Chicago Foodies

Crepe & Coffee Palace

Tucked away in an unassuming storefront on Clark, Crepe and Coffee Palace offers a unique ethnic eatery to Lincoln Park: the Algerian creperie. For those of you who live further north, an additional sister location in Andersonville might fit the ticket.

The restaurant offers both sweet and savory crepes, but the savory options are the real stars of the show. These are served with a cup of soup, your choice of either sweet potato or chicken cilantro.

If you are accustomed to thinking of crepes as dainty dessert items, you will be pleasantly surprised at the robustness of the Algerian dinner crepe. Pictured here is the Crepe Iberica, which came stuffed with housemade olive tapenade, ricotta, pistachios, pineapple, cilantro, and mixed greens. On another occasion, I tried the Crepe Marrakech, filled with raisins, cream cheese, carmelized onions, almonds, sundried tomatoes, and baby spinach. Though most of the filling ingredients are not specific to North Africa, there are a couple of items (merguez and rosewater) that you can incorporate for an Algerian accent.

Ras Dashen

I've been to several Ethiopian restaurants and while the sour injera leaves my hand sort of dry and the dining process is really neat, I've never really had a craving for Ethiopian food. Maybe it's a change of taste, maybe it's a revved up appreciation for something different or maybe it's the food and atmosphere at Ras Dashen that has me looking forward to more frequent Ethiopian dinners.

East Africa Restaurant: My Somali Breakfast

It's nice being off on President's Day. So what to do for breakfast? With M. Henry just down the street on Clark what should I do? Get my car washed and have some Somali food. As my car filled up with gas at the Marathon station I noticed, as I've noticed for a long time, East Africa Restaurant and decided on a quick bite.

They make no effort to hide the nature of the spot. It's a cabbie place and to be honest they seemed surprised to see me stay to eat. It's not a pretty restaurant. But the food is pretty cheap, the menu is sparse and the decor consists of a pool table that is covered with plaster and a computer for internet access.

Lunch Out of the Bolat Truck

It's a movable feast that undoubtably started in Africa, and came to the corner of Dearborn and Erie via Bolat on north Clark. The shiny truck serves cabbies, mostly, from 10:30am to 3pm. There was a line around 1pm and until I got lunch back to the office I was unsure what I was about to eat.

Ethiopian Diamond

The first, and last, time I tried Ethiopian food was in college at Madison, WI. I remember it being very unpleasant; the sticky bread that tasted strongly of vinegar, the mushy stews with mystery meat and cooked vegetables and grubby hands all reaching into the same plate. Looking back I probably shouldn't have let one restuarant experience in Madison define Ethiopian food.

Now, living in Edgewater, I drive past Ethiopian resturants every day.  One in particular, Ethiopian Diamon, looks pretty packed most nights, which to me is a very good sign. So, after  four years I finally put my fears aside and decided to take the plunge one Friday night. Again, there were a healty amount of people in the place, which is actually much larger inside than I would have guessed, more like a banquet hall. They had live music that night, one guy that played about 6 different instruments. He switched to a new one every song.