much as Spoon Thai, but everything tasted fine nonetheless.
I looked at the some interesting plates of food at Cafe Montenegro next door. Zim warned me and then we split.
The VI family ended up on da'bomb. First stop was actually off of Devon, on California. Acardia is one of those mysterious Brigadoon type of places [Brigadoon is the place that shows up every 7 years right?]. It is pretty much never open when we walk by, and I really thought it just out of business. Not on this day. An older Russian lady sat, rather sad looking. It looked like no one was eating her food. Set up near the cash register was her entire output for the day. One mad dash through the kitchen, leaving an array of things for people to buy and take away. Language issues precluded us from fully knowing what everything was, but we sure took enough of it. Potato latkes stuffed with meat, ground chicken patties, kasha, blintzes, a stew of chicken and potatoes. We ate it later in the week, and it tasted exactly as it looked. Conceived by someone who wanted you to be well fed.
We took two versions of tea on da'bomb that afternoon. Strong Turkish tea in tiny glass glasses at the Turkish place and strong milky tea, the best I've had in ages, at Tahoora Sweets. We got a great deal on strawberries at Fresh Fruit Market and another one of those yeasty round breads from Argo.
We finished the stellar chow day at Tufano's with the lemon chicken, not quite as great as usual, and a bowl of worms, a/k/a cavatelli in red gravy.
I'll dig up addresses later.
GWiv wrote about his fine chow day last Saturday. I've rather pressed with irks, real and perceived, to get to my damn good chow day, but here is is.
The chow day part of the day began when we parked our car near the Zim house and caught the aroma of Hecky's just begging to gurgle. Oddly, when the Hecky's stuff first gets going, it smells a lot more like bacon than anything. We did not eat any Hecky's, but it put us in the mood for good food to come.
We shopped the Evanston Farmer's Market with Ms. Zim. It was my first ever visit to this market often cited as the best in the area. Guess what. It's not. If I accessed the markets on the following factors: community feel, availability of fresh donuts, Hayes coffee, specialty produce, organic produce, meat, overall selection, and donuts, well I got to pick Oak Park. It was still a great market. We got award winning, odors not contained in the plastic provolone cheese, Michigan asparagus, rhubarb, and radishes. I admired the morel mushrooms at not one but two vendors, and also envied Green Acres from Indiana that has stuff not found in Oak Park. Still, I missed my donuts and Hayes coffee. Really, in my view, the market also seemed a bit disjointed, a bit less community like, but maybe that was 'cause I ran into no neighbors.
From the market we had some home-made chai from Zim, who made the tea too weak because of bad influences from his mother. We then had a very fine lunch at Thai Home Made. Thai Home Made has nicely translated its menu, so there is no risk of not know what to get, and all of our dishes were heady with fish sauce, so I thought we got it pretty good. After lunch, however, the waitress told me that they did not really make the food Thai style for us. That if they did, it would have been spicier. I guess if the food we had sucked, I would have been pissed, but as the food did not suck, how much could I care. Pork shoulder salad, Chinese broccoli with browned bits of garlic, satay, chicken laab, chive dumplings, bamboo shoot salad--a very green version, different than Thai Avenue's, fried chicken wings. Nothing stood out as much as Spoon Thai, but everything tasted fine nonetheless.
I looked at the some interesting plates of food at Cafe Montenegro next door. Zim warned me and then we split.
The VI family ended up on da'bomb. First stop was actually off of Devon, on California. Acardia is one of those mysterious Brigadoon type of places [Brigadoon is the place that shows up every 7 years right?]. It is pretty much never open when we walk by, and I really thought it just out of business. Not on this day. An older Russian lady sat, rather sad looking. It looked like no one was eating her food. Set up near the cash register was her entire output for the day. One mad dash through the kitchen, leaving an array of things for people to buy and take away. Language issues precluded us from fully knowing what everything was, but we sure took enough of it. Potato latkes stuffed with meat, ground chicken patties, kasha, blintzes, a stew of chicken and potatoes. We ate it later in the week, and it tasted exactly as it looked. Conceived by someone who wanted you to be well fed.
We took two versions of tea on da'bomb that afternoon. Strong Turkish tea in tiny glass glasses at the Turkish place and strong milky tea, the best I've had in ages, at Tahoora Sweets. We got a great deal on strawberries at Fresh Fruit Market and another one of those yeasty round breads from Argo.
We finished the stellar chow day at Tufano's with the lemon chicken, not quite as great as usual, and a bowl of worms, a/k/a cavatelli in red gravy.
I'll dig up addresses later.
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
LA Donuts Found!
