We promised we'd fill you in on the rest of today's food section happenings, and we will not fail you on this front. Of especial note is the Tribune's theme, "The man issue." Phil Vettel and Kevin Pang must have sat down together to brainstorm how to focus their coverage for this issue and said "meat" at the same time. Did Mr. Pang come up with the title of his article, "6 degrees of Kevin's bacon", on his own? (It's such a weird innuendo!). Regardless, good eaters of either gender can appreciate this run-down of six top Chicagoland bacon spots, ranging from bite-size bacon buns at Healthy Food Lithuanian (a misnomer; three for $1.75) to the lobster club with applewood-smoked bacon at RL ($20, and we don't bat an eye). In a similar vein, Mr. Vettel gives the nod to three of his favorite burgers in town: the new (Hop Haus), the old-school (Rosebud Steakhouse) and the classic bar burger (Poag Mahone's).

The last article in this feature is bizarrely subversive, which may explain why there's no byline: it's about "5 safe spots for a man-date," and it sells itself as a guide of where two men can eat dinner together without appearing to be "together." But since this is a family paper in a big city, we knew there had to be something going on aside from blatant homophobia. And sure enough, the conceit of the list is that it's constructed to make fun of its own supposed mission. On Hooters: "If your dinner is misinterpreted, you can set the record straight with some waitress ogling. Or you can simply announce: 'Boy, do I like Hooters.'" On Gibson's: "Gargantuan portions of steak -- albeit enjoyed by men who like big cigars." And most preposterously, on Hamburger Mary's: "Fellow diners have best gaydar in the city." Yes, we get it; it's funny. Subtle, but funny.

Rounding out the section (we mean, aside from the reviews that we discussed earlier), is Steve Dahl on pre-tipping for better service, and a little blurb from Vettel on Alhambra Palace about their recent chef changes, which we will detail tomorrow (new menu alert!)

Okay, time for TOC. As we were saying, there's a lot of alcohol in this week's edition. Heather Shouse has some advice for a homesick Irishwoman (unless "Kelly M." is a man, which is possible), who misses her Bulmers cider on draft. Evidently, it's called Magners, stateside, and it's available all over town at places like Grace O'Malley's and the Hidden Shamrock.

Hard cider not for you? Maybe a wine that's reminiscent of grapefruit juice? Or perhaps Naomi Watts? (Yes, you read that correctly.) If we had our druthers, we'd be drinking a pear-cucumber martini right now - helps the blogging go down. Actually, that's exactly what we're going to do. See ya!

[Photo: A Chicago man, with bacon - WhipTheDo/flickr]

It's called, appropriately enough, Chicago Restaurant Blog, and it comes from the people who're behind Where The Locals Eat. Here at MenuPages Blog Chicago, we're awfully fond of literalism, so we nominally approve. Also, they linkrolled and quoted from us, another point in their favor. However, we noticed that the same editors also do several dozen other "local" restaurant blogs, and on further inspection, it's really just recycled content without commentary. But since we haven't the energy to be either catty or existential, we'll just say, "welcome to the neighborhood," as one would similarly welcome Walmart.

Chicago Restaurant Blog [Official Site]
Where The Locals Eat [Official Site]

Looks like everyone was eating up a storm over the holiday weekend, because today's Tribune and TOC are chock full of reviews, and that's only the half of it (the other half, features, will be posted about later in the afternoon; prepare yourself to be excited for something called "the man issue"). Let's do it in...alphabetical order by reviewer, shall we?

• Bowles on Lake Side Cafe: generally very good vegan food with an emphasis on ingredient provenance and a bent toward spirituality. Service is knowledgeable and pleasant, if occasionally flighty. Your enjoyment of the tasty food will be heightened by the relaxed atmosphere, even if you don't drink all the kool-aid [Tribune]

• Eng on Crust: going through some service-related birthing pains, but generally delicious flatbreads on the small side served to hungry and happy hipsters and your smarter yuppies. (N.B. this review was born last Friday in the Stew) [Tribune]

• Pang on David Burke's Primehouse: the Primehouse is now offering a forty minute lunch that actually takes an hour but is worth both the time and the money (merely $20.71, a reference to their bull stud named 207L). You start with a popover, then choose between a soup or three salads, five main courses (only one of which involves beef), and three desserts, which were highlights. And, Primehouse donates $5 to Common Threads for every prix fixe lunch sold, so it's ethical to boot [Tribune]

• Shouse on Anteprima: charming almost to a fault and an insti-institution, this spot is a neighborhood+ restaurant, with enough panache and good food to draw in outsiders while serving as a go-to for locals. Not every dish on the rustic Italian menu is stellar, but the simple dishes (grilled octopus; salumi; roasted quail) more than satisfy. You will feel (at someone's) home here [TOC]

• Tamarkin on Sura: even though it wants to be known for its Thai tapas (or maybe its groovy-minimalist/"insane asylum" decor), the main dishes are the real stars of the show. Try the black noodles with squid ink, chicken and egg, or crab meat fried rice, both safe bets in a sea of uneven small plates. [TOC]

• Taylor on Golden Rise Bakery: retro bakery serves up modern-rustic sandwiches and salads, not to mention breads and pastries, and is a welcome addition to this emptyish corner of Logan Square. Also note their 16 flavors of ice cream and daily assortment of soups [Tribune]

Cognac is expensive beverage, usually reserved for industrialists, hip hop stars, and the French. Frankly, we find it a bit intimidating, and you might too. Well, Sam's is blowing the lid off the cognac mythos tonight with a $10 tasting at its Lincoln Park store (312-664-4394, 1720 N Marcey St). From 6:30pm-8pm, Alexandre Koiransky, Midwest Director of Cognac Ferrand, will treat the uninitiated to a basic 411, sampling several cognac cocktails, a few cognacs from her own line, and even how to pair cognac with food; we had no idea that was even possible, let alone practiced. The best part, of course, is the $10 price tag - what a low barrier to entry! We hope people go and try to take as much advantage of Sam's hospitality and patience as possible, while staying just on the right side of appropriate. We're thinking...cute, charming and tipsy. Have fun with it!

