We finally gave in to the massive hype surrounding Mad Men and watched all of season one over the course of last weekend. Although we were stubborn to the end, it turns out that everything we'd read about it is true. The acting is superlative, the sets, costumes, and historical references completely impeccable, and the whole tone of the show really captures the tense, feverish excitement of the advertising industry in 1960.

What we weren't expecting, but were totally taken with, was the incredible attention to food and dining in 1960. Once it hit us that food comes up constantly on the show, we started scribbling down notes about everything they put in their mouths. (Dirty! But true.) After the jump, the Mad Men diet.

Continue reading "The Food of Mad Men" »

We're going to use this space to wish the happiest of happy birthdays to our beautiful and talented mother, who turns a youthful 29 today (she had us when she was ...3?). Word on the street is she'll be having her birthday dinner tonight at Park 52, so I highly advise you all to go there and extend your birthday greetings to whichever woman in the restaurant is the one you think is most likely to have birthed me. Also, try the lamb chop!

Park 52 [MenuPages]
Park 52 [Official Site]

Perhaps the most telling sign about C-House is that a Flickr search for photos turns up zero results. Not a one.

Compare that to the two other recently-opened hotspots: 119 for L.2O (not including Laurent Gras' personal Flickr) and 191 for graham elliot. We're just sayin'.

C-House [MenuPages]
C-House [Official Site]
L.2O [MenuPages]
L.2O [Official Site]
graham elliot [MenuPages]
graham elliot [Official Site]

We were just having a really lovely chat with the other MenuPages editors, musing on various things like whether we should continue the stylistic tic of saying "we," and why it is that DailyCandy uses the phrase "fat pants" so much (hilarious! yet vapid). We were sort of complaining about tabbing over to this screen in order to do today's roundup, because Phil Vettel is talking about graham elliot, and that is so three weeks ago, and what the hell. But then we realized two things: First, we were complaining opining the other day about how some reviewers who will go unnamed have this unfortunate habit of basing their entire review on one, maybe two meals at a place, generally within just a few weeks of the restaurant's opening. And here's Phil Vettel, giving Chef Bowles a full 12 weeks' grace period to work out the kinks, and so rather than being cranky and vitriolic we really ought to be applauding him.

The second thing was that the promise of being cranky and vitriolic is a really excellent catalyst for us getting off our butts and actually writing the post. On with the show!

• Hey guess what! Phil Vettel reviewed graham elliot! While previous reviews from TOC and the S-T have accused Bowles of having ideas bigger than his kitchen, sloppily repurposing lowbrow ingredients in pursuit of an ironic highbrow nirvana, Vettel seems charmed by everything he puts in his mouth: Bowles is "a culinary Warhol, turning mass-production items into foodie icons." This diametric opposite to the previous consensus could be due to Vettel's delayed review, since in the past few weeks the restaurant has abandoned the handwritten menus, worked to lower the noise level, and made numerous other little tweaks &mdash no doubt including to the menu. Still, there's continued dissonance between the vibe and the price points, all in all resulting in a two-star review. [Vettel, Tribune]

• Valentine's Day isn't for another 190 days (not that we're counting), but Monica Eng makes the bold assertion that sweltery summer is a better time for lovin' than is frigid winter. There's certainly some sense to that claim, and in its service she rounds up six aphrodisiac meals from all over. They range from the literal (the traditional Jamaican soup called Mannish Water at Good To Go, which contains goat scrotum &mdash sexy!) to the unexpected (mustard fried catfish from BJ's Market, because "mustard is believed to stimulate the sexual glands and increase desire") to the fun-fact-filled (did you know! The Aztecs referred to the avocado tree as the "testicle tree"!). All in all this might be the most fun article ever published in the Chicago Tribune, ever. [Eng, Tribune]

• Like Vettel, Heather Shouse over at Time Out is also covering pre-Bruno'd ground, weighing in on carpetbagger-celeb-chef Marcus Samuelsson's C-House. She's less than overwhelmed by what is essentially a straightforward high-price-point seafood joint, pointing out that "in a town that Laurent Gras (another transplant but one who’s obsessively present) is currently owning when it comes to that market, you better go big or you better go home." Emphasis, for the record, theirs. She is, to her credit, forgiving of Samuelsson's general absence from the kitchen — his role here was never supposed to be that of an on-the-line chef — but even with that handicap the restaurant simply underwhelms. Except the desserts, a surprisingly delicious and innovative end to an otherwise blah and overpriced meal. Three out of six stars, which sounds about right. [Shouse, TOC]

[Photo: an avocado tree (yeah, we totally see where the Aztecs were coming from), via digital_lumpensammler's Flickr]

The resto rotates eight to nine fresh-made daily entrees for an absurdly low $6.50 (add an extra buck for a split plate); because you're dangerously underweight, you'll also get a baguette hunk slathered in butter & jambalaya seasoning. Mainstays include thick gumbo (w/ crayfish, sausage, shrimp, & chicken), red beans and rice w/ andouille, and a spicy chili-cheese etouffée; nontraditionals include the sausage- and chicken-fueled Italiana in spicy tomato sauce, and the pulled pork/olives/capers/carrots Cuban-inspired dish "Ropa Vieja."

