Giordano's
Wiener's Circle
Billy Goat (unless it's overrun with tourists)
Any Harold's Chicken
Frontera Grill or Topolobampo
Alinea (though I don't expect to get in)

Where else should Michael go? We're going to put in a rec for our current obsession, Mado, and if that Alinea resy isn't forthcoming, we'd suggest the thus-far rapturously received L.2O. We'd also direct Michael's attention to LTHForum, where he can find all the obsessive restaurant discussion his little heart desires.

Where to Eat in Chicago? [Epi-Log]

[Photo: Giordano's deep-dish, via ninjapoodles' Flickr]

At a Foo Fighters concert in Rochester on July 28th, frontman Dave Grohl dropped some juicy info:

Grohl was really excited, too, to announce that earlier in the day the band had taped an episode of the cooking reality show Top Chef.

“Top Chef” Caught Foo(d) Fighting at Thanksgiving, Told to Grohl Up [Amuse Biatch]
Foo Fighters rock another arena stage at Blue Cross [Rochester Democrat and Chronicle]

Let the first of August go down in history, folks, because Chris Onstad — writer of Achewood — has opened a sandwich shop in The New Yorker's comics blog:

Hello, I’m open, but you can’t come. Guess what our signature sandwich of the day is? Fatty toro belly with Spaniel milts on lightly humbucked Delta rye. Served open-face, omakase style, next to a fulcrum of lemon and a lever of grissini, so you can look under the sandwich. It’s not for regular people. It’s barely for anyone. I’ve got Bob De Niro coming next month. He’s bringing his hair salesman and their guitarist. $450 per person. This includes a free glass of sparkling water—a fine grace note—and for alcoholic beverages I’ll pair the sandwich with my special Froska, which is equal parts decanted vodka and Fresca, poured tableside, from a third decanter. “Frickin’ A,” De Niro is likely to chuckle, “No frickin’ carbs!” (Fresca is a diet grapefruit soda.)

The Duel, Part 1 [The Cartoon Lounge]

[Image via The Cartoon Lounge]

We already started a post today with a variant of OMG, and a link to 312 Dining Diva, but: OMG! 312DD has thrown down the gauntlet! Feuding in the Chicago Foodie Blogosphere!

Here's the scoop: Yesterday, 312DD neener-neenered Time Out Chicago, claiming that TOC hadn't actually scooped info on The Bristol as TOC claimed to.

In response to this, Heather Shouse (she of the Hub 51 slam that made us love her) sent 312DD's Audarshia quite a testy email, which Audarshia has now posted on 312DD, under the claim "Time Out Chicago Doesn't Respect Bloggers":

"I noticed in your post yesterday entitled 'Uhm, sorry Time Out...' that you claim we were one week late. You might want to read our post a bit more carefully. What we said was that we got the scoop on THE LOCATION of the Bristol and the fact that Il Covo was closing, and even pointed out that you and many other blogs basically gave the general info that it was going to be in Bucktown because your 'reporting' involved reading the RIA site. The Chicago Restaurant site did not involve the exact address when you first posted on it and linked to it. The address was just added since you reposted.

While we're 'talking,' I'm not sure that I completely understand the method of calling out established publications when you run a blog. Aren't you a 'freelance writer'? Wouldn't you benefit more from actually selling your information and, I don't know, writing articles as opposed to throwing rocks at the very few media outlets out there that could possibly give you work? Just a thought."

But, um, kids? It's time for a little bit of deep breathing, because — we hate to break it to you — but the first ping on our RSS for The Bristol comes courtesy of Chicago Magazine, who had it up a full ten days before 312DD. Penny Pollack and Jeff Ruby remain silent on the matter thus far, but — while we're big fans of Heather and Audarshia both — our hat's in the Chicago Mag corner.

