MenuPages Blog :: Chicago: November 2007 Archives

« October 2007 | Main | December 2007 »

November 30, 2007

Red Lobster Has A Blog! And There Are Life Lessons In The Comments, If You Look Hard Enough

Red Lobster has a blog! The blog's two contributors are executive chefs at the seafood giant, and they've been posting around once or twice a week since mid-July on topics like recipes, restaurant conferences, healthy eating, and the like. Yesterday or so, they sent out a press release about the blog to RL's mailing list. Everyone who followed the link ended up on the same post, a spice blend recipe for grilled firm white fish that sounds perfectly reasonable and inoccuous. But that didn't stop 31 people from leaving entirely off-topic comments about individual restaurants and experiences, many of them as illiterate as our unusable MenuPages user reviews.

Take, for example, commenter "pat" from central Illinois, who pecked out a paean in all caps:

I TRUELY LOVE RED LOBSTER IT OUR ANNUAL GIRLS NIGHT OUT EXSPECIALLY DURING THE HOLIDAY WE DO OUR GIFT GIVING THERE FOR THE LAST 6YEARS UNTIL I MOVE AWAY I WAS GOING TO THE ONE IN CHAMPAIGN,IL AND THEY ALWAYS HAS GREAT SERVES AND PEOPLE LOVE THEM FOR THAT,AND THE FOOD IS SOOOOO GREAT AND THE SERVES IS GOOD, THE OLY THING YOU JUST HAVE TO WAIT BECAUSE IT BE FULL, BUT IT HASN'T STOP ME FROM WAITING, I DON'T CARE BECAUSE THE SERVE IS GOOD THANK YOU FOR MAKING MY TIME WONDERFUL THERE.

But the sad thing is, we're jealous of Pat and her ability to enjoy the simple pleasures in life without cynicism or bitterness. Oh, to have such low standards! To live in blissful ignorance!

Actually, screw that - we do want to be the one that spoils the party. It's much more fun! And we'd like to believe it helps make the world a little less vapid, even at the expense of people, you know, tolerating us. So we admire "anonymous," who admonished everyone to snap out of it:

People, people, people...

I've never blogged before and perhaps I'm wrong, but isn't this blog for "spicing up your fish" and not compliments or complaints about RL? If you have a problem, you need to advise the store manager and then follow up with corporate, they do have an area to do this. Also, if you'd like to compliment a store or person imparticular, let the store manager and corporate know.

And so for me, on this blog, I'd like to say: Thank you Chef, for the spice recipe above, I plan to try it this weekend.

Yes! Thank you very much. We should all try to be more like anonymous this weekend. Have a good weekend.

Spicing Up Your Fish [Red Lobster blog]
Red Lobster - River North [MenuPages]
Red Lobster - Archer Heights [MenuPages]

[Photo: Fried fish and broiled scallops combo at RL in Gilbert, AZ. Why is everything on this plate yellow or brown? (chowdownphoenix)]

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/30/2007 at 03:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Chains | Features | Food Media

Renaming The Reader: Dee Dee, The Mulefoot Hog

This week's Omnivorous (we guess it's about time to call it what they call it), Mike Sula updates us on the Reader's pet mulefoot hog, currently living the good life in south central Wisconsin while awaiting its eventual slaughter and distribution to hungry Chicago literary foodies. We've always thought that print media and heritage livestock should be more closely aligned - they face similar obstacles, and are similarly rewarding to the public.

Okay, we don't know what that means either. The piglet's name is ~~Dayspring Domatillo (a hippie hog?)~~ Dee Dee, as one ought to have surmised from the title of the article, and is adorable. Could you imagine if the only way to eat meat was to purchase an animal from birth, publicly document its life, and then eat the entire thing when it's ready to go? That would probably be a heck of a lot better for public health and the environment. Maybe we can get a proviso tucked into the farm bill (which looks like it won't be passed until 2008 already) banning traditional commercial farming and implementing contract agriculture and animal husbandry. If only!

The article also includes a list of restaurants where you can get non-traditional cuts of pig. Or cured pig, at least, which is just as good. Or better, really.

Healthy Meat the Hard Way [Reader]

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/30/2007 at 02:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Outside The Area | Review Revue

New On MenuPages: Sixteen Restaurant OMG!

While we went on vacation, a slew of restaurants opened their doors to the Chicago eating public. We've spent the last week catching up, and here's what we got, in alphabetical order, commentary where appropriate:

• Allstar Sports Bar & Grill (you can order online)
• Bella Rosa Ristorante (got way panned in the Dish)
• Brehon Pub (tagline: "Serving Guinness not gimmicks since 1980")
• Gourmet Pantry (you can order online)
• Jack's Famous Wings (Brighton Park)
• Jack's Famous Wings (Austin)
• Khyber Pass (a branch of the Evanston institution)
• King Tut (Mike Sula was impressed by the breadth of the menu. In fact, the website states that it has the "the Largest Selection of Appetizers in Chicago"!)
• Korean Seoulfood Cafe (Mike Nagrant recommends ordering off the homestyle menu)
• Little Chilies Thai Kitchen (you can order online)
• Los Girasoles (Brighton Park Mexican recommended on LTHForum)
• The Rusty Armadillo (new Norwood Park Mexican with whimsical name)
• Stretch Run (this River North sports bar has OTB!)
• Suzi's Tea & Cafe (Chicagoist thinks your child would enjoy this tea shop)
• Violet (cute new Lakeview breakfast/lunch spot is BYO and has Wifi)
• Wow Bao (on Wacker, serves Monica Eng-breakfast)

Wow. And as a special bonus (#17, in fact), we did some investigating and got prices for D4 Irish Pub & Cafe's lunch and dinner menus. Helpful!