Sam's Wine and Spirits [Official Site]
Cognac Seminar & Tasting [LocalWineEvents]

[Photo: Cognac & Tonic, eDining.ca]

• Food safety is a lot like...terrorism?! [CNN]
• Has "organic" lost its meaning through yuppification? [UPI]
• Food fight prank sends HS students to jail [IndyChannel]
• Cuba buys over $0.5 billion in U.S. food a year! [WaPo]
• Uganda site of latest attack on WFP food distribution personnel [allafrica]

Consider the following possible meal:

Course one: Mejillones En Salsa Verde (mussels in a white wine and cream sauce, $9.95) @ Arco de Cuchilleros


Course two: Marche Profiteroles (warm cream puff, vanilla bean ice cream, warm chocolate sauce, $9) @ Marche


Listen up - we don't care that it's hot out. We don't care that you're on a diet. We don't care that you don't like monochromatic foods. Why don't we care about any of these things? It's not just because we're misanthropic; staring at these two dishes has rendered us utterly senseless. What a beautiful symmetry between the two: the black of the mussel shell against the hot, creamy white broth, juxtaposed against the chocolate sauce slowly engulfing the ethereally beautiful vanilla sauce, powdered sugar and cream. Given the physical distance between the restaurants, this pairing is profoundly impractical. Nevertheless, in the diningroom of our mind, these dishes are being served to us, consecutively, by waiters in (black and white) tuxedos.

Now back to your regularly scheduled pea shoots and dandelions.

Arco de Cuchilleros [MenuPages]
Marche [MenuPages]
Marche [Official Site]

[Photo 1: Zesmerelda/flickr]
[Photo 2: swanksalot/flickr]

The Sun-Times goes fundamental this week, focusing on where you should buy your raw ingredients, rather than where you should eat someone else's cooking. Monday was, after all, the unofficial beginning of summer, and while we have been enjoying our leeks and ramps and whatnot, June is when the serious produce starts flooding Chicago's myriad farmers markets. Bill Cunniff has a list of times and locations to end all lists, covering the entire city and nearby suburbs - more than 80 in total! If that's not enough, here's Sue Ontiveros's guide to taking full advantage of that resource. You have no excuse not to eat locally grown produce this summer, honestly. Oh, and if you want to one-up the farmers, here's a growing calendar to guide your personal and municipal gardening adventures. And descending even further into the realm of improbable activities, Lisa Donovan checks in with a rough guide to eating cicadas, who are just rousing from their 17 year cycle of dormancy.

Two other things to note:

1) It's Hunger Awareness Day next Tuesday, June 5th, and Sandy Thorn Clark has a profile of Mary Ellen Diaz's charity First Slice, which feeds 600 Chicagoans in need each week, plus a few suggestions of how you can participate next week at venues citywide.

2) Denise O'Neal has a piece on celiacs, noting that there are over 55,000 in Chicagoland. We just wanted to point out that you can filter your searches on MenuPages by restaurants offering gluten-free items; we have twenty-seven in the database, which is a start.

Let the outdoor shopping season begin! [Sun-Times]
Flavor of fresh [Sun-Times]
Growing calendar [Sun-Times]
Real or not, cicadas as food whets appetites [Sun-Times]
Hunger Awareness Day [America's Second Harvest]
Serving up dignity [Sun-Times]
Celiac diagnosis leads to food line [Sun-Times]

So it turns out that "McKinley Parkside Resident" is not the only epicure who's a fan of Bridgeport Coffee House, which we metareviewed not two hours ago. Shortly thereafter, we received a note from Chuck Sudo, Food and Drink editor of the Chicagoist and eater extraordinaire. He had the following to say about the coffeeshop:

The owner, Mike Pilkington, has been running this joint for close to four years now. He also roasts all of the beans himself at the Filbert's soda factory on south Ashland in Bridgeport; he sells them whole bean or ground by the pound retail in the shop, or wholesale to restaurants and other places. He tries to buy as much fair trade coffee and tea as he possibly can without undercutting his profit margin. The staff is well-trained, a bit rushed (probably due to the impatient nature of all the transplants from the north side), wi-fi is free, and the place is dog-friendly (I bring my boxer/terrier mix Emmy by every Saturday when I purchase my mocha or caramel macchiato). They've also developed friendly relationships with Lumpen head Ed Marzewski (whose mother owns the pakage store and bar across the street) and the fresh-out-of-school artist types trickling down to Bridgeport, Pilsen, and Back of the Yards. They usually have movie screenings with music and Sunday jazz.

Most important, Pilkington and his staff have worked hard to make Bridgeport Coffee House an integral part of the neighborhood, as opposed to other coffee shops that try to be independent for the sake of being independent. It's nice to see his hard work pay off with the coverage.

Furthermore, Chuck informed us that Bridgeport Coffee House has a new website, and that he covered the place in depth around two years back. Best of all, we now know the name of Chuck's dog (Emmy; weren't you paying attention?), and where to find her on Saturdays. Stakeout time!

