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Michael McDonald has unveiled his summer menu for one sixtyblue and it looks like just the thing for the season. Go light with shrimp ginger broth and chilled Persian cucumbers or dig into a hearty Berkshire pork chop with chipotle corn tortillas, mole, and pineapple salsa. The full menu is after the jump.

MenuPages is heading out early for the long weekend, but Helen will be back bright and early Monday morning. Happy Fourth!

Continue reading "What to Eat This Summer at One Sixtyblue" »

• Phil Vittel hits up Palatine's Agio and gives it two stars. From the "simply outstanding" eggplant parmigiana to the delicious ribeye, most dishes are winners, though a few suffer from odd pairings (veal saltimbocca with a baked egg and broccoli side? really?). [Tribune]

• David Tamarkin is blown away by Lakeview's Fianco, to which he bestows four stars. The shock of an excellent meal coming from a nameless chef in a generic strip mall is spectacular, with the milk-braised pork a particular standout. Prediction: "when people get hip to this food, they’re going to pounce, whether they like the surroundings or not." [TOC]

[Photo: Flatbread at Taxim, ehfisher/Flickr]

• In-N-Out is suing Bronzeville's Nicky's In-N-Out [Crain's]

• After almost twenty years, McDonald's will no longer be the official fast food of the NBA - it's been edged out by Taco Bell. [Crain's]

• Mario Batali's genetic profile will be revealed in new PBS series Faces of America. [The Food Section]

• A federal court ruled that the Stella D'Oro cookie plant must reinstate its striking workers and pay them back wages. [City Room/NYT]

The Wit Hotel's third high-profile restaurant opening is scheduled for next Tuesday — chef Todd Stein's Cibo Matto will be on the hotel's second floor, in a sweeping space designed by the same team that did TRU. Along with the cheese- and salumi-focus that's got everyone all a-twitter, we got our hands on the opening menu. What should you be getting ready for? Crispy sweetbreads with artichoke fritto and lemon; roasted chicken livers with creamy polenta, pancetta, roasted mushrooms, and charred onions; the near-obligatory fried ricotta-stuffed zucchini blossoms; summer peaches with burrata and almond pesto; and seared trout with tuscan kale. We'll show off the rest of the menu next week.

We kind of love this: Uptown Update notes that the awning outside of D'Manilan's Fishpond, a Filipino restaurant at 4416 N Clark, advertises that from 7 a.m. until 11 a.m. it is not the Fishpond, but rather identifies as DMF Breakfast House. Two, two, two restaurants in one? Sadly no: we called the restaurant, and they told us that they stopped serving breakfast about five months ago, since customer traffic was "very slow." You'll have to go elsewhere for your "American Breakfast," but Fishpond did confirm that the "sports bar" and "fax service" are still a go. [Uptown Update]

David Tamarkin packs a potent punch into a recent short article for Gourmet: in it he wonders whether Chicago, long a flagship city of experimental cuisine and molecular gastronomy, is riding the pendulum back towards a simpler, more straightforward culinary experience: "I first noticed it at The Publican," he reports, "where you’d be hard pressed to order anything that has more than five ingredients. At Taxim, a dish can take the simple form of a braid of phyllo and a chunk of feta. My unsauced, wood-grilled trout at Nightwood shared the plate with a little pile of lentils. And their cheeseburger is, well, a cheeseburger—no fried egg on top, no pâté stuffed in the middle." It's certainly the case that the preponderance of newly opened restaurants are no-frills, but we do question Tamarkin's hypothesis that back-to-basics is an actual backlash against molecular gastronomy.