FYI: We're Getting Poorer By The Second

• Gov't cuts and economic slowdown hits food banks hard [NYTimes]
• In Montana, hunters donate venison meat to local food banks [AP]
• Price of Bud Light to rise - this is probably just as well [Tribune]
• Study shows HFCS isn't any worse for you than plain sugar [Reuters]
• Remember the pet food scandal? Final death toll is 350 [AP]

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/30/2007 at 07:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: FYI

November 29, 2007

Shill Detection: Crazy Person Reviews Popular North Side Thai Restaurant

Of course we won't tell you which one, but a few hours ago, someone slightly unhinged submitted the following review:

Yesterday morning when I wnet to [REDACTED] I was so exitied to try there delicious food....I even woke up EXTRA early to get there. Upon my arrival I waled in and was greeted by the waitress(rude, coky, fat, ugly, and most importnantly NOT CUSTOMER CENTRIC....her name was MEANNIE). She said that NO ONE is to arrive before 11:30 AM oterwise they cant work at all.....SHE WAS A FOOD NATZI......when we finally got our food she made us wait till 11:50....this is NOT NICE!!! The food was great but the service makes me want to womit hence i am NOT COMING BACK TO THE POS!!!!

Poor guy didn't check MenuPages for the restaurant's hours, and got totally burned. What an entitled crybaby! "OMG the restaurant didn't open early for me, I hate them forever"? Come on. But is it a shill? Maybe - "womit" doesn't make much sense, given the distance between the 'v' and the 'w' on the keyboard. And what's THE POS, exactly? But it's probably just some doofus.

Also, is it possible that the name of the waitress is actually Meannie? If so, apologies all around.

p.s. don't ask us how, but out of the depths of our brain came The Pas, a small town in west central Manitoba. Sweet!

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/29/2007 at 04:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Review Revue

Tut-Tutting TOC: La Madia & Thalia Spice

Dear Martha Williams and Radhika Desai,

That is one hot picture. Nice work, ladies!

Your Admirers,

MenuPages Chicago Blog

p.s. don't act like you're mad at us for saying so
p.p.s. we didn't post the picture ourselves because that would be stealing

----------------

Alrighty then! Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let us focus on the reviews in this week's TOC food section. David Tamarkin checks out La Madia, the new River North pizzeria. He gives it three of six stars, but it doesn't seem like there's anything in particular he likes about the place - the pizza is basic and inconsistent and the pastas' textures are flavors are off, for example. Based on the tone of the review, it does not sound like the tasty salads and mini panini made up for the restaurant's failings. thalia & spice.jpg

We've seen Mr. Tamarkin three-star places he actually likes, so who knows what to think.

Meanwhile, Heather Shouse is totally down with the small plates at Thalia Spice, the new Sura-esque Thai place near Chicago and Halsted - the tom kha mussels especially float her boat. Heather gave this one three stars as well, further confusing us.

A trio of other things: Spertus Cafe the Wolfgang Puck-run kosher dining room at the Institute of Jewish Studies is opening tomorrow; digital jukeboxes and their drunken operators are the scourge of the salooniverse; you should know your basic cocktail history.

La Madia [MenuPages]
La Madia [Official Site]
Thalia Spice [MenuPages]
Thalia Spice [Official Site]

[Photo: of Thalia and her little puppy Spice. No, we couldn't help ourselves. (PittieLover/flickr)]

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/29/2007 at 04:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: West Side | Review Revue

Trisecting The Tribune: Quiet Dining, Group Dining, Ethnic Dining

In this episode, the Tribune tackles burning questions of our day like where to eat dinner for 20, and how can you get everyone else in the restaurant to shut the hell up. The answer to the second question is, since you can't, you better hope your restaurateur was smart enough to hire an audiologist or acoustic engineer with access to the latest in aesthetically pleasing sound-dampening technology! Glenn Jeffers speaks to just such a personage, the hilariously-monikered Tom Thunder of Palatine. How did they know our porno name?! Anyway, Thunder notes that many restaurants today are designed with "flat, hard and dense" surfaces that focus the ambient sound directly into your conversation, ruining your dinner. An appropriately placed curtain or two can do wonders. Or maybe ceilings made out of wet sponge? Drip drip. The article names a few restaurants with peak hour decibel levels falling somewhere between a blender and a lawn mower, including Gibson's Steakhouse, May Street Market and The Gage. Over on the Stew, Glenn suggests that for a little peace and quiet, you head to Charlie Trotter's. Well, that's easier for him to say, but here's a thought: vegetarian places are full of clientele at once friendly, considerate, and physically weak. Not a peep out of them, you can be sure of it!

The answer to the first question, the one about group dining, takes a few more column inches for the Tribune flesh out. Janet Franz ticks down factors like reserving a private room versus a large table (or perhaps dividing the party over a few tables?), using an a la carte menu versus a set menu, the quandary of whether and how to split the check, and even considering switching to lunch to save money. She throws in a few good group spots at the end of the article, a list that Phil Vettel supplements in his own piece. The real secret to group dining is to be on the committee that nominates who's in charge of making the arrangements.

Okay, the rest: Donna Pierce hits up the much-loved Turkish home cooking mecca a.k.a. Nazarlik...and loves it (except for the hummus); Monica Eng has the lowdown on Argyle Street a.k.a. New Chinatown a.k.a. Little Saigon, which covers everything from pho to pedicures; and an article that we missed from last week because we were away - but like enough to mention here - on the doneness a.k.a. temperature of steak, and why you should order rare at low-end steak restaurants and medium rare at high end. It may seem counterintuitive, but Phil Vettel explains that the cheaper places use leaner cuts of meat that dry out with longer cooking, and that more expensive places undercook their meat as a matter of course, to give them more flexibility if the customer wants it adjusted. The more you know!

Nazarlik [MenuPages]
Nazarlik [Official Site]

[Photo: as with this flank steak at Avec, we like it charred rare (crow soup/flickr)]

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/29/2007 at 01:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: North Side | Food Media | Review Revue

FYI: Things Far Worse Than They First Appeared

• Shot in the back, man staggers into Englewood restaurant, dies [Tribune]
• Following cyclone, Bangladesh needs a billion pounds of food aid [AFP]
• FDA considering relabeling salt as food additive and regulating it [LATimes]
• John Kass riles up diplomats with bluegill jokes and ethnic slurs [Tribune]
• Forget GMO - nanotech is the new scary food technology [ABC]

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/29/2007 at 08:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: FYI

November 28, 2007

Hyde Park Co-Op Hijinks, Continued

Last we heard of the Hyde Park Co-Op bankruptcy mini-scandal - wherein the neighborhood's main grocery store is about to go belly up under a mountain of unmanageable debt - the University of Chicago was recommending that the Co-Op's members vote for a plan to allow the supermarket to bow out gracefully and for a new one to speedily replace it.

