Fun Down River
We woke up Sunday with the intention of visiting the Maxwell Street market. Me just to eat, the wife to eat and shop and the kidz to pine over porcelain dolls, water yo-yo's and 1,000 other things that they want until they see the next thing they want. Give them $5 to spend for the day, and watch it go before the first taco consumed. Then, I read about the Arizona Charlie's flea market in Bollingbrook in Sunday's Chicago Tribune, and we decided to change plans. It might have been a good flea market with some good Mexican food. We never got there. Instead we did a bit of exploring of the South-West suburbs, some of the great and somewhat hidden gems of Chicagoland.
Whenever possible, I refuse to take the expressway. Sunday morning with little traffic, why not take the mother-road, old route 66 to Bollingbrook. What better way to "accidently" run into Honey Fluff Donuts, one of the great un-discussed food outlets in Chicago. I would not call Honey Fluff donuts truly great. I would not necessarily run from Oak Park to Countryside for a Honey Fluff donut, but when I drive by a Honey Fluff shop on a Sunday morning, damn if I am not gonna stop. For those who adore bearpaw sized apple fritters, Honey Fluff's looked awfully tempting. I limited myself, miserly, to one fresh buttermilk donut in anticipation of eating to come.
One cannot drive the full extent of old route 66. Right about where there is a huge hole in the ground (quarry), Joliet Road/Rt 66 detours and then just stops, forcing you on to Interstate 55. Instead of getting off at the re-started Joliet Road, we decided to get off at route 83 with the thought of brunch at Del Rhea's Chicken Basket for brunch. No brunch. Somehow this got us to Lemont, Illinois. We drove around this town for a while, but did not quite find the place that looked like we wanted. Still, what a great appearing place. Lemont may be a suburb, and I am sure outside Main Street it looks like any other suburb, but in the center of Lemont, along Main and the surrounding streets, it looked like any other small town in Illinois. I look forward to exploring Lemont a bit more some other time.
Going downriver, we ended up in Lockport. Reading the many signs around this town, you learn that at one point in the 19th century, Lockport stood equal with Chicago as the cities in Illinois. The Illinois-Michigan canal that made Lockport, Chicago and Illinois prosper is just a shallow duck pond now. Even with the signs, it is hard necessarily to imagine the locks and the canal traffic. But there are all sorts of historical buildings, left-over stuff from a around Will county plopped down, museums and sites in Lockport (nearly all, however closed mid-day on Sunday). Not only did we enjoy exploring yesterday, we avidly seek to return.
Of course, for me, no trip is worth discussing if it does not include food. Lockport has a couple of places of serious interest to the Chowhound: Public Landing, in the historic Gaylord Building on the canal and Tallgrass, a highly regarded Frenchish restaurant. There are, however, other places for the casual stroller. We ate breakfast and ice cream. The food at neither place was outstanding, but boy are the people in Lockport nice. The service in both places was, like Stepford Wives nice. And more than made up for anything on the menu.
Brunch, we ate at Old Stone Cafe. It's one of those places that serves a basic diner menu in a room devoid of naughahyde and adds eggs benedict and cappuchino to the menu for a bit of class. On the other hand, the prices were much cheaper than the same kind of places in Chicago. Biscuits and gravy tasted real enough but lacked a bit of soul. Same with their "State Street potatoes". The effort was there, but a certain amount of pizzaz was lacking. The Condiment Queen was not that happy with her mutltigrain pancakes. I'd eat at this place if I lived in Lockport, but other than that...
About an hour of so later, we stopped for ice cream at Cool Creations. With its stove, flavorings and machines quite visible, it is clear that Cool Creations makes their own ice cream--actually they make some of their own ice cream, they buy some also from Shermans. Like Old Stone Cafe, one can appreciate the effort but realize it is just not that special. Again, I would go here if I lived nearby, but not really run to.
Our last food stop in Lockport was at a farmstand on the way out of town on State, Glascott's I believe. They had plenty of corn, squashes, end of year cucumbers (it showed), and some very nice tomatoes. I'm glad it was there because we could not make our farmer's market on Saturday.