Yaks All, Folks [Thrillist]
Yats [Official Site]

[Photo, Yats's sign and plate, via casey_atchley's Flickr]

The MP:Chicago computer is back in (semi-decent) working order. And while for the time being my email is completely failing (feel free to send a test message by clicking here), I'm back online and feeling frisky as a teenager!

• Cinnamon buns at Ann Sather

• The French Toast Orgy at Toast

• Transcendent chocolate cake at Green Zebra

• One of the top five meals of my life at Schwa, the quail egg ravioli from which (pictured above) was probably the best single bite I've taken all year.

I hope you enjoyed the carpetbagging! Helen should be back soon.

We'll be on to real posting in just a minute, but is that Big Mac in the below post on kids' meals killing anyone else? Because it is killing us. Like full destroy. Like we have been craving a Big Mac for nigh on 18 hours now.

You may not actually kill for fried chicken, but at least one guy was willing to take a murder rap for, among other things, a big pile of KFC and Popeye's.

An AP story on CNN today reports that Tremayne Durham, 33, of New York City, confessed to killing a former employee of an ice cream company after the company wouldn't give Durham a refund on an ice cream truck he'd bought. Savvy negotiator that he is, Durham saw a long string of potentially cruel and unusual prison food in his future and made a delicious plea deal:

Durham agreed to plead guilty to murder -- but only if he could get a break from jail food. The judge agreed and granted Durham a feast of KFC chicken, Popeye's chicken, mashed potatoes, coleslaw, carrot cake and ice cream.

After Wednesday's sentencing, Durham was to get the rest of the deal -- calzones, lasagna, pizza and ice cream, his defense attorney confirmed. They will pay the tab.

Fortunately for Durham, he won't have to walk the green mile, but he was able to get a hell of a meal out of the deal anyway. Just goes to show, no matter how dire the situation, it sometimes is possible to have your fried chicken and eat it, too.

Defendant trades murder plea for KFC, pizza [AP/CNN]
Final Meal Requests [Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice]

[Photo: jslander/flickr]

• Monsanto wants to sell their dairy hormone business, presumably to focus on their many other monopolies. [New York Times]

• The latest victim of unsafe food stuffs? Boy Scouts. [Washington Post]

• When will people learn that pre-made sandwiches are a Bad Thing? [Boston Globe]

• As New York goes, so goes LA: calorie counts might be added to the menus at Angeleno chains. [LA Times]

• Not necessarily food-related, but did you know that there were two unrelated tiger attacks in Missouri within the past week? TWO! [Detroit Free Press]

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (you know, the same folks who have been really pushing the trans fat regulation) released a report earlier this week on the calorie counts of kids' meals at fast food and casual chain restaurants. What the group found, not surprisingly, was that almost all kids' meals exceed the recommended 430 calories-per-meal limit.

“Parents want to feed their children healthy meals but America’s chain restaurants are setting parents up to fail,” said CSPI nutrition policy director Margo G. Wootan. “McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, and other chains are conditioning kids to expect burgers, fried chicken, pizza, French fries, macaroni and cheese, and soda in various combination at almost every lunch and dinner.”

Besides being almost always too high in calories, 45 percent of the kids’ meals at the 13 chains studied by CSPI are too high in saturated and trans fat, and 86 percent are too high in sodium. That’s alarming, according to CSPI, because a quarter of children between the ages of five and ten show early signs of heart disease, such as high LDL (the “bad” cholesterol) or elevated blood pressure.

Continue reading "Surprise! Kids' Menus Aren't Exactly Healthful" »

So it's not exactly a restaurant. Or remotely on our beat. But we feel sort of obligated, as a human being, to mention that tonight at Quimby's Bookstore, at 7pm, it is Erotic Harry Potter night, with live readings of HP slash. Needless to say, this one's not for the kids.

Let it be known: If you don't know what "Harry Potter slash" is, and you Google it, we are not responsible for your resultant facial expression.

[via]
[Photo, via andydrake's Flickr]

In a relationship as tenuous and charged as that between server and customer, it seems like almost any mistake can be plugged into the phrase, "there's nothing worse than..."

It's just that, when you're hungry and somebody else is controlling the flow of food to stomach, you're really in their power. They can make you squirm with an action as minor as leaving a plate up on the order window for an extra couple of minutes if they want to. Of course, you have a fair amount of financial power over them, too in the form of that gratuity you'll calculate at the end of the meal.

