Chicagoist clues us in to a special, beery event tonight at Flossmoor Station, out in the 'burbs: they'll be fête-ing Wil Turner, brewmaster at Goose Island Brew Pub.

Fun fact: we lived for nearly a decade within spitting distance of the Flossmoor Station brewery. If any of you go to the dinner tonight and deliver us conclusive proof of your dedication to stalking us (a photo taken in front of our former residence? Some of our parents' mail that might still be over at the Flossmoor post office?) we promise to be flattered, rather than creeped out.

Details on tonight's brewmeister luau, which seriously sounds pretty awesome, at Chicagoist.

Goose Island Guest Spices Up Flossmoor Station Brewmaster Dinner [Chicagoist]

[Photo: Flossmoor IPA, via Dr000's Flickr]

Having have expended valuable seconds of our life manually fixing the URLs of Chicago's Second-Favorite Newspaper, and in no way being bitter about it, on with the show.

• Two things confound us in the very first paragraph of Pat Bruno's review of Weber Grill. The first is the very existence a restaurant that is branded after an appliance.(To us, it smacks of summer festival faux-restaurant:the Weber Grill! Find us in the Food-n-Fun Tent between the KitchenAid Bread Basket and The Cuisinart Salsa Stand!) The second is the opening sentence:

I get a lot of e-mails in the summer (and around the holidays, too) that come from suburbanites who are heading into the city for the day or a weekend and want a recommendation for family dining without spending a small fortune.

• "Free-lance writer" (god, we love how the S-T hyphenates that. So medieval ronin!) Thomas Witom heads to Downers Grove to visit Borrowed Earth Cafe, a vegan raw-foods restaurant from the appropriately named husband-and-wife team of Danny and Kathy Living, which succeeds admirably with its tricky conceit. "Lasagna," "ice cream,""couscous," and "cheese" are just some of the quote-adorned mock items on the menu, and they all seem to pull it off with aplomb. [Witom, S-T]

• Witom's really working the suburb beat this week, as he also hits up Sage Bistro in St. Charles. The place could probably coast by on atmosphere alone: the tiki torch-bedecked patio overlooks the Fox River, and has live jazz on weekend evenings. But the seafood-focused menu does okay by our reviewer: he loves the shrimp de jonghe, the fruits de mare, and the work of the kitchen's two pastry chefs. [Witom, S-T]

• Meanwhile, over at the Reader, our secret boyfriend Mike Sula has visited Birrieria Zaragoza, a south-side joint specializing in birria, "a regional Jalisciense variant of the more widespread barbacoa, meat traditionally slow-cooked in a pit." Owner Juan Zaragoza goes through as many goats in a weekend as there are days in the week, steaming the meat for hours and then treating it with an ancho mole before cooking some more. They're served on tortillas made by a woman named Maria Guadalupe Jungo, who comes in a few days a week to man the press, and all in all it sounds like one of the greatest things on the green earth. Bonus: click here to watch a video of the birria being made! [Sula, Reader]

*Hush. We are from the suburbs.

[Photo: the sampler plate at Borrowed Earth, via spacekadet's Flickr]

The Sun-Times restaurant section is weird. This is not a new story, but it's told a different way each week. First, Bruno reviews the newest location of the Fleming's Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar chain on Ohio Street, and finds it utterly uninteresting. Although not in so many words! While his steak seems overpriced and mediocre, Bruno still writes from the perspective of, okay, if you go, at least this and that will be alright. Where is the line between service journalism and reviewing for Bruno, exactly?

Another piece of his this week makes the distinction even less clear. His write-up of Carlos' in Highland Park begins: "The quote below is lifted word for word from the Carlos' Web site (there is no way I could say it any better)." And indeed, more than half the words on the page are from the restaurant website (excuse us, "Web site"). That's kind of crazy, when you think about it!

Finally, Bruno's microreview of The Gage is pegless (why now?) and bizarrely brief considering how much he seems to like the hopping gastropub ("But the food here is so good, it has a way of drowning out the noise.") So why does he devote so many more words to Flemings? Because it's new, yes, but you get the point.