We timed all our eating to be ready for lupper, although the rest of the family did not know exactly what I had in mind. White Fence Farm IS a destination place. I can remember a time when White Fence Farm seemed like a trip to the country. Today, it is almost another suburban restaurant. Almost. One of the Chowhound posts that always sticks in my mind is Seth Zurer asking if White Fence Farm was a hot-sauce, white bread, bad fries kinda place. No. This is highly genteel fried chicken. Country fried chicken. Great fried chicken. Stiff, brittle, ideal crust protecting moist meat, pre-popeyes fried chicken. WFF came into being when good country fried chicken was not enough. As they say on Broadway, one needs a gimmick. WFF has them up the wazoo. Dinner comes with five relishes: pickled beets with soft onions, really rich cottage cheese, kidney beans in a thin mayo, a slaw of extra-fine mince in a clear dressing, and corn fritters that are a marvel of textures and flavors including a sugary crust and bits of kernals that stick to your teeth. For dessert at WFF, most of the players get the brandy ice, proof that cheap liquor and average vanilla ice cream tastes terrific together. Other gimmicks at WFF include a collection of vintage cars, a petting zoo, and those fun house mirrors I love. A lot of these gimmicks were put in place when the wait for chicken dinners seemed endless. I do not know if yesterday was typical, but it was not quite the madhouse I remember. One other point on White Fence Farm, skip the mashed potatoes, get the baked.
Old Stone Cafe
1100 South State Street
Lockport IL 60441
815-834-0500
Cool Creations Deli & Ice Cream
937 South Hamilton Street
Lockport IL 60441
815-838-4700
White Fence Farm
11700 Joliet Road
Lemont, IL 60439
630-739-1720 or 815-838-1500
Monday, September 20, 2004
Friday, September 17, 2004
I Love Salad
David "Hat" Hammond once famously declared, "I hate soup." It was a sentiment he later told me, borne out of frustration with the post Thanksgiving turkey carcass broth forced on him yearly. Yet, soup-phobia was a sentiment I found easy to accept. I was never a big soup fan. To me, soup meant something to fill you up in lieu of more meat. Moreover, I resented soup lovers. It was always easier to get a bowl of soup with your meal than say a plate of herring. Most Local Greek diners offer soup more readily than say, salad. So, I supported soup hating. Now, did I say salad. Salad was supposed to be the other side. Soup was red state, salad blue state (or something like that). I thought Hammond and I were the salad team. Then, he comes out and says, he hates salad too. He called salad stupid. Stupid for its oily mess, stupid for its faux calorie saving, and stupid because it was hard to digest. Hell, he even accused salad of harboring bacteria. I adore salad.
Of course, who really loves salad, that base of lettuce, tomatoes and other vegetables (except my daughter Hannah who willingly eats plain lettuce). What I and most other salad lovers really adore is salad dressing. Is there any kitchen product better than salad dressing? I should ask, is there any kitchen product so accessible, yet so wonderful as salad dressing. I mean I love hollandaise sauce too, but I have nary the patience to make it. And I love mayonnaise but only feel confident in making it when we have pasturized eggs. I can make a great vinaigrette always. Not just always because it is a rather idiot proof recipe, but always because the ingredients are nearly always around. Something acid, something base, like kids with a bunch of litmus strips to play with. Each end contributes to good taste. Acid excites the tongue and all our senses. Oil makes us feel sated. It is lush on the palate. Together, they balance each other so that the shock of one is not too great, and the richness of the other is not to full. Besides, and here's where it gets truly scary. A lot, nay most, bottled salad dressings taste good too because they also have that magic combination. Day glo "French" even has its odd moments of glory. I have mentioned before how the simple combination of catsup and mayo makes a product infinitely better than its component parts. In fact the only salad dressings that I feel are lesser, are when sugars push into the party too hard and interfere with that equilibrium.
Still, do we eat salad dressing alone? Salad dressing is like an orchestra conductor. Without him or her, the musicians cannot function, but without facing an orchestra, a conductor's just a person waving arms. Salad dressing must have salad to be relevant. I noted above that absent a certain 10 year old girl living in Oak Park, people hardly enjoy the taste of lettuce. Salad dressing not only tames the bitterness of greens, it affects an alchemy. It may be messy and laden with calories, but boy does it taste good when combined with vegetables. It does the ideal thing to lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots or any of a bunch of other vegetable that could possibly be considered "salad."
I like all salads. All forms of goods under dressing, but I love best the composed salad, the chopped salad, the julienne salad, the antipasto salad, whatever you want to call it. Add a bit of heft from chopped chicken breast, some pugency of blue cheese, crunchy-salt of bacon, fat of salami or whatever, and the salad is just that much better. In the middle of Oak Park is an odd restaurant called Thyme and Honey run by a dapper Greek with an affection for loud pocket squares. His restaurant produces some surprisingly good things, including one of the best chopped steaks around. I, however, can barely budge from their composed salad. Today, like nearly every time I go to Thyme and Honey, I got the julienne salad. None of the produce or other ingredients is especially, special but it is the sheer amount of them, working off of each other that makes this salad so great. It is lettuce and tomato and hard cooked eggs and celery and green onion (and red onion which I skip) and green peppers and rice stuffed grape leaves and greek broad beans and ham and turkey and two kinds of cheese and cucumber. And it is lots of dressing, made in house, featuring bits of lemons and onions--the former a bit of a pain as I was having this salad today at a business lunch and I kept on finding pieces of lemon peel in my mouth.
