Chicago Foodies

Thai Pastry: Go-To Thai?

Thai Pastry has been for the past 5 years our go-to Thai restaurant. It's been the measuring stick we hold other places against. We even suck up delivery charges and extra charges for rice to get it at home. Most recently we weighed the pros and cons against Blue Elephant. We gave our order and $5 extra dollars to Thai Pastry. It was the first time we were actually disappointed by our order.

Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder: Beating the Crowds

Judging by the inevitable crowds lined up outside, the Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder almost doesn't require a review of any sort.   The classic early-1970s dark carved wood atmosphere as been left relatively untouched and it reminds me of a Shakey's pizza parlor near home (even the website and menus evoke the vintage feel).   When I got there shortly past 5 on a Sunday there was already a 20-minute wait. 

eighth blackbird and Mario Batali @ Blackbird

I have a BFA in studio art and during my college days, rarely since, I enjoyed experimental and avant garde art. My school had a great music department but since then I haven't had the same exposure. Then again I haven't looked around Chicago for it either. A recent benefit snuck it in under the guise of a performance of the Four Seasons of Futurists Cuisine narrated by Mario Batali with dinner following at Blackbird courtesy of Mario and Paul Kahan.

How could I not be chomping at the bit over this? Granted it is a food site but the music was terrific. It's hard to explain eighth blackbird as avant garde. They are pretty accessible and even thougth they're serious performers, they don't take themselves too seriously. You end up with a show that's fun to watch. They have a national following. I sat in the back of the trolley from the show to the restaurant and was surrounded by New Yorkers. That being said the band has a home in Evanston and they are scheduling a series in Millenium Park. Oh yeah and it's my first time at Blackbird.

Paul Kahan is one of the best chefs in Chicago and I've been waiting to check out Blackbird. I really like Avec but it's not quite the same thing. The funny thing is that I was at Babbo a few months ago and had a great meal. I sat down at 11pm and stayed until 2am. You can't do that in Chicago.

Marigold: Nouveau Indian

Marigold is a celebrated addition to the Northside's Uptown, and it fills a void of a city craving something different in Indian cuisine (sorry but Vermilion doesn't cut it).  After visiting for the fifth time I felt like a celebrity, and while I enjoy the service I especially love the food, and almost feel like I cannot write an unbiased review.  Marigold is more like a twist on Indian food as opposed to full-blown contemporary, but what it does it does very well, and at affordable prices, mind you.  And best of all, it's in my neighborhood.

Urban Tea Lounge: Buying from Pot Pushers

Urban Tea Lounge is one of those places that, if you walk too fast, you may not know it's there.  It has a nice bohemian vibe and the people who work there are friendly. The tea menu is unweildly and give yourself a few minutes to make a decision.  I ordered a Shou Mei, a white tea from the fujian province of China.   White tea has a smooth, mild flavor compared with other types of teas.  Urban Tea Lounge serves coffee, but, well, I would recommend sticking with tea.

Twin Anchors: Old-School Supper Club Feel

Being from a small town in Wisconsin, I still feel like it's a real treat going out to a supper club.  Back home, supper clubs were pretty much the only choice for going out for my family, aside from a couple chain places that were steadfastly avoided.  Many outside Wisconsin have asked me what a supper club is, believing it is something posh like an exclusive country club.  A supper club is anything but.  Supper clubs typically are rural roadhouse-type establishments, some of which are nothing more than taverns with a few extra tables, whereas others are fancier but lovingly dated with red pleather, red lights, and fake plants.  Popular supper club foods include fish frys (more on that below), Saturday night prime rib specials (hard to top as many supper clubs have special prime rib cookers and lots of experience doing it right), steaks, fried chicken, and then sometimes things like frog legs and duck.

Favorite Restaurant?

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Que Syrah: Wine Tastings

I’ve heard a lot of people rave about Sam’s and the selection there. I’ve yet to go there and I believe most everything I hear. If you know exactly what you want, down to the label, then okay, I get it. For me, I prefer the small wine shop with a limited selection. I find the wine tends to be more carefully selected, which is nice if you know the type of wine you want to buy but not necessarily the label and prefer expert advice without having to hunt it down.

 

We tasted wines from the Italian region of Piedmont for $35. Wine tastings tend to vary a lot in price and quality, but for this one not only did I not feel like I paid a lot but I also felt like this was outstanding value for the money. The people who ran the course were laid back and chatted with just about all the participants, but equally of importance was that they did not cheat on their wine. It was also nice that the participants were very into wine, many of them were in fact familiar with the region, asked very specific questions about decanting the more fragile varieties, and didn’t say things like “I like the whites better” or “This isn’t sweet enough.”  Well, this wasn't Wine 101.

Casbah Cafe

The parallel streets Broadway and Clark have many great (and not-so-great) BYO restaurants. From somewhere around Webster to a bit south of Irving Park, there are lots and lots of BYOs and lots of cuisines to choose from, and this is only the Lakeview section. I once lived three blocks from Casbah, and for whatever reason I never stopped by. Until now.

Goddess and Grocer: Stinky cheese

The Bucktown-bred Goddess and Grocer is a welcome addition on the Gold Coast, serving great snack foods and little dishes when you have company coming over that night and want something a notch above Treasure Island or Trader Joe's.  The Gold Coast does not yet have a great cheese place that I've found but Goddess and Grocer keeps a decent selection on hand. 