Unapologetically Local Cups'a Joe: Bridgeport Coffee House [Chicagoist]
Bridgeport Coffee House [MenuPages]
Bridgeport Coffee House [Official Site]

[Photo: BPCH]

We may not do reviews at MenuPages, but our legions of users are all over that. Here are three of the best from the past week:

Not every restaurant in Chicago is a destination restaurant, and not every dining out experience is an "event"; in fact, most restaurant dining is modest in scale and close to home. Let's take a look at three decidedly neighborhood establishments, none of which necessarily warrant a special trip, but certainly serve a purpose in the lives of local residents.

On May 23rd, "chi town hustler" made the following assessment of Chuck's Pizza:

It is unfair to rate Chucks including atmosphere. This is a carry out place plain and simple. And the Pizza is very very good. No waitresses in tees and orange shorts and like that. No plasma screen TV's. On the dry side of Western. Just really good carry out pizza and he has been doing it for years....and with heavy competition. Roseangelas is tough to beat. Fox's a local favorite with a bar but greeeeeeesy...And Milanos-Only deep dish worth buying in the City. But for thin you can't go wrong with Chucks.

Simple, relevant, and to the point. We feel like we know more about the pizza scene in Beverley than we ever did before, and don't you find the reference to the "dry side" of Western tantalizing?

The next day, "b" chastized Hawkeye's Bar & Grill for their antisocial pricing practices:

Hawkeye's is one of the major hangouts for UIC students (and Chicago PD). The food is decent, and the place is generally a good time on a Thursday or Friday night. Don't plan on having a happy Designated Driver, though, as they're nearly spend as much on pop as you will on beer with their poor policy of expensive pop and no free refills. You can get a can or bottle of beer cheaper than a pop many nights of the week, and a pitcher of beer is always cheaper than pop pint-for-pint. It seems like poor policy and a lack of social conscious from this establishment. At a recent visit for lunch we were given a sandwich version of a wrap we ordered, which included fries instead of the fruit cup. The waitress seemed disinterested in the fact we received the wrong food, and even after we said we would manage by just taking off the bread, making it a wrap ourselves if she could get us a wrap and a fruit cup. She came back, and asked if we could just make due with what was there because "they were running low on wraps". Not out, just running low. Our stunned silence was only ended after she also asked if she could charge us for the fruit cup. Absolute madness.

True enough about beer being cheaper than soda; consider that in France, wine is cheaper than water. At the same time, do people who go to this bar from UIC really need to drive afterward? Can't they walk? We also think that "absolute madness" is something of an overstatement with respect to the service "b" received in the second part of the review, although it's a great phrase.

Finally, on May 26th, Bridgeport Coffee House regular "McKinley Parkside Resident" breaks it down for us:

Owner is often on-site. Lots of regulars! Moms group meets on Wed mornings. Help is friendly if a little distracted. Good coffee...can't take the decaf lattes, though. Burnt flavor overpowers. Pastries are good & fresh - but usually gone by mid-morning. Fairly good sandwiches (everything's fresh). Like the atmosphere - as a transplanted Wrigleyville-ian - I really needed a local coffee house/cafe! Offers local art on the wall, internet connectivity, and a quiet place to sit, read (has Reader newspapers, too! Yay!), contemplate life. Just watch out for the other transplants...they can get pushy. Had a guy pull a newspaper out from under my reading eyes w/o so much as a "Hey, I want that". Local city workers and contractors stop in and give the place a much-needed anchored to the neighborhood feeling. Please stop by after checking out the local burgeoning art scene (most likely spurred by the Internationally-acclaimed Zhou Bros.)

We like that "MPR" self-identifies as a transplant to give the reader a lens through which to interpret this review. We also hate burnt espresso - tastes like corn! Generally a great review, at least by the metric of us being able to clearly visualize the place in our minds. We don't even mind the shill at the end, because it's not related to anything in particular and it enriches our sense of the neighborhood.

Chuck's Pizza [MenuPages]
Hawkeye's Bar & Grill [MenuPages]
Hawkeye's Bar & Grill [Official Site]
Bridgeport Coffee House [MenuPages]
Bridgeport Coffee House [Official Site]

• Bears' Tank Johnson ate $700 of junk food during 2 mo. in jail [cbs2Chicago]
• Europe is fat! Don't worry - the EU has a plan [BBCNews]
• Who else is affected by lax Chinese food safety standards? The Chinese [Reuters]
• A right-winger misses the point of the "Food Stamp Challenge" [Aspen Daily]
• Here's something that sounds cool: membrane technology! [Newswire]

Chicago's intrepid food bloggers were all over the damn place last week (sometimes at the same place), in alphabetical order by restaurant

• Some sort of knockoff of its more famous Hyde Park cousin Thai 55, Bangkok Thai 55 serves passable Thai food to Bridgeport, but does only takeout on Sundays [Chicagoist]

• Where there was once hip and happening Gourmand now stands staid and uninspiring Cafe Mediterra, a semi-sophisticated cafe by Printer's Row [Gapers Block]

• Venture up to Chicago Kalbi, where the unafraid will be rewarded with one of East Asia's best gifts to the culinary world, Korean BBQ. This spot is good for beginners [Chicagoist]

[Begin Crust-A-Thon]

• Great opening-day service at Crust, where the flatbreads are crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside (as they should be) [Gapers Block]

• Nagrant says: get the flammkuchen at Crust, but skip the infused vodkas [Hungry Mag]

• More hipsters scarfing down flatbreads Crust, wondering if the portions are too small, while ordering seconds anyway (yum!) [The Stew]

[End Crust-A-Thon]

• The brisket is "the bomb" at Fat Willy's, but some people might find the platters too overwhelming [Chicago Foodies]