[Photo: Blood Feud, via italiangerry's Flickr]

• To make up for the dearth of S-T reviews, we did something we've (perhaps shamefully) never done before: we read readers' letters to Pat Bruno. We're not surprised by the attitude of mature cantankerousness that seems to run through most of them (a certain Tom Ward, on why restaurants play music so loudly: "Most of the waitstaff are young people who have to have music playing for whatever activity they are doing." Loving the imperative!), but Bruno also gives us some solid insight into his ratings system, when his four-star for L.2O is questioned:

In a recent review, you gave L20 a four-star rating. Considering that this is a new restaurant, shouldn't you wait until it has proven itself before you hand out your highest rating?
Lucille R.

You make a good point, Lucille. However, a restaurant of this caliber, with the way it is being run, should only get better as it ages. So I would bet the farm, if I had a farm, that L20 will live up to its four-star status.

• In the matter of real reviewing, though, Bruno takes us through lunch and dinner at C-House, the latest in a slew of Chicago restos helmed by non-Chicago celeb chefs. The guy behind this one is Marcus Samuelsson, best known for his New York places. Bruno calls out Samuelsson for being a little bit disingenuous in his connection to the restaurant — though his server does solemnly swear that Marcus was there for a few weeks, "doing whatever a celebrity chef does when connecting his or her name to a venture." We'd say: watch out. The guy doesn't even put in full time at the NYC ventures he puts his name on, something the NY Post's Steve Cuozzo calls him out on.

But who cares about the name over the door if the food's good, right? Well, hm. Bruno's not too thrilled: "The food was good, but there wasn't a lot that rocked my world," and the fish and chips fall way short: they were "the worst fish I've had in many a moon." Besides a few other notablye subpar dishes, there are a blessed few positives: the fish mini-tacos, the asparagus risotto, the lunch-menu-only salmon pastrami sandwich, the desserts, the raw bar. But Bruno's 1.5-stars says it all: a chef of Samuelsson's magnitude should deliver better, and we deserve better from him. [Bruno, Sun-Times]

• Meanwhile, at the Reader, OSBMS has taken the week off (slow review week for everyone, it seems), and given the reins to the eminently capable Michael Gebert (he of the Sky Full of Bacon podcast, which we highly recommend), who visits P & P BBQ Soul Food (3734 W. Division, 773-276-7756). The non-Sula Mike hands it a rave: this simultaneous soul food eatery and serious barbecue destination pays equal attention to both facets of its dual identity, plays both hands brilliantly, and even manages to create culinary harmony that makes Gebert wonder why this hasn't been done a million times before. The aquarium smoker is helmed by Texas-trained, Chicago-perfected pitman Keith Archibald, and he churns out reliably juicy, smoky piles of meat. Plus, there's the feelgood element: 51-year-old owner Patricia Ann Parker has dreamed of opening a restaurant since she was a little girl, but was sidetracked by other jobs ranging from the post office to the Palmer House. But a brain condition affected her optic nerves, and she's now fully blind. Surrounded by family and friends who help with the sight-required matters, Patricia still knows exactly what to give to her customers:

"...Sometimes you want real soul food, get off that fried food,” she says. “You want that good home cooking, and everybody wants barbecue on the weekends.”

[Photo: Interior of C-House, via Affinia Chicago]

Continue reading "Seven Days of Ethanol" »

It is with great delight that we welcome back to the internet (and to our Google Reader) The Chicago Burger Project, which after a completely unacceptable month-long hiatus is back with a review of Max's Italian Beef. The title menu item is not on the docket, instead we have Max's Ghetto fries, an item we could not believe is actually on the official MenuPages menu, and yet there it is, in all its glory (it's the fifth-to-the-bottom item on the onscreen menu, right between a $0.59 side of American Cheese, and an $0.89 side of Merkt's).

These things get way too much attention for being standard-issue fries with a bunch of cheap condiments on top (to be fair, they'll only cost you $3.15). They're allegedly named for a former employee who went by "Ghetto Girl" and are decidedly not an attempt tap into the always-profitable stereotype of poor people putting Merkt's on everything (cf. Hecky's Mutt; Ghetto Latte). Anyway, these are exactly the sum of their parts---I'm a little mystified by a place hanging their hat on a dish so easily replicated by anyone with access to a Fixins Bar, but they've been around for 50 years, I think the sweetness of the sauce, the sharpness of the cheese, and the saltiness of the fries are supposed to play off each other, but they didn't do that so much as just kind of decompose into a homogeneous mass.