I'm a known donut fetishist. I even swoon over the nearly leaden circles offered each week at my beloved Oak Park Farmer's Market. Imagine my grand surprise when I showed up in LA on a food oriented vacation to learn that LA was not just a donut town, but a donut town.
What makes LA such a wondrous place to eat donuts is the simple fact that they are everywhere. There are a few temples of fry, stance, Primo's, but these really special places are not what makes LA the donut town. It is a donut shop seemingly on every corner. All with the same shapes and flavors and all tasting just great. How can you not like a city where whenever you need a fix of food crack, you have a dealer waiting.
In Chicago and surrounding suburbs, we have a few donuts shops, which makes nearly everyone special, but nothing approaching the vastness of LA. And it turns out that of our few donut shops, one is a LA donut shop.
A bit stressed the other day, I peaked up just by the site of the sign, "Wheeling Donuts." I entered and saw it. A slab of fried, glazed dough seen often in LA known as the buttermilk bar. I felt transported and slightly hankering for a fatburger. I awoke from my day dream to a giggling Khmer woman behind the counter. Seems her family runs some stands out there. My instantly recognizing the LA donut really cracked her up. A LA buttermilk bar made me pretty happy too.
UPDATE: Sorry I gave absolutely no suggestion on how to find LA donuts in Chicago. Wheeling Donuts is on Dundee just east of Rt. 83, south side of the street. There are 2 very interesting looking Mexican places in the same vicinity.
I'm a known donut fetishist. I even swoon over the nearly leaden circles offered each week at my beloved Oak Park Farmer's Market. Imagine my grand surprise when I showed up in LA on a food oriented vacation to learn that LA was not just a donut town, but a donut town.
What makes LA such a wondrous place to eat donuts is the simple fact that they are everywhere. There are a few temples of fry, stance, Primo's, but these really special places are not what makes LA the donut town. It is a donut shop seemingly on every corner. All with the same shapes and flavors and all tasting just great. How can you not like a city where whenever you need a fix of food crack, you have a dealer waiting.
In Chicago and surrounding suburbs, we have a few donuts shops, which makes nearly everyone special, but nothing approaching the vastness of LA. And it turns out that of our few donut shops, one is a LA donut shop.
A bit stressed the other day, I peaked up just by the site of the sign, "Wheeling Donuts." I entered and saw it. A slab of fried, glazed dough seen often in LA known as the buttermilk bar. I felt transported and slightly hankering for a fatburger. I awoke from my day dream to a giggling Khmer woman behind the counter. Seems her family runs some stands out there. My instantly recognizing the LA donut really cracked her up. A LA buttermilk bar made me pretty happy too.
UPDATE: Sorry I gave absolutely no suggestion on how to find LA donuts in Chicago. Wheeling Donuts is on Dundee just east of Rt. 83, south side of the street. There are 2 very interesting looking Mexican places in the same vicinity.
Thursday, May 13, 2004
What's My Obligation to a New Restaurant/What Took Me So Long
Rather quickly, the space next to Armarind on North Avenue near Oak Park Avenue went from for lease, to coming soon, to open as Cafe LaGuardia West. There is actually a Cuban place a few more blocks west, Cafe Cubano, but there is something about this place that turns me off. The portions seem small, the food misses grease, something. Cafe LaGuardia seemed in my memory, to be rather base, more urban, more real, more what I wanted. Cafe LaGuardia West opened for business on Monday.
The Condiment Queen had the great idea to get there early. They would remember us. It would help going forward as they knew us as their FIRST customers. Unfortunately, I am not so sure if we will be repeat customers. I wanted a Cuban sandwich. I specifically asked for no mayo, not a big deal, but one that mattered to my sensibilities. Of course, the sammy came mayo'd. After about 10 minutes, my re-do arrived. I ate about 1/2 when I realized the sandwich was bad, really bad. It was not just the bread, dense, bland Gonnella that works awfully for these things.
A Cuban sandwich, of course, is one of those things that rises above its ingredients, the sum is greater from the press. Still, there is a harmony a magic from those simple ingredients when they all get smooshed. So, when the sandwich tasted that bad. I got curious. I broke the seal and peeked inside. No roast pork. I was eating a sandwich of (very) cheap ham, and overly melted cheese--I believe the sandwich might have been pressed and then nuked or vice-a-versa as the cheese was way different than the meat. After a bit of consternation from Cafe LaGuardia, they decided to free us with no obligation to pay.
Normally, when I eat really bad food, I lose my appetite. For a few moments I did. Yet, soon hunger returned, hunger for another (and better) Cuban sandwich. I decided to give that Cafe Cubano another shot. Could not be worse right? Well, closed. Now, really jonesing for a cubano, I decided to hit the place I've seen many a times, Cafe Prado in Maywood.
