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Everybody's got something to say about Amelia's, the Back-of-the-Yards newcomer that spun its menu off from the kitchen of Mundial Cocina Mestiza.

Chicagoist: "It's that location that's the biggest obstacle Garcia faces in making Amelia's a success. The other is convincing residents of the Canaryville, Back of the Yards and New City neighborhoods to shell out an average of $16 for an entrée when they can just go to a taqueria for "some Mexican." ... For those looking for more than a burrito as big as your head, Garcia's cooking remains one of the most inventive takes on Mixteco in the city, with its balance of spice and savory."

Sky Full of Bacon: "Chef Eusebio Garcia worked at MK before opening Mundial, and his thing has been high-end Mex tinged with Mediterranean flavors. My feeling is that the former are much, much more promising than the latter. ...Generally, in most of the upscale Mex places I think you’re better off ordering off the appetizer menu ... and Amelia’s is no exception to this rule."

Chicago Reader: "Lomo de puerco, an entree of grilled pork tenderloin, was terrific—thick medallions of pork painted with a tart, sweet tamarind glaze and seared till crisp. Plated with a handful of sauteed purslane, a smear of roasted quince, and a tangle of grilled onions, it could have come out of a far more pretentious kitchen... little things like the teensy shavings of avocado garnishing the ceviche led me to think that Garcia and the tiny, effusive staff are trying to do a whole lot with very little."

Time Out Chicago: "If anything, the subtle weakness of Garcia’s cuisine is that the sides—a lemony patty of crusted potato mash and a simple slaw of sugar snap peas and sautéed onions—deserve more attention than the supposed main attraction, in this case slightly chewy grilled lamb loin. The chile relleno is a prime exception: the pepper oozed cheese-covered sweet corn and eggplant and asked for nothing more."

[Photo: Martha Williams for Time Out Chicago]

This past Saturday was Dark Lord Day at Three Floyds Brewery in Munster, Indiana. So how was it?

Chicagoist: "...a streamlined and efficient operation. Lines for the most part were defined and orderly. Extra tents were set up to accommodate attendees looking to slake their thirst ... By 4 p.m., however, there was virtually no line for Dark Lord as most of the crowd had left either burned out from a full days drinking or to beat the inclement weather home."

HopCast: "Once we finally had our Dark Lord we got back in the main line to share the samples. The beer was great! Much more drinkable and more balanced then last years. While drinking the sample we traded a few beers and bought some tamales from a lady selling them. If you didn’t get tamales from this lady you should feel lucky, some of the worst I have ever had."

The Diva Platform: "If you like your beer to be the consistency of used motor oil, this is the beer for you! ... The line ended two buildings down from the brewery and started spiraling in a parking lot. We thought we’d be there for hours. At this point I figured out why it was called a Russian imperial stout: We had to wait in line like commies in order to buy it."

Hoosier Beer Geek: "In the end, there was very little drama to the day, other than some random rainshowers and the one arrest I witnessed. The crowd seemed controlled by lively, the rare beer flowed, and everyone seemed to go home happy."

Thank Heaven For Beer: "There was not one person who I came across at Dark Lord Day who didn’t somehow, whether through their t-shirt, their ball cap, their tattoos, or their words, express that they loved/understood beer so much, they were willing to travel form different states (like me), or even countries, to catch a glimpse of a rarely consumed beer."

Chicago Reader: "The relatively brisk speed at with the bottle line moved appeared to be due to the much larger number of staffers inside selling and packing beer. The brewpub line, on the other hand, was just as ridiculous as last year. The indoor menu looked great--mussels steamed in Gumballhead with bacon, fennel, celery, garlic, and dried chili!--but because I am not patient enough I had to be content with a pulled-pork sandwich and some coleslaw from the tables outside."

Second City Style: "White linen and dark wood with peacock blue sheers framed tall windows and a view. I liked the bar. I can imagine getting a drink there after a day of shopping to review an awesome purchase or two."

Audarshia's Twitter: "Crap. the $22 lobster salad's not on menu yet... gotta wait till end of month. Since i can't get $22 salad, getting rigatoni with local rabbit in red wine sauce, rosemary. OK, people get ready...only 22 seats, 7 tables out on the terrace."

Candid Candace: "the most important feature of the sixth floor is the fabulous restaurant, Fred’s! This chic dining spot has incredible views and a petite and exclusive outdoor patio with only three tables with a beautiful view straight down Oak Street to the lake! Imagine sitting above our greatest shopping street and looking at our sparkling lake on a lazy summer day?"