Max's Italian Beef [Chicago Burger Project]
Coffee Shop Threatens to Punch Customer In His Dick [The Consumerist]
Max's Italian Beef [MenuPages]

[Photo: Max's Ghetto Fries, via Chicago Burger Project]

The Chicago Tribune endears itself to us this week with a paean to the emperor of emulsions, mayonnaise. The Trib supplemented their mayo lovefest with a blind testing of some commercial varieties, plus homemade, and Hellman's ranks first, and homemade comes in third. We question the methodology of including "homemade," since it's so unstandardized and the whole "it needs more salt" complaint could have been remedied by, you know, adding salt. But the fact remains that mayo is awesome and certain east coast city MenuPages editors who persist in hating it are just plain wrong. Ahem.

(For ourselves, we are unrepentant fans of the white stuff, with slavish brand loyalty to Hellman's (though we admit the MSG-fueled brilliance of Kewpie), and a mildly embarrassing tendency to attempt to make our own mayo at home, generally only attempting it on humid days when it entirely fails to come together [never mind the old wives' tale about what happens to homemade mayo when a woman makes it during her time of the month].)

The Sun-Times, on the other hand, offers up a little bit of a smooth-going-down reprieve from egg whisked with oil: drinks! Delicious summer drinks! Instead of using up your summer garden harvest on boring ol' caprese salad, make a tomato-basil-kitchen-sink margarita! We think this is brilliant -- not just because we are huge fans of fresh herbs and savory adult beverages, but because we wholeheartedly believe that it's about time the locavore movement embraced its inner alcoholic.

Elsewhere, among other things:

• You know how you're supposed to drink 8-ounce glasses of water 8 times a day in order to be healthy? Ha ha! Not true! [Tribune]

• Via the New York Times, Mark Bittman gives us a no-fail recipe for chilled avocado soup. Which somehow he convinces himself (and us?) is "healthy." Har har. [Tribune]

• Beer sorbet! Beer sorbet! Beer sorbet! Where was this when we were trying to impress people in college? [Tribune]

• The lasting effect of this summer's salmonella scare? With luck, it'll be an increased interest in local produce and sourceable foods. [Sun-Times]

• Kendal Duque, chef at Sepia, weighs in on the use of fruit in savory dishes. Apricot + cherry + lamb = deliciousness! [Sun-Times]

[Photo: Real Mayonnaise, via dougalug's Flickr]

Our Secret Boyfriend Mike Sula (we should just start abbreviating that to OSBMS) was having a no-doubt erudite and witty dinner at Marcus Samuelsson's C-House when he recognized the server-in-training as ousted Top Chef Season 3 cheftestant Sara Nguyen. Apparently the eminently talented chef (Per Se? Yes please) is paying the bills waiting tables until the opening of fellow ex-Cheftestant (and finalist!) Dale Levitski's forthcoming Town & Country, where she'll be a sous.

So go to C-House to get your front-of-house reality celeb fix, and keep an eye out for what OSBMS calls the "occasionally puzzling" seafood dishes. Is this a hint at reviews to come? Hmmm?

Ex-Top Cheftestant working the front of C-House [Food Chain]
C-House [MenuPages]
C-House [Official Site]

• Chris Borelli sits down with playwright Tracy Letts at Dinkel's Bakery to discuss "Superior Donuts," Letts' followup to his Pulitzer-prize winning August: Osage County. Why donuts? "A doughnut shop just seemed like a good jumping-off point for a play that deals with a disappearing America, and a disappearing Chicago. . . I wanted to get into the idea of how these shops are gathering places for communities. That's gone away, I think." [Tribune]

• A comprehensive guide to beachside street food. Mango-leche paletas, ham tortas with mayo and pickled jalapeño, tamales with pork and salsa verde, and double-dogs all sound great. But it's the gazpachos &mdash "cucumber, watermelon, mango and pineapple, peeled and cut to order, then doused in lime juice, salt, cayenne pepper and orange juice" &mdash that gets our heart racing. [TOC]

As for reviews...

