You know there's a good PR team at work when a restaurant shows up on Thrillist, DailyCandy, JuliB, and UrbanDaddy. But who does it best? We subscribe, read, and levy judgment... so you don't have to

In this inaugural edition of Showdown, we have newbie Italian joint Piccolo Sogno, which opens today. The contenders: Thrillist, DailyCandy, and UrbanDaddy. JuliB is apparently sitting this first round out.

Thrillist's take on...
a cutesy title: "On the 'Lo"
the chef, Tony Priolo: "Longtime right-hand men chomp at the bit to step up and unleash their own unique creativity -- Snoop's last words to Dre were "One day I will use Peter Frampton's voice-box to record an R&B song"."
the dining room: "like a Pier 1 exploded inside Donald Trump's penthouse."
the menu: "ambitiously pan-Italian, whisking your ambitious gut from Naples (creamy buffalo mozzarella and fresh basil studded Margherita pizza) to Sicily (wood-fired whole fish w/ sea salt and braised fennel) to Rome (slow-roasted pork in garlic, olive oil, and fennel)."
the bar: "The 100+ bottle wine list also spans the Boot, with Chianti, Brunello, Barbaresco, and more from Umbria, Piedmont, Veneto, and loads of other regions you know intimately as "In Italy, right?" Priolo's also spreading his hard-liquor wings, with 12 signature cocktails."

UrbanDaddy's take on...
a cutesy title: "Molto Patio"
the ambiance: "Complete with a lush and airy back patio, Piccolo transports you oceans away from busy Halsted Street (OK, maybe blocks). The garden outdoes former occupant Timo (no slouch in the authenticity department), and the fragrance of new junipers, and soon, fresh herbs, will have you swearing you're on a mini Roman holiday."
what to order: "we say go with a cold Menabrea. The Italian brew stands up nicely to Piccolo's wood-fired pizzas and its porchetta, Roman-style roasted pork."

DailyCandy's take on...
a cutesy title: "Dream On"
the menu: "Simplicity reigns: house-made breads, organic Northern Italian risotto grains, Mediterranean fish, San Marzano tomatoes, mozzarella from Naples. The well-rounded menu includes heirloom tomato salad, crunchy pizzas, handmade spinach and ricotta gnocchi, and rosemary-marinated lamb T-bones."
The bar: "The cocktails are seasonal as well: This month try the blood orange mimosa."

Winner: Thrillist, for providing maximum information with maximum mockery of the interior design tastes of self-styled oligarchs.
Loser: DailyCandy, for providing absolutely no unique information whatsoever, and sending their email two whole days after the other two, which makes us wonder if they were even on the initial press release mailing list at all.

Thanks for playing, everyone! See you next time!

Piccolo Sogno [MenuPages]
Piccolo Sogno [Official Site]

[Photo: Showdown, via avant gardenia's Flickr]

Summer is in full swing in the Chicago food mediasphere, with the Taste, hot dogs and pure, unadulterated fire dominating the headlines.

• Top five Taste deals, including Original Rainbow Cone's Patriot Cone: blueberry, vanilla and strawberry, the bounty of America on its birthday [Tribune]

• Mini-reviews of all the Taste items, as first seen on the Stew, featuring Vettel's famous "meh" [Tribune]

• Ice cream plus espresso (a.k.a affogato) is good; ice cream plus espresso plus cognac is better [Tribune]

• But our are there a lot of words on hot dogs today! The issue contains pieces on a bunch of classic hot dog stands around Chicagoland, plus a look under the hood of the dog and the always contentious ketchup conundrum. Is your favorite grease pit included in the roundup? You'll have to click to find out! [TOC]

• The pull quote from the entire series is: "Despite many complaints from mustard-faced customers, Gene & Jude’s didn’t even offer napkins until the ’70s. 'People would ask for napkins and Gene would hand them a hot-dog wrapper,' Joe says." [TOC]

• We will still never understand the endless, juvenile, largely irrational hatred Chicagoans have toward ketchup on their hot dogs. Does the red stuff really throw the balance of ingredients that far off? Hasn't anyone ever tried putting ketchup and mustard on their hot dogs? We can't think of a single analog in, New York, say, where a condiment-food item combination is so reviled that it's practically embedded in the city's core DNA. We're all for purism, but the extreme level of this ketchup thing is kind of a deranged application. We're not going to win any friends for this, but get over it! [TOC] (Then again, we have trouble being friends with people who order red meat well done. Or put peanut butter on their blueberry bagels)

• Wrapping up the frankfurter files, Hot Doug's is doing a design-your-own hot dog contest, and the winner gets their dog on the menu for a week. Which is actually not the world's most impressive prize, but it's really about the glory, right? [TOC]

• In other news...a scrappy pastry chef-turned-gelato maker...heavy metal vs. R Kelly in the kitchen...more Mexican than French at Mexique, which is not to say the tacos aren't tasty...progressive-sounding healthy concept Freshii falls flat with confusing ordering practices and mediocre salads

• Finally, in this week's Omnivorous, Mike Sula talks to the last guy delivering coal in Chicago (really?) and his two remaining customers, D'Amato's Bakery and Coalfire, the much-ballyhooed New Haven-style pizza place on Grand St. It's a nice story about the decline of one major Chicago industry that alludes to the rise of another major Chicago industry (restaurants).

Also, this reminds us of one our first targets for hypocrisy, Carbon. The name of the taqueria and their promotional literature imply that they cook with charcoal, and last April, we were appalled to discover that they actually run a gas-based operation. And we just called them again and it's still gas, and presumably forever more. But, as natural gas prices skyrocket and we remember that we're sitting on a few hundred years of coal reserves...who knows.

