Chicago Foodies

The Immigrant Room

The American Club in Kohler Wisconsin, just off the highway at Sheboygan, is renowned for 3 things - food, fairways and fixtures.

It's the home of Kohler kitchen and bath fixtures, they have a design center as part of the resort/hotel and each guest room sports some shmantzy bathroom set-ups. It has one of the best golf courses in the Midwest. As it was winter I didn't spend any of my personal time anywhere but the restaurants.

Their most notable is the Immigrant Room. The idea being that the food is "reflective of... the immigrant history of the village's early European heritage." It was renovated recently and on a Wednesday night I was there in an empty restaurant. Boy the food was good.

Jin Ju

Aside from Korean BBQ, I've really only eaten Korean food once. It was at a restaurant that I could recognize and return to without knowing the name (which is written in Korean on their rather large sign). Jin Ju is nowhere near that type of environment. It's not quiet. It's not predominately Korean and I could figure out, or was told exactly what was what.

It's a Korean restaurant for Americans... easy enough. But oddly it's pretty unique in that respect. From myriad plates of Kim Chee and other "items" to the phonetically challenging dish names Korean food is pretty unusual and has not really been geared to Americans in any major way.

So while we have adopted Thai food as the Asian fare de rigueur and Vietnamese pho is more unusual, Korean is pretty much off the map. But maybe Jin Ju will help to change that.

Oasis Cafe

As my anniversary approaches, and I won't mention which one, I was reminded of a truly special Chicago secret restaurant. In the back of one of the Jeweler's malls on Wabash, behind the stalls of alternately pushy and/or completely distant salespeople, is a group of tables and a middle eastern lunch-counter. I was originally looking for an engagement ring and was distracted by falafel and chicken shwarma pita sandwiches. This time I'm spending less on jewelery so I figured I'd splurge and get the lamb special.

This place reminds me a bit of Pee Wee's Big Adventure where a fortune teller informs Pee Wee that his bike is in the Alamo.... in the basement. While it's not in the basement, the Oasis Cafe is in the 'way-back' of the Wabash Jeweler's Mall...