Back in normal land (i.e. on the Reader), there are a bunch of reviews pertinent to your life. Because it's barbecue weekend! Mike Sula and Gary Wiviott highlight four of their favorites (Uncle John's BBQ, Lem's, Cole’s Choice Barbecue, and Honey 1 BBQ), and then tack on a whole mess of other BBQ reviews for reference. By the way, does anyone go to Fat Willy's anymore? We hear they've gone way downhill.

[Photo: Gary Wiviott knows what he's talking about; these are his ribs, via MMChicago]

A politically active reader wrote in, wondering where he should fuel up next Saturday after he Gets Out The Vote for important presidential nominee [REDACTED] in hotly contested Gary, Indiana. Gary is known for many things — its rapidly shuttering steel mills, poverty, malaise and generalized decay — but much less so for its culinary offerings.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that you're really dead-set on eating in Gary, as opposed to Hammond or East Chicago or Hobart or Portage or, heavens forfend, Valparaiso. Because that would make this too easy! And obviously, you don't need our help finding the local Bennigan's (apparently one of the most popular restaurants in town), although it's worth pointing out that the Pepe's in Gary was the company's first NWI location when it opened thirty-two years ago.

Chains aside, there are credible indigenous dining options if you look hard enough. Our first suggestion comes from an encyclopedic post on LTHForum on Coney Island hot dog stands around Gary. Coney dogs are covered in beanless chili and have very little to do with Coney Island, Brooklyn; they first started to appear in Michigan around World War I, when place names were more appropriable, and continue to be popular throughout the Rust Belt (recently opened Cincinnati-themed bar Cinners offers Coneys for $2). In Gary's heyday, there were Coney stands on every other street corner (okay, not really), but in modern times, your best bet is probably Koney King, spelling it wrong since 1920. A Koney Dog runs $1.99 here, and you can eat it at the countertop atop totally mod red and blue diner stools. Be sure to arrive before 6pm, because this is not a late-night destination.

While you can't get anything pret a manger at Southern-style butcher Tennessee Country Meats, you can get a variety of exotica like salted spare ribs and the coarse, rustic, Hammond, IN-made sausage delightfully called "Bolshevik." You can serve it at your next USSR-themed soiree!

Finally, the somewhat out-of-place Miller Bakery Cafe has been serving fine food to Garyites (precious few letters away from Gary-itis, a common affliction) since the 1980s, when it took over a space formerly occupied by the Miller Bakery. If you thought you couldn't get wood-grilled organic quail stuffed with apple and prosciutto and served on lentils with a cherry liqueur-green peppercorn demiglace in Gary, you were dead wrong. But the fact that you can get it as an appetizers for $6.50 is truly astounding. Mains include a 7 Hour Lamb Shank, roasted with a savory spice rub, raisins and Zinfandel served on top a root vegetable hash for $22, and there's even an attached wine bar if your campaigning runs late.

Have a counterintuitive, hyper-specific query concerning Chicagoland dining? You've come to the right place.

Hillary Clinton arrives in Gary [NWI Times]
Pepe's Gary [Official Site]
Gary IN - Coney Dogs and Urban Decay [LTHForum]
Coney Island Hot Dogs [Wikipedia]
Cinners [MenuPages]
Cinners [Official Site]
Koney King [Google]
Tennessee Country Meats [Google]
Anyone heard of the lunchmeat "bolshevik?" [LTHForum]
Miller Bakery Cafe [Official Site]

[Photo: there are definitely more restaurants signs in Gary than actual restaurants (Vannah Von Terror/flickr)]

It certainly sells more newspapers (or attracts more clicks, really) to review the newest hot restaurants each week, but the dining community has just as much need to know about the workhorses of the world. Actually, much more need! And so, Bruno went to the Berghoff, which still exists in some form for some reason. Zombie restaurants! Anyway, while Pat gets all huffy at menu misspellings ("'Orchetta [sic] pasta with rock shrimp'"? Woe is me. If you can't spell it, can you cook it?"), he finds some of the classic dishes to be at least palatable if you absolutely have to go down memory lane.