Well, the school's ratcheted up its rhetoric in recent days, dismissing the possibility that there is any other way to solve this problem aside from the U of C's plan. Hank Webber, Vice President for Community and Government Affairs, writes:

As I noted in my message of November 7, the Co-Op is facing very serious financial problems from which it will be difficult, if not impossible, to recover. The Co-Op is currently over $5.5 million in debt and does not have sufficient assets to pay off that amount.

.....

The University, which owns the Hyde Park Shopping Center in which the store is located, has narrowed the search for a new grocer to either Treasure Island or Dominick's...both of these stores have committed that they will be able to open in that location within two weeks after the Co-Op closes although there may be a period of closure later in the redevelopment process. The University and a new grocer will invest over $5M into the physical facilities in order to create a vastly improved shopping experience.

.....

The Co-Op has sought and been denied financing on numerous occasions, and there is substantial doubt that it would be successful in this current attempt. Without this capital, the Co-Op will have to liquidate, which means the immediate loss of jobs for employees, smaller payments to creditors, and a potentially long period in which the store would remain closed before the legal system would allow a new grocer to open.

And with an iron fist, the University of Chicago banishes the Co-Op from the kingdom of Hyde Park! Never mind that the Co-Op's board is 2/3 in favor of this plan, and that the Co-Op is a really crappy supermarket - it's fun to rail against the school's habit of gentrifying the neighborhood in really obnoxious ways. Although a Treasure Island would at least be interesting.

Anyway, we will be following this.

[Photo: Co-Op History]

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/28/2007 at 04:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: South Side | Chains | Features

Surrendering To The Sun-Times: High-Low Edition

Today's Sun-Times food section is high-low. On the high side, we get Pat Bruno sniffing for truffles ($3k a pound, at the moment) in the Piedmont. Pat cannot bring himself to actually describe the taste of white truffle, so you'll have to spend a few hundred bucks at one of Chicago's finer dining destinations to find out for yourself.

So that's high-priced, and there's also a high-concept article, on underground dining in Chicago by Chuck Sudo. It is a good rundown for the uninformed, which is still non-foodies.

Charity and good works, that counts as high, right? Dave Hoekstra has a piece on Heaven on Seven-lead Katrina benefit, and Janet Fuller's on top of a story about local homeless kids baking and selling cookies.

Now, the part you've all been waiting for: the low. Eh, it's not so low: breakfast burritos at McDonald's, fajita kits at Sam's Club, and a mac-n-cheese contest. We've seen worse, frankly.

Oh yes, and a big fat medium to Lisa Donovan and her chestnuts. Although they're kind of expensive. Upper medium, then.

[Photo: a ~$400 white truffle. Impressed yet? (Bruce_Lee/flickr]

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/28/2007 at 04:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Food Media | Review Revue

Best Of MenuPages Reviews: Notes From Thanksgiving Day

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

Who in their right mind would log on to MenuPages and write a restaurant review on Thanksgiving? Four obsessive foodies, that's who! In honor of their dedication to the spread of restaurant knowledge on an important eating holiday, let us give thanks and run their reviews.

The first ball up is "jackie," who wrote about Honky Tonk Barbeque at the absurd hour of 6:12am:

off the beaten path, doctored bottled barbecue sauce, strange buns, generic barbecue beans, right out of the can, and to top things off, Jewel potato salad!!!...that aside, the meat was good, but come on, we need a better package. You will have to do more to get me back here....

The Jewel potato salad, if true, is insulting. A barbecue spot will neglect the sides at its extreme peril!

At 8:08am (did these people have to go to work?), "Russ" give us the good, bad and ugly on Thai Bowl, in a review titled "Come for the food...":

...but not much else. I personally have not had a terribly long wait there, but my average wait time is longer at Thai Bowl than at Bamee (30 minutes vs. 10 minutes). There is no atmosphere to the restaurant; it looks like a Hot Dog/Burger place. But the food is so good that I don't mind the wait and lack of ambience. If I want atmosphere with my Thai, I go to Dao. The food really is worth it, hands down. Great big servings of delicious food and on the cheap; perfect for campus living. I highly recommend the Basil Chicken; it is the best I have had in the city.

Things we are thankful for: properly used semicolons. We don't mind the Bamee and Dao namedrops because they are in the name of fair comparison, as opposed to the more frequently encountered thoughtless denigration.

At 12:53pm, "Z" wrote a review for Maravillas, claiming in the review title that it's the "Best Mexican in Hyde Park" (the competition being Pepe's). Z elaborates:

Maravillas has a great selection of semi-traditional Mexican dishes, and a few classic tex-mex favorites. The guacamole is creamy, spicy and top notch, and the chips are clearly hand made, as they often come to the table warm, buttery, and brittle. The only flaw might be the relative lack of vegetarian options, but the avocado burrito and cheese enchiladas always do me right. And best of all, it's cheap.

Even still, Z only gives the food a 3.5 and the service a 3. By dint of the numbers, this comes across as a balanced review. Also, "warm, buttery, and brittle" sounds dirty.

Finally, at 1:17pm, "Anonymous" pens a paean to Mataam Al-Mataam:

I love the feeling of knowing I don't have to settle on eat nasty food just because it's 3 in the morning. I love knowing that Mataam Al Mataam, which translated to English means "Restaurant of Restaurants," is open and have some of the best middle eastern food you can get 24 hours of the day. Some people might call the place "ghetto," however, I find it to be very traditional and full of character. I, especially, love when I see all the old school Assyrian guys playing "Kon-Khan" and using the hidden slot machines in the back corner of the room. The shawirma is mouth watering, the kefta is phenomenal, and the chicken is full of flavor. The salad is fresh and awesome at all times of the day. The soups or stews that come with the plate are a meal of their own. I especially love the white bean soup and pour it all over the rice for a true Assyrian touch to the dish. Whenever I see the owner Camil, pronounced like "Camel", walking around with the brounette version of the Hulk Hogan hair dew, I know I'm at a special place. That's exactly what Mataam-Al-Mataam is, a very special place! You have got to try it and NOW!!!