[Photo: an affogato avocado, best, via bigiain/flickr]

Reviews galore on this, the very last Friday of our employ. Oh yes, it's true; Independence Day will take on a myriad of meanings this year. (Don't worry! We're not abandoning our post for anything less lofty than post-graduate education, with the goal of yet increasing our insufferability.)

But enough about us; Mike Sula, David Hammond, and Pat Bruno have things to say about Pho Xua, Lincoln Korean Restaurant, Taqueria La Oaxaqueña, Ecuador Restaurant, L.2O, and Veerasway, respectively. They will soldier on, sowing the seeds of restaurant knowledge in the rich soils of their Chicagoland readership, whether we're here to criticize them or not. So let's get to it.

While much of the Reader is devoted to Best Of Chicago 2008 this week, there's still an Omnivorous, containing some of Mike Sula and David Hammond's favorite cheap ethnic eats.

Sula shouts out Pho Xua as an alternative to the hegemonic Hai Yen on Argyle Street, and is down with their Chinese-influenced, house-braised pork belly. He finds unusual accessibility at Lincoln Korean Restaurant on...Lincoln, of course, although actually, only 40% of the restaurants in our database with the word "Lincoln" in the name are actually on Lincoln Avenue — the rest are in Lincoln Park. We're escaping our point, though which is that Lincoln Korean has all the authenticity of those Lawrence Avenue no-English DIY places, but with the straightforward ordering process of, say, a Korean restaurant in...Lincoln Park. Finally, Taqueria la Oaxaqueña serves the fine cuisine of Oaxaca (i.e. mole, on rabbit no less!) at truly Mexican prices.

Hammond tell us that Restaurant Ecuador in Logan Square dabbles more in the country's coastal culinary tradition than that of the interior highlands. You can get black clam ceviche there, which is really all you need to know.

Bruno has a two-fer in the Sun-Times today, slobbering all over L.2O — he has good company in this respect — but coming in fourth, doesn't bring much new information to the table. Actually, not true! He's included a glossary of fancy words on L.2O's menu that we can't say we didn't enjoy reading. However, we must take issue with Bruno's theory that L.2O has "what is probably the shortest restaurant name ever;" on the North Side alone one can find Tut, Zia and Zad, and T's puts them all to shame.

Bruno also visits upscale Indian fusion spot Veerasway, which doesn't seem to...resolve its station in life to satisfaction. Like, why is the mutter paneer $14 when it's just peas and cheese? Then again, Bruno doesn't bother telling us how it compares to budget Indian places, so we're not really sure what to make of his judgment in this case. Speaking of, possibly our final pet peeve about Bruno's reviewing style is that he never writes a conclusion to his pieces. They end with the dessert, to be sure, but there's no tying together of the various strains of opinion littered throughout the reviews; the reader needs to have a takeaway, and Bruno never provides a succinct one. This is probably due to the fact that his reviews lack a thesis, generally. Pat, we have no idea if you've ever read any of this, but all we want to do is help!

Okay, have a good weekend; next week, daily teary goodbyes...

Taqueria La Oaxaquena [MenuPages]
L.2O [MenuPages]
L.2O [Official Site]
Veerasway [MenuPages]

[Photo: grilled cactus at Taqueria la Oaxaqueña, via ohtoberich/flickr]

• Chris Borrelli's rant about being asked by waiters if he'd dined at their restaurant before — as a preamble to an explanation about how the restaurant "works" — is on par with Christopher Hitchens' screed against wine pouring practices: more sensical to read as a parody of restaurant reviewers' complaints than as the real thing. Because, really, is it that annoying to be walked through a restaurant's idiosyncratic menu and service style? Certainly one could feel one's intelligence is being insulted, but that happens in myriad ways all day every day anyway. This is worth singling out? Not really.

• Meanwhile, Kids' Restaurant Week is about to start [Tribune]

What's happening in Time Out?

• Well, Mike Nagrant hunts down M.I.A. Chicago chefs from Christmas Past. Some of them live in really boring places like Jupiter, Fla., and others are gearing up to open new restaurants in Chicago. If you recognize all of the names, you get a Foodie Gold Star.

• Sometimes we wonder how the themes for the Three-Way feature are chosen. This week it's basil seeds, an obscure ingredient in the best of times. There's Find-a-Food Search and all that, but this is the sort of ingredient that doesn't stay on the menu long enough to get put into a database, if it's on the menu at all. So how to discover that L.2O uses it with fluke sashimi and Veerasway makes a cocktail with it? An abiding mystery.

As for the reviews...

• Mercat a la Planxa not only makes some of the best Spanish food in Chicago, but also offers infectiously upbeat service and a cool atmosphere (Vettel) [Tribune]

• Con Sabor Cubano serves homey Cuban fare in Albany Park, and excels at a massive Cubano sandwich. Their unique, spicy burger would go well with some BYOB (Borrelli) [Tribune]

• Little Brother's is more than an Asian fast food joint; much care is put into the Korean specialties, even if they're then put into a Styrofoam box (Tamarkin) [TOC]

• Skewerz is a healthy, doable option for post-partying lining-of-stomach in Wicker Park, even if the name is stupid and the themes are tacky. Best bet: graham-cracker-crusted sweet potato fritters (Shouse) [TOC]

[Photo: you have to order this from Mercat in advance, via fenger8/flickr]

We love it when reviewers disagree! This way, you don't know what to think. Actually, that's overstating the case: given two contradictory reviews, we'd tend toward the one that's better argued and more recent. For these pairs of reviews for Santullo's Eatery and Kuma's Corner, where do you fall?