Actually, can we point out that Thomas Witom's review for a suburban John Barleycorn also critiques menu spelling? "[A]nd the menu cries out for a proof-reader to clean up such gaffs as filet 'mingon.'" Haha, the Sun-Times is totally copping our steez! Well, the more, the merrier.

This week's Omnivorous uses the conceit of "restaurants near Wrigley Field" to talk about some of the staff's favored ethnic spots. Mike Sula leads with Cafe Orchid, a family-run Turkish restaurant that opened around the same time as Nazarlik, but to less fanfare; try the seafood and handmade doner. Mike also recommends TAC Quick, disclosing once and for all that the popular Thai restaurant's name stands for Thai Authentic Cuisine. Chip Dudley (not a nom de porn) thinks you'd be hard-pressed to find a better value for meat than at Tango Sur (then again, maybe it is a nom de porn). Finally, Ann Sterzinger has a review on the somewhat strange pan-European restaurant Rick's Cafe, which has the serious virtue of being BYO.

Okay, go out and try some B-listers this weekend!

[Photo: khâo khlûk kà-pì at TAC Quick, sazerac2k/flickr]

Last Friday, we wrote about our sticker shock when we saw the price of a certain (tasty-looking) main course at Szalas on the Southwest Side. We argued that we've come to expect Polish food in Chicago to be cheap, and we're somewhat suspicious when it's not.

This generated the slightest pique of ire from Louisa of Movable Feast, who was concerned we were reopening the X-food-is-meant-to-be-cheap message board war (veterans of which are currently suing for more generous meal stipends).

But we never meant to imply that there's a reason inherent to the cuisine itself for it to be universally inexpensive, or that we would not be willing to pay a lot for imaginative, high quality Polish food served in a sophisticated restaurant. It's just that, since such a venue empirically does not exist in Chicago, and because the overwhelmingly vast majority of Polish restaurants in the city are conspicuously inexpensive, that we've come to view Polish as a "value" option. In fact, we think there should be a temple to fancy Polish food in Chicago, and that there's a market for it.

However, commenter "Bart" disagrees:

There are no good Polish restaurants in the Chicago area, and I doubt you would find one in the US at all. Simply this kind of cousine doesn't sell, and is not existent except withing old country. For real taste of Polish cuisine try some more upscale restaurants in Warsaw, Krakow. But don't expect the bill to be running under $40-$50 per dish.

But truth is, Szalas is still serving it right, even if their menu is bit on a countryside - but you are served a traditional stuff.

The set menu (like a prix fixe except you don't have any options) includes pierogi, sour soup with smoked bacon, beef roulade in mushroom sauce with buckwheat and warm beetroot salad, "cream cake on the mirror of strawberry sauce" (!) and a glass of cherry vodka, and is 175 zloty, or $80, a person. That's not insignificant in a country with a per capita GDP of $16,600, around half that of the United States.

But only tourist eat set menu, yes? Should we ever find ourselves in Krakow, we are ordering: foie gras in wild rose and apple preserves ($42), crayfish soup with sour cream and dill ($16), and the roe deer and quail duet served with wild rice
and many-colour pepper sauce for $50. Ooh! Or maybe the veal leg stewed in dark mushroom sauce, served with roasted potatoes and sweet pea, a hefty $57. And we can't say we're not intrigued by the apple strudel with linden tree ice cream for $15. All this comes to upwards of $130 or so before beverages (tax and tip are mostly included, in all likelihood), which is nothing to sneeze at.

While an opulent, 650 year old Polish restaurant that regularly plays host to visiting foreign dignitaries may not be in the cards for Chicago, surely there's still room for something special, eh? Something with foie gras...