• Average but enjoyable BBQ at Fireside, where you can get pretty much anything in the traditional American dining lexicon [Gapers Block]

• Mmm, South Asian rotisserie chicken...plus, Mazza BBQ has some Uzbek fare, apparently! [Gapers Block]

• Sometimes, we need a little fancy in our lives - mk fits the bill, providing you don't get wigged out by the fast pacing of the courses [Chicagoist]

• Busy burger joint Muskie's brings in an eclectic and endearing clientele with their high quality fast food and outdoor seating [Chicagoist]

• Unsurprisingly, the frozen custards at Scooter's Frozen Custard are really good (the highlight of this review was meeting G Wiv, understandably) [Chicago Burger Project]

• Cute and much-loved Vella Cafe turns out great panini, but gets reminded to peel the skins off their chilis [The Stew]

[Photo: Periodical Cicadas, Clermont College]

Can we agree that the genetic engineering of our food supply is okay if it happens by accident? Probably not, but consider the following: six years ago, scientists with the biotech company ViaLactia discovered a gene that directs certain New Zealand cows to produce milk that's low in saturated fat (1%, as opposed to the 3.5% in whole milk) and high in omega-3 fatty acids. Since then, the company has succeeded in breeding offspring with the same characteristics, and is going commercial with natural skim milk and extra-spreadable butter (omega-3 is supermaleable, what with its multiple double bonds twisting to and fro[zen yogurt, anyone?]) by 2011.

We're not positive about this, but we don't see any reason why the product couldn't be marketed as organic. One does not need antibiotics, synthetic hormones or conventionally-grown feed to make these skinny cows; just a little bit of science-assisted selective breeding, an accelerated form of what farmers have been doing for thousands of years. The skinny cow aberration does not have the same sort of pernicious effects as, say, genetically modified seeds, which can destroy naturally occurring crops and need to be purchased yearly by growers. Nope, this is just some cows producing artisanal milk for the calorie conscious consumer. And so, we assign this project an 8 on the MP Scale of Food Ethics. Bottoms up!

Cows in New Zealand Produce Low - Fat Milk [NYTimes]
Skimmed milk gene found in NZ cow [FWI]
Low-fat milk, straight from the cow [ABC Online]
NZ cows produce own skimmed milk [BBCNews]

[Photo: Skinny Cow, Sam Yip]

Ever since it opened a few weeks ago, people have not stopped talking about Coalfire. In the past twenty days or so, the restaurant's thread on LTHForum has garnered 140 comments, virtually all of them positive (by LTH standards), and many glowing. Tablehopping declared it "as good as...Spacca Napoli," a heady plaudit from a major publication for a new restaurant. All this press has been a mixed blessing for Coalfire, which has struggled with dough shortages and floods. When the pizza is as good as people are saying, however, these growing pains can be easily forgiven.

Meanwhile, what kind of pizza is it? PIGMON of LTHFourm describes it as "a beautiful hybrid between traditional Neapolitan, NY Neapolitan, and Chicago bar pizza," meaning a crispy, lippy, thin crust (baked in an oven fired to 700 degrees by a combination of coal and wood for around two and a half minutes), high quality tomato sauce, and a relatively light touch with the meat-heavy toppings list (so much so that anchovies don't even count as a meat). The menu is concise, with nine pizza combinations, three calzones, and two token salads. The combinations, which range in price from $12.99 to $15.99 for a 14" pie, are simple and classic, and include white pizza ($13.50), fiorentino (salami and red peppers, $13.99), and the aptly named "meat" (salami, sausage and pepperoni, $15.99). By our calculations, these prices are pretty reasonable - similar pizzas in New York, to which Coalfire's offerings have been favorably compared, would cost half again as much. We recommend going early (before 7pm), before they get too crowded or run out of ingredients. It will be interesting to see the inevitable comparisons with the other new high-profile pizza restaurant, Crust, which opened late last week a mere mile and a half to the northwest of Coalfire. The good news is that Chicago has an insatiable appetite for good pizza, and the pie can only get bigger.

p.s. For the record, it's "Coalfire," not "Coal Fire"

Coalfire [MenuPages]
Coal Fire Pizza on Grand [Open] [LTHForum]
Tablehopping [Tribune]
Coalfire under fire [Food Chain]
Coalfire under water [Food Chain]
Spacca Napoli [MenuPages]
Crust [MenuPages]

[Photo: Mgmax/flickr]

How was your Memorial Day? Can you...not remember it because you drank too much? Did you not even catch the joke we made about remembering a holiday about remembrance because you drank too much? God forbid, did you not drink enough? Well, let Swirl Wine Bar help you make the transition into the shortened workweek and the de facto new season with a slew of light summer wines. From 6:30 to 8:30 tonight, Swirl will host a tasting of twelve sparkling and crisp (their lit) white wines that might inspire you to upgrade from beer and BBQ to chardonnays and canapées for your next party. Well, upgrade is a strong word - both pairings have their time and place - but did you notice the alliteration and rhyming? Right on.

Anyway, the tasting will be accompanied by hors d'oeuvres forged by Executive Chef Luis Sanchez's capable hands, including tuna and watermelon tartare (refreshing!) and empanadas (savory!). The best part is, if you call ahead for a reservation (312-828-9000), it's only $25. Those of you incapable of planning for the future will have to shell out $35 at the door, which maybe will teach you a lesson for being indecisive and slothful. Since this is their first ever wine tasting in this format, they're liable to "bring it," and we like those odds.