Continue reading "Is Simple Food Killing Molecular Gastronomy?" »

Daniel Kamen, a Buffalo Grove chiropractor who is also a (possibly deranged) Cubs fan, has declared that he'll go on a 500-calorie-a-day hunger strike until his team wins five games in a row. "I'm going to motivate them," he told the Sun-Times. "I'm going to embarrass them into winning more games. They will see me get skinnier and skinnier, until maybe there's nothing left of me." Yeah, that'll totally work. [Sun-Times]

July is national hot dog month, which means today — the first day of the month devoted to the weiner — basically should be a civic holiday in Chicago, where we don't just pretend to be into the sausages for the sake of keeping up touristy appearances. We suggest celebrating by going to your favorite hot dog purveyor and ordering one in the style of your choosing. Stumped for what to pick? Check out our gallery of some of the most inspiring Chicago dogs in town — some from quite surprising places:

Continue reading "In Honor of National Hot Dog Month, A Gallery of Superstars" »

Grant Achatz, on why diners at Alinea might not always get the same dishes as another table: "Alinea's food by nature is tedious, experimental and exploratory, and I mean that from the side of the guest and the staff that prepares and serves it. Because of the innovative approach, a new idea has to be worked out and refined before we can produce it for the masses. Baby steps, as they say: We often start slow, serving a new course to one or two tables a night. This allows us to get to know the nuances of the course from the operational standpoint. It is one thing to have a neat idea and make it once to prove it can be done. It is entirely another to produce the dish under strict time parameters and in the environment of busy restaurant while serving it to an audience that is unpredictable." [The Atlantic Food]

• The Chicago Food Depository now has refrigerated trucks that act as mobile food pantries, allowing them to reach more needy individuals. [Chi Breaking News]

• Developers nationwide are adding organic farms to their lots to attract home buyers. [NYT]

• Russian president Dmitry Medvedev to citizens: lay off the vodka. [Reuters]

• France's value-added tax on restaurant meals falls today to 5.5 percent from 19.6 percent. [NYT]

• Beer cocktails are cropping up on drink menus nationwide. [NYT]

• Artisanal honeys and blood orange flavored products were among the top trends at this year's Fancy Food Show. [NYT]

• Canadian-caught seal has been banned in the EU, but many European tourists still dine on it when visiting Canada. [NYT]

• This year's corn planting is the second largest since 1946. [NYT]

Aren't those pictures up there pretty? They're from our new Flickr pool, and they are, from left, a luscious-looking burger from Feed taken by ehfisher, some New Tokyo takeout from D. Majette, and a spinach salad at Mia Francesca by Swanksalot. Want to see your photo up there? Upload your photos to the pool. All the cool kids are doing it.

People tend to have strong feelings about the Taste of Chicago one way or another — for some, it's an unbreakable summer tradition, others wouldn't be caught dead within ten blocks of the lakefront for the entire duration of the festival. Add another reason for those Taste-shunners to feel superior about their abstinence: the Chicago Reporter notes that the Taste is responsible for an extraordinary amount of food waste, with more than a ton of food discarded at the 2008 festival — a four percent increase over 2007, and a 27 percent upgrade over 2006.

Continue reading "The Underbelly of the Taste: Wasted Food, DPH Violations" »

Everyone's favorite Lettuce Entertain You haute-Chinese restaurant has reupped its commitment to America's little ones: they've revamped their kids' menu. Supplement your own order of mu-shu hunan-style pork or spicy dragon noodles with some wallet-friendly, child-sized meals for those pesky short people who run around your house all day: think chicken potstickers, sesame chicken with caramelized soy glaze and white rice, or Beijing Beef , all clocking in under seven bucks. Check out the complete selection post-jump.

Continue reading "Bring the Kids to Ben Pao" »

If you missed Emeril Lagasse's headlining demo on the opening day of the Taste of Chicago, check out this interview YouTuber Kyle Aevermann caught up with the king of Bam — Lagasse talks about the origin of his famous catchphrases, points out that he's been green longer than we've been alive, and plugs Sammy Hagar's new band. Our favorite part? That'd be when Kyle asks Emeril what his favorite Chicago restaurants are, and gets "After 20 years, if I didn't say my dear friend Charlie Trotter, he probably wouldn't be my dear friend anymore." Rick Bayless, Blackbird, and Heaven on Seven land shoutouts as well — but check out the whole thing yourself, post jump.

Continue reading "Emeril at the Taste: Good Food, Good People" »

Every time we notice one of See Thru Chinese Kitchen's locations, we have a little internal giggle over the name. And we're not alone: Oddee has named the mini-chain one of the 10 worst-named restaurants ever. It shares the honor with a such unfortunates as My Dung Restaurant in Rosemead, CA, and Poopsies in Pembroke, MA. [Oddee]