• Phil Vettel joins the ranks of L.2O-philes, four-starring chef Laurent Gras, who "does with fish what Green Zebra's Shawn McClain does with vegetables and Alinea's Grant Achatz does with damn near everything." Such language! The Trib is a family paper, Phil. Still, the descriptions of deconstructed baccala, shabu-shabu and its meta-incarnation as a noodle dish, and the glorious-sounding Gold Egg Yolk (pork belly, kampachi, and the titular yolk) sound obscene as well (in absolutely the best way). [Vettel, Tribune]

• Oak Park's got a new sandwich-and-pastry place, Eastgate Cafe. Some misses (PB&J on a hard french baguette - huh?), but the hits do fine by Trine Tsouderos, who welcomes the new spot to the neighborhood. [Tsouderos, Tribune]

• Heather Shouse goes outside city limits to Inari Sushi, in Elmwood park. Despite a clientèle described as "glittery bebe tops, Jersey hair and deep tans" (ugh), and only so-so straightforward sushi, the creative options &mdash while entirely inauthentic &mdash really shine (like the awesome-sounding sliced red snapper with ponzu, radish, fresh lemon and red grapes). [Shouse, TOC]

• In our opinion, ajasteak has a very dumb name. (Say it out loud. Get it?! It's an Asian steakhouse. Bleh.) With that strike already against it, David Tamarkin's laundry list of the restaurant's faults doesn't really help matters. There's the unpleasant fellow diners ("a pair of businessmen who, when they saw that they were about to be seated next to my decidedly unbusinesslike companion and I, sneered and ordered that they be delivered to another table"), the icky dining room ("the space seems better suited for a lounge-cum-Continental-breakfast-buffet á la Embassy Suites"), and &mdash the final blow &mdash the menu doesn't make up for it. While the wagyu steak is good, the sushi is "unforgivable," given the prices. Tamarkin gives it 3 stars out of 6, which seems overgenerous given the review. But who are we to judge? [Tamarkin, TOC]

[Photo: tuna & hamachi checkerboard at L2O, via lesleyk's Flickr]

First of all: we are horrible journalists. Yesterday we claimed that TOC landed the first big review of graham elliot, but astute readers have informed us that we somehow overlooked Pat Bruno's July 4 review, which robs TOC of the restaurant-review equivalent of commenting "FIRSTTTT!!!!!!!111!!!eleventy!!1"

We're inclined to blame our oversight on any number of factors, starting with the fact that on July 4, technically speaking this blog you are reading now actually didn't have an editor, and ending with the observation that nobody reads the freaking newspaper on July 4. But we are a grownup, so we will not make excuses. Ahem.

Suffice to say, Bruno awards Mr. Bowles 2.5 stars out of a possible 4 (since 2 is "good" and 3 is "excellent," we are going to call this "goodellent"), and on the whole seems much more pleased with his experience than the TOC folks were. In particular we find ourselves swayed by his description of the deconstructed Caesar salad, avec "brioche Twinkie." Sold!

Second of all: For dinner last night, we made the grilled chicken tacos with harissa mayo that appeared in Wednesday's Tribune. We deviated a little, using boneless/skinless breasts instead of thighs, and marinating them for a half hour in lemon juice, olive oil, and a metric ton of spices (cumin, smoked paprika, cayenne, some cajun mishmash), but hot damn that is a good weeknight dinner.

graham elliot [MenuPages]
graham elliot [Official Site]
Bowled Over [Sun-Times]
Grilled chicken tacos with harissa mayo [Tribune]

[Photo: Bowles's deconstructed Caesar salad, via SiFu Renka's Flickr]

• A gentle reminder from Monica Eng that you should be calculating your server's tip based on the pretax total, not the bottom line. Especially now that Cook County tax hikes are raising restaurant bills across the bar - restaurant patrons will be seeing a total of 10.75% appended to the total (10.5% sales tax, plus 0.25% restaurant meal tax). Cue commenter backlash... now! [Tribune]

• Barbecue aficionados Barry Sorkin (of Smoque BBQ), Robert Adams Jr. (of Honey 1 BBQ), and LTH Forum grand master Gary Wiviott weigh in on a blind tasting of local barbecue sauces. The winner? The house sauce from Robinson's #1 Ribs rose above its damning faint praise to best Hecky's, Sweet Baby Ray's, and others. [TOC]

As for reviews...