• Re: Santullo's Eatery — is the staff actually chill?

On June 12, at 10:18PM, "cara" posted a review entitled "good tunes yummy food!":

This place has great deals! Not to mention the 2.75 frosty mugs of beer YUM! Great music, and the staff is really chill!

Just about 21 hours later, "Anonymous" snarls, "New York Style Attitude... not pizza":

They have a $2/slice special between 4-6. I get on line before 6 and didn't get to order until afterwards because their credit card machine goes down. After paying $9+ for a cheese slice, a pepperoni slice and a soda, I state my case for a $2 slice. The cashier's response was that the computer controls the price and, "well, that's just too bad." 5 minutes later, I find that my pizza wasn't even in the oven yet! The only thing that kept me sane was knowing that I'll never have to go back in there again.

On top of that, there was a poor lady who asked for the orange soda at the fountain to be fixed. I ate my pizza at the restaurant and didn't see anyone go to look at it.

Miserable experience aside, the pizza wasn't terrible. It doesn't compare to the pizza in NY and it is pricey for a slice. If I wasn't treated like crap, would have maybe considered going back.

Verdict: the staff is probably rather chill, except when confronted with angry, entitled New Yorkers. Also, we have a sudden, inexplicable craving for orange soda.

• Re: Kuma's Corner —

Back in the Stone Age (i.e. early 2007), "miggs" left a review entitled "Fine place":

Does anyone suspect that these other reviews were written by people who own or work at Kuma's? It's a fine place, but it's not the gourmet extravaganza that these other reviews are making out to be.

An excited response entitled "SO YOU THINK YOU'RE READY FOR THIS?!" was penned by "METALFOREVER" on June 15th:

Apparently the person that suggested that the reviews posted are the employees reads alot of conspiracy novels, lives in the basement of their grandparents house, doesn't know value and eats McDonald's for lunch every day. Kuma's Burgers are REDICULOUS!!! I had the SLAYER burger and I have to say my arteries loved it but my cardiologist was super mad at me. I mean the menu tells us that the Slayer burger's main ingredient is ANGER. My friends had the Iron Maiden and others but none of the plates were as angry as the one in front of me. Fresh ingredients right down to the avacado slices, resonable prices for each entree, the calamari was bitchin' and the beer was delicious. The options were endless. Somebody needs a napkin that's for sure. AWESOME- even though it's usually packed full of people. Get a life if you don't love this place.

Verdict: well, Kuma's has definitely evolved over 18 months, so METALFOREVER is being unfair with the McDonald's comparison (on the other hand, miggs may have too narrow a definition of "gourmet extravaganza"). As for the basement-dwelling conspiracy nut charge, there's definitely occasional justification to believe that a review is a shill; as hard as we try to block them, shills occasionally get through. However, having reread the prior reviews for Kuma's, we've determined that all of them are genuine. METALFOREVER loses points for spelling RIDICULOUS (among other things) incorrectly, but has done a reasonable job capturing the spirit of Kuma's, for better or worse.

[Photo: IN YOUR FACE (Led Zeppelin burger with soggy fries at Kuma's), via mbwa kahawa/flickr]

We're not going to lie and say we're upset that there are only four blog-based restaurant reviews this week. But would you believe fully half of them are for brunch at Roy's? True story.

• A slightly different style of cooking at Ja's Jerk Chicken on the West Side means juicier meat, but still tangy. Also, the sides are copious [Food Chain]

• The new Sunday brunch at Roy's comes with unlimited mimosas if you want them, which may help elevate the competently executed standard issue fare to greatness. If there's a Hawaiian option on the prix-fixe, take it [Drive-Thru, Chicago Bites]

• Sitting in a Gold Coast triangle intersection, Whispers Cafe chills you out with an iced coffee and maybe some vegan baked goods [Drive-Thru]

[Photo: Stephanie, surprised and a little ticked, via Bravo]

p.s. if you haven't read Mike Nagrant's piece on Graham Elliot Bowles in last week's Hungry, now would be a good time. Scratch-and-sniff business cards!

This week is very foodie concept-oriented, even if it doesn't always deliver.

• Mike Nagrant rounds up Albany Park, of one of Chicago's best dining neighborhoods, where you can flit from Central American to Middle Eastern to Korean without breaking a sweat (at least in the winter) [TOC]

• We love this cocktail feature with Sepia's Peter Vestinos. This week, he's recommending a strawberry pisco sour. Once, in Lima, we had a coca pisco sour — it was very strong [TOC]

• The couple behind Mado like head-to-tail pork, Kuma's Corner, and the New Pornographers. Totally! [TOC]

• Monica Eng compiles a ranking of Chicago's chain store iced coffees. Seattle's Best wins, with Starbucks coming in second. No artisanal ice coffees are included in the piece, which is disappointing. And where's the requisite shout-out to cold-brewed ice coffee? Oh well [Tribune]

• This photo gallery of the iced coffees is strange, but archival and informative. Plus, Eng sneaks in a few artisanal iced coffees, after all. Don't let Zell hold you down! [Tribune]

• Phil Vettel gets in a lengthy post-Beard interview with Grant Achatz, and it's informative. Well, not really; we've heard a lot of this stuff from Grant before. But still, of the moment! [Tribune]