I douse the salad with the dressing, add generous amounts of salt and fresh ground pepper, spend five or more minutes obliterating it all into as fine a mix as possible, then find myself with about 25 minutes of sheer bliss. I love salad.
Thyme & Honey
100 S Oak Park
Oak Park
708-386-2332
David "Hat" Hammond once famously declared, "I hate soup." It was a sentiment he later told me, borne out of frustration with the post Thanksgiving turkey carcass broth forced on him yearly. Yet, soup-phobia was a sentiment I found easy to accept. I was never a big soup fan. To me, soup meant something to fill you up in lieu of more meat. Moreover, I resented soup lovers. It was always easier to get a bowl of soup with your meal than say a plate of herring. Most Local Greek diners offer soup more readily than say, salad. So, I supported soup hating. Now, did I say salad. Salad was supposed to be the other side. Soup was red state, salad blue state (or something like that). I thought Hammond and I were the salad team. Then, he comes out and says, he hates salad too. He called salad stupid. Stupid for its oily mess, stupid for its faux calorie saving, and stupid because it was hard to digest. Hell, he even accused salad of harboring bacteria. I adore salad.
Of course, who really loves salad, that base of lettuce, tomatoes and other vegetables (except my daughter Hannah who willingly eats plain lettuce). What I and most other salad lovers really adore is salad dressing. Is there any kitchen product better than salad dressing? I should ask, is there any kitchen product so accessible, yet so wonderful as salad dressing. I mean I love hollandaise sauce too, but I have nary the patience to make it. And I love mayonnaise but only feel confident in making it when we have pasturized eggs. I can make a great vinaigrette always. Not just always because it is a rather idiot proof recipe, but always because the ingredients are nearly always around. Something acid, something base, like kids with a bunch of litmus strips to play with. Each end contributes to good taste. Acid excites the tongue and all our senses. Oil makes us feel sated. It is lush on the palate. Together, they balance each other so that the shock of one is not too great, and the richness of the other is not to full. Besides, and here's where it gets truly scary. A lot, nay most, bottled salad dressings taste good too because they also have that magic combination. Day glo "French" even has its odd moments of glory. I have mentioned before how the simple combination of catsup and mayo makes a product infinitely better than its component parts. In fact the only salad dressings that I feel are lesser, are when sugars push into the party too hard and interfere with that equilibrium.
Still, do we eat salad dressing alone? Salad dressing is like an orchestra conductor. Without him or her, the musicians cannot function, but without facing an orchestra, a conductor's just a person waving arms. Salad dressing must have salad to be relevant. I noted above that absent a certain 10 year old girl living in Oak Park, people hardly enjoy the taste of lettuce. Salad dressing not only tames the bitterness of greens, it affects an alchemy. It may be messy and laden with calories, but boy does it taste good when combined with vegetables. It does the ideal thing to lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots or any of a bunch of other vegetable that could possibly be considered "salad."
I like all salads. All forms of goods under dressing, but I love best the composed salad, the chopped salad, the julienne salad, the antipasto salad, whatever you want to call it. Add a bit of heft from chopped chicken breast, some pugency of blue cheese, crunchy-salt of bacon, fat of salami or whatever, and the salad is just that much better. In the middle of Oak Park is an odd restaurant called Thyme and Honey run by a dapper Greek with an affection for loud pocket squares. His restaurant produces some surprisingly good things, including one of the best chopped steaks around. I, however, can barely budge from their composed salad. Today, like nearly every time I go to Thyme and Honey, I got the julienne salad. None of the produce or other ingredients is especially, special but it is the sheer amount of them, working off of each other that makes this salad so great. It is lettuce and tomato and hard cooked eggs and celery and green onion (and red onion which I skip) and green peppers and rice stuffed grape leaves and greek broad beans and ham and turkey and two kinds of cheese and cucumber. And it is lots of dressing, made in house, featuring bits of lemons and onions--the former a bit of a pain as I was having this salad today at a business lunch and I kept on finding pieces of lemon peel in my mouth.
I douse the salad with the dressing, add generous amounts of salt and fresh ground pepper, spend five or more minutes obliterating it all into as fine a mix as possible, then find myself with about 25 minutes of sheer bliss. I love salad.
Thyme & Honey
100 S Oak Park
Oak Park
708-386-2332
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
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
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.
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