MNMason's Twitter: "Barney's is back...Shades of both the NY and LA stores. And Fred's balcony will be the most exclusive alfresco dining in town..."

[Photo: Candid Candace]

• The awesome shrimp and grits at Province are the key to the restaurant's high-low accessible vibe. [Serious Eats]

• The brunch at M. Henry is worth getting up at the crack of dawn to consume. [Chicagonista]

• Trader Vic's is laser-focused on its goal of getting you drunk. [TOC Blog]

Did we miss something? If you wrote a review or read a review that you think should be included, let us know!

Yes, ducklings, the triumphant return of Review Revue.

• The sandwiches at the new Maxwell St. outpost of Perry's Deli are just as gigantor and delicious as those at the original. [Chicago Food Whores]

• The new dinner at Tweet is "mos def for a select krew of supper club sluts." This is a good thing. [Chicago Gluttons]

• The falafel sandwich at Kitsch'n River North: Quite possibly one of the best in town. [Chicagonista]

• The service is even better than the food at Big Jones, and that's saying something. [Chicago MetBlogs]

• Feast won't knock your socks off, but with its "glorious" patio it's a solid choice for brunch. [The Dirty Dish]

Did we miss something? If you wrote a review or read a review that you think should be included, let us know!

• At the Trib, Monica Eng takes a bite out of Theory, the new is-it-a-sports-bar? on Hubbard St, in the old Kevin space. It's good, if lacking direction.

• Adrie Reinders has a nice time at Perennial, where the pace is the good kind of lazy.

• Chuck Sudo at Chicagoist heartily recommends the Stilton Burger at the Goose Island Brew Pub, which is adorned with cloves of roasted garlic.

Did we miss something? If you wrote a review or read a review that you think should be included, let us know!

• Eating The World thinks the guacamole at Adobo Grill is the best part of the meal.

• Bridget and Tammy of Chicago Bites get a tour behind-the-scenes at Eli's Cheesecake Cafe. They also eat a lot of cheesecake.

• KingT raves about the fact that you can get fried shrimp 24 hours a day at Lawrence's Fisheries.

• Mike Doyle writes for Drive Thru on the Beijing Duck at Sun Wah Bar-B-Q...

• ...and also files a report on Marc Burger in the Macy's food court.

• Ira at Being Totally Sweet in Chicago avails himself of the totally sweet deal burger deal at Custom House — $5 for the month of January.

• A series of circumstantial events led Mike Nagrant to fRedhots and Fries in Glenview, where he tries The Debris: A sandwich made from what's left over after you've served all the Italian beef. Drool.

Did we miss something? If you wrote a review or read a review that you think should be included, let us know!

• Chicago Restaurant Daily heartily recommends the offerings at Vinnies Sub Shop.

• The Trib's Monica Eng tries out the new all-natural pizza at Pizza Hut, which clocks in as unexceptional pizza liked by teenagers. Sounds like... Pizza Hut.

• Mike Nagrant goes for the shrimp-wrapped-in-beef at Hai Yen, a perfect winter treat.

• Mike Sula at The Reader cannot control himself when it comes to the peanut butter sauce at Trader Vic's. It's irresistible!

Did we miss something? If you wrote a review or read a review that you think should be included, let us know!

• The Chicago Burger Project double-hits: appetizer mini-burgers at Tavish (free shots!) and the main course at Five Guys (yum).

• Chicago Foodies goes north, young man, to Lincolnwood's Kow Kow.

• Bridget and Tammy of Chicago Bites go for the superlatives when it comes to Dixie Kitchen & Bait Shop.

• D-Tam (get it? It's a "J-Lo" thing, like six years too late) is a fan of the man doo jeon gol at Korean Seoulfood Cafe, which is served in a gallon-sized bowl.

• Art and Chelsea at Pleasant House (a new one on the radar!) recommend a hearty (and beer-laden) breakfasty brunch at Fado Irish Pub.

• Cake & Commerce gets stuffed at 90 Miles Cuban Cafe, where the sandwiches are yum and the ham is plentiful.

Did we miss something? If you wrote a review or read a review that you think should be included, let us know!

• DC at Toast With Mayo is at a loss to describe his Saturday night dinner at Alinea. He begins with a meditation on the nature of art, and ends with articulation failure. Somewhere in the middle of all that is a Black Truffle Explosion, which is one of the best things he's eaten in his life.