Even though we all know tipping is customary here in the U.S., sometimes it escapes the casual or infrequent diner just how important it is to the livelihood of the service staff. In a review of the new book based on the blog Waiter Rant, Wall Street Journal writer Moira Hodgson reminds us:

A lot of customers don't seem to know that waiters are rarely paid a proper salary. In New York, where the minimum wage is $7.15, they receive just $4.60 an hour, with the assumption that tips will make up the difference. Waiting on tables is a job where the compensation depends on the whim of the customer, and [author Steve]. Dublanica has been working for tips for the better part of a decade.

However, in these increasingly lean times, when people don't want to give up dining out altogether, at least one news source found they are cutting back not just in drink orders or frequency of nights out, but in tips. To which we say, "booooo." An article in the Harrisburg, Pa. Patriot News, picked up by Nation's Restaurant News, found servers and bartenders reported getting smaller tip percentages in addition to smaller total sales.

This is a travesty, and we know our readers would never think of fudging the tip, but what of the friend handling the bill when a group goes Dutch? What are your options if that person leaves a smaller-than-appropriate percentage on the bill?

Well, you can raise a polite stink, acting like the small gratuity was a group mistake and that all ought to cough up another dollar or so. But that's awkward. You can quietly slide a few more dollars into the check folder, but why should you be stuck making up for somebody else's bad manners?

Unfortunately, the thing to do, it seems, is to be just a bit gauche and either set about the tip calculation yourself, on behalf of the group, or chirp up about making sure not to forget the 20 percent. Sure, it's uncouth, but hey, so is splitting the check to begin with. And there's nothing worse than when that doesn't work out.

Take Your Own Damn Order [Wall Street Journal]
For restaurant workers, economy eats away at tips [Patriot-News via Nation's Restaurant News]
How to split the check? [Chowhound]

[Photo: via respres/flickr]

Mike Doyle of Chicago Carless celebrates a low-key birthday: Take Me Out hot wings ("the wings are fried to a succulent, caramelized, crispy goodness reminscent of roast duck, then smothered with a spicy-sweet mix of soy sauce, chili, ginger, and garlic.") followed by ice cream at Margie's Candies ("Bucktown’s 87-year-old ice cream icon from which I have been known to stagger away with a sugar coma lasting until the next day").

Except for, you know, that part after the wings but before the ice cream when there was that huge massive tornado-ing thunder storm that turned the sky green and made water rush up from the manhole covers and Mike had to cower for his life in a loading dock at Merchandise Mart. That part.

Cincinnati Jamie and the Hot Wings of Doom [Chicago Carless]

We had drinks recently with someone who actually, personally knows Laurent Gras (chef at — do you even need to be told? — L.2O) who was waxing rhapsodic about how he is, essentially, a perfect person: besides just being a brilliant chef, the man also has impeccable taste in clothes, listens to amazing music, cycles four hundred miles per week. We frowned into our beer, suddenly feeling like we had a lot to live up to in this world (having only learned to ride a bike last summer, and only ridden a few times since then, we suppose our weekly average comes out to something like seven yards).

And now, another story:

Growing up, our mom always knew which days the fish shipments came in at the local Jewel (or was it Dominick's?). So when we struck out on our own, we followed her lead: Living in Boston and planning a big bouillabaisse dinner one week, we asked the fishmonger what days the fish came in fresh. He looked at us like we had two heads, possibly three. "Every day," he deadpanned, and walked over to assist a customer who was more aware of their immediate proximity to the Atlantic Ocean.

And now, the moral:

These days, you can get same-day fresh fish even in Chicago. Or Kansas City, Las Vegas, Montpelier, or Dallas. You can get Pacific salmon in New York, and Atlantic salmon in San Francisco. Tsukiji tuna, caught that very day, at the omakase counter of any headline sushi restaurant in any major city. And it's great, right? Fresh fish, unspoiled, unsullied by the havoc of freezing and defrosting. Air transit is the best thing to happen to seafood since the invention of tartar sauce. Right?

Up is down! Black is white! Everything old is new again! Apparently, buying fresh fish is a really really really bad idea.

The surprising argument against fresh fish takes two approaches. First, taste: turns out that seafood that is frozen at sea — meaning that as soon as it's caught, it's flash-frozen right there on the boat — actually preserves the freshness of the fish much more efficiently than does the sort of high-speed travel more often associated with inter-hospital heart transplants. And secondly, that old carbon footprint: the estimate is that shipping seafood by air generates 10 times more greenhouse gas as doing it by ship, and 5 times more as shipping by truck. Talk about slow food being good food!

In conclusion, we feel a little bit better about the perfection of Laurent Gras, on the assumption that the acquisition of his unblemished seafood costs like nine billion zillion carbon credits to offset. But we kind of secretly think that what he's doing might actually be worth the side effect of global warming. If you really must know.

Can Chefs Cozy Up to Frozen Fish? [WaPo]
L.2O [MenuPages]
L.2O [Official Site]

[Photo: Sashimi at L2O, via yellow_truffle's Flickr (we are pretty sure that's Laurent himself)]