• Christopher Borrelli continues his love affair with breakfast in this mash note to oatmeal. Borrelli has uncovered a rare subspecies of the pan-seared suburban variety, and goes on to describe the "perfect summer oatmeal" [Tribune]

And the reviews:

• Phil Vettel can't get enough of Tallulah, the Lincoln Square New American bistro. He lists the dishes he likes (most of them) and doesn't (...) in a fairly straightforward manner to drive his point home [Tribune]

• David Tamarkin goes to Viaggio, formerly Jay's Amore (note to restaurants: please keep your Fax ID up-to-date! We can't tell you how many restaurants have sent us menus with the space's previous tenant on the header; Viaggio's menu will be online tomorrow), and finds a serious Italian feast in progress. We're kept in suspense for the entire review about the gravy, which turns out to be delicious and monstrous in portion [TOC]

[Photo: this oatmeal cookie ice cream sandwich is our preferred summer oatmeal treatment, via jen_m_stewart/flickr]

As you know, our favorite reviews are not necessarily the utter raves (although that was our topic last week). It's just as good when things are middling! Here are two examples of subparity from the past week:

On June 3rd, "West Village Wanderer" panned Skewerz with a review entitled "a $2 skewer not worth .50 cents":

I wanted to like this place, but didn't.

With the exception of the Yuca fries and the beef skewer, which was tender and flavorful, the food quality was questionable. My chicken skewers looked like left over pieces from the weekend's skewers, ditto for my vegetable skewers.

Also, don't force me to have rice if I'm willing to pay the difference to get Yuca fries, and dont charge $10 min for credit card purchases.

On June 9th, "DaeLeeAkUh" wrote in about BBop, titling the observation "Not the best, but not the worst":

I've bad duk booki and bi bim pap at BeBop, and I wasn't impressed. If you've never had Korean food, you'll like it. If you know what Korean food is supposed to be like, you might be rather sad. They poured the duk booki into a frying pan out of a pre-made tub. The duk was the kind that is found in duk mondu guk rather than the finger-shaped duk usually found in duk booki there was way too much sauce, and there wasn't a hard boiled egg in it. The bi bim pap totally tasted like fast food and was tiny. The prices are high for the amount of food and lack of panchan. Street food at the Korean Street Festival or in South Korea itself is better than Bbob's fast food. Alas, I'm still glad there is a Korean restaurant in my neighborhood. It's better than nothing!

We especially like it when mediocre reviews are constructed without slander or foul language. Keep them coming!

Skewerz [MenuPages]
Skewerz [Official Site]
BBop [MenuPages]
BBop [Official Site]

[Photo: hipster preparing purportedly inauthentic Korean food at BBop (points for their mod website, though)]

A hundred zillion new reviews hit the presses today for restaurants new and old, major and minor.

Even Pat Bruno can't muster too much excitement for uninspired All-You-Can-Meat ZED451. He chides:

But a lot of what they offered was either dry (the chicken and the pork) or not hot enough (the mahi-mahi) or rather tasteless. Zed 451 should consider putting an assortment of sauces on the table and guiding the customer accordingly.

Meanwhile, the Reader's featuring three reviews for notable mid-scale openings. Mike Sula had the same reaction to Mado that David Tamarkin did: everything is seasonal, fresh, delicious and occasionally overpriced, and it's impossible to recommend individual dishes because they'll be off the menu by publication date. Still, certainly an endorsement!

Anne Spiselman quite likes fancy new Indian restaurant Veerasway, although the appetizers and sides seem to best the entrees. David Hammond wants to make sure we realize that Mixteco Grill is not just your run-of-the-mill taco joint. Instead, pan-Mexican mole madness! Or something to that effect.

As if that wasn't enough, the Reader also published a slew of new reviews for evidently less notable restaurants like Big Jones, Park 52 and Shochu, which have been given big play in other publications. One wonders how feature-vs.-supplement decisions are made...

[Photo: salmon cucumber nage at Veerasway, via kayovv/flickr]

We’re here to offer you consolation for your lousy loot and throw out a tip on where to score what is, in our estimation, the best thing one can get for free: wine. Every Friday night, A. Vision — a clever shop in Ukrainian Village offering wine and flowers — hosts a free wine tasting from 5 – 7 p.m. This week they’re pouring imports from Candid Wines such as Girasole Pinot Noir, a clean and bright organic wine. Others include Martin Schatzel Pinot Blanc and Huff Kerner. Buy a bottle of Olson Ogden Sonoma County Syrah and A. Vision will kick twenty percent of the proceeds to the Alzheimer’s Association of Greater Illinois.

It’s free, it’s Friday, it’s finally warm, do you need another reason to drink? If you do, walk across the street to Piccolo for peanut butter or pistachio gelato. The combo might give you indigestion, but whatever, it’s the weekend.

A. Vision [Official Site]
Candid Wines [Official Site]

Piccolo [MenuPages]

Pat Bruno creamed himself over kitschy Italian restaurant Natalino's, naming their chicken cacciatore the best in Chicago. Also: "masterful blend of flavors," "incredibly delicious," "as good as I have had anywhere (including in Italy)," "Don't miss it," "I was enamored," "beauties," "outstanding," "simple yet sensational." But what did he really think? There is exactly one "However," you know, for balance.

Critics are supposed to be ruthless and make you think the world is irredeemable, not say they like things! Oh well.

Meanwhile, Mike Sula has a good pick of foodie books at the Reader. Hey, is that why it's called the reader? Surely. His list captures what's hot right now: local/heritage, Italo-Japanese small plates, anything porcine, and China. Also, one of the books is about a crazy wine caper, but why buy it when you can read the New Yorker article on it for free!

