Chicago Foodies

Feast Exhibit Opens Tonight at UChicago's Smart Museum

If you took a college art history class, radical art and food probably conjures the image of Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party. But artists continue to use food and shared meals as a medium for revolution and critical engagement in ways that are normally outside the boundaries of museum curation.

A new exhibit, Feast: Radical Hospitality, opening tonight at University of Chicago's Smart Museum, is a unique survey of more than 30 artists who use the idea of a meal as a vehicle for art, aesthetic expression, and change. From performance art to political food trucks, the exhibit "examines the history of the artist-orchestrated meal, assessing its roots in early-twentieth century European avant-garde art, its development over the past decades within Western art, and its current global ubiquity."

Included in the exhibit are numerous salons, events, and of course, meals, including an afternoon of beer drinking, symposiums, and childrens' programming. For more details, see the exhibit's website, or attend the free opening reception tonight at 7:30.

--Kate Bernot

Bacardi at the Park

I was very excited to try the new restaurant, Bacardi at the Park, when I went to the Sox game last night. Located right next to Gate 5, this hip-interior sports bar has a fun atmosphere and good beer.

Gibson's Restaurant Group owns Bacardi at the Park. They have a small menu with typical bar food including brisket nachos, a barbecue pulled pork sandwich, and smoked baby-back ribs. The food is priced between $7-10.

I was unfortunately in a hurry and could only try the brisket nachos.

The nachos took less than 10 minutes to arrive to my bar seat.

They do have very good service.

Ricobene's: Breaded Steak Sandwiches

Ricobene's is a long-time Southside institution, with a sign proudly trumpeting its opening in 1946. Though Bridgeport has been playing host to an eclectic melting pot of eateries lately, Ricobene's is no flash in the pan, but a stalwart of old school Chicago dining. Think Manny's, but less Jewish and more Italian.

Framed black and white photos hang on the walls decorated with the classic checkboard motif. A closer inspection of one picture revealed a signature from Mayor Daley. This is, after all, the neighborhood which has served as the home of five of the city's mayors. If political clout isn't enough for you, Ricobene's is also a popular cop hang out. No less than four of Chicago's finest walked through the doors during my last brief visit.

The Original Rainbow Cone

While otherwise traipsing around the Southside, I figured it was time to make a pilgrimage to the Original Rainbow Cone. Founded in 1926, Rainbow Cone eschews fancy-schmancy granite stones and liquid nitrogen, and sticks to the business of being one of the area's finest traditional ice cream shops.

Rainbow Cone has been a long-time presence at Taste of Chicago, where I first encountered them. They are also due to open up a new branch in the Loop at some point this month. Visiting the original Rainbow Cone shop requires a little more perseverance though, since they are located in the far Southside in Beverly. No matter, I was willing to travel for my love of all things rainbow.

We were heralded by a somewhat chintzy building with a large rainbow ice cream cone atop the roof, and rainbows plastered generously on the walls. An ample amount of parking was available outside. On a further note, I do not recommend biking to Rainbow Cone at night if you are coming from the north, unless you are feeling particularly adventurous and have materials handy to fix flats (there was a fair amount of glass and debris along the way).

Soul Vegetarian East

Chicago is popularly known as a hot dogs and pizza kind of town, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that. But there comes a time in every closet-hippie's life where one feels the itch to listen to Enya, free Tibet, and stuff one's face with a tempeh reuben sandwich. In other words, it was time to take a trip to a vegetarian restaurant.

I'd tried a few places around town, and unfortunately hadn't been particularly taken with any of them. Then there was the legendary Soul Vegetarian. The rumors started innocently enough. Soul Vegetarian, the whispers murmured, you won't regret it. But it's on 75th, I said, that's such a long trek! Do it, the whispers insisted, or else you will drown in a pool of tahini-ginger-flavored regret. And so I found myself and a few adventurous compadres biking down to 75th St on a warm summer evening.

