MenuPages Blog :: Chicago

Sun-Times & Reader: Puppies!

2008-08-08T19:53:53Z

It's Friday, and that can only mean one thing. Say it with us now: WHAT THE HELL, SUN-TIMES, FIX YOUR FREAKING WEBSITE. Of today's four links off of the main dining page, three open to lovely, content-filled pages without needing to manually fiddle with the URL. But one does not. And it's Pat Bruno's main review. Grr.

• The failing article in question is a review of Oak Park's Trattoria 225 (225 Harrison Street, 708 358 8555), a slightly upscale family Italian joint that's got a wood oven for pizza and a tendency to grill things (not necessarily a bad thing!). It gets a pretty even-handed treatment: some dishes are meh, some are really good (the grilled romaine in the caesar salad gets noted as a neato touch). He declares the wood-fired pizzas "more East Coast-style than Midwest," but points out that unlike the fresh clams used by the masters of the white clam pizza, Frank Pepe's Pizzeria Napoletana in New Haven, CT, the owners of Trattoria 225 go for the canned kind. Ultimately, though, Bruno's review makes it out to be pretty boring: Worth it if you live nearby, but not nearly exciting or innovative enough to merit a trek from another neighborhood. [Bruno, Sun-Times]

• Speaking of suburban Italian fare, Thomas Witom treks out to Hodgkins in order to visit Salerno-Pincente Ristorante (9301 W 63rd St, 708 354 0099) (fun fact! Google maps places this in Countryside!), which shares its space with "Chicago's newest off-track betting (OTB) operation," the bar Trackside. Witom finds the restaurant to be a solid operation, the pasta-heavy menu resolves into giant portions with minimal fanfare. Atmosphere is lacking, and service could be more polished. But hey, you're probably there for the horses. [Witom, Sun-Times]

This week the Reader is making up for lost time with a threefer: their reviewers visit new hotel-based restaurants C-House (at the Affinia), Perennial (at the Park View Hotel), and ajasteak (at the Dana, and we have just discovered that their website is basically seizure-inducing). Let's break it down:

• Prominently positioned in "one of the most boring restaurant neighborhoods in the city," Perennial seems to still be finding its footing. Mike Sula has nice things to say about dishes like Roman-style semolina-beet gnocchi, lamb with eggplant chutney, and a "devastating" (in the good way) watermelon-tomato-olive-oil. But these raves are preceded by some serious criticisms: peekytoe crab and avocado salad that's "in the running for one of the worst things I’ve eaten all year," and canneloni that "was a textural nightmare of overmanipulated manky meatstuff." Eww. [Sula, Reader]

• The review for C-House begins with the usual rundown of Marcus Samuelsson, but OSBMS refrains from calling him a chef, or an executive chef, or even a person. Instead, he's a media package, meant in presumably the least flattering sense of the phrase, and Sula's affront at the chef situation underscores the rest of the review. The food? As in other reviews, the land-based offerings score better than those from the sea — unfortunate, considering that seafood is the focus here. Sula's theory? Samuelsson "thinks we landlocked rubes don’t know from good fish. Then again, with a built-in customer base of tourists and travelers, maybe he isn’t thinking about us at all." Ouch! [Sula, Reader]

• Anne Spiselman heads to ajasteak, and finds a convenient workaround for those who are in the mood for Kobe, but don't want to pay $18 an ounce for it: get the yakitori appetizer, request it rare and unseasoned, and you'll find yourself hauling 2-3 ounces for $18 a serving, instead. She finds the restaurant's sushi delicious, if expensive, and the service and wine list are both well-executed. The non-steak entrees don't fare as well, with poorly balanced sweet-and-salty flavors and misleading menu descriptions. Plus the atmosphere felt like sitting "in a corridor" — next time, she'll sit at the sushi bar. [Spiselman, Reader]

[Photo: We couldn't find pictures on Flickr of any of these restaurants, so instead here's a photo of some puppies! Via gervo1865_2's Flickr]

Across The Menuniverse: Summer Lovin'

2008-08-08T17:05:29Z

• Nothing hits the spot on a muggy August night like a good margarita. [MP: Boston]

• Fresh or frozen, fish is the best. [MP: Chicago]

• It's the most wonderful time of the year for farms. [MP: Philadelphia]