Sabatier 14-Piece Set $59.00

14 piece Sabatier forged knife set... they might not be what they used to but they're not bad... especially at this price- usually about $100ish.  If you need a set and don't want to drop the coin on something crazy these are pretty much up there with the Cuisinart, KitchenAid, Chicago Cutlery and Calphalon sets. $59 for forged cutlery is nothing to sneeze at.

Coobah: Pan Latin Cuisine Nightclub Style

Situated on Southport area of Lakeview, not many steps away from the Brown Line stop, Coobah is a pan-Latin restaurant with some Filipino dishes. The interior is very dark, almost like a nightclub or a café-bar with a lot of dark browns mixed in with red lights, and when we came at 6 p.m. it was like almost walking into a dingy bar in broad daylight, albeit without the smoke.

In the grand scheme of things the club atmosphere makes sense and provides for an exciting dinner experience—they serve food until 1 a.m., and bring in djs playing trendy music. The dinner the crowd was mostly younger. We appeared to be the first table seated but by the time we left at 7:45 the place had mostly filled up.

After ordering a delicious mojito, we ordered a “pizza” on special. It was more of a spongy olive oil-soaked thick bread, with piquillo peppers and green onions on a bed of spicy red pepper aoli. The pizza was devoured relatively quickly, in part because we and I were both hungry but also because it was very tasty.

Vermilion

This River North Latin-Indian Fusion spot is one restaurant that, when researched, appeared to have received a lot of hype, especially when it first opened in 2004. The outside does not grab your attention, but the inside is an aesthetically artsy mix of black, white, and red. We were in the neighborhood and went there on a whim on a Friday night, and were surprised to discover the place was half-empty. This led us to question if we made the right decision.

Homemade Bailey's Irish Cream

The website www.secretrecipes.org has unofficial directions to make everything from Baby Ruth candybars to KFC's Pecan Cake. In honor of the impending holiday I will attempt to reproduce Bailey's Irish Cream. My mother will undoubtebly be the litmus test.

The Bailey's recipe follows:

Guinness Pub Draughts 8 Packs for $9.99

Dominick's has the large 16oz. can with the widget.
Especially given the timing it's a great price...

Smithwick's - Ireland's Oldest Beer

*I will preface this by saying that I'm not a huge beer guy so feel free to correct, amend and/or elaborate.

I was in Ireland a few years ago and really started to enjoy Smithwick's (pronounced Smithicks). Consumption of a few of those and a Guinness or several shouldn't be dependant on a holiday. I didn't see much Harp while over there either. Go figure.

Smithwick's is Ireland's oldest beer. It's a red ale that had been brewed in Kilkenny at a brewery owned by John Smithwick from 1710.

Al-Khaymeih Restaurant

On Kedzie, just south of Lawrence is the Lebanese restaurant Al-Khaymeih. Just down the street is Semiramis another Lebanese restaurant but one at a time.

Shawarma was the reason for going and well worth it. You can choose either chicken or beef and you can take your time as you watch the meat on the spit. Monday evening I went back for more Tacos Al Pastor from Taqueria Uptown and thought about how similar regional foods are even when geographically they're literally a world apart. Of course you have to mention gyros and there you have it... beef, chicken, pork, and lamb. All we need is a slowly rotating giant spit of fish fillets. Hmmm. I think I'm on to something.

The one dissenting order was for a kefta-kebab type thing that I would order next time. The tahini sauce does wonders with charred meat. In addition to the sandwiches we really enjoyed the hummus and the very smokey babaganoush. Their tabbouleh salad was heavy on the veggies and light on the bulger. A friend explained the regional differences. When you're closer to the veggies - you get more veggies. The kibbeh was also terrific – deep fried spheres of bulger wheat filled with ground meat. Complimentery olives pickled with lemons and salty picked turnips were nice additions.

Orange: Pancake Flights

Orange fits the immediate central Lakeview neighborhood, which consists of several shops leftover from the days when it was perhaps more hippy-dippy and seedy. During the weekends there typically is a long wait (25 minutes in this case), which gives you the opportunity to smell incense from the headshop next door. The interior of Orange is earthy-crunchy and has a laid back vibe to it.

The Foie-Gras Protection Movement

All hail Pateria de Sousa, the problem solvers. It's not that I don't like to have foie gras – it's really tasty. It's the la gavage process that's seems to cause the fuss. From the International Herald Tribune

To animal welfare groups, the obscenity of force-feeding, known by the French word "gavage," is self-evident. But Ginor and his partner Izzy Yanay, who runs the farm, accuse their critics of anthropomorphism and ignorance of duck anatomy and behavior. They say the practice is as benign as it is ancient, since waterfowl lack a gag reflex and have sturdy throats that easily tolerate grains, grit, stones and inflexible gavage tubes. To understand gavage, they say, is to accept it - as they insist poultry researchers have, after examining birds for signs of undue suffering during gavage and finding none.

I visited Hudson Valley Foie Gras recently, seeing gavage for the first time. I saw no pain or panic in Yanay's ducks, no quacking or frenzied flapping in the cool, dimly lighted open pens where a young woman with a gavage funnel did her work. The birds submitted matter-of-factly to a 15-inch tube inserted down the throat for about three seconds, delivering about a cup of corn pellets.

Bistrot Zinc: Solid French Bistro

Located on State just south of Division in the Gold Coast Bistrot Zinc is a good, dependable French bistro (a bit more like French/Italian) that is never too crowded and exudes a classic bistro feel to it with antique-looking brass fixtures and tile floors. I tend to go there often for two reasons: first, it’s close to my fiancées place; and second, the menu changes monthly, which always makes it interesting.