While the review gets a little too militant for our tastes near the end, we're pretty much sold. Hidden slot machines!

Unfortunately, no one was hardy enough to leave a review after the big meal, but we thoroughly appreciate the efforts of these four. As for the rest of you, step up your game, people!

FYI: Skewering Skewed Perspectives

• NYTimes decides bourbon is finally coming into its own [NYTimes]
• McD takes control of those 4 naughty Japanese franchises [Tribune]
• Supersleazy Texas oilman sentenced on oil-for-food corruption [TPA]
• Crazy lady Alex Witchel reminisces about Gene & Georgetti [NYTimes]
• Despite efforts, transfat bans sitting idle (like its consumers) [AP]

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/28/2007 at 07:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: FYI

November 27, 2007

Foods Of Chicago 2-Nite!

Chicagoist implicitly reminded us to remind you that "Foods of Chicago: A Delicious History" is airing at 7:30 and again at 9:50 tonight on Channel 11. In case you are interested, you can check out an interview we did with Dan Protess, the show's writer and producer, as well as an annotated preview video here. Enjoy! Also, we're sure they'll be rerunning it ad nauseum for the next few months!

Foods of Chicago [WTTW]

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/27/2007 at 04:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events & Promotions | Food Media

"Toe-Tapping" Used Non-Ironically In Press Release

We got a notice about a Pops For Champagne event this coming Sunday. Normally, we skim these things and then ignore them, but something caught our eye:

Pops rings in the enchanting winter season with a toe-tapping Holiday Candlelight Concert featuring Chicago-based jazz vocalist Typhanie Monique and her stellar trio

It made us laugh, and then we realized that this must be the very tail end of toe-tapping being funny. Or is it permanent? Discuss.

Pops For Champagne [MenuPages]
Pops For Champagne [Official Site]

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/27/2007 at 03:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Downtown | Events & Promotions

Afternoon Food Burst On NYTimes!

Normally we wouldn't mention this, but four good food-related articles all went live on NYTimes.com within a few minutes of each other:

• Genetically modified sugar beets designed for herbicide immunity are about to hit the fields, but biotech foes are not taking it lying down. What will Hershey's do? [Round 2 for Biotech Beets]

• In Italy, aging gardeners are waging a war on biohomogenization, trying to keep alive ancestral vegetable variants [Backyard Gardens Shelter Europe’s Orphan Seeds]

• Restaurant portion sizes are largely controlled by executive chefs, who don't give much credence to USDA guidelines. It's why you're fat! [Oversized Portions? Blame the Chef]

• The guy who invented Gatorade just died at 80 of...kidney failure. Careful what you drink! [Robert Cade, Gatorade Creator, Dies]

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/27/2007 at 01:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Food Media | Roundups

PSA: Kurt Warnstedt Has Some Nice Tickets For You?

We just got an email from Kurt Warnstedt of 42 Degrees N Latitude, asking us (and everyone on the restaurant's email list) if we'd like a quadruplet of $65 Bears tickets and a $40 parking pass for this weekend's game against the Giants. He can't make the game, and wants to sell them at-cost because he's a nice guy.

And since we're a nice guy, we thought we'd pass this on to a larger (?!) audience. Because people like football and tailgate parties, right? The tickets are for Section 431, Row 9, Seats 10-13. We're kind of hypnotized by all those numbers. Who knew football was so mathematical?

If you're interested, contact Kurt at kurtw@42nlatitude.com or call him at the restaurant (773-907-2226).

//PSA

42 Degrees N Latitude [MenuPages]
42 Degrees N Latitude [Official Site]

[Photo: MyFunGraphics. We will never understand, will we?]

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/27/2007 at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: North Side | Other | Restaurant Highlight

Hot Menu Analysis: Primehouse Cleans Up

We're sure you've noticed, at the bottom of the MenuPages Chicago homepage, the "Hot Menu" listings. These are the most-clicked restaurants for the previous day, categorized by area. So let's take a look, why not?

hot menu.jpg

Unsurprisingly, the single most-clicked on restaurant, on any given day, is usually downtown. Yesterday, by a long shot, the winner was David Burke's Primehouse, with 95 hits. By comparison, the next most popular restaurant got 36 hits - a tie, in fact, between Wildfire and TABLE fifty-two. What accounts for the primacy of Primehouse? We checked around and it doesn't seem like any reviews have been written on it recently, so it was probably the subject of an evite or something of that nature. But also, steak restaurants are really popular on MenuPages, and Primehouse is among the hottest around at the moment, so it's not a shocker.

On the North Side, The Art of Pizza came in first with 42 hits, sailing over Yes Thai with 25. That's pretty impressive for a pizza place that's slightly below most peoples' radars. Most of the top 10 on the North Side yesterday was composed of take-out places, as people continue to recover from Thanksgiving.

The Northwest Side winner is Friendship Chinese Restaurant in Logan Square, with 18 hits. But Hot Chocolate was nipping right on its heels with 15. These restaurants are rather far from each other on the dining spectrum!

Over on the West Side, Sepia retained its status as belle of the ball with 63 hits, topping the more utilitarian Butterfly, with 51. One dreams of the former, but ultimately orders delivery from the latter.

The South Side had a good showing yesterday, with 39 people clicking on Medici in Hyde Park and 37 on Wings Around the World in Bronzeville. Ah, impressionable college students. When will they learn? Probably never!

Finally, the top spot on the Southwest Side is a tie between two pizza places: Falco's in Brighton Park and Angie's Pizza in Ashburn, each coming in with a solid 11. We're not here to judge, but Honky Tonk Barbeque only got 8 hits. Ouch!

Hey, that was fun! This might even become a regular feature (cue scary music).