• Mike Gebert of SFoB is disappointed by the tacos at the Bridgeview Arturo's.

• NBC Street Team takes a peek into the kitchen of one sixtyblue, where new chef Michael McDonald is pulling an Obama and going for change.

• Bridget and Tammy of Chicago Bites also visit One SixtyBlue, but aren't entirely sold on it.

• KingT dives into the cheap eats at Ghareeb Nawaz, where almost nothing on the menu runs higher than $8.

• Consumatron bites into some gala apples from Trader Joe's. Not technically a restaurant, fine, but I'm going to allow it.

Did we miss something? If you wrote a review or read a review that you think should be included, let us know!

• TastyBeat has a delicious lunch at The Artisan Cellar in the Merchandise Mart.

• Chicago Gluttons splurge on an "endorphin-firing" dinner at Spiaggia. (They also throw an inscrutable George Forman shout out to yours truly. We'll take it as a compliment!)

• ElizaBites drives up to Milwaukee for one of the famous butter-drenched burgers at Solly's.

Did we miss something? If you wrote a review or read a review that you think should be included, let us know!

You might have noticed something fancy directly above the words you are currently reading. That, folks, is the official Review Revue banner, and we are just beside ourselves with delight over it. It was designed for us by the eminently talented Marc Alan Fishman, graphic designer and one-third of the team behind deeply awesome Chicago graphic novel The March. Ain't he grand?

• Epicurista avails herself of the Tour of Spain tasting menu at Carnivale, where the savories are so good that she skips dessert.

• Being Totally Sweet in Chicago (who, it's worth noting, also have a fancy new logo courtesy of Mr. Fishman) motorcycles up to Devon Ave, for a decadent buffet lunch at Sher-A-Punjab.

• Rob at VI works the room at Freddy's Pizza, hauling a mountain of grub for under $14. The man needs to teach us his comping secrets.

• Consumatron belatedly posts on the appetizer from his meal at Karyn's Cooked, which is just as bleh as the entree was.

• Chuck Sudo takes on the chicken-fried bacon at Wiener and Still Champion in Evanston, which blow the more press-savvy fried bacon strips from Risqué Cafe out of the water.

• Sky Full of Bacon encounters a little breakfast-time hostility at Shokolad. Or maybe that's just the post-Soviet ethos talking.

• Folks can say what they like about Mike Nagrant, but never let it be said that he can't write: His writeup for Serious Eats on New York Bagel and Bialy is pure brilliance.

• Decider swings by the Rock n Roll McDonalds as part of their Tourist Trap series — they find an overpriced, underwhelming swath of empty space. Leave it to the tourists.

The triumphant return of Review Revue!

• Kiplog went to Hopleaf!

• Les Dames de Chicago Bites are torn about Rustik: warming food, but pricey!

• ElizaBites is addicted to the rice pudding at Mado!

• Tweating Out finds that the curries far outshine the sushi at Indie Cafe Sushi & Thai!

• It's "culinary Russian roulette" for the Tweating Outers at Pho Xe Tang (Tank Noodles)!

• Marilyn of Chicago Gluttons "aikido[s] the shit out of" the all-you-can-eat crab legs at Glenn's Diner! (This is a good thing.)

• Monica Eng tries the new McLatte — they get it right on the second try!

Did we miss something? Let us know about blogs, reviews, and writeups that should be on the Review Revue radar.

In the words of French Britney Spears, bon weekend, y'all!

• Elizabites "finally" Hot Doug's, where everything completely lives up to her expectations.

• Consumatron is forced to contend with some seriously overcooked duck in his noodle soup at Cafe Hoang.

• Alan Lake delivers another of his poetic, thoughtful reviews for Drive Thru. This time it's the life-changingly delicious Katy's Dumpling House, in Westmont.

• Chuck Sudo checks out the special three-course meal at Chicago Firehouse, part of OpenTable's Appetite Stimulus Plan. The selection for the special deal is limited (soup or salad, chicken or pork), but food's delicious.

• Not technically a review! But! Kaitlin Olson at Drive Thru takes us into the inner workings of Hotdish! Something with which we are obsessed!

• No Olives is back, and she's blown away by the offerings from Mixteco Grill, the "new Frontera."

• Not really a review, per se, but we like typing out Being Totally Sweet In Chicago's blog name, and they compiled a list of the most effusive hot dog stand commentary from MP's mortal rival, Yelp.

• D.C. Crenshaw for NBC5 has totally fallen for the spicy charms of Veerasway.