Szalas [MenuPages]
Szalas [Official Site]
Wierzynek [Official Site]

[Photo: Daniel Matysiak/flickr. That "GRILL" awning is atrocious]

You all know by now that Grant Achatz was very seriously considering plopping a version of Alinea in New York, but has decided against it. In an email to Time Out New York, he writes:

Sure, it would have been easy for us to clone Alinea and plunk it down in Manhattan. But what does that get anyone? Sure, we make some money if it is successful, but really that is not compelling. It would mean cannibalizing the very philosophy that makes Alinea what it is. New York would have a knockoff, and it would stretch our resources here at Alinea to the point of jeopardy for no real gain to anyone.

1) Mr. Achatz could charge $400 for the Tour, and people would still pack the place. It would be disgusting.

2) Could it really be that someone out there is doing it for the art and not the cash? Bless you.

3) Certain things should be unique in the universe for deeply philosophical reason, and Alinea is a prime example.

4) New York simply doesn't deserve it. Really. It's too good for them. And we should know.

Even if one day, forces beyond our control dictate that Mr. Achatz launch a New York project, at least today, we can savor the victory of good over evil; that's how strongly we feel about it.

Exclusive: Achatz fills in the blanks on Alinea NYC [Time Out New York]
Alinea [MenuPages]
Alinea [Official Site]

* Note that we have virtually no emotional reaction to Charlie Trotter's entré into the New York market. Account for that as you will.

This Croque Madame from Sixteen (which, by the way, was incorrectly spelled "Croque Madam" on the menu they emailed us) is as billed - a grilled ham and cheese sandwich with a fried egg on top.

Want to know how much they charge for it?

FIFTEEN DOLLARS. We are not offended by much, price-wise, but come on. $15? You can sprinkle it with as much thyme and paprika or whatever as you want, but it's still a pretty anemic-looking platter for what would also buy all-you-can-eat Indian buffet for two at Sher-A-Punjab, for all intents and purposes. The photographer, dane brian, captioned his photo with, "pretty pretty good.. the fried egg was a little much, but it was still great." We say, a single egg is a pittance for the money; and doesn't the whole thing come off as looking a little dry and sad? Compare to what is, admittedly, the most appetizing Croque Madame we've ever seen, just under $13 from Green Grocer in Melbourne, Australia:

Now are you offended? Good. Obviously you're paying for the sixteenth floor view and the Trump power trip, and there are lighting issues with the photography, but still, we are not impressed.

Sixteen [MenuPages]
Sixteen [Official Site]
Green Grocer [Official Site]

[Photos: Croques Madames at Sixteen (dane brian/flickr) and Green Grocer (Wodetzki/flickr)]

No matter where you live, you've probably heard of this legendary Brooklyn pizza joint known as Di Fara's. If you haven't, welcome to the big leagues, pizza lovers!

Brooklyn is, by many accounts, the nation's pizza capital (sorry Chicago. It kind of is). And Di Fara's is, by many of those same accounts, the best pizzeria in Brooklyn. So logic dictates that Di Fara's is the best pizzeria in the nation. At least by many accounts.

And many of those accountable for this opinion weighed in on an Epi-Log poll and voted Di Fara's the best on the East Coast. The result? We get a virtual photo-walk-through of the process of making a Di Fara's pizza. Not surprisingly, it all has to do with one dedicated pizza master. According to Epi, Domenico Di Fara's recipe for quite possibly the best pizza on earth boils down to this:

"I use only the freshest ingredients, the bufala mozzarella from the town I grew up in, the oregano and basil from Israel, tomatoes from Salerno, flour from Italy," he says with a smile. "That's the secret recipe."

Secrets of Di Fara Pizza [Epi Log]
Photo credit: Michael Y. Park [Epi Log]

Bruno this week was a big snooze. He reviewed an Italian and a tapas in the 'burbs, and we were skimming and wondering, why are these so long? And it turns out because in both articles, several paragraphs are repeated! The scary thing is, it was kind of hard to tell.

On the (thorny?) subject of tapas vs. small plates, Bruno writes:

The fact is, there is little or no connection between tapas and small plates. In most instances, small plates are simply appetizers with a higher price tag, while tapas have an identity and long culinary history.

