Chicago Foodies

Curtis Duffy Announces His Next Move: Grace

Since he departed now-shuttered Avenues in September with two Michelin stars to his name, Curtis Duffy has kept the dining world eagerly anticipating any word about his forthcoming project. Now, he's broken his silence about the new restaurant, but he's not giving away many details. Here's what little we know, plus when to expect more updates.

Wining & Dining – West Town Tavern

Tucked into the corner of Chicago Ave and Throop Street, lives a neighborhood favorite and ultra-cozy resto, West Town Tavern. Residents of West Town are no strangers to the tastes of husband/wife duo Susan and Drew Goss’s contemporary comfort food line up, but this one is definitely a must-try for all.

Our picks? While we haven’t sampled the entire menu (yet!), we loved the Lamb (Smoked Lamb Shoulder BBQ with Double Corn Cake and Traditional Black Sauce) and the Scallops (Pan-Seared Scallops with Mushroom-Leek Risotto, Tarragon and Chives), though I do advise conversing with your waiter on the specials for the evening and his/her top choices. Wine and dine? You got it. West Town Tavern boasts a pretty trusty line up of New and Old World wines – again, ask your waiter for his recommended pairing for your dish.

Quite possibly the best part about West Town Tavern? They have sample recipes on their Web Site. I love a good DIY, restaurant-comparable dish – and now they’re making it as easy as possible on us “I only have time to cook on the weekends” girls. Check the recipes out here.

West Town Tavern
1329 West Chicago Avenue
Chicago, IL 60622

 

Moto's Future Food Premiere: We Sea Food Differently

Hold on to your cornstarch-fluffed, flash-frozen hats; Moto is unveiling their TV debut with the series Future Food. The show premieres on Planet Food at 9 pm on Tuesday, March 30. On Monday, Chicago Foodies was invited to attend the premiere preview party, and it was a blast (literally).

If you are unfamiliar with Moto, they are one part magician, one part mad scientist and two parts chef extraordinaire. Place in a Pyrex beaker, heat over a Bunsen burner until the solution is denatured, and serve over a warm bed of wonder. Helmed by Executive Chef Homaro Cantu and Pastry Chef Ben Roche, Moto is one of the restaurants most often associated with the molecular gastronomy movement, and unlike those other stodgy codgers, they embrace and play up their images as scientists and experimentalists. Forget fancy china, and pick up a test tube and beaker instead. On the lower level of the restaurant, there is a full-fledged research laboratory, where no whim is too fanciful to be carried out in real life. Krispy Kreme in an espresso cup? You've got it. Mushrooms without the squishy texture? Even the most die-hard mushroom haters are won over. This is a step inside Willy Wonka's factory, where the boundaries of cooking are constantly redrawn, and shot to pieces with lasers. To protect his technological innovations, Cantu has filed for dozens of patents, including ones for a "food replicator" ink-jet printer that produces edible prints and self-heating utensils with a carbon-dioxide-based charge.

But hold on, why is Future Food being aired on Planet Green of all places? Moto's use of additives and radical alterations seems like the antithesis of the slow food movement classically associated with sustainability, which emphasizes the use of raw ingredients in their natural state. What does all this high-tech wizardry have to do with environmentalism?

Tacos on Ashland: La Pasadita and Tierra Caliente

Chicago's food scene has won plenty of attention for its pizza and hot dogs, but I have often thought that the city's greatest unsung achievement is its Mexican food. Sure, we may not be in Texas or Southern California, but it is nearly impossible to throw a rock without hitting a corner taqueria in this town. We have legions of roving Tamale Guys who satiate our drunken cravings for tamales out of ziplock bags. We have Maxwell Street Market, where street food is served with the excitement of an open-air bazaar. Then, we have Mexican titan Rick Bayless to cover the haute gourmet end of things as well. Take that, San Diego.

However, fancy 30-ingredient mole sauce is not the reason we are gathered here today. Instead, we are here to celebrate the classic taco, elegant in its simplicity, difficult to master. With all the taco joints around town, how do you separate the fresh tomatillos from the canned? I will not pretend to have exhaustive knowledge of the city's taquerias, but here are two of my favorites, which happen to be conveniently located within a couple blocks of each other.

Treat: BYO American – Indian Fusion in Humboldt Park

Situated on Kedzie just north of North Avenue, right around the corner from the classic Roeser's Bakery that has been around since 1911 as well as a check cashing place with a giant inflatable gorilla on the roof (at the time of this writing).    One of the first things I noticed is that the place was full, a good sign for a neighborhood that is slowly improving and progressing with more dining options.  The next thing was the counter area with a huge espresso machine (a good way to keep a place profitable by serving coffee in the morning and dinner at night).     Billing itself as "Contemporary American cuisine with Indian influences" it did offer a unique twist by taking western dishes and adding Indian influences.   Marigold restaurant, situated in Uptown, did precede Treat by using the contemporary Indian slant, but perhaps the difference here is that there are Indian twists on very non-Indian foods (gnocchi, crab cakes, panini). 

Mana Food Bar

The Mana Food Bar on Division comes highly touted. It's a vegetarian spot in Wicker Park opened by the DeCero and Sushi Wabi owners. They have a full bar and their by-the-glass offerings include a few sake options (one sparkling). It took me a bit to think through this place. Eating with Tammy and Bridget from Chicago Bites, and our own Crystal Cun ensured that we tasted plenty of the menu.