• Over at Serious Eats, Dan Zemans has the dirt on the slices at Obama's favorite Chicago pizzeria: the Italian Fiesta Pizzeria on East 47th.

• BOTBDC (seriously, Laura, your blog needs an easier-to-type handle) has dinner at graham elliot. The food is delicious, the review... could use an editor.

Review Revue, first names only edition!

• Steve and Lisa surprise themselves with how much they like their dinner at mk.

• Arnold learns that the food at Uncommon Ground is as good, if not better, than the restaurant's rooftop garden.

• Trine defends suburban dining, citing newly-opened Brie in Oak Park as a prime example of downtown quality in an area with solid school districts.

• Hungry Z (not really a first name involved here) gets nourished at Hillside's Priscilla's, solid soul food for the weary.

• Consu (can that be his first name?) has some kickass crab rangoon at Cafe Hoang, an incongruously Vietnamese restaurant in the middle of Chinatown.

• Renee gets full at newbie Jolane's, in Glenview — Austro-Hungarian comfort food like crisp-roasted chicken will do that to a girl.

• We were wondering how long it would take Cheeseburger Bureau Chief Kevin Pang to file his writeup of the newly opened Five Guys. The sacrilegeous-only-in-Chicago hot dogs ("An all-beef Hebrew National dog, split in half and seared a crispy exterior, is topped with brittle-crunchy bacon and sliced Kraft American singles") easily outflanks the meh burger.

• Shop girl wants to go to Topolobampo, but the infinite wait for a table drives her into the nearby arms of Mambo Grill instead.

• Arnold at Inuyaki shares our endless love for Korean fried chicken, and proves it at Crisp.

• Red in The City has a solid, if not spectacular meal at Friendship Chinese Restaurant — accompanied by a nice bottle of $11 BYO sparkling red.

• Eating The World gives in to the allure of Taste of Lebanon. The lentil soup lives up to its promise, the shawarma is dry, the hummus is awesome, and the pita is crappy.

• Apparently it's National Vegan Month? Chicagoist celebrates by having lunch at Amitabul.

• The Chicago Bites ladies (and special guest Emily of CDE!) check out the deal at Mexique, to raves all around.

• David Tamarkin writes not for TOC today, but rather for Gourmet.com. What else is there to write about these days but The Publican, anyway? Specifically, here, the chicken: crispy, juicy, ideal.

• Chicagoist's Anthony Todd discovers that it's not all vegetarian food at Green Zebra — it's also vegetarian cocktails! He shares the recipe for The Bee's Knees: gin, honey, and awesomeness.

• Tastybeat profiles the brunch at Over Easy, painting it as the kind of cheery, chirpy sort of weekend spot that we either love or loathe, hangover-dependent.

A much-belated Review Revue, encompassing the past couple of days! Wahoo!

• Alan Lake for Drive Thru really doesn't likeEve, and he should know — he's a chef.

• KingT goes in for the dry-aged burger at David Burke's Primehouse, which is worth it when it's on special for $5, not so much when full-priced at $15.

• Stacy at Chicago Foodies fails to understand why the menus at BRAVO! Cucina Italiana in Evanston advertise that they use Barilla pasta. That shiz is available at a Jewel-Osco new you — why pay for it at a restaurant?

• Mike Gebert continues his quest to find underreported culinary gems over at Sky Full of Bacon with a taco twofer: Taqueria LP Express and Kiki D's. Good at the former, good (but existentially questioned) at the latter.

• Consumatron had a muffin, and that muffin was from LavAzza, and that muffin was a failure.

• Nagrant never sleeps; instead, he waxes nostalgic for Serious Eats about his Detroit childhood while visiting Steve's Deli for some Vernors.

• Tweating Out is out to destroy us, with seven reviews from just today. One: Decent meal to be had at Thai Urban Kitchen.

Two: Eleven City Diner is worth the trip for some solid comfort food.

Three: Berry Chill is delicious.

Four: Hipster barbecue at Fat Willy's Rib Shack. Better than it sounds.

Five: Hamburger Mary's is "A TGIFridays for the LGTB crowd." That is cracking us up.

Six: Unpretentious, alcoholic brunch at Caffe de Luca.

Seven: Your mind will be freaking blown by the food at Huaraches Dona Chio, which will make everything else you have ever eaten taste like crap in comparison.