Also, a PSA. The Drawing Room at Le Passage sent this offer that we're just going to reprint in its entirety for you:

Friday, June 15th | 6:00 - 9:00pm

Fresh from her stint on Bravo's Top Chef, Chef Stephanie Izard brings her culinary creativity to The Drawing Room. For one night only, Chef Izard goes plate to plate with The Drawing Room's own Chef Nick Lacasse.

Chef Izard, a local favorite on the show is well known to Chicagoans and fans of Top Chef. Her innovative dishes consistently impress and her previous venture into restaurant ownership of Scylla has foodies salivating for more. Chef Nick Lacasse, a protégé of Shawn McClain, is a rising star in his own right and looks for a home court advantage in his kitchen.

Diners will draw their own conclusions on the cuisine and will rate each dish following the course prepared. Chefs Izard and Lacasse will present the courses between tastings for a truly 'in the kitchen' experience. Each course will feature a cocktail and/or wine pairing overseen by Master Bartender and Chief Mixologist Charles Joly.

This exceptional evening is open to a limited number of guests and reservations are required.

Sunday, June 15
6 pm - 9 pm
$65 per person
Reservations Essential
(773) 276-7582

Natalino's [MenuPages]
Natalino's [Official Site]

[Photo: Natty's interior]

Lists! It's mostly lists today on the Tribune and TOC food sections. Let's list them:

• New and opening-soon restaurants that have piqued Phil Vettel's interest [Tribune]

• New and opening-soon restaurants on an awkward Google Map for some reason [Tribune]

And it's a different set of restaurants! The concept, if there is one, escapes us.

• Restaurants that have rushed to return foie gras to their menus [Tribune]

• Ice cream around Millennium Park, oriented for tourists [Tribune]

• Chefs tell you how to grill a variety of things (like fruit!) [TOC]

And also, there were reviews, mostly from the end of the alphabet:

• David Tamarkin has determined that ZED451 has more in common with its predecessor, Sal y Carvao, than it's comfortable to admit. Also, that the nostrum about the servers cooking the food is probably a lie. But also, that the meat is pretty good, despite some weird and flaky preparations.

• Meanwhile, Heather Shouse went to Veerasway, which she finds to be a perfectly reasonable addition to Chicago's growing upscale Indian collection. We can't help but think of the immortal MTV VJ intro line, "This is Sway," when we read the name. We also have homophonic association with Exposure Tapas, but let's not go there.

ZED451 [MenuPages]
ZED451 [Official Site]
Veerasway [MenuPages]

[Photo: this doesn't have anything to do with anything, BUT, Pierre Hermé (who has interested us before was in town teaching a course at French Pastry School, and these are some of the results from class, via yummyinthetummyblog/flickr]

French-infused food is nothing new to Chicago. Takashi slips French into Japanese fare, Avec makes a (very) happy family of French, Mediterranean and Italian flavors and Le Passage fancies their bar food as French, but who’s doing French-Mexican? No one, until Mexique.

Husband and wife duo (it’s the chic way to open if you haven’t noticed) Carlos Gaytan and Iliamar Isaac chose Tuesday to open their doors on a stretch of Chicago Avenue known for its cowboy boots and taquerias. You can even buy live chickens at Hermitage, but probably not for long. The stroller-pushing hipsters and single-scouting diners that have settled into the hood need a place where they can be seen, preferably eating upscale food. A spot like Mexique feels appropriate.

If your first thought is burritos and French fries, you’re wrong. Chef Carolos Gaytan, whose resume includes seven plus years at the Union League Club, three years at Bistrot Margot and a short stint at Adobo Grill, combines his Mexican heritage with French training for a sophisticated result. Carlos tells us (talk to him when you go, his voice coos) he loves to cook and knows that to be a chef you must also be a "creator."

So what’s he creating? Pretty good stuff. On the appetizer list, a trio of sopes are filled with escargot and chimichurri butter, shrimp and avocado mousse, and plantains slathered with a spicy chocolate mole. Tuesday’s tuna ceviche (chef’s choice daily) was surrounded with tiny translucent gelatin cubes that tasted like a tortilla chip. The vetabel sounds just as peculiar as its spelled, but the combination of port wine poached beets with horseradish vinaigrette and a fried goat cheese cake promises an entourage of flavor.

On the main menu, Gaytan purees Malanga root from the Yucatan with white truffles as a topper for the NY steak. Dorado (Spanish for mahi mahi) is served with green beans, tiger shrimp, muscles and clams in a morita-saffron bouillon. A duck breast sports a chipotle-temple tamarind glaze and comes with a cranberry tamal.

After-dinner drinks are not on the menu, which is limited to a well-priced selection of wine. Iliamar (who is behind the design of the space and now has her career as an architect on hold to run the restaurant) tells us the list is only preliminary and will include beer in the future, but that cocktails have intentionally been left off. For fear a patron might order a midori-infused margarita to drink alongside their poblano pork tenderloin, maybe? We’re not sure, but if it’s tequila and citrus you want, you can find some resemblance of it on the dessert menu: the "Margarita" is a tequila pomegranate gelee with pink grapefruit sorbet and sea salt, for example. France and Mexico take turns down the list with classic options like crème brulee and apple tart or chocolate ganache and ancho chile enchiladas.

Call now for a table. It’s our guess once word gets out they’ll be hard to come by. Lunch starts in two weeks and weekend brunch is in the works.