Swirl Wine Bar [MenuPages]
Swirl Wine Bar [Official Site]
Wine Events [Swirl]

• Consumers still confident about pet food safety... [PRNewswire]
• ...China to execute guy responsible, for good measure [NYTimes]
• Recycling turkey poop into energy [Tribune]
• What to do with the cicadas? Feed them to zoo animals... [NYTimes]
• ...Or eat them yourself [Tribune]

Before we go screaming off into the afternoon, we wanted to provide you with something useful. The most astute and obsessive readers of the blog may recall that in our post about the Tribune's webcast the other day, we promised we would elaborate on Kevin and Monica's suggestion of Bobak as a destination for Memorial Day food shopping. Well, here's your payoff: this circular touches on many issues of the week, like beef prices and mangoes. We think the selection of products they've listed is very well-edited; are you not excited for Tyrolska-style sausage and pickled zucchini? In any case, enjoy your extended weekend, and see you on Tuesday.

Bobak [MenuPages]
Bobak [Official Site]

[Photo: Bobak's Sales Circular]

Nicholas Day joins the fray on Vella Cafe, the instantly beloved paninoria in Bucktown. Day chronicles the history of the shop in great detail, from Sara Voden and Melissa Yen's early cooking careers to the Green City booth where they honed their panini-making skills to the endless hunt for a space in which to open their restaurant. Day's been an adherent of theirs for years, and is thrilled by the expanded restaurant menu - of particular note is the frittata panini, which Day believes to be the best egg sandwich he's ever had. In fact, virtually everyone seems to love Vella, which has received positive reviews from Time Out, Daily Candy, and the Tribune. We're impressed by the uniformity of the praise. Good job, guys!

Best Panini in Town? [Reader]
Vella Cafe [MenuPages]
Vella Cafe [Official Site]

As promised, allow us to intoduce you to the menu of the Midwest's first certified organic restaurant, Crust. Yes, certified - like for so many other government functions, the USDA accredits a variety of companies to actually go out to farms, manufacturers and restaurants to make sure that they're up to code. Imagine the double certification process if there were to be a kosher organic restaurant! Our bureaucratic heart swoons.

Anyway, when we called Crust a pizza restaurant yesterday, we were ever so slightly mistaken - it would be more accurately termed a FLATBREAD restaurant. With florid prose, Crust describes their product as "pizza's big brother, worldly and without boundaries..." Oh, come on. The toppings on their flatbreads sound like standard issue gourmet pizzas to us: their El Greco is topped with feta, artichoke, kalamata olive, red onion, and roasted tomato ($10), their Italian Sausage with sweet Italian sausage, provolone, and melted tomatoes ($12), and their Clambake with fresh clams, bechamel, fresh-pulled mozzarella, caramelized onion, and wild herbs ($14). Alright, we suppose that last one is a bit out there; one does not normally find clams and bechamel sauce on pizza.

But whatever you want to call it, it's organic, local and seasonal. Structurally, the food (which also includes sandwiches like wood-roasted beef with horseradish crème fraiche and sweet onion on pumpernickel for $10, and salads like the Brown Derby with roasted chicken, bacon, egg, cheddar, avocado, tomato, green onion, and russian dressing for $10) has to taste good, because the ingredients are good. That's the secret to great cooking - start with high quality raw materials, and do as little to them as possible.

Anyway, Crust also features a full organic bar (would you expect any less), including house-infused vodkas, and organic beers from all over. This certified organic thing may be a gimmick, but we find it pretty compelling. Who wants to eat artifice, anyway?

Crust [MenuPages]

Two in Chicago sickened by Chinese fugu mislabeled as monkfish! [Tribune]
Blago signs bill closing last slaughterhorse facility in U.S. [Tribune]
McD/tomato picker wage increase deal foiled by growers in Fla. [Tribune]
McD hot and bothered by fast food breakfast competition [Tribune]
CTA uses doomsday scenario to scare money out of Springfield [Tribune]

TOC echoes the emerging general sentiment on Alhambra Palace, which is that the space is amazing, but the food's nothing special. Competent but tremendously boring and average pretty much sums up David Tamarkin's reaction to the cuisine, whose blandness is especially stark next to the grandiosity of the restaurant itself. Problems are clearly afoot: Chef Eric Aubriot's abrupt departure is something of a mystery, and a story to which we're paying close attention.

Moving right along, Heather Shouse has a short piece on Crust, the Midwest's first certified organic restaurant, which opens today. And it's a pizza place! Stay tuned for the menu, which goes live on MP tomorrow (no joke).

Meanwhile, the Silver Palm, a train car restaurant (literally) at the megasection of Milwaukee, Ogden and Chicago, is losing patrons because of some nearby construction. Don't be among the easily cowed!

Chef Dirk Flanigan of The Gage, profiled in this week's hot seat, loves making his own sausages, eating at Coco Pazzo, and listening to Queens of the Stone Age (fine by us).

Taste Quest goes on an epic journey across 75th street, from Wabash to Cottage. Little did we know just how much delicious grub resides on that mile-long strip: everything from Army & Lou's to Cafe Trinidad to Soul Veg East and Lem's (even though those last two won't give us their menus, we love them anyway). Get in the car and make it happen (honestly, not worth it on public transit).

[Photo: Lem's/agilitynut/flickr | Silver Palm/Dixon Steele/flickr]

The Tribune is unusually brief - there's no lead review, and the Cheap Eats is in Glenview, so no help there.

Monica Eng is on top of where diners should stow their bags when out to eat - one of the burning issues of our time, to be sure. She eliminates the back of the chair (thieves!) and the floor (roaches!) in short order, and no one likes keeping a purse on the lap. Luckily, Eng finds that a growing number of restaurants (Republic, Butter, and Avec, to name a few) are using little hooks under their tables and beneath where accessories can be hung, out of the reach of criminals and vermin.