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/27/2007 at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Roundups

FYI: Standards Falling Rapidly

• Is GM food safer than conventional? Probably, yes [Guardian]
• No more Emeril Live! Is Food Network losing its mojo? [NYTimes]
• Anheuser-Busch introduces stupidly-named vodka. No thanks! [Tribune]
• Kids' low bone density due to lack of exercise and calcium [Physorg]
• Shamed Japan McDs admit to selling day-old salads, shakes as fresh [AFP]

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/27/2007 at 08:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: FYI

November 26, 2007

Viewing Pleasure: Grouper Ceviche, La Mar

Remember how we said we were going to Lima? Well, we did, and we took pictures. This was our first stab at food photography, and it's rather harder than it looks! Our admiration and respect for the many people who unwittingly contribute to Viewing Pleasure grows and grows.

At any rate, this grouper ceviche (okay, we're only 90% sure it was grouper) from La Mar is much larger than it first appears. It could have easily been 3/4 of a pound of fish, for starters, and furthermore, the corn on the plate is incredibly misleading as a reference. Peruvian corn has freakishly large kernels, and lacking scale, the dish looks coffee saucer-sized. But in fact, it was a full-on dinner plate, and the fish was nearly endless. Oh yes, and it was also the best ceviche we've ever had and ever could have, since this is the best cevicheria in Peru, blah blah blah. The sweet potato half-circle that accompanied the dish was certainly as good as one would expect to find in the birthplace of the tuber. And the red onions were consistently amazing all over the country! Also, it was under $10.

La Mar is only open for lunch, because Peruvians consider fish too old to serve as ceviche by dinnertime. The grouper on the plate was swimming around the rich coast of Lima only a few hours earlier, and the blissful texture of the fish made that abundantly clear. We had ceviche every day we were in Peru and it was always delicious, but this was really a cut above.

The restaurant is run by the same people who own Astrid&Gastón, a very-high end chain with locations in major South American cities (Lima's is the original), as well as Madrid and possibly San Francisco in the near future. We went here as well, and boy was it tasty. There may be some photos forthcoming, so keep your fingers crossed.

Who Needs Clubs When Everyone Is at the Cafe? [NYTimes]
Astrid&Gastón [Official Site]

[Photo: yours truly]

Chart Of The Week: Eating During The Day So Last Year

Today's chart from Nation's Restaurant News details changes in restaurant meal-period consumption since last year. Meal-period is something we just made up to describe any of breakfast, lunch, dinner or brunch. For example, if a restaurant is open for lunch and dinner, it serves two meal-periods a day. Because if you simply said, it serves two meals a day, that's ambiguous and misleading. And we don't think there's an already-recognized label for this phenomenon, but if we're missing something obviously, please don't hesitate to let us know.

Anyway, according to this chart, breakfast and late night meal-periods are surging while lunch is flat and "supper" is waning. Let us examine each meal-period in turn.

• The substantial increase in the morning meal is probably some combination of more people eating breakfast (after all, it is the most important meal of the day, they keep telling us), and more people eating breakfast on the go instead of at home. Given this, we bet that the majority of this uptick is in the fast breakfast subcategory, where food is designed to go instead of being served by waiters. Regardless, it's still a huge growth spurt for that meal-period.

• The shifts in lunch consumption seem statistically insignificant. Why would lunch change, anyway?

• "Supper," and for the life of us we can't figure out why they've used such an anachronistic term to describe the dinner meal-period (maybe to free up "dinner" for use in the title of the chart?), took a small hit. Dinner is definitely the most expensive meal-period, and perhaps it reflects the slowing economy. Or maybe people are spending more time with their families? Perish the thought!

• PM snacking...ugh, you just shouldn't be doing it. You'll get indigestion! Maybe it's dessert places, maybe it's more stupid drunk kids, maybe it's people working really late in order to keep jobs that are increasingly at risk due to the slowing economy. Idea: try eating only vegetables after 10pm. Could you imagine!

We can see an empire of restaurants open only from midnight to nine in the morning, leasing out unused space in lobbies and such. Meanwhile, how have consumption patterns changed in 24 hour diners? That would be interesting to know.

[Photo: Breakfast, snack on rise as dinner dips]

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/26/2007 at 04:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Features | Food Trends | Photos & Clips

Blog Reviews: Week(s) Of Not Being Here While Reviews Mercilessly Accumulated

Chicago's intrepid food bloggers were all over the damn place during the past two weeks, in alphabetical order by restaurant. Also, apologies if you've seen these summarized in other venues, but we strive for completeness

• The turkey focaccia at Costello Sandwich & Sides (Lincoln Square / Roscoe Village) is a popular sandwich, but favorite sandwiches are a particularly partisan issue. Do you have one? [Chicagoist]

• Yeah, there are a surfeit of Irish bars in River North, but D4 Irish Pub & Cafe actually has good food (Jameson chipotle Buffalo wings with lime-cliantro crème fraiche?) [The Stew]

• Bridget and Tammy give Devon Seafood Grill an 8 1/2. Podcast length - 15:26 [Chicago Bites]

• Hot-right-now Szechuan newcomer Double Li offers black pepper-garlic-butter flank steak, whose preparation you can see in the accompanying YouTube [Food Chain]

out to lunch.gif

• If you go to Ginza, you can watch them slice up big hunks of tuna! [Chicago Foodies]

• The stilton-garlic burger at Goose Island Brew Pub has been watered down over the years, now with too little cheese and too much bun. You may be better off with the slider version. [Chicago Burger Project]

• You probably don't eat enough Filipino baked ham. Perhaps to try some at Joy & James Cafe in Albany Park? [Food Chain]

• When you go to the new Korean Seoulfood Cafe, be sure to ask for the "hardcore" Korean menu in addition to the regular American one. You may get beef tongue soup that way! [Hungry Mag]

• After appearing on Diners, Drive-ins & Dives, everyone ran over to Smoque BBQ to see if it was as good as 1) they heard 2) they remembered it. Answer for both: a resounding yes. Try the chicken or brisket, if not the baby backs, and don't forget the peach cobbler [Chicagoist, Drive-Thru]

• Is the Semiramis spot blowing up? Looks that way. Get your kibbeh trio now, while the lines are short [Drive-Thru]

• Low-key tea at the new Suzi’s Tea & Cafe, where you and your kid will be welcomed by the mother-proprietor [Chicagoist]

• Bridget and Tammy give TABLE fifty-two a 6 1/2. Ouch! Podcast length - 14:47 [Chicago Bites]

• Monica Eng swoons over the new breakfast offerings at Wow Bao on State and Wacker - try the breakfast jasmine rice bowl with scrambled eggs, spicy bacon or sausage, and sambal [The Stew]

[Photo: Warwick Public Library]

Shill Detection: Illiterate, Or Just Plain Crazy?