First is from the cold menu. Pictured is the veggie maki. It's a maki roll made of blanched collards and filled with raw veggies: enoki mushrooms, asparagus, carrots, other green things... and dipped in ponzu sauce.

We also tried the assorted picked veggies: cauliflower, cabbage and okra as well as the chickpea salad with hearts of palm among other things, the beet dish with apple salad, and a lovely quinoa dish with raw corn and a light touch of chipotle.

The hot options included sesame noodles, mushrooms sauteed and served over polenta, the lentil soup special, a blue cheese tart, bi bim bap, pumpkin tamale, and finally, mushroom and brown rice sliders.

It's hard to knock Mana. Everything was good. Across the board the seasoning is light. I'd say bland but it seems like the intention is to let the ingredients be themselves. The lentil soup tasted simply like lentils... the pumpkin tamale was also light on spice but not on heat. I tasted the pumpkin. The sesame noodles also had more heat than flavor. But the beets were very pleasantly salty. The sliders were a disappointment here. The expectations for the mini-sliders that looked so very much like White Castle were high...  but they didn't have any deep flavor. The side cup of pickle slices tasted mildly sweet and cucumbery. That said I clearly tasted the mushrooms and brown rice but here I wanted more.

Crust

The plan was to have dinner at our favorite pizza place, Spacca Napoli, but once we found out it was closed from Labor Day to September 16th, we quickly came up with a contingency plan. The emerging (actually, full-fledged) green/organic trend had introduced Crust to Chicago via Wicker Park, and we were eager to justify the amount of carb intake with "but we're eating well"!

Crust's slogan "Eat Real" boasts their status as the "Midwest's First Certified Organic Restaurant," with most ingredients promised as organic. The ones that aren't, are noted dutifully at the bottom of the menu. The restaurant uses bright welcoming colors with red chairs, and even a tented patio for rainy days like the one we experienced.

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.

Veggie Bite: Fast Food Vegan

Sometimes restaurants take a while to open. Blame it on the city, blame it on folks when reserves run dry. Hell, I don't know who to blame it on, but I do know a sign in the window promising food doesn't equal a restaurant open for you and me. It's been slow moving for fast food at Veggie Bite, the neon affair on the corner of Milwaukee and Paulina. Lots of signs, no food. This week you can go bite the veggie, they're finally open.

The concept: fast food for vegans. Chili dogs, Philly cheese steak, gyros, cheese burgers, buffalo wings--you name it, they've substituted it.

Carnivale: Pan Latin Food in a Theatrical Setting

Though we've never been, for Valentine’s Day my wife and I went to Carnivale as it's had received good reviews.  When we walked in right away we felt the place was over the top, yet awe-inspiring with generous use of primary colors, high ceilings, Cuban music, and lots of energy. Coming in there was someone handing out free samples of Spanish olives.  Carnivale is mostly pan-Latin but does throw in Spanish dishes like manchengo and zamarano cheese as well as the ever-tasty jamon Iberico.  The other thing we noticed was the people patronizing the establishment,  were very eclectic and perhaps not a typical West Loop club crowd.

 

Hagen's Fish Market

I was driving past. I was looking for lunch. It's the perfect storm. There was parking. There was a mural. It has almost epic potential. It's a mural of vikings fishing on the wall. There's neon, etc. everything but a phone number. I love the Fish Keg on Howard. Needless to say I went in for a bite and I ate it in my car.

Ordering lunch is always kind of odd in a counter environment. The good stuff is by the pound. You say you want lunch and get guided towards the sandwiches... which is what I went with before hearing that the cod (I think it was cod) comes in already breaded. It was okay. It was about $3.00. I won't go any farther into the sandwich because you'd go back for the smoking. 

The Ketel One Club at the United Center

The Ketel One Club is the season ticket holder dining room where if you shelled out lots of money for your tickets you're obviously in a position to drop too much money on food before a hockey game.

There's a concept issue here for me and I think the season ticket holder as a customer is the only way to rationalize why anyone going to a Blackhawks game (in my case) would opt out of the hotdog and beer dinner option with an appetizer of nachos and another beer for dessert. But it takes all kinds. So what do you do? Give them a TGI Fridays menu at a Ruth's Cris price.

Night Flash Taco

Local artist Eulalio Fabie de Sliva seemed to capture my late night taco/burrito jones in a picture. See more of his work at his online gallery.

Las Islas Marias

There's a really neat Mexican seafood place on Grand and Cicero that I've been meaning to try. A big delay came when I found out that they opened a new location, basically in my neighborhood. After trying that spot I was having a hard time justifying giving a second chance to their Grand location which is supposedly a great place. But I'm glad I did.

Avec

Right next to Blackbird, the big brother (or sugar daddy) of Avec, is a simple rectangular restaurant that seems to want to stress form over function. The 1-room has a row of tables running the length of one half of the restaurant and a bar/counter and kitchen along the other. It looks like something out of Dwell magazine. The irony is that the food is fairly complicated with a traditional grounding. While the food fattens your ass, the stool will flatten it.

And the food is good. The menu is an assortment of small plates, that aren't too small, and large plates that we didn't try. When you get knee-deep into the menu you might also have the desire for variety. Dishes like the crispy duck confit with blood oranges in a blood orange vinaigrette and crispy short ribs with red peppers, cilantro, red onion and harissa aioli were ones that, as I left, I wish I tried.