• Phil Vettel wanders down LSD in order to two-star Park 52, the most recent attempt to restaurantify Hyde Park, and finds it eerily reminiscent of owner Jerry Kleiner's earlier (and similarly-named) venture, Room 21. On the whole, though, the food is solid - if uninventive - and the scene is a welcome addition to Hyde Park's more or less desolate upscale-dining landscape. [Vettel, Tribune]

• Highest possible praise - four forks - to Galapagos Cafe and its winning synchronicity of Ecuadorean and Japanese cooking. The flan, apparently, is swoonworthy, and we found ourselves drooling over Monica Eng's descriptions of the sushi rolls and milkshakes. [Eng, Tribune]

• TOC drops the first official review of much-buzzed graham elliot, and finds that the servers -- and menu -- are still in need of a little refinement. Heather Shouse gives it a four of six stars: she isn't amused by the seemingly random deployment of kitsch-chic garnishes like cheez-its, malted milk balls, and nilla wafers on dishes that otherwise hold their own, but sees promise lurking beneath the surface, plus occasional flashes of brilliance. Still, the laid-back atmosphere (servers wear Graham-approved chucks and jeans) clashes with the birthday-dinner price point. [Shouse, TOC]

[Photo: seared tuna and roasted whitefish at Park 52, via Kids' Writer's Flickr]

• Chefs on growing their own produce: difficult, unpredictable, totally worth it. [Sun-Times]

• Lisa Donovan discovers Robert Wolke's 2002 What Einstein Told His Cook, and learns that her tomato sauce is secretly a battery. [Sun-Times]

• Lake Forest residents Bobbie and Roland Vogel, married for 54 years and with a combined age of 150, graduate from culinary school and start a catering business: "It's like 'bring it on,' " [Bobbie] said. "I finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up." [Sun-Times]

• The small plates juggernaut continues, with a new cookbook from Tony and Cathy Mantuano (Tony's the chef-partner at Spiaggia). Wine Bar Food deals with Mediterranean bites, plus pairings. [Tribune]

• Bill Daley encourages you to try fish sauce in home cooking. (For the record, we completely agree.) [Tribune]

• Turns out kids love their veggies, but moms (why don't they ever interview dads for this?) just don't buy them the kinds they like. [Tribune]

• Brazil's vintners are working hard to break into the top ranks of Latin American wineries, and acknowledge it's an uphill battle. [NewCity]

[Photo: Boy and cooked vegetables, via dabasir's Flickr]

For our fifteenth birthday, lo these many years ago, we asked our parents for two things: a KitchenAid upright mixer, and dinner at Bistro 110, where a friend of ours claimed to have once eaten two tables away from Tom Hanks et famille.

Our parents (questionably) decided to overlook the request for kitchen appliances, and instead sprung for dinner for us and five of our high school-era BFFs at the restaurant we'd so sagely chosen. That night we were introduced to three critical concepts that have informed our restaurant-going existence ever since: (1) If a celebrity is seen somewhere once, that does not mean that he will be seen there every night; (2) poulet rôti; (3) oven-roasted garlic.

So it is with no small amount of excitement that we read the Tribune heralding the return of French cuisine to the shores of Lake Michigan. It's back the way Madonna is back: never actually having gone away, as such, but suddenly cooler, hotter, hipper, and better than ever before. As Christophe David, exec chef at NoMI says, "It's growing. And it is not finished."

Chef David also points out that Chicago's four-defined-seasons weather makes the city much more amenable to true Parisian cooking than rival urbs Miami or LA:

"In Chicago sometimes the winter is long, but at least you have the winter. When I talk to my friends in France I say, 'Imagine Paris with a big lake, and it looks like Nice.' Nobody believes me until they come visit."