Mexique [MenuPages]
Mexique [Official Site]

[Photo: Carne at Mexique]

• Attached to Ada's Famous Deli in the Loop is 14 Karat Lounge, which features the deli's full menu, and booze! [Drive-Thru]

• If you like Eastern European breadstuffs, try the khachpuri cheese bread at Argo Georgian Bakery on Devon [Drive-Thru]

• Cheap, wonderful soul food secretly available at Doggy's S.S. Soul Eatery on the West Side, if you don't mind flying under the radar [Food Chain]

• Still somewhat new Just Indulge is very obliging with its vegan ice cream cones [Drive-Thru]

• Despite the kitsch, Harry Caray's Restaurant is not a tourist trap and has good service [Gastronomic Bypass]

• River North Middle Easterner Kan Zaman does not bring it on the hummus, forcing Bridget & Tammy to assign it a 7/20 [Chicago Bites]

• So far, nothing but unbridled ardor for L.2O, the new seafood restaurant so surpassingly good that you can't even snark on its LEYEness [Hungry, Stew]

• Don't let its modest setting fool you; La Gondola is some seriously hearty and decidedly tasty Italian [Chicago Foodies]

• Another condonation of Lao Sze Chuan's xiao long bao, and also their short ribs [Chicago Foodies]

• Reviews go both ways for Mundial Cocina Mestiza, but this one is pretty positive. Extra points for BYOB [Gastronomic Bypass]

• Fax-machineless and much-liked brunch spot Over Easy certainly impress Bridget & Tammy, who give it a 15/20 [Chicago Bites]

• Embattled New American Sweets & Savories totally drops the ball on its Kobe burger for one reviewer [Chicago Burger Project]

[Photo: geese in a Chicago parking lot, fearless and ignorant, via beartnow/flickr]

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The Tribune's on fire today! Between the point-counterpoint on restaurant pet peeves and the paper's continuing excellence in breakfast coverage, our attention has definitely been kept.

• Phil Vettel says: service is more important than food quality! [Tribune]

• Monica Eng says: food quality is more important than service! [Tribune]

• And together they say: the most important thing is who you're eating with. (Aww. Unless you're dining solo, of course!) [Tribune]

Meanwhile, on the breakfast beat, Chris Borrelli is excited about:

• What celebrities eat for breakfast (answer: nothing too crazy) [Tribune]

• Whether the high price of eggs will affect the five-egg omelet at Pauline's (answer: in price only) [Tribune]

TOC doesn't have much editorial stuff this week, but note their Farmer's Market calendar, which you can compare to the Tribune's for reference. Also, the interview with Ben Roche, Moto's pastry chef, is pretty good.

Review time!

• David Tamarkin has a good experience at Big Jones, despite itself. The cocktails were weird and it's unclear how tethered the restaurant is to the Southern narrative, but the food is tasty and well-executed [TOC]

• Antipasti, pasta and rectangular pizzas are a hit at I Monelli, which is BYO. Skip the desserts [TOC]

• Who reviews Schwa and Green Zebra as part of one review? Oh wait, it's Phil. We guess it makes sense to lump the good restaurants into one thing? No, obviously these each deserve their own treatment. Then again, to be fair, these are both re-reviews, and they both get three stars [Tribune]

[Photo: Pauline's five egg omelet via Zesmerelda/flickr]

• So, it's impossible to get a reservation at Schwa. Michael Carson and co. refuses to hire even a free intern to answer the phone, and it's starting to hurt them on cancellations; i.e., no one can get through to cancel, so they just don't show up. While one interviewee thought the corporate overtones of OpenTable would be inappropriate to Schwa's happy-go-lucky anti-establishment model, how about a bespoke system like Momofuku Ko's in New York, whose 12 nightly seats usually fill up within literally 5 or 10 seconds of 10am, when the reservations go online. It's basically a total crapshoot of whose browser makes a connection first, so it would be almost as frustrating as what Scwha does with its full voicemail box, but slightly more functional. By the way, we hear a rumor that they clear their mailbox on Wednesday midafternoon, although that could easily not be a regular thing. And a friend of ours tried dropping by once to get a reservation in person, and they wouldn't do it. Good luck! [Sun-Times]

• Know what else is going to be hot? L.20, Laurent Gras and LEYE's new restaurant that's opening tonight. But electronically, they've been open for some time; they're equipped with an OpenTable, a blog and even a flickr! If they're as on-point on food and service as they are on technology, we're all in for a treat [Sun-Times]

• A list of how far out the weekend tables at some popular restaurants are booked. We say, try Tuesdays. Or early Sunday! [Sun-Times]

• The famous Greenmarket superlist, now that there are things to buy [Tribune]

• Kevin Hickey of Seasons says spring peas are a valid critique of atheism, and he might be right (okay, he doesn't actually say that) [Sun-Times]

• Hot new local martinis, including one that's a gimmicky $199 [Sun-Times]

• A charming tale about the Leftover Queen, a classic frugal American [Tribune]

• The 2nd annual Chicago Green Festival is at Navy Pier this weekend, and sustainable food will be discussed [Tribune]

• Craft beer makers are branching out into the world of artisanal spirits [Tribune]

• Mace the spice is not mace the pepper spray! [Sun-Times]

[Photo: pea soup from bluestem in Kansas City via ulterior epicure/flickr. See also Ulterior Epicure's blog]

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

• New tapas spot Bull-eh-Dia's a bit uneven on its spicing; 9/20 from Bridget & Tammy [Chicago Bites]