Vella Cafe gets the Tablehopping treatment, where the paninis are fresh and delicious, if occasionally lacking a bit of TLC from the kitchen.

Finally (already?), Susan Taylor compares Thai green curries around town, loving offerings from Thai Pastry and Sticky Rice, but not caring for a version she had in Skokie (serves her right for going to Skokie).

We wish we could give you a "preview" (the restaurant's name, in Italian) of Anteprima, but we were beaten to the punch. Well, finally, here we are with the menu. The restaurant's cuisine has been repeatedly billed as rustic and regional, and we're certain that the name itself is a reference to their extensive antipasto offerings (which offer a preview of the rest of the menu, maybe). Half the menu items (2/3 if you count the pastas, which are all available as half portions), are appetizer style. The rusticity comes into play with starters like veal meatballs with saffron-tomato sauce, pine nuts and raisins ($8), roasted peppers with breadcrumbs, parmigiano reggiano, and herbs ($4), and grilled polenta with spicy rapini ($7). Diners can continue the we're-at-our-rich-Euroxecutive-friend's-Tuscan-farmhouse fantasy with grilled quails, marinated in honey and balsamic vinegar and served with borlotti beans & pancetta ($19), strozzapreti pasta with pancetta, onions, cherry tomatoes, and pecorino romano ($8/half, $14/full), or maybe even a side of sauteéd dandelion greens with olive oil, garlic, chilies ($5). The prices are reasonable, the atmosphere is hip and low-key, and people are saying the food is pretty good - sounds like a good deal to us.

Anteprima [MenuPages]

Well, we have to say that we feel lucky to have been among the several hundred people who watched Monica Eng and Kevin Pang tell it like it is on yesterday afternoon's "first-ever live web video chat." It was a half hour of straight dope on the NRA show, dining in Chicago, and occasionally, the personal lives of the hosts. We've never live-blogged before (we don't even know if it takes a dash), so we did stupid things like...not take notes on the exact time things were said. As if that matters in the slightest - this is not a presidential debate, nor America's Next Top Model. And anyway, we have a clear record on the order in which things were said, and we will present our finding thusly. Except for the first few seconds/minutes, which we missed because we couldn't find the damn link to the video; why did the Tribune bury it in tiny text way down in the middle of the homepage? No matter - onto the material:

• Where to get wagyu? - The Fish Guy, Mitsuwa, and Fox & Obel. We wonder if wagyu prices are going up along with other prime meats. Probably, but right now, Monica thinks you can get ground wagyu for $10 a pound at F&O. Sounds like a waste, though.

• At the NRA show, quadruple-size Vienna hot dogs, for restaurants to tart up and serve as an expensive dish. The horror!

• Also at the show, green (environmentally friendly; does that even need to be clarified?) cleaning supplies on display, but in a small booth. Con-Agra, a rich, evil company, had a much bigger booth.

• Hey, a shout out to the blog! Kevin announced, and Monica, answered, our question about Indian mangoes (Monica: they "will blow your mind"), and you can get them at the Patel Brothers stores. Meanwhile, we were hoping they'd answer our other questions about Fred Thompson and the enfeebling of America via consumerism, but we'll take what we can get. Thanks, guys!

• Memorial Day food on the Southwest Side? Bobak has great meats (more on that later), plus something about tamales that we didn't quite catch. But evidently, Tio Luis on 35th and Archer has killer tacos, and they use key limes for added deliciousness.

• Burrito Beach has great guacamole. Who knew? It's only 75 cents as an "extra," by the way.

• Raw foods - is the movement growing in Chicago? We have some raw restaurants like Karyn's Raw Vegan Gourmet and Cousin's Incredible Vitality, and more are slowly opening, but it's not like all of Chicago is going to suddenly throw up its hands and say, "that's it! No more cooking." Raw foods will settle into a "sometimes" thing.

• Another innovation from the NRA show is the eyegiene toilet seat, which rotates and gets treated with alcohol, cleaning and drying the seat before its next encounter. Monica waxed poetic about a restaurant in Taiwan where bathroom attendants clean the commodes after every single use, and spray the area with a lovely jasmine perfume.

• What's the next big cuisine genre? Monica starts off by discussing mini-desserts, which isn't really a cuisine genre as much as a general trend. She does recommend the passion fruit souffle at Vong's Thai Kitchen, though. Then Monica recovered a bit, and forecasted an increase in regional Indian restaurants.

• A question asked about government labeling for local or seasonal. K&M rightly pointed out that the government can't even get non-toxic right, or organic for that matter, so nothing doing about local or seasonal. Their recommendation? Make friends with the vendores at your local farmers market.

At this point, Monica really started having a good time, and cracked jokes fast and furious:

• Someone asked where to get guinea pig in Chicago, and Monica launched into this whole thing about a piece she did on guinea pigs from the Trib some years back, and how she wanted them to run this horrifying photo of a splayed guinea pig, and there was this big back and forth with the editors - was it too much for a family paper? Anyway, they ran the photo to minimal hate mail, but the upshot is, guinea pig doesn't really taste good, and there's very little meat on it. Monica recommends leaving it as an Andean cultural curiosity, and moving on to bigger and better rodents.

• Monica feeds her 8 year old child intestines and worms!

• Do celebrity chefs ever cook in their own restaurants? If they're on TV, then no.

• Someone asked what the hosts would change about dining in Chicago, and they did not know what they were in for. Monica went on a diatribe about putting a ban on bad food and bad service. Then she sunk her fangs into the soft underbelly of Cafe Iberico, which she lambasted for resting on its laurels as the quality of their tapas has tanked - old bread, mislabeled "jamon iberico" sliced almost too thin to eat. Take heed, Cafe Iberico: Monica's got your number.

• Kevin talked about rib tips for a bit (you may recall he won our contest some weeks back for best food article of the day), and Monica waxed poetic about the pork at Sun Wah Bar-B-Q. She was very expressive - we laughed out loud on numerous occasions as Monica described the intensity with which she loves pig products.

• And finally, with an utterly straight face, Monica declared that she's looking forward to eating the cicadas when they come, which could be as soon as this weekend.

We are definitely looking forward to more of these things in the future.

Interactive chat [Tribune]

• Ahh, that's how mushrooms work [Yahoo]
• China to trading partners: trust us, pretty please [Reuters]
• Climate change to destroy wild food plants [Forbes]
• Vettel's plea for restaurant week makes progress [The Stew]
• McD's wants OED to change def. of McJob. Hahaha yeah right [BBCNews]

...and how it's relevant to you, Chicagoan

Last time we visited the Menuniverse, we petulantly proclaimed Chicago unassailable in every category that we carefully selected from the MenuPages blogs in Boston, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. There are, in fact, things that Chicago does not or cannot have, and while we're sad about that, we're keeping our chin up. Here, briefly, is our mea culpa:

• Topography irregularities. Look at this neat castle, and imagine eating in it [MP:San Francisco]
• Oceanic penninsulas. Lake Michigan is nice, but it will never have the sea breezes and lobsters of Provincetown [MP:Boston]
• Italian Food Festivals. Does Chicago have one? We think it used to, but we're sure it's nothing like this one [MP:Philly]

In every other context, however, we remain superior.

The big news in today's NYTimes dining section is that beef prices, especially the top grades like prime and choice, are skyrocketing as supplies plunge. According to the article by Florence Fabricant, the per pound price for steers ready to slaughter (lovely) increased from 83 cents in April '06 to 98 cents today, and the percentage of beef graded as prime has dropped from 2% to possibly as low as 0.5%. While some fluctuation in price and availability for high quality ingredients is normal, the factors which have led to this particular run seem to boil down to one thing: energy costs. The journey from skinny cow to juicy steak requires two inputs (for our purposes) - food, to make the cow grow, and gasoline, to transport the meat to your local supermarket or restaurant. Big cows with lots of fatty marbling consume a hell of a lot of corn to get that way, and their tremendous girth requires a lot of fuel to move around. Back in the day, farmers had cheap feed, and slaughterhouses had cheap oil. Now, with the ethanol market booming, everybody has expensive corn. Corn prices have increased so much that cows are now being slaughtered younger - before their beef becomes really tasty - to save the trouble of feeding them and transporting them at a higher weight. Next time you're at a steakhouse and your prime rib is scrawny and $70, you'll know why. (Actually, for the time being, steakhouses are mostly eating the costs and cutting back on reservations rather than quality, but that compromise is ultimately untenable).

Our solution? Methane! Yup, cows produce a vile amount of methane, currently warming the atmosphere at an even faster rate than carbon dioxide (by volume). Wily scientists are already busy coming up with ways to harness the tremendous output of natural gas on America's pastures. One day, we hope that cows are transported to meat packing plants and your plate in vehicles powered by fuel derived from the cows' own farts. Ah, the elegance of technological progress.

Demand and Costs Rise for Best Cuts [NYTimes]
Methane from cow manure makes new energy [Minnesota Daily]

[Photo: Audubon Magazine]

At the moment, we count a mere 16 questions in the comments section of the Stew's staging area for their webcast in two hours. Now would be a good time to get the dirt on that Phil Vettel rumor we all keep hearing, for example. No, seriously, ask them anything (ideally about the NRA show, but anything about Chicago, dining, or Chicago dining would suffice). The more embarrasing, the better. And tune in at 2, because you can pester them, live!

Video Web Chat, Comments section [Tribune]

The bulk of this week's smallish S-T food section is devoted to trends and ideas, which we will get to shortly, but if there's anything close to a review, it's of the city's numerous and beloved lunch trucks, apparently also called the "Lunch Bunch". (Periods shouldn't go outside of quotes, but when it's the name of something, putting the period inside the quotes is sort of misleading. We will take clarity over correctness in this instance, with apologies to you mavens). Lunch carts are an integral part of the urban fabric - quick service, owner-operated, low barrier to entry, and able to move to the latest construction site or other large massing of hungry people. New York's lunch cart offerings so revered that an annual event - the Vendy Awards - has sprung up to honor them. The article, by Sandy Thorn Clark, mentions both lunch carts sent out by restaurants (Toham, for example, keeps a cart on Ontario Street by LSD), and carts owned by entrepreneurs serving up whatever they know how to make, which almost always includes hot dogs (see diagram). We think the lunch cart is a great institution, and we're glad they're getting some press - it's tough business out there!

In ingredient trends, here's what's hot right now:
• Grounded coffee (not coffee grounds, please) in savory cuisine, especially in "stews, rubs and gravies." [Coffee Cuisine]
• Hey, it's squash blossom season! When zucchini are born, they have a little flower at the end that eventually withers and dies. If you know what's good for you, pull them off in their prime, stuff them with something yummy and bake or fry the hell out of it. Try it at Coco Pazzo and Mundial Cocina Mestiza. [Squash blossoms bloom in Mexican, Italian restaurants]
• Have you ever grilled a sweet potato? This weekend would be a good time to start - with a bit of olive oil right on the grill, or boiled, cubed and skewered [Swap shop: New idea for grilling season]

Finally, this was outside of the food section, but obviously relevant: Wikstrom's Deli in Andersonville, which closed in February (Ingvar Wikstrom was 79 and not having it anymore), is being reopened this summer by his daughter Marie, right next to the Swedish American Museum. In the meantime, your cravings can be sated via the Wikstroms' mail-order business. Smaklig måltid! [Wikstrom's to reopen in new place, on a smaller scale]

[Photo: Chicago Hot Dog Cart, abamart Concession Equipment]

We used three exclamation points as an homage to Judy Hevrdejs' lede in today's Stew. But surely no amount of punctuation would be sufficient to describe the magnitude of the event to take place early this afternoon: the first ever live web video chat hosted on the Stew will take place, as we noted, at 2PM. The goal of the chat (aside from seeing if it makes sense to do similar chats in the future), is to share with the public Monica and Kevin's perceptions of the NRA Show, which ended yesterday (you may recall that the pair have had quite a bit to say already).

Oh, did we mention that it's going to be interactive? That's right: you, the surfer/viewer, will be asking the questions. Commenters on the Stew have already lobbed queries about the cooking contests and new product samples at the show, but obviously, the sky's the limit. We're not really sure how the technological aspect of the chat will go down, but try the Tribune homepage, and maybe the Stew page as well, a few minutes before 2pm.

Our questions:

1) What was the ambient smell of the convention center?
2) Any reports of food poisoning?
3) Who won the ice sculpting competition, and what was the sculpture of?
4) Were there any of those new Indian mangoes?
5) Did anyone actually see Fred Thompson's speech?
6) What was the single most revolting thing you sampled?
7) Did any of the new products make you think the American empire is nearing collapse?

Stay tuned.

Live!!! From Tribune Tower!! It's The Stew's first video web chat! Got questions? We've got answers [The Stew]

• Hand sanitizers are newest trend in getting drunk [Tribune]
• Food supply chock full of antibiotic-resistant bacteria [GEN]
• If you've washed dishes in 33 states, you better write a book about it [NYTimes]
• Chinese look inward about pet food crisis and feel ashamed [Reuters]
• Ms. Obama resigns from Walmart food supplier's board [seattlePI]

Are you plotzing? This matcha parfait was expertly crafted by the master artisans of Green Leaf, in the food court of Mitsuwa Marketplace in Arlington Heights. As a food connoisseur and sophisticate-about-town, you are already familiar with the Mitsuwa brand, so we will not bore you with glowing accounts of their various culinary wares. Suffice it to say, this parfait ($3.60) would be an excellent denouement to an afternoon of stocking up on your various pickles and Shiseido products. The direct line to Green Leaf is (847) 228-5435, but call only if you're prepared to be very patient, or are fluent in Japanese.

But just look at the layering of the matcha and yogurt, the perfect spiral of green tea soft serve (whose grooves are filled with matcha syrup), the unexpected textures of red bean and ginger, and the two beautiful palmiers to complete the dish. A testament to Japanese dessert engineering. For this wonderment, $3.60 is almost criminally cheap. And the photographer even reports that it tastes good!

Mitsuwa Marketplace [Official Site]

[Photo: ebi debi/flickr]

We may not do reviews at MenuPages, but our legions of users are all over that.


This week, we wanted to highlight the incredibly polarized responses we've been getting about Sura, the Thai "bistro" in Lakeview that opened around three weeks ago. On May 16th, we received two reviews that speak to the tremendous capacity for passion and variation in personal perception of something as straightforward and inconsequential as a meal at a Thai place.

First, "Anonymous" with the love:

The service at this restaurant is incredible. Food comes out in quick succession if you are indulging in tapas, and empty plates are whisked away. I have only tried their tapas, which were very reasonably priced and generally extremely tasty. Ask for recommendations, as the ones we chose ourselves were never as good as the choices of our waiter. Don't let the extremely trendy atmosphere fool you, our table was very comfortable and the music level was pleasant - unlike other places down the street. This is a great addition to Lakeview dining.

Now, "Lakeview guy" with the hate

Ridiculously incompetent and arrogant service, mediocre food, unbelievably loud trite pop/disco (be prepared to scream if you want to talk), white decor that resembles a cross between 2001: A Space Odyssey and an old ladies' hairdressing salon circa 1975. There is nothing about this place to like, and I won't be coming back, despite the fact that it's around the corner from me. Life's too short, and there are too many good restaurants to give this place another shot at ruining my evening.

Did these people conspire to write contradictory reviews? They disagree almost point by point on service, atmosphere, and food quality. While the hate review made us laugh more, we honestly don't know which one to trust. We think any place that inspires this much vigorous criticism is a place worth judging for yourself.

Sura [MenuPages]
Sura [Official Site]

[Photo: breaking a long-standing self-ban on repeating pictures, Sura]

Hold the phone, do we mean Jaslene Gonzalez, winner of America's Next Top Model Cycle 8? Oh, you better believe it. Chicago's very own CoverGirl and Elite Model will be making the rounds tonight at Rumba, where a $15 cover will buy you canapés, a drink, and the chance to bask in the glow of America's current top model. Maybe she will even let you shake her hand! Door's at 6pm, appetizers will be served from 7pm-9pm, and Ms. Gonzalez will be making her appearance at around 8pm (you can take that with a grain of salt). Best to make a reservation at (312) 222-1226. Special note: apparently, "fashionista attire" will be required to enter the inner sanctum, so leave your hot pants and yellow lipstick at home. Or not...

Jaslene Gonzalez [Wikipedia]
America's Next Top Model Cycle 8 [Wikipedia]