We came across this barely readable mini-skreed against a restaurant in the wilds of southern 60622, submitted yesterday morning:

Alias: daily costumer

Title: the new owners suck

Review: i use to go to this restaurant everyday,but now i dont go sense there has been a change of owner by the name of [REDACTED] everything is petetic now i relly do no recommend this restaurant the food is really good dought wich i miss

Rating (F/V/S/A): 5/4/0/5

At first, we thought it might be an angry former employee, because why else would the "costumer" know the full name of the new owner?

But a few minutes later, we got another review from the same IP for a nearby taqueria. This time, the reviewer spelled "customer" correctly but retained the grammatical issues, reporting that "the waitress just have some serious problems."

So now we think the guy (and it's probably a guy) is just a misanthrope. But a misanthrope who doesn't know how to write English in a particularly amusing way!

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/26/2007 at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: West Side | Review Revue

FYI: Shall We Pick Up Where We Left Off?

• Economists think there's hope yet for healthy school lunches [AP]
• BK to match McD's $1, 1/4 lb burger option. At a loss, probably [BusinessWeek]
• Prepare yourself for water buffalo ice cream! [Tribune]
• Oh, right, we're still mad about lax food safety standards [NYTimes]
• And here's another beef recall to remind us why [Wisconsin Ag]

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/26/2007 at 07:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: FYI

November 21, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving!

See you Monday.

[Photo: Janusfinder/flickr]

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/21/2007 at 03:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Other | Photos & Clips

Viewing Pleasure: A Reasonable Justification For Going To McD's...

Originally posted 6/29/07. It's worth watching.

...is submitting your drive-thru order in verse. And by verse, we mean freestyle rapping. And by freestyle, we mean over your friend's beatbox. So you listen for thirty seconds and think, well, this is alright, but why does it have 7.4 million views and almost ten thousand comments? Because of parts two and three. And the interstitial dialog. The last line is also classic - all fries should be crispy. Just like your weekend.

[YouTube, Fast Food Freestyle, by Brt9003]

(Why are you seeing this old post? Click here to find out!)

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/21/2007 at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Photos & Clips

The First Step Is Admitting You Have A Problem

Originally posted 6/25/07. It's still funny.

Now, we know that Bill Daley's wine column in the Tribune is about helping people with their alcohol issues, but sometimes, the issues are issues, and that's where we come in. Take, for example, the first question in yesterday's column:

Q. On an average evening I probably imbibe three or four glasses of wine (mostly white) without any feeling of intoxication ... just a need to relax and sleep. However, I've noticed lately the alcohol content in some of the popularly priced wines has grown to 13 or 13.5 percent. Therefore, can you suggest several 12 to 12.5 percent wines that don't come in half-gallon jugs?

Daley's answer, while noting that the quantitative differences between a 25-proof wine and a 27-proof wine are minimal, dances around the real issue at hand: the questioner's incipient alcoholism. Oh, this may be alluded to in the column's title ("12 percent solution won't help much"), but it's not really Daley's place to moralize.

Fortunately, we have no such compunctions. If you're drinking a bottle of wine every night to chill out and you claim you can't feel the effects of the booze anymore, something is wrong. Yeah, you're not drinking half pints of domestic vodka before work every morning, but you're heavily habituated to alcohol and you're not doing your liver any favors, either. You may be able to sustain this level of addiction indefinitely, but you'd almost certainly be better off without the sauce. Maybe switch to pills! And if nothing else, give in and buy the jugs - they're much cheaper.

12 percent solution won't help much [Tribune]

(Why are you seeing this old post? Click here to find out!)

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/21/2007 at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Drinks & Drinking | Food Media

Chinese Food In America: Better Than The Zagats Think

Originally posted 6/19/07. But not by much. Check out NYTimes reporter Jennifer 8 Lee's blog about American Chinese food for the full story.

Last Friday, Nina and Tim Zagat (yes, that Zagat), published an OP-ED in the NYTimes arguing that Chinese food in this country pales tremendously in comparison to other Asian cuisines available here, and especially to Chinese food in China. The Zagats decry the gloppy, indistinct and inauthentic Chinese food that Americans are used to, praise the myriad regional cuisines alive and well in China, and predict that when this food finally arrives on our shores, it will cause a sea change in American culinary perceptions of Chinese food. The Zagats claim that the main factor preventing this from happening immediately is the difficulty that Chinese chefs have in getting visas to come to the United States and open restaurants.

Well, we'll leave that last part alone because we don't know if the visa issue is factually true, or even relevant (the Zagats' anecdotes about it notwithstanding). But we think it's worth pointing out that Chicago has some notable regional and high-end Chinese restaurants that don't fall into the egg rolls and chop suey category of American comfort food:

• Opera, in the South Loop, draws from Sichuan, Cantonese, Hunanese and Hainanese traditions, but finishes dishes with a new American twist (for example, your Crisp Eight Immortal Squid will come with garlic mayonnaise, sweet chili and 5 spice dipping salt, for $7)

• Mulan in Chinatown is full-on Chinese fusion, from the fecund mind of Kee Chan, who also brought us live-kill sashimi at Heat. Here, you'll find a Berkshire pork strip loin served with crab dumplings and a spicy plum sauce, for $24

• Shanghai Terrace is part of the Penninsula Hotel collection, and features Shanghaiese cuisine, as well as an extensive (and expensive) dim sum menu. The Shanghai Terrace Clay Baked Chicken with lotus leaf and sweet rice runs $36, but is the real deal

• Lao Sze Chuan is an inexpensive but perfectly authentic Sichuan restaurant in Chinatown, with a tremendously large menu that offers the American basics along with seemingly the entire repertoire of Sichuan cooking (the Dry Chili Rabbit for $11.95 will change your personal definition of spicy)

So yes, Virginia, there is real Chinese food in America, if you know where to look.