• Heather Shouse at TOC kicks off a weekly feature on high-value, low-cost meal deals at various joints around town. The inaugural cheapo dinner is the $20 prix fixe found at Fonda del Mar on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights. It involves pork shoulder.

• One of the millions of members of the NBC5 Street Team gets the tasting menu at Wrigleyville's Angelina Ristorante, loves it deeply.

• The @tweatout team is trying to kill us. That is the only excuse for three reviews in one day. ONE: lunch at Bourgeois Pig "does not suck despite being featured on Rachael Ray." That is actually a supremely helpful caveat to be aware of.

• TWO: Weaksauce at Hackney's Printers' Row. (What, no "hackneyed attempt" puns? We're disappointed.)

• THREE: a "cluster$@#% of a pizza" at Antica. That's a bad thing. Stay away.

• KingT asks the age old question: what the heck is Philly's Best? A fitting question, considering some baseball thing apparently just happened. Philly's Best turns out to be a place to get philly cheese steaks. Good ones. Really good ones.

• The Ludicrously Prolific One files on the falafel at Oasis Cafe for the folks at Serious Eats. We learn much about Mr. Nagrant: his best friend is named Aamir, and he would prefer roast meat on a spit to diamonds. (Hey Mike: you can exchange diamonds for goods and services! Which include roasted meat, and the act of roasting meat!) Verdict: Terrific falafel.

• The Financial Times (yes, the salmon-colored UK newspaper) starts off their review of L2O with a bit of a smack: "The restaurant's name sounds so awful it must be defended." But they go on to enjoy the majority of the dishes, though some are so subtle as to be boring, and some of the more ambitious kitchen chemistry experiments — airs, foams, and the like — fail to justify their existence. On the whole, the review reads like a calculated deflation of hype.

• Chicago Business News briskly profiles South Loop pioneer Gioco, whose regional Italian menu delivers a solid business lunch.

• Unknown City really really likes the atmosphere and the service at 90 Miles Cuban Cafe, doesn't have much to say about the food.

• Chuck Sudo at Chicagoist visually prepares would-be diners at Philly's Best and Ramova Grill, where signage is a way of life.

• Rob at Vital Information has yet another Family Dinner at Mado, philosophizes on how all the elements of a meal contribute to the whole, and eats a hell of a lot of roasted celery root and sauteed mustard greens.

• Epicurista takes her teal high heels down to Kohan for some Korean-inflected Japanese (or is it the other way 'round?) — it's good, not spectacular, but good.

• Daniel Zemans, locally of Chicago Pizza Club and nationally of Serious Eats, files for the latter on the pies of Gino's East. He's committed to their deep-dish — on the matter of thin-crust "I've never had it," he says, "and doubt I ever will."

• Elizabites goes to the Peninsula for the drinks (cushy chairs, nice nut mix) but stays for the $33 all-you-can-handle dessert spread, complete with live jazz quartet, on weekend nights. Crème brûlée in spoons!

• Matt B at Chicago Traveler proclaims the ten best pizzas of 2008. The winner? Aurelio's Pizza, which — look, we'll be honest here. We hate Aurelio's. We realize a lot of people really deeply love it, but for a while we lived literally down the street from the original location, and we cannot shake the feeling that their sausage pizza smells like newborn babies. THIS IS NOT A METAPHOR. This is actually what it smells like to us. But then, we are moderately off our rocker. Also: It's only October! Are we sure we're ready to close the book on the year, Matt?

• ChuckEats hands over a thorough writeup of L2O, complete with footnotes. The 12-course tasting menu fell short of his expectations (the seafood isn't up to par of places like New York's Masa, for one) but he's planning to return.

• Newbie blog Tweating Out delivers reviews in 140 characters or less. Today, they weigh in on Apart Pizza. Verdict: thumbs up. (Chars here: 138.)

• Chris Borelli files a first-look on the newly-opened Province. Besides yet another clarification that the restaurant's name is not "Provence," as in the French region, it's a charming piece of work — the restaurant is airy, the food is delicious, the service is chipper. Borrelli can't wait to go back.

• Zagat issues a proclamation of their favorite coffee shops and delis. Kind of an eclectic selection here — unimpeachable great Manny's is side by side with yupster brunch spot Orange.

• Robin Nisi Gemma Petrie at Drive Thru gets a drink at the brand-new Logan Square bar The Whistler, where she gets sozzled on fancy drinks at a very un-fancy $8 price point. Rosemary Gin & Tonics, Hibiscus Sour, and Sazeracs? If we knew how to type a whistle, we'd do that right here.

• Chuck Sudo of Chicagoist chows down at Epic Burger, gets in his digs at the fixed-gear vegans (heh), and finds nothing worth complaining about when it comes to beef on a bun with horseradish havarti.

• Matt B of the Chicago Traveler heartily endorses the literature-themed sandwiches at DePaul hangout Bourgeois Pig. Care for a bite of our Great Gatsby? It's delicious, if ultimately tragic.

The number of blog reviews that we face each week has grown. Like, hugely. Like, what used to be five to ten is now thirty to fifty, sometimes nearing a hundred, and even the edited version that we give to you every week is so long that people go out of their way to email us about how freaking annoying it is to slog through, and that makes us feel bad because seriously, people, we are just trying to do our job here.

So this week, we'll be experimenting with a daily roundup of the blog reviews that show up on our radar. This post will be the last of the previous-seven-days lists, so slog through it with a bittersweet smile on your face, humming some kind of end-of-an-era song (we are partial to Vitamin C's Graduation (Friends Forever)).

As always, if you know of a Chicago restaurant blog that you don't think we're reading, let us know. And if you write a blog that isn't necessarily food-related, but you review something anyway, let us know about that, too.

• Chuck Sudo of Chicagoist actually submits to the call of Risque Cafe's country-fried bacon. So far as we know, he has not died of a coronary. Yet.

• One of the millions of NBC5 Street Team bloggers treks out to Kanye's Fatburger out in Orland. We're inclined to discount this review because all parties involved ordered turkeyburgers. Which are not real burgers.

• It's all donuts and apple pie, all the time at Edwards Apple Orchard, near Rockford. Robyn Nisi at Drive Thru makes our mouths water at the thought.

• The indefatigable Matt B of Chicago Traveler hits up Skewerz. Yucca fries with banana ketchup, people.

• The Chicago Burger Project files a report on Hopleaf, despite not ordering or consuming any actual burgers. Scandal? Scandal!

• Mike Nagrant visits Real Tenochtitlan on Serious Eats' dime, uses gnawed-at bones as a vehicle for sopping up the mole. It's that good.

• Hungry Mag presents the newly-opened Steve's Deli in bullet form: YES The corned beef is cut against the grain, NO it will never replace Manny's.

• Bridget and Tammy of Chicago Bites go canine at Hot Doug's, where the duck fat fries entirely fail to make up for the ridonk line.

• Chicago Gluttons calls us out on our totally failed attempts at predicting an opening date for The Publican, but their review more than makes up for it: "Neat, loud as hell, elegant at times, moderate bling, and def all business." Pictures are droolworthy.

• Battle of the under-the-radar burgers: Mike Gebert goes to Western Springs for the off-menu, Friday-night-only burger at Vie, while KingT reveals that his favorite meat-on-a-bun comes courtesy That's-A-Burger, down South Shore way.

• And last but most certainly not least, Chuck Sudo was at last night's Mulefoot dinner, and his pictures do a whole hell of a lot of talking.

[Photo: Head cheese ravioli from the Blackfoot dinner, via Chicagoist]

We cleared our internet cache this morning for various inscrutable reasons, so when it came time to see what the ol' Sun-Times is up to today we actually had to go to their home page and do a search for "Pat Bruno" (since, ahem, the reviews are not easy to get to from the main page, SUN-TIMES WEB DESIGNERS ARE YOU LISTENING?). Here is the first thing that comes up when you search for Pat Bruno:

Pat Bruno has been the restaurant critic for the Sun-Times for 22 years. His column appears every Friday in the Weekend section of the paper. Pat has written five cookbooks (under his given name, Pasquale Bruno), and during his college years worked as a waiter and a line cook.

In addition to being into dining up to his ears, Pat designs housewares products. In 1973 Pat invented and brought to market the first baking stone. Other housewares designs of Pat's include a pocket wine computer, garlic press, pasta fork, olive oil decanter and chopping boards.

• Now that we know that Pasquale Bruno has written a number of cookbooks about Italian food, we understand (if not forgive) the preponderance of Italian restaurants he visits in the course of his reviewing career. This week, he's at Osteria Via Stato, which he visited a few years ago and hated (Pasquale does not like communal dining). Now that Osteria has relaxed their seating policy and he doesn't have to share a table with unknown persons, however, he's ready to love them. Interestingly, while he notes that diners are no longer required to order the prix-fixe "Italian DInner Party" in the main dining room as a "significant change" since his last visit, he goes ahead and orders it anyway. Way to shake things up, Pasquale! He has a feast of five antipasti, two pastas, two entrees, and pays a little extra for dessert. It is extremely evident throughout this entire review that he visited on one evening, with one companion. Grr.

• Phrases from Bruno's review of John's Place that make us scrunch up our nose a little: "the chicken rides on a bed of spaghetti," "I set the bar pretty high for a fish taco." For the record, the chicken in the chopped salad is also riding on a bed of something, and the phrasing still makes us uncomfortable the second time around. Bruno sneers a little bit at the mom-and-stroller crowd that populates John's Place, and goes looking for meat on a salad-heavy menu. Maybe this just isn't his scene, hm? The man sets the bar high for a fish taco, after all.

We like to see what's going on at other user-generated review sites, just to get a taste of the competition. And, um, we were blown out of the water by one particular review from FoodieView on high-in-the-sky fine dining venue Everest, which proves our theory that MenuPages attracts only the highest-quality reviewers. This gem is 575 words, and it is all one sentence. Ready for this? Okay, go:

First of all I got there aerly because I was with my wife getting around the city and I wasnt dressed formal (that you requiere to do so), when I arrived they told me there was no problem and let me in, first I received a call on my cellular phone and the waiter told me to please take the call at the entrance so I wouldnt bother any other persons (I thought it was a bit rude but ok), after I returned from my call my wife had asked for a foie gras and the waiter told her that she couldnt order one plate before the others that everything must be ordered in advance, I thought it was a bit odd but still we ordered everything and so I would not get in more trouble sice I was getting a bit mad I asked beforehand for the dessert wich was a grand marnier souffle, the waiter told me that wasnt neccesary because the souffle was made in 15 minutes but I still told him that I wanted to order it before so we woudnt have to deal with it afterwards, also in the menu there was caviar, my wife and me only like beluga so we asked the waiter if it was beluga and he told me that beluga caviar was prohibited en the us (lol!!!), we asked for a bottle of wine, and ask the waiter to bring the entrees first and then the main dish he told us that it wqasnt the way it worked and he told us he would arrange a lovely (what ever he meant?) arangement I told him to do as he pleases, I didnt want anymore trouble, we had dinner wich was very so so and then: the desserts arrived and the waiter gave the dessert menu to my wife, we got the souffle I asked beforehand and my wife wanted another souffle the chocolate souffle, but the waiter once more tolds NO, that is when I really got out of myself and asked him the reason to answering that to my wife he told me that we had already asked for one souffle and that we should choose another (as if!!!), I told him that I didnt agree and I ordered him to bring it to my wife and I also wanted a digestive he told me NO once again because I had a glass of wine and a whysky on the table and if I crashed maybe he could get in trouble by then I was really mad I asked what his problem was and he answered that I was being beligerant with him and that I was treating him like a servant his name was troy I got amazed at how low ego this person had after that disscussion he brought me my licour and I asked him not to bring the souffle no more (my wife was really upset and wasnt in th mood for more) we paid him 15% tip so that he coud rest, I got out very mad I went to my hotel (ritz carlton chicago) and ask for the concierge to help me out with my experience after two days of looking for the general manager (chris) he told me the same as the waiter instead of making an apology (unbelivable), I have never been treated like that it is nothing I have lived before so DO NOT GO!!"

Everest Restaurant [FoodieView]
Everest [MenuPages]
Everest [Official Site]

[Photo of the actual Everest via]

Not too much today from those crazy kids at TOC. They must be working overtime on their much-ballyhooed Sex Issue (have you taken the sex survey yet? You get bonus points if your most memorable sexual experience involves food. You get double bonus points if you send David Tamarkin a picture directly.) (We made that last part up).

• Bianca Jarvis wins the award for Best Headline Pun 2008 with "Umami Dearest," a breakdown of authentic Japanese food — you know, the stuff that leaves California rolls and spicy tuna lying in the dust. Most of the restaurants on her list are in the 'burbs, but Lincoln Park's Itto Sushi gets the nod for best raw fish, while Sunshine Cafe on Clark St. serves up delicious homestyle Japanese without a sushi roll in sight. Other highlights include shabu-shabu at Chiyo and dessert at Mitsuwa market, which for the record is this blog's absolute all-time favorite grocery store.

• On the restaurant review front, everyone's gone Caribbean Crazy! David Tamarkin starts us off with a hike up to Evanston, where he finds a sultry atmosphere and fiery jerk chicken at Jamaica Jamaica (1512 Sherman Ave, Evanston, 847 328 1000). Martha Bayne checks in at the new Cafe con Leche, whose Cuban-centric menu branches out into Mexican and other pan-Latin flavors — dinner goes okay, but brunch is less than stellar. And to wrap things up, it's a report from Heather Shouse, fresh off her cubano sandwich countdown, sampling the menu at 90 Miles Cuban Cafe: guava-cream-cheese pastelitos, bracing espresso, pressed sandwiches, and hearty stewed dinners like ropa vieja all combine to create an entirely authentic Cuban culinary experience.

[Sashimi platter at Itto Sushi via taekwonweirdo's Flickr]

Another week, another lack of an online Phil Vettel review. It's a rare day that we pick up the paper paper, preferring instead to never leave the warm embrace of our monitor and ergo-chair, so we've actually got no clue if there's a center-ring Tribune restaurant review that's accessible to anyone less lazy than we are, or if this is like last week, when Vettel's review didn't go online until approximately ten billion P.M., and so we didn't get to levy our magisterial judgment until the next day.

Nevertheless, there is plenty to be had. Have we mentioned that we're in a recession period of economic downturn? Oh, yeah, maybe like four or nineteen thousand times. The team behind the Tribune's dining section has teamed up to reconcile your plummeting net worth with your desire to be well-fed, and rattles off a number of ways to get high-end carryout under $30. For this, we applaud them.

• Monica Eng takes her $30 for carryout and spends it on octopus and stracci at Cafe Spiaggia. See how the name of the restaurant right there is a link to the MenuPages listing for the restaurant? PEOPLE: MONICA ENG HAS BEEN TO THAT WEBPAGE. That's right, there's a nice little MP:C shoutout in her article. Click fast, while the glitter of her visit lingers on the URL.

• We're still basking in the glow from the M.Eng mention, so we are not even the tidgiest bit irked by the fact that her $30-and-under venture is the only one to merit its own unique page on the Trib's site. The rest of the crew are grouped up around a photogallery with an intro by Trine Tsouderos, and while Eng is #1 (in our hearts, too), the others are also solid: 2) Vettel at Carlucci in Downer's Grove; 3) Eng again, at Old Town Brasserie for some salad, pate, and pickles; 4) Tsouderos at Scoozi with two types of pasta; 5) Chris Borrelli downs whole wheat pasta with duck at Sepia; 6) Tsouderos orders the ludicrous (but delicious!) duck and foie gras flan at Shikago ; 7) Borelli's in Winnetka, at Restaurant Michael, for Australian Lamb two ways. Basically this entire conceit is a giant MenuPages promotion, because the entire purpose of the restaurant we write for is to enable you to do precisely what these intrepid reporters are doing. We feel very fulfilled, right about now.

• And a couple more under-$30 ideas: Chris Borelli gives a shout out to Real Tenochtitlan, and Trine Tsouderos has love in her heart for the black pepper garlic beef tenderloin at Double Li.

• A real review! Ms. Eng, again, on the Cheap Eats beat, this time heading to Skokie for some hard-hitting southeast Asian at Tub Tim Thai (4927 Oakton St., Skokie, 847 675 8424). The restaurant clocks in at a highly respectable 3 forks, based on the combined strengths of their American-Thai mainstays (green papaya salad, fried calamari with sweet chili sauce) and less predictable offerings (like meang kum, which involves chapoo leaves, peanuts, dried shrimp, toasted coconut, ginger, lime and shallot).

• Et enfin, Chris Borrelli files a book report on the Edible Series, from U of C press, each of whose three volumes follows the history and lore of an iconic food: pizza, hamburger, and pancake. The books are tied in academic research into the history of each dish, but read like sizzling memoir — Borrelli really seems to like them. Also, fun fact, he owns a cat. (Adding that one to the Borrelli file...)

[Photo: this bacon/peach/blue cheese flatbread from Sepia can be yours, at home! via Tammy Green, all rights reserved]

Last week, ludicrously proficient writer-about-town Mike Nagrant gave us a first look at The Bristol, and — in the midst of top-notch service and disappointing cocktails — he noted somewhat quizzically that the quail-egg raviolo on the menu bore an eerie similarity to the dish that Schwa is known for.

Well he's back with his full review, and it's not very pretty: Nagrant essentially accuses the team behind The Bristol of delivering the bastard child of the aforementioned Schwa and organ-meat frontliner Mado