French (re)connection [Tribune]
Bistro 110 [MenuPages]
Bistro 110 [Official Site]
NoMI [MenuPages]
NoMI [Official Site]

[Photo: Bistro 110's French onion soup, via yummyinthetummyblog's Flickr]

• Chicago chefs on what it means to cook "American" in 2008 [Sun-Times]
• Grapes: provider of wine, raisins, and now, the hot new oil [Sun-Times]
• East Rogers Park has arrived as a gentrihood via a wine shop [Sun-Times]
• An amazing wire story on optimal beverage service temperatures [Sun-Times]
• Bill Daley has a big feature on Bordeaux and its wines [Tribune]
• M.F.K. Fisher, celebrator of eating, would have turned 100 [Tribune]
• In hot dog taste test, Oscar Mayer trumps Vienna Beef! [Tribune]

Meanwhile, in NewCity, Mike Nagrant writes about New York celebrichef David Chang of Momofuku Ko fame and his recent decision to ban all photograph at his latest, greatest restaurant. Monica Eng and Chris Borrelli reported on the phenomenon of camera bans in the Tribune this last weekend in a piece that was largely sympathetic to Chang's argument: that the photographers were disrupting his cooks (who are right in front of the diners) and their fellow patrons. Other notable Chicago chefs seem to be sympathetic as well, which is precisely what worries Nagrant. If Chang is successful at banning photography at Ko, this could be the beginning of the end of food porn (although Chang plans to post his own Ko photos on flickr). And furthermore, whatever rights we have as diners — real or imagined — are being eroded and nothing is being done to stop it!

Well, it would definitely be unfortunate if amateur restaurant photography went away, but populist internet backlash may well be a strong enough force to keep such an eventuality at bay. Never give the customer an extra reason to hate you! Also, it may be that Chang's announcement was as much a publicity stunt as anything else. In the meantime, just don't use flash and no one will get mad at you, probably.

[Photo: a (blurry) photo of someone else taking a picture at Ko, via winyang/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]

The Reader's Best of Chicago 2008 issue came out today, and while we're going to address Omnivorous tomorrow as per usual, it's worth perusing while it's still hot and fresh. Structured not entirely unlike Time Out Chicago's Eat Out Awards, Best Of Chicago gives us the Reader's choice and the readers' choice (clever!) in eighteen categories, including the ever-critical best bathroom (the ladies' room at the Signature Room at the 95th).

The best restaurant overall this year was Khan B.B.Q. according to Mike Sula and Lula Cafe according to the masses; Lula was also the people's choice for best brunch. Throughout the categories, the Reader towed the foodie line while the readers opted toward that which is safe and well-known; the only intersection occurred at best bagel, which everyone agrees is New York Bagel & Bialy in Lincolnwood.

We generally trust the Reader's editorial judgment on these things, though.

Best of Chicago 2008 [Reader]
Khan BBQ [MenuPages]

[Photo: Khan BBQ's vaunted chicken, via Mgmax/flickr]

The very bestest time of the year is Taste of Chicago, which starts as soon as tomorrow! Phil Vettel reports that this year's Taste will be the biggest, healthiest and greenest one yet, although probably only by the smallest of margins. To help you edit your Taste menu, the Trib's dining staff put out a list of their recommendations, and published a map of the best booths according to Monica Eng's heroic sampling of all 253 dishes at last year's Taste.

All in all, a pretty light week for the Tribune. Seems like the center of gravity has shifted over to the Stew in recent months, where they report actual news like Alinea being named #1 in Zagat's latest survey. The real story here may be located in the URL of that post, which is leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/thestew/2008/06/judy-this-is-em.html. Judy (Hevrdejs, presumably), this is em...barrassing? Empathetic? Embellished a little? Empty and hollow? Empirically untrue? Each possible permutation is more delightful than the last.

Meanwhile, the main story in Time Out Chicago is about road trips for Midwestern specialty food, which is awesome. Back in the day, we drove six hours round trip to go to the Machine Shed in Davenport for their many preparations of pork and free cottage cheese, but gas only cost $2 a gallon then. Still, if you can get a car full of people in on it, any of the suggested trips would be worthwhile.