Moving on, Mike Sula does one of his customary visits to a small- to mid-sized artisanal junk food maker. This week's is on Katie Das and her Das Caramelini caramels, with flavors like "lavender oil, lemongrass, citrus zest, coffee beans, dried Chinese plum, cardamom, ancho chile powder, star anise, and Szechuan peppercorns." So caramel is just like ice cream and politicians - a sugary medium into which we mix our hopes and dreams, and then eat the results after dinner.

This? Is awesome. Thank god somebody over at Required Eating keeps up with Improv Everywhere, because we don't, or at least we haven't been (Welcome to day one), and there's a chance we would have missed this fantastic video. The so-called spontaneous musical takes place in a Los Angeles shopping mall, which is in on the joke and rigged with hidden cameras. The music, according to IE, is piped in through the mall's sound system. Watch and marvel, then click over to IE to get the inside scoop on how they did it.

Food Court Musical [Improv Everywhere]
'Spontaneous' Musical Performed in Mall Food Court [Required Eating]

I met with friends recently at this restaurant/bar and was
very much impressed with the ambiance, food and the
entertainment. The food was tastful and delicious, the
mojita's was slamming!! (slang for GREAT!!) and the
atmosphere was simply lively which included a live
band and great dancers. It's nice to know one doesn't
have to trek downtown to have some enjoyable FUN!!
I'll definitely make this place my new hangout!!
THUMBS UP to [REDACTED]!!

The food at this financial district eatery is good but so boring I could have sworn that I was eating at an Applebees in Peoria. However, the service is what truly sets this giant apart from all the other places to get lunch downtown. I'm not sure if the staff were all members of the Hitler Youth or they have Stalin managing the restaurant, but normally to be treated this badly you'd have to pay someone with a whip and a leather mask several hundred dollars for the hour. Needless to say the service is terrible, and for the prices you are paying for your fajita, you inevitably wonder if all the money is going to pay the rent or the snail slow staff's addiction to qualoids. Nonetheless, the restaurant itself is very nice. So if you like to be served chain restaurant style food and be treated like garbage but in a very nice setting, there are many more airport terminals better suited for the purpose at only a fraction of the price.

Honestly, I eat a lot. And when I say a lot, I mean a lot. I mean, I play for keeps. I once ate 13 porkchops in one sitting...it was crazy. But seriously, this place is legit.

Al Ost said he "prayed like a sissy" as he fled to the basement of his house in Boone County, Ill. The storm damaged a barn on his property, he told the Rockford Register Star.

My daughter and I celebrate each of our birthdays at the Houlihan's in Oakbrook IL each year. We always order the delicious fahitas. We were excited when the new Houlihan's in Orland Park opened nea

r our mixed-income, high density housing development, and planned our birthday celebration there months in advance. When the big day arrived, we rented an iGo, parked at the far end of the lot so we could get a nice walk in before dinner, and were ushered to the best table in the house by the maitre d' (she had a delightful Irish lilt; maybe she's a transfer from the original Houlihan's in Kansas City!)

We were handed our menus, which we scanned for our favorite appetizer, the fajitas - the menu spells them with an 'h', a charming error that must owe to the restaurant's Gaelic heritage. But to our horror, we couldn't find the fajitas anywhere! When our waiter told us that Orland Park's residents voted to have the fajitas removed from the menu in a special ballot initiative, we were horrified and incensed. How dare our neighbors be so brutish and narrow-minded!

Principle dictated that we leave immediately, although we left a small but fair tip for the server's trouble. My daughter and I conferenced on our walk to the car, and decided to head to Cicero for some Yucatecan cuisine at Xni-Pec, which we had read about on LTHForum. Well, we could not have been happier! My daughter had the Chiles en Nogada, while I tried the Huevos Motuleños and the Tic Xic. It was immensely satisfying, and I think we may have just found a new birthday tradition. Oh yes, y Feliz Navidad!

Dear Mr. Baba: There are many middle eastern restaurants in Chicago, but Baba Pita prepares the best food, for a fair price, and they deliver - OUTSTANDING!!