A small counter and stool kind of place that you would very much expect to see in the keys or Miami, but in Maywood. I mean it really looks right. Yet a combination of odd hours (or so it seems) and the fact that Maywood never seems like the place you wind up looking for lunch options kept me from actually fulfilling my desire.
Know what. The sandwich was better but only marginally. It still used the same dull bread, but it did have pork and hence worked a whole better. Still, what an infinitely cool place. Beyond that small counter, in fact past an almost forbidding door, stood a good sized dining room. A rec-room decorated room totally un-apparent from the street. It reminded me of the tents in Harry Potter. Outwardly this looked like nothing, within you seemed to be in a 60's era basement (on ground level). The menu contained all sorts of Cuban standards. What really convinced me that I need to return soon is the fact that the menu lists blanks where the prices should be for the various items. See, while the menu lists a lot of stuff, on any given day, only what the cook decided to make is there. My thoughts exactly.
I do not have the addresses for any of these places. Cafe LaGuardia West is on North Avenue just west of Oak Park Avenue. Cafe Cubano is on North near Johnnies in Elmwood Park and El Prado is on Lake Street just west of 5th Avenue in Maywood.
Rather quickly, the space next to Armarind on North Avenue near Oak Park Avenue went from for lease, to coming soon, to open as Cafe LaGuardia West. There is actually a Cuban place a few more blocks west, Cafe Cubano, but there is something about this place that turns me off. The portions seem small, the food misses grease, something. Cafe LaGuardia seemed in my memory, to be rather base, more urban, more real, more what I wanted. Cafe LaGuardia West opened for business on Monday.
The Condiment Queen had the great idea to get there early. They would remember us. It would help going forward as they knew us as their FIRST customers. Unfortunately, I am not so sure if we will be repeat customers. I wanted a Cuban sandwich. I specifically asked for no mayo, not a big deal, but one that mattered to my sensibilities. Of course, the sammy came mayo'd. After about 10 minutes, my re-do arrived. I ate about 1/2 when I realized the sandwich was bad, really bad. It was not just the bread, dense, bland Gonnella that works awfully for these things.
A Cuban sandwich, of course, is one of those things that rises above its ingredients, the sum is greater from the press. Still, there is a harmony a magic from those simple ingredients when they all get smooshed. So, when the sandwich tasted that bad. I got curious. I broke the seal and peeked inside. No roast pork. I was eating a sandwich of (very) cheap ham, and overly melted cheese--I believe the sandwich might have been pressed and then nuked or vice-a-versa as the cheese was way different than the meat. After a bit of consternation from Cafe LaGuardia, they decided to free us with no obligation to pay.
Normally, when I eat really bad food, I lose my appetite. For a few moments I did. Yet, soon hunger returned, hunger for another (and better) Cuban sandwich. I decided to give that Cafe Cubano another shot. Could not be worse right? Well, closed. Now, really jonesing for a cubano, I decided to hit the place I've seen many a times, Cafe Prado in Maywood.
A small counter and stool kind of place that you would very much expect to see in the keys or Miami, but in Maywood. I mean it really looks right. Yet a combination of odd hours (or so it seems) and the fact that Maywood never seems like the place you wind up looking for lunch options kept me from actually fulfilling my desire.
Know what. The sandwich was better but only marginally. It still used the same dull bread, but it did have pork and hence worked a whole better. Still, what an infinitely cool place. Beyond that small counter, in fact past an almost forbidding door, stood a good sized dining room. A rec-room decorated room totally un-apparent from the street. It reminded me of the tents in Harry Potter. Outwardly this looked like nothing, within you seemed to be in a 60's era basement (on ground level). The menu contained all sorts of Cuban standards. What really convinced me that I need to return soon is the fact that the menu lists blanks where the prices should be for the various items. See, while the menu lists a lot of stuff, on any given day, only what the cook decided to make is there. My thoughts exactly.
I do not have the addresses for any of these places. Cafe LaGuardia West is on North Avenue just west of Oak Park Avenue. Cafe Cubano is on North near Johnnies in Elmwood Park and El Prado is on Lake Street just west of 5th Avenue in Maywood.
Monday, May 10, 2004
Blog!
I've been pretty happy with the whole blog process, even if SethZ's stepped in a few times to fancy things up (to the extent that anything is fancied up on my blog). Google purchased Blogger a while back, and they finally made some upgrades (maybe?) in the enterprise. Read about it here.
I've been pretty happy with the whole blog process, even if SethZ's stepped in a few times to fancy things up (to the extent that anything is fancied up on my blog). Google purchased Blogger a while back, and they finally made some upgrades (maybe?) in the enterprise. Read about it here.
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