New openings include Perennial, a Lincoln Park hotel restaurant with some big names attached, and Angels & Kings in River North, the second branch of a bar co-sponsored by Pete Wentz of all people (the first one's in New York), and not to be confused with the recently opened Wicker Park Mexican restaurant Angels & Mariachis. Or actually, please do confuse them.

Finally, David Tamarkin files a hell of a review for L.2O, the hottest new meal ticket in town. The various complicated and glorious seafood dishes are described in detail, and don't get him started on the macaroons. One does wonder what it takes to get six stars out of six, though, if L.2O only earns five!

Alinea [MenuPages]
Alinea [Official Site]
L.2O [MenuPages]
L.2O [Official Site]

[Photo: skate wing at L.2O, via npinto/flickr]

• Quote of the day:

"Every time a hearse went down the road, [we thought] 'there went another cherry customer,'" said Don Gregory.

This pearl of morbidity is in reference to the fact that during the 1980s and 1990s, cherry consumption fell off due to lack of demand among younger consumers. But then someone invented a clever way to dry cherries and the whole industry was saved. Hurray for Michigan ingenuity! [Tribune]

• Leah Zeldes has a very good report on the state of the Chicago donut scene, including its origins, paucity, and foci. Extra bonus: the definition of a raised doughnut.

• Bill Daley finds the Americanest of American wines, but notes that almost all the world's varietals are grown here [Tribune]

• Do you know the slight difference between cilantro and culantro? [Tribune]

• Lisa Donovan reports on the magnetic wine ager, but doesn't try it out herself! [Sun-Times]

• John Coletta of Quartino talks about his food-finding trip to Italy, but it comes off sounding boring, and also shilly [Sun-Times]

[Photo: one of the many varieties of culantro, via The Back Forty/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]

• Best article this week in either paper is on the Illinois State Fair Wine Competition. Choice quote: "As my judging panel sailed through the wines at a pace of about four minutes a wine, I learned that we gave a bronze medal to just about any wine that wasn't awful." [Sun-Times]

• What kind of budgeting recommendation is this:

drinking tap water rather than bottled water ($3.99 for six bottles of Dasani) or soda pop ($2.99 for six cans) -- a savings of $30 to $40 a month if only two bottles of water or two cans of pop are consumed daily. Rather than spending close to $4 a day for two regular cups of coffee, $10 a day for two lattes or $3.70 a day for two iced teas from specialty coffee/tea shops, Fairbanks recommends brewing your own coffee or tea. (A can of Folgers that makes 135 12-ounce cups of coffee costs $10.99; 100 Lipton tea bags that make 20 quarts of iced tea cost $4.09).

• Caffeinated snack chip a really stupid way to ingest caffeine [Sun-Times]

• An interview with Curtis Duffy, Avenues' new head chef [Sun-Times]

• Bucking the trend, Potbelly Sandwich Works to refrain from serving tomatoes for now [Sun-Times]

• Is the much-maligned dip back? Or instead of going away, did it simply turn into guacamole and hummus while no one was looking... [Tribune]

• This season's hottest rosés are from Spain, according to Bill Daley. Should we say "coolest" rosés? [Tribune]

• It's worth pointing out that this lifestyle piece on what recipe instructions or ingredients are anathema to home chefs came out two weeks ago in the New York Times. Is this a normal delay for syndication? [Tribune]

[Photo: Illinois River Winery, via Illinois Wine]

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]

The other day, we were sufficiently amused by a piece of comment spam that we shared it with you. The spam came from the propietor of a website on Chicago strip clubs, and it concerned strip clubs in DuPage County. Could we please pass on any information we're privy to about their potential banning, we were asked? We remarked on how topical it was under the circumstances (in that it concerned Chicagoland and not Xanax or Warcraft gold), and moved on.

Little did we expect to get another comment from the same person:

But if you look, Its not a spam. I actually put your article on the page with a link to nbc five. Click Chicago please when you get to the site. I really wasnt spamming you.
Georgio

This really pushes into a philosophical debate on the nature of spam. We think Georgio is well-meaning, although perhaps he has us confused with another blog that discusses strip clubs with some regularity? Does it make a difference, vis-a-vis its spamminess, that this was targeted and genuine, if unsolicited and commercial?