• So far so good at C-House, Marcus Samuelsson’s new seafood restaurant that's currently serving breakfast only [The Stew]

• Classic Italian subs at Conte di Savoia on Taylor Street; go during the weekend for home made mozzy [TastyBeat]

• For uptown dim sum, you could do a lot worse than Furama; try the xiao long bao, and don't lament the decor [Chicago Foodies]

• The banh mi at conveniently located Nhu-Lan Bakery is as cheap and as good as anywhere else [Chicagoist]

• You can pass on the shochu at new pan-Asian lounge Shochu, but the food is actually quite delicious and a good value, too [The Stew]

• Move over, M. Henry; you're not the only brunch game in Edgewater/Andersonville. Enter Tweet with huge portions of solid American brunch fare, and they serve on the weekdays (also, check out the pix!) [Chicago Gluttons]

[Photo: Men's Vogue (this is actually from last year's article, but we like the picture more than the one from last week's)]

It's Friday afternoon, and that means a slew of new reviews:

Pat Bruno visits an old favorite of his that recently had a face life — Cape Cod Room. The food is just as good (or at least the same) as always, although Bruno admits that he "doubt[s] if the twentysomething crowd would dig this restaurant at all." Feh. On the contrary, sometimes we crave historical authenticity! Especially when it just had a face lift. Meanwhile, Pat felt the need to put scare quotes around the "points" in toast points, because...what, are toast points newfangled all of a sudden? Oh well.

Nevertheless, we're happy to see Bruno pointing his audience toward Army & Lou's, one of the city's most estimable soul institutions. But here's a paragraph we don't understand:

The buzz words at Army & Lou's are "scratch cooking." I don't get to go into the kitchens of the restaurants I review, but I will take it as gospel that A&L is making a lot of its food from scratch, simple food that is prepared with care.

On the Reader side, Mike Sula has two reviews: he enjoys Mercat a la Planxa as much as everyone else has and highly recommends the order-in-advance pigfest, and provides some nice background on Take Me Out, a Northeast Asian fried chicken joint in Pilsen of all places. Anne Spiselman doesn't think nearly enough has been said about Ukrainian baked goods wonderland Shokolad, whose delicious pastries should not stop you from trying their savory offerings.

[Photo: deep blue skies/flickr]

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

• While some of the appetizers are quite tasty, Big Jones isn't ackin' its Southerness sufficiently for this very opinionated reviewer [Chicago Gluttons]

• After renovations, Bob San is back to being a comfortable, high-quality neighborhood sushi spot [Chicago Foodies]

• Is Brasserie Ruhlmann a secret bargain dinner? Raves about beautifully prepared, giant portions make it seem that way! [Gastronomic Bypass]

• While not everybody has expressed joy at Honky Tonk Barbeque's offerings, their beef brisket sandwich is apparently pretty tasty [Chicagoist]

• What's not to like about a family-run Costa Rican BYOB? If you go to Irazu, the steak sandwich is recommended [TastyBeat]

• A giant fire came and took Manee Thai away! Hopefully they will overcome [TOC Blog]

• Kitschy sports memorabilia aside, Mike Ditka's serves more-than-adequate classic American pub fare [Chicago Foodies]

• Wicker Park yuppiehole Moonshine is great place for a soggy burger and tequila shots spilled on your person [Gastronomic Bypass]

• High rents killed Moonstruck Chocolate Cafe's retail front, but you can still buy the confections online [Chicagoist]

• The silkiest tripe in the city may be at Nelly's Saloon, a Northwest Side Romanian restaurant that occasionally screens the local version of Dancing with the Stars, and is never as crowded as Kuma's Corner [Hungry Magazine]

• An utterly generic burger awaits you at Riverview Tavern, very much not a foodie destination [Chicago Burger Project]

• A flowery review for Asian small plates lounge newcomer Shochu, which focuses on the eponymous tipple. Not that we doubt it's good! [Chicagoist]

• German beer garden? Well, okay, you've twisted our arm. Uberstein is purported to be one of the less annoying drinking options in Wrigleyville, and they have schnitzelwiches [Gastronomic Bypass]

• Two omnivores chime in about Veggie Bite, Wicker Park's vegan fast food dispensary, and are impressed by the crap you can make without animal products [Metblogs, Drive-Thru]

[Photo: CTA Starts Free Rides For Military, via Chicagoist (EHP)]

We're looking at the Tribune, Time Out Chicago and Sun-Times dining sections this week, and they sure are a hodgepodge. We'll get to the reviews momentarily, but first, the substantive pieces:

• Phil Vettel does some cultural analysis concerning Houlihan's makeover from cheesy mid-scale casual restaurant to soulless mid-scale casual restaurant [Tribune]

• Chris Borrelli colorfully compares breakfast sandwiches, and is surprised to find himself enjoying McD's new chicken and biscuit entry [Tribune]

• A new breed of recipe websites let you search by ingredient and do other web2.0-type things, but the article is somewhat muddled by the overused comparison to music websites [TOC]

• Did you know that beer makes for as good, or maybe even better, a match to cheese as wine? Of course you did, because you haven't been living under a rock for the past three years [Sun-Times]

• Although this is similarly old news, we always find articles about Dippin' Dots charming, if suspicious [Sun-Times]

• You can never have too many upscale bakeries in Auburn Gresham...but one's a pretty good start [Sun-Times]

As for the reviews...