Eating Beyond Sichuan [NYTimes]
Opera [MenuPages]
Opera [Official Site]
Mulan [MenuPages]
Mulan [Official Site]
Shanghai Terrace [MenuPages]
Shanghai Terrace [Official Site]
Lao Sze Chuan [MenuPages]
Lao Sze Chuan [Official Site]

(Why are you seeing this old post? Click here to find out!)

November 20, 2007

Viewing Pleasure: Caramelized Lobster @ The Gage

Originally posted 6/12/07. When we looked at this one again last week, we were like, "alien fetus!" And sure enough, that's what we thought five months ago, too.

As we've noted in the past, we love food porn where you don't really know what's going on when you first look at it, and when you find out, you're sort of horrified and wished you had remained ignorant (we feel similarly about regular porn). When we saw this, we thought...glazed peaches? And then...alien fetus? And finally, oh!!! caramelized lobster. How obvious.

Have you ever heard of caramelized lobster before right now? Had you even conceived that such a thing might be possible? Neither had we, but we can't stop thinking about it. Putting lobster back into a shell is playful and clever, since sometimes, lobster gets really soft and can benefit from a crunch. Although for the life of us, we don't know why this is considered to be a salad. It is served with lemon quinoa (looks like caviar), basil and chili. And if that withered basil leaf is what qualifies as a salad today, we're quitting our day job.

Nevertheless, it looks like a nice hunk of lobster for $15, category be damned. If it were basil ice cream, this could be a dessert, and we'd eat it. Basically, anything Billy Lawless wants to offer us, we'll take. Yeah, this is pretty high concept stuff for a gastropub. Keep us guessing!

The Gage [MenuPages]
The Gage [Official Site]

[Photo: the unsurpassable Zesmerelda/flickr]

(Why are you seeing this old post? Click here to find out!)

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/20/2007 at 03:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Downtown | Dish Focus | Photos & Clips

Eating To Mourn The Dead: Ousmane Sembène

Originally posted 6/12/07. We're still sad? Also, add African Harambee to the list.

We were saddened to hear that Ousmane Sembène, 84, and arguably the father of African cinema, died this past weekend at his home in Dakar. A prominent critic of colonial and post-colonial mismanagement of his native Senegal and Francophone West Africa generally, he burst onto the scene with the 1966 film "Black Girl" (La Noire De...) about a young Senegalese woman who commits suicide after being taken to work as a domestic by a French family on the Cote d'Azur. The film won the Prix Jean Vigo that year, and served to reify the debate in France about that country's vexed relationship with its former colonies. He has been one of the major figures in African cinema since then, most recently releasing Moolaadé, a 2004 film that critiqued the practice of female genital mutilation.

We're sure that one of the Chicago arthouse cinemas will put on a Sembène retrospective sooner or later (Doc Films, we're talking to you). In the meantime, we don't know what you do when somebody dies, but we eat. Is West African too obvious? The answer to that question is the same as the answer to the question, "is this post itself ironically exploitative and colonialist?" Bracketing all that, here are some suggestions for food (we have already given you suggestions for thought):

Yassa is probably the best idea, since it's actually Senegalese, and it gets consistently good reviews. Bolat African Cuisine is perfectly acceptable - even though it's more Ghanian than Senegalese - because it's BYO and you can drink the pain away. Lastly, if you're lucky enough to live near Vee-Vee's African Restaurant in Edgewater, and they deign to answer the phone when you call, you can get your Jollof rice delivered, and mourn in solitude.

A Filmmaker Who Found Africa’s Voice [NYTimes]
Black Girl (film) [Wikipedia]
Prix Jean Vigo [Wikipedia]
Yassa [MenuPages]
Yassa [Official Site]
Bolat African Cuisine [MenuPages]
Vee-Vee's African Restaurant [MenuPages]

[Photo: Ousmane Sembène, Senses of Cinema]

(Why are you seeing this old post? Click here to find out!)

Slideshow Of The Week: Family Food Purchases Around The

Originally posted 6/8/07. Is there a Peruvian family in this slideshow, maybe?

Maybe you've seen this already (it's definitely making the rounds on the blogosphere), but if you haven't, it's worth going through all sixteen photos of families in different countries and their food purchases for a week, annotated with the cost of the supplies. Time magazine, which is hosting the pictures originally taken for a book called "Hungry Planet," has done a good job selecting a representative sample of families from different socioeconomic classes in a wide variety of countries (Germany, Japan, Bhutan, Peru, Chad [warning: sad], etc). The photo spread is compelling in an, oh-right-the-rest-of-the-world-is-composed-of-human-being s-who-eat-food-just-like-we-do sort of way, and also in a wow-people-eat-a-lot-of-packaged-and-artificial-crap sort of way. The photo which we found most appealing (and which we may get ordered to take down, we're not sure) is of the Ahmeds of Cairo (#9), who spent a mere $68.53 on all that delicious looking produce and mutton. And kudos to their interior deco, especially that waterfall poster.

What the World Eats [Time]

[Photo: Egypt: The Ahmed family of Cairo]

(Why are you seeing this old post? Click here to find out!)

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/20/2007 at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Photos & Clips

Review Revue: Tribune Goes Outside, Finds Bugs

Originally posted 6/7/07. Best. Screencap. Ever!

Half of the Tribune's dining staff is engaged in the al fresco project this week. Phil Vettel posts a master list of outdoor dining venues with themes like "Sandiest" (Oak Street Beachstro), "Best downtown view" (Pegasus), and "Best imitation of Paris (city, not convict)" (Kiki's Bistro). [Of course, Paris the convict is already out of jail]. Trine Tsouderos, Kevin Pang and Monica Eng have a few recommendations of their own to add: Cru Wine Bar, Sheffield's, and NoMI, among the notables.

As long as you're outside, Monica says, you might as well eat some bugs. Monica's divulged her love affair with the insect in the past, so this piece was really inevitable. Top spots to indulge? Tepatulco has a sauteed grasshopper appetizers, which you ought to eat with your eyes closed. And the venerable Sticky Rice offers both fried bamboo caterpillars and an omelet with ant eggs (the Sun-Times covered the same back in April). monica eats a bug.jpg

Oh, but there's more! The article is reprinted in The Stew, where the intrepid viewer can watch the even more intrepid Ms. Eng open up a can of Korean silkworm pupae on video, and eat one! Evidently they're a standard Korean bar food, with a crunchy exterior and a creamy interior. She manages to masticate and swallow without vomiting, and notes that they have a "smoky, nutty, dirt-ish finish." We think they look like little walnuts.

One more thing: you know all our ranting about "blue" this and "blu" in the previous post? Well, it just goes to show...today's Cheap Eats is about a Mexican restaurant called Blue Oasis Cafe, and it's located in Blue Island, IL. Almost spooky!

[Photo: screencap from the Eng-pupa showdown]

(Why are you seeing this old post? Click here to find out!)

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/20/2007 at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Food Media | Review Revue | Roundups

November 19, 2007

Best Of MenuPages Reviews: Pequod's, Panino's and Chicago's Pizza

Originally posted 6/5/07. Because we're entitled to a post about pizza.

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:

Do Chicagoans like their North Side pizza places? Yes, that is a stupid question:

On May 29th, "dannydig" penned a paean to Pequod's Pizza:

I don't care what people say about Lou Mal's or Giordano's or Due's or whathaveyou. Admittedly they are all great. Pequod is better in my view because of the sauce. Sauce makes pizza. Their deep dish is traditional chicago style, nice crust, great sauce - its slightly sweet. I can't vouch for anything else on the menu because I've only had the pizza - oh, the salad is average. But if you feel like you've had the others too many times, they do chicago pizza proud. and rate restaurants, i need advice too.

dannydig is right about at least two thing - a little sweetness in the sauce is a good thing, and you should all rate more restaurants

* * *

The next day, "T.R." defends Panino's Pizzeria against ever-present haters:

This place is great! They have a huge menu and almost everything is delicious. We live close by there and sometimes just have them deliver the deliciousness to us. The Gyros, ribs, gnocci carbonera, and thin-crust pizza are tremendous! and the homade gelato is stupendous! My wife gets the whole wheat options on her pizza crust,....the stuffed crust pizza is too doughy for our liking..The place is great and has a carry out side for a quick scoop or slice. Its a good place to bring a large group and have everyone be happy, except that one jerk that somehow goes out with you guys and you dont know why..they will say that there wasnt that great and then talk of a better place and make it about them.

1) While we fixed some of the typos in this review, the illegal contraction of homemade to homade was too precious to touch
2) Speaking of the homade gelato, we are impressed that it deserved the appellation of "stupendous," whereas "tremendous" sufficed for the rest of the offerings
3) We are totally that one jerk

* * *

On June 2nd, "Julie A." speaks the truth about Chicago's Pizza:

When I lived in Lakeview I would have starved to death without Chicago Pizza. Try their cheeseburgers, they're awesome. I ordered them lots more then pizza. Just as good as a sports bar but you can eat at home and in the middle of the night while staring at your pc screen (my usual 3 a.m. hobby).

Yeah, word; that's what we're doing at 3am, too. Good tip.

Pequod's Pizza [MenuPages]
Panino's Pizzeria [MenuPages]
Panino's Pizzeria [Official Site]
Chicago's Pizza [MenuPages]
Chicago's Pizza [Official Site]

[Photo: Pizza from Pequod's, which looks fantastic. latke/flickr]

(Why are you seeing this old post? Click here to find out!)

Posted by Adam Peltz on 11/19/2007 at 03:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: North Side | Review Revue

Kids Eat The Darndest Things (Or Not)

Originally posted 6/1/07. This is especially relevant following the Jessica Seinfeld scandal.

This past Wednesday's NYTimes Dining Section featured a light-hearted look at children's menus, specifically how they almost universally feature chicken fingers. The writer, David Kamp, used to love the fingers' ability to placate his children at restaurant after restaurant, until he realized what this represented: a subversive takeover of young American palates by a singular, homogenous and not entirely healthy foodstuff. Let's assume you, the voracious reader, already know why this is a problem (never too early to start building bad eating habits and entitlement issues!)

chicken finger.jpg

Kamp goes on to report about bringing children into the adult food/local/seasonal/organic fold with new and improved kids menus at institutions as diverse as Disneyland (where French fries are no longer automatic) and Latitude 41 (grilled organic chicken teriyaki, anyone?).

We will get to some smarter kids menu options in Chicago momentarily, but first we want to highlight an issue whose root cause is not fully addressed in the article: why kids and adults prefer to eat different foods. Yes, that preference was certainly exploited by the fast food industry over the past thirty years, but it was not invented by the fast food industry. Even little children who don't watch TV and have never set foot in a McDonald's prefer different foods than their parents, at least at the outset. The explanation? A smart cousin once told us that children's innate biological imperative to survive steers them toward food that's bland and familiar. It is easy to imagine how the flavors and textures that adults crave could send out warning signs of inedibility to a child: spice hurts, and things that hurt are bad, for example. Nothing in the world is as consistent and unthreatening as a chicken finger, and so, kids gravitate toward them.

But that doesn't mean you, the parent, shouldn't occasionally curb those defensive instincts, lest your child grow up to be a conservative eater (and fat!) Here are some restaurants with kid's menus that have more to offer than golden logs of conformity:

• Wishbone's children's menu includes a host of cutely named, Southern-influenced dishes like the Original M 'n' C, made with four cheeses and topped with baked ham or chicken sausage ($5.95)

• Big Bowl Cafe has a ton of kid-friendly pan-Asian noodle dishes and stir fries - even a kid's pad Thai!

• Chicago Diner has options specially designed for your budding vegan, like the Not Dog with homestyle potatoes, coleslaw, mac n cheeze, or brown rice ($6.95; note the spelling of "cheeze")

So you see, all is not lost for our nation's youth. Just don't give into them all the time! And don't overcook the vegetables you give them, either.

Don’t Point That Menu at My Child, Please [NYTimes]
Latitude 41 [Official Site]
Wishbone [MenuPages]
Wishbone [Official Site]
Big Bowl Cafe [MenuPages]
Big Bowl Cafe [Official Site]
Chicago Diner [MenuPages]