To answer Georgio's question, DuPage County doesn't allow alcohol to be sold in strip clubs that feature full nudity; however, many clubs in the county have a BYO hard liquor policy, and sell mixers and ice and such. At the beginning of this year, the county board floated a proposal to ban this admittedly ridiculous practice; casual Googling has not provided any follow-up.

But worst case, there's always Indiana. Have a good weekend!

County board member proposes banning alcohol at strip clubs [St. Charles Republican]

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]

Today's food media roundup is extra-packed today, because Time Out Chicago has a food feature; namely, insights on cheap ethnic eats from local chefs. Let's start there and work backwards toward the Tribune, which is less sparkly.

The cuisines covered in the Cheap Eats feature are: Mexican, Chinese, Italian, Indo-Pak, Vietnamese, Middle Eastern and Korean. Some of the pieces are better than others; David Tamarkin's writeup of Rick Bayless' favorite Mexican spots and Lisa Shames' tour of Chinatown stood out for us, while Tamarkin's exploration of the food folkways on Middle Eastern Kedzie Avenue has a fascinating ethnographic quality to it.

And then, Tamarkin uncovers a strawberry/balsamic vinegar cocktail at Vermilion. Busy week!

Also, we're kind of blown away by Sepia mixologist Peter Vestinos' instruction to put honeycomb in a jar of tequila with aromatics for two weeks, and then drink the results. Yes please!

On the Tribune side, a series of discourses on outdoor dining. Like, it's unpleasant when it's next to the El! Phil Vettel presents his al fresco favorites, and Glenn Jeffers finds out under what circumstances you can smoke at a restaurant's outdoor tables (15 feet minimum from any doors or windows).

The best article in the issue is another Jeffers piece on dog-friendly outdoor licenses, of which only twenty-eight have been issued. And restaurants can only provide water for the dogs! In the age of organic, artisanal dog food, that's very limiting.

Finally, the reviews:

• Phil Vettel finds happiness at a DL New American in a strip mall on the Naperville-Aurora border called Chef Amaury, where a five course tasting is $60 and is served with a smile [Tribune]

• David Tamarkin has been following mole expert Raul Arreola all over town for years. Mixteco Grill, Arreola's latest perch, does a decent job at the staples, but truely excels with its moles [TOC]

• Now that Graham Elliot Bowles has moved on from Avenues, is former Alinea sous chef Curtis Duffy adequately carrying the mantle? According to Heather Shouse, not really. The ultramodern cuisine isn't hitting all the notes it used to, and it doesn't feel like a good value [TOC]

[Photo: nothing wrong with a dog in a restaurant, via ardorius/flickr]

Do you know what we really don't care about but have to pretend, for your sake, like we do? Cookbooks. They are all over the broadsheets in their dozens. Maybe one day we'll understand why the internet and its zillions of free recipes (and YouTube guides!) are insufficient for our cooking needs, but not today.

• The Printer's Row Book Fair this weekend will host a whole mess of cookbook-related displays and activities, featuring a roster of Chicago chefs [Tribune]

• Cookbooks for your children, in case you didn't get enough of the Seinfeld undercover vegetable psy-ops campaign from a couple of months ago [Sun-Times]

• What you should do with all your unused recipes, including getting them bound into a cookbook that you can give away as a gift (no, please don't!), and also, an exploration of recipe-collection-as-compulsive hoarding [Tribune]

• That article has a million sidebars with suggestions for bored, twitchy suburban moms like "Affix recipes to food-themed papers at craft and stationery stores" [Tribune]

• Also, there's a cookbook that teaches you how to use tagines, cataplanas, and other unfamiliar cookware from around the globe [Tribune]

Other (old) news not related to cookbooks and recipes:

• Foie gras is back! And being served at various restaurants! [Sun-Times]

• People actually eat octopus, apparently. How barbarous! [Sun-Times]

• Local cake decorating school and company celebrating its 80th birthday; in this case, the oldness is the news [Tribune]

[Photo: baby octopus at Riva, because as we've said many times, everything is better in baby form, via hatesscreennames/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]