Lao Shanghai

 Previously Reviewed May 18th 2008

For the last week or so, I've been seriously jonesing for some xiao long bao, or soup dumplings. What's that, you say? The xiao long bao is a Shanghai specialty, a bite-size morsel of fatty pork in a semi-transluscent dough wrapper. These are typically steamed over napa leaves in bamboo steamers, and as a result, the dumpling contains a rich, meaty broth that explodes in your mouth as you bite in. The trick is to carefully pick up the dumpling and place it in a soup spoon, so that you don't lose any of the broth inside. Cut with vinegared soy sauce, I could easily make an entire meal out of only soup dumplings. By far the best dumplings I have tasted come from Joe's Shanghai in New York. (If you stop by Joe's, I recommend braving the crowds and going to the Chinatown location.) Hoping to find a substitute closer to home, I decided to stop by Lao Shanghai to check out their offerings. How does Lao Shanghai hold up against its East-coast competition?

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$5 Burgers @ Custom House

It's a sweet deal. Prix Fixe lunch is $24 and change but $5 burgers? That's worth splitting a cab ride to 500 S. Dearborn. Looks like a great opening salvo to Chicago's Restaurant Week. Considering Custom House's allegiance to meat products I'd expect the burger to be worth the trip.

Lao Sze Chuan

So I've been confusing Lao Shanghai with Lao Sze Chuan. It was really embarassing when I wanted to take friends to try soup dumplings and arranged dinner at the wrong place. I actually wrote Lao Shanghai up as Lao Sze Chuan... talk about editorial error. It's since been corrected but the upside was that I got to try another great spot in Chinatown.

Lao Shanghai: Xiao Long Bao!

At the beginning of this year I spent some time in Shanghai and since have been ingratiating myself on unsuspecting Chinese waitstaff looking for xiao long bao – the single best tasting morsel of food I had on my travels. Lao Shanghai is the only place in Chicago to try this dish.

One of my pet peeves is messy food. For some reason my reaction is completely out of my control. Why I ordered the plum short ribs AND the spicy whole-shrimp and tofu was beyond me. My "issue" nearly trumped the fact that I finally got my chopsticks on some Xiao Long Bao!

Lao Shanghai is in the mall on Archer and Cermak. There are tons of restaurants from Spring World to Joy Yee. In light of the earthquake they all have Sichuan Relief Fund collection boxes as well.  The small restaurant tightly fits 52 at capacity. It's snug but not too loud and doesn't seem to suffer any service or kitchen problems.

We ordered too quickly. Once I saw the soup dumplings I resorted to auto-pilot. Short ribs? Hell yeah. Tofu and Shrimp. Done. I give my wife crap about her reticence to eat things that are on-the-bone. That said we both enjoyed the short ribs. The sweet plum sauce was wonderful. The deep fried goodness was a diet-meltdown but none-the-less tasty. The shrimp and tofu dish came in a mini-wok and I had to blow out the sterno a few minutes later to keep it from burning. The whole shrimp covered in sauce looked wonderful but I quickly gave that up. I'd need about 17 napkins, a lobster bib and an after-dinner bath to make that work. It's in the fridge for dinner tomorrow.

The Dunkin Donuts Coupon Experience

I confess that I eat at the Drive-Thru. I've actually seen studies that show something like  90% of the people out there eat in their cars. Now I can hope that it's granola and bananas and thermoses of soup but somehow I know that it boils down to the drive-thru and if you talk to these people I would suspect that the holy grail of drive-thru is breakfast. McDonald's has been playing with the all-day breakfast option. Lunch-Time Breakfast Burrito! We'll be getting fatter as a nation.

Schaller's Pump

We arrived at Schaller's Pump about a half hour before the first pitch of game 1 of the World Series. They had just finished painting the North-facing wall of the entire building with World Series White Sox lingo and a bit of linseed oil hung in the air. Luckily we weren't being rained or hailed on. It followed this season's Sox fortune.

Schaller's Pump is a venerable family-owned pub on 37th and Halsted. With the world-fricken series in Chicago the last thing I would want would be to stick to the Northside and deal with Cubs-fans' attitude. Rather than staying home we went out with some friends, looking for an appropriate place to really get into the series. Schaller's Pump was the right pick.