• Phil Vettel chimes in on Prosecco, the swanky River North wine bar. He seems highly impressed by the lounge's sophisticated aesthetic and by the competent regional Italian cooking, but gives little indication why it got two, as opposed to one or three, stars [Tribune]

• Joe Gray's review of Chant, the upscale pan-Asian restaurant in Hyde Park, refers to the broccoli in the pad se-eu as "toothsome." Puh-leeze! [

• David Tamarkin is duly impressed by Habibi, the Devon Ave Middle Eastern restaurant that has the presence of mind to put onions (i.e. thought) into their labna (and cooking, generally) [TOC]

• Heather Shouse approves of Kan Pou, a little Thai restaurant that makes up in quality what it lacks in exoticism [TOC]

[Photo: McDonald's Southern Style Chicken Biscuit, looking kind of sad (chickensandwichblog/flickr)]

Bunch of one-namers, these are. Okay, sort of a lie; Stages is actually Stages Family Restaurant. Chuck Sudo attested to the charm of the Bridgeport diner's open face hot turkey sandwich, which we can confidently report to cost $6.75 and include mashed potatoes and a bowl of soup.

Shochu is a somewhat bigger story, as the New American/Asian small plate lounge in Lakeview opens TO-NITE. It's run by the Deleece people and is the first Chicago establishment to get on the shochu bandwagon. Shochu is a recently popularized 50-proof Japanese alcoholic beverage that's "cool" right now in America. Small plate lounges are also a recently popularized 50-proof Japanese alcoholic beverage that's "cool" right now in America. Um, anyway, here you'll find a handful of Thai curries, some upscale izakaya-style tapas, raw fish in various preparations, and skewers of meat (yakitori) served with any number of fusion-y sauces (blueberry teriyaki! Miso lychee aoili! White soy Dijon vinaigrette! And so forth)

Speaking of skewers, Skewerz! The name doesn't indicate this, but it's a Hawaiian fast food restaurant, opening "hopefully next week" in Wicker Park. Proteins available on a stick include: chilied chicken (with a red & black pepper marinade; four for $7), lemongrass tuna (with a lemongrass emulsion, three for $9), and flank steak (grilled with five spices; four for $8). Each of the aformentioned come with a rice (e.g. jasmine or brown) and a condiment (red curry peanut sauce sounds exciting). They'll be open until 3am on weekend nights, which sounds like the right time for this kind of food.

Finally, everyone else in the world may have known that the Butcher's Dog on Clark and Harrison closed a year ago, but we only found out yesterday that it's been replaced by Villains Bar & Grill. The menu offers nothing you haven't seen before (buffalo calamari for $9, mushroom swiss portobello burger for $10), but vodka drinks are only $3 on Terrible Tuesdays, an appellation we wholeheartedly agree with.

[Photo: grilled lamb chop with mandarin mint salad and white soy dijon vinaigrette at Shochu]

We mostly like the framing of this, but also — sweater aside — it's hot out! Margarita time! Woo!!!

This particular specimen comes from Tecalitlan in Ukie Village for $6.20. A regular with lime is $5.50, but the very nice young woman who answered the phone when we called recommends the raspberry, her favorite. For our part, we always get plain because the fruit flavors are just sugar, and then we get a headache. When it comes to margaritas, though, you can do whatever your heart desires.

Have an uproariously enjoyable weekend!

Tecalitlan [MenuPages]

[Photo: allwood/flickr]

The latest yogurt craze-inspired entrant to the Chicago restaurant scene is Starfruit, opening tomorrow in Ukrainian Village. Unlike competitors Berry Chill and Wow Bao (you knew they were serving Asian-style frozen yogurt, right?), Starfruit makes its parfaits, smoothies and frozen concoctions from kefir, a variant of yogurt with a high concentration of bacteria. But good bacteria! Starfruit uses "probiotic" a lot on its trippy, hypnotic website (the best Flash-driven restaurant website we've ever seen, by the way, even though we normally don't like Flash), a totally hot trend in 2008. The yogurt...it will cure all your medical problems! It will do your taxes!

On that topic, as a special promotion for their opening day tomorrow, Starfruit is offering, for free, small parfaits, smoothies and frozens (let's just call them that) plus one topping. All of this would normally be $5, so it's not a bad deal. Flavors include flavors-of-the-week like Pomegranate and Acai, plus all the standard berries, a handful of fruits, and vanilla and capppuccino. Some of the flavors are available in organic, an extra 50 cents. The toppings are more fun, ranging from fresh fruit to milk and honey granola, yogurt chips (in case you can never get enough) and most exotically, mochi balls (a buck for the first topping, and then 50 cents per).

We say, the more, the merrier on yogurt. But the best part is, the menu they sent us came in three versions with three different fonts. They've since determined one for the website, but the tri-font menu gave us the unique opportunity to share with you the design decision as it came together. Here are the three options:

1)

2)

3)

The first one has a Harry Potter-type thing going on, the second one is like playful late 1950s, and the third one is a bit American Girl Place, yeah?

So which one makes us think the most about groovy yogurt? Also, why not just use the same sans serif font that the Starfruit logo is in? Because sans serif is modern and forward thinking, but Starfruit's hippy-wellness-holistic angle requires a few serifs to put us in a time and place, and the curlycues in the first font are as close as you're gonna get. And so, that's the font they ultimately chose for the website. Branding, we think, is like one of those good bacteria! Best eaten fresh and cold.

Starfruit [MenuPages]
Starfruit [Official Site]

This is going to be very fast! Everything you ever wanted to know about:

• Hyde Park dining, by someone who should know [TOC]

• On a related topic, Park 52 is finally open [TOC]

•