• Are you counting calories and pennies? A farmers market could be your new best friend. [MP: San Francisco]

• Limoncello popsicle martinis? YES. [MP: South Florida]

8 Places To Eat On 8-8-08

2008-08-08T16:38:26Z

Happy 8-8-08! Like everyone else, we are rounding up for you the best Olympics and/or China-related things for you to do today. You could go with the city's most-publicized Olympics kickoff event over at Ben Pao, where Tsingtaos are only 88¢, apps are free, and you can compete in feats of gastronomic strength to win, in their words, "the best prize of all: Cold, hard cash!" It runs from 5:30 until 8:08pm, after which point you're back to paying full price for your sesame chicken.

If you're up for a little bit less of a glossy Chinese food experience, here are our picks for the top 8 Chinese restaurants at which to get your 8-8-08 fix (though good luck getting a table):

• Moon Palace Restaurant is where we went as a small tiny little child with our parents. Climbing the narrow stairs to a room lined with fish tanks and where drinks came with umbrellas was just about heaven. It's changed quite a bit over the years, but the Shanghainese food is still more or less flawless. Try the xiao ling bao to start, and whatever the daily special happens to be.

• The original Three Happiness is classic for dim sum or, outside of weekend mornings, what one of our friends likes to call "jank dim sum": ordering like seven dumpling dishes off the regular menu, and making a meal of it.

• If you'd rather be eating in the comfort of your own living room, we can't recommend China Hut highly enough. The ginger beef just might change your life. And, trust us on this, the spicy salt smelt.

• Joy Yee's Noodle Shop — the original one — is located in the kind of eh-looking Chinatown Mall. BUT. Oh man, those noodles. Winter was invented so that we would have perfect context for consuming a bowl of Rare Beef & Beef Tripe Noodle Soup. Also stellar: Chap Chae made with eel. Also more appropriate for August : the vast selection of smoothies and milk teas.

• For a little bit more of a swanky experience, may we suggest you take your lady love (or your gentleman friend) to Opera? Total swish. Hold off until Sunday if you're watching your wallet: the $25 prix fixe knocks it out of the park.

• The dim-sum-only Happy Chef Dim Sum House is another great find, and it's thrillingly inexpensive. You can get roll-yourself-home full for under a tenner, if you play it right.

• The mini-chain BBQ King House has three locations in Chinatown. Ridiculously bright flavors, top-notch ingredients, and expert barbecued meats (try the duck, the crispy baby pig, or the chicken liver) await you, as well as an extensive menu of authentic Chinese food: squid with bitter melon, lo hon vegetables, and abalone congee (swoon!), among others.

• And finally, the famous Sun Wah Bar-B-Q. You basically can't go wrong with anything here (though we've yet to build up the nerve to order the congee with pork stomach, kidney, and intestine), but we would do unspeakable things for the stir-fried pea pod green (pea shoots), the watercress and fish ball soup, and a quarter of a roast duck. Unspeakable things.

[Photo: Barbecued meats at Sun Wah, via mjkmjk's Flickr]

FYI: Olympic Dreams

2008-08-08T13:51:49Z

• A Chicago cop is suspended after allegedly demanding a free coffee from Starbucks. [Chicago Tribune]

• Today's a lucky day for the Chinese. You'll need luck getting a reservation in a restaurant, church, event hall, or any other place that might have to do with a wedding [Xinhua]

• Could it be possible that those calorie counts popping up on chain restaurant menus are more complicated than they seem? [Los Angeles Times]

• As the 2008 Olympics kick off, a look at a different kind of "sport:" Competitive eating. [LA Times]

• Lunch has a new hero in actor Michael Douglas (natch). [Times Online]

The Food of Mad Men

2008-08-07T23:02:49Z

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

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

]]> Scene after scene on Mad Men takes place in restaurants that can only be described as swanky. The softly glowing lights, unobtrusive classical music, and understated decor of the dining rooms would fit right in with most nice restaurants these days. But, oh, the food!

From our notes, and with some help from the Television Without Pity forum on Mad Men, it seems that when people weren't drinking heavily, they were eating lots of oysters Rockefeller and caesar salads. Other items on the Mad Men menu?