I have eaten some of the finest and most delicious Syrian/Lebanese food made by old timers, otherwise known as Situs' ("Situ" is Arabic for Granny). Baba Pita is the only middle eastern restaurant that tastes like its home made by your Situ/Granny. So good for you that you'll fall in love with a culinary master piece of Middle Eastern stock. Your tongue will be swept away on a magic carpet ride of taste, to a wonderful Arabian supper fit for the fattest of Sultans.

To begin, I recommend the fried kibbeh/kibba with a side of hummus and/or babaghanouj for an appetizer. Try dipping the football shaped kibbeh in the hummus/babaG for a more dynamic roasted flavor.

As a main course, the Kufta platter is more than expected, helping to explain why Sultan's tended to be so fat during the old Ottoman Empire (an historical footnote to the significance of middle eastern food). The juicy and succulent taste will lure your palate to ecstatic pleasure as no other ethnic food.

We like Baba Pita delivered; it comes hot, delicious and delivered to your door, usually within about half-an-hour. I highly reccomend Baba Pita to anyone with an appetite for something of a trip to far away culinary delights, without leaving sweet home, Chicago.

The salads (tabuleh and Jerusalem, respectively) are as fresh as if the parsley and lettuce were plucked from a pleasant, back-yard garden - truly, magnificent middle eastern cooking at it's best!!
Most Sincerely, may the jinn (similar to ghosts in Arabian folklore) weep for they have no tongue to taste Baba Pita's culinary delights,
---yna

This is not a traditional Korean food restaurant, nor is it claiming to be. They have minor twists to traditional dishes, all in an effort to make the dishes more healthy and use finer ingredients. This is a true Ma and Pa shop, owned, run and kitchen cooked by a very sweet family of Koreans who want to offer an alternative to what has now become the quick wham bam of MSG ridden unhealthy Korean food. K-town never used to dowse their food in MSG, but since Americans have begun frequenting Korean restaurants, and the young ultra superficial and hedonistic Korean youth has extended the dinner hour to 4am while spending their parents money and claiming to have class by paying 5 times for just about anything, K-twon restaurants have had no choice but to use MSG to preserve their food and buy more bulk. As a preservative, MSG is effective, for health, well it's similar to Coca Cola in large quantities. If you don't believe me, just ask the next K-town restaurant you visit. Ask them what is on the menu without MSG, but don't stop there, tell them it's extremely important as you are violently allergic to MSG -- most of these places will literally tell you not to have anything! It's scary.

Sura is the opposite, these people care about your dining enjoyment during your meal, and your health on the days to follow. They only use fresh ingredients and find creative ways to spice up the traditional Korean flavors. I love the food here surely feel the difference the next day. I live very close to K-Town and choose to train it down to Sura, if you only knew what happens in most Korean restaurant kitchens, you would too!

Can you name three British blue cheese alternatives to Stilton: one from Devon, one from Ireland and one brand new cheese only developed this year by Neal’s Yard?

What am I? I am an often neglected member of the cabbage family, like a sputnik turnip in appearance and can be light purple or pale green. I am grown in the UK and at my best in the depth of winter and am great in soups, roast with honey or as a celeriac alternative in a remoulade.

i came here twice, once was on a hot date with a female.
and second with a friend. the date was great...
but the second time i went,
i felt like i knew the answer and i wanted to tell the teacher really bad...
that's the only way i could get napkins and water.
by the way, dirty silverware can be cleaned with hot water and soap.
the appetizers were "OOO-KAAYY" (no more, no less), and for some reason when they cook the entree's, they do it with hair.
i'm not sure of what that does to the food,
but it isn't appealing in anyway.
the unisex bathroom is nice. the tables without back support are great for egor, or the hunchback of notre dame.
last but not least, if you don't mind a waiter that you never saw chasing you down for a tip him nor any other waiter should receive, especially for hairy food, dirty utensils and the clean up crew wiping the tables and bleacher benches next to you then [REDACTED] is your place.