For drinks (easily one of the main food groups): whiskey, scotch, Manhattans, Rob Roys, vodka gimlets, and martinis. The employees of Sterling Cooper truly own the idea of a liquid lunch, and that's not even considering all of the bracing swigs knocked back behind closed office doors.

Home-cooking on the show is standard 1950s fare: celery with cream cheese, many a pot roast, a ham generously cloaked in a layer of pineapple, Waldorf salad, and a parade of casseroles all make appearances. Some of the dishes are probably best left to history, but many left us with a powerful desire to revive retro canapes. All in all, very Joy of Cooking!

Finally, if you were dining in New York's finest restaurants of 1960, you might have expected to see the following on the menu: goulash, beef wellington and other foods wrapped in dough or puff pastry, caviar, shrimp cocktail, rumaki, and classic desserts like baked Alaskas. We bet it all tasted pretty good, but didn't they ever get bored?

Aside from making us want the cocktails/not want most of the food, watching has made us wonder: how outdated will our food seem fifty years from now?

[Photo: authorwannabe/flickr]

Confidential To Our Mom

2008-08-07T22:30:40Z

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

Park 52 [MenuPages]
Park 52 [Official Site]

It Is Worth Noting

2008-08-07T22:15:00Z

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

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

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

TOC & Tribune: Be Fruitful and Multiply

2008-08-07T19:59:16Z

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yats the Ticket

2008-08-07T19:19:14Z

Restaurants whose names are easily conducive to punning? Beloved universally by bloggers and restaurant reviewers everywhere. So we are psyched for headline-writing reasons alone about today's opening of the first Chicago location of Yats (955 W Randolph St, 312 829 7930). Thrillist has the dish:

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

Per our listings, this is a much-needed injection of Cajun hot sauce into the West Loop. We await your reports. Yats the way the cookie crumbles. Yats amore. Yats the way (uh huh uh huh) I like it. Yats yat.

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

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

...And We're Back!

2008-08-07T18:57:44Z

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

Technical Difficulties Abound!

2008-08-07T18:34:09Z

Your talented editor Helen has asked me to write a post letting all you devoted readers know that her computer is down. She did not ask me to write a post about the Chicago food scene, but I feel compelled to mention that on a recent visit to your fair city, I ate some truly wonderful things, including but not limited to:

• Cinnamon buns at Ann Sather

• The French Toast Orgy at Toast

• Transcendent chocolate cake at Green Zebra

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

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

2008-08-07T17:29:45Z

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

One Delicious Plea Bargain

2008-08-07T17:19:30Z

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

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

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

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

We all know fried chicken is a wonderful comfort food, but there seems to be an extra strong link between the golden crust, the prison population and, sometimes, the great hereafter. Look at how many Texas death row inmates requested it as their last meal.

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

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

[Photo: jslander/flickr]

FYI: Super Villains

2008-08-07T15:00:00Z

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

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

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

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

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

Surprise! Kids' Menus Aren't Exactly Healthful

2008-08-06T23:04:58Z

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

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

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

After the jump, the worst offenders, for shock value:

]]> • Chili's country-fried chicken crispers with cinnamon apples and chocolate milk: 1020 calories
• Chili's cheese pizza, homestyle fries plus a lemonade: 1000 calories
• KFC's popcorn chicken, baked beans, biscuit, fruit punch, and Teddy Grahams: 940 calories
• BK's double cheeseburger (since when is that on the kids' menu?), fries and chocolate milk: 910 calories
• Sonic's grilled cheese, fries and a slushie: 830 calories

What's a parent to do? Well, for starters, steer clear of these restaurants, since the adult dishes are notoriously calorie-laden as well. Another idea: share your meal with the kids. It's a win-win situation really; you consume fewer calories, your kid gets something more interesting than the standard chicken nuggets and fries, and you save money. Nowhere is it written that children's diets need to consist solely of burgers, fries and unnaturally shaped pieces of fried chicken. They might even like sampling from the grown-up menu.

Option #3: go to Subway. The sandwich chain had the most nutritionally acceptable options for kids with juice boxes, apple slices, raisins and yogurt to accompany mini-subs.

Obesity on the Kids' Menus at Top Chains [CSPI]
Kids' Meals: Obesity on the Menu [CSPI]

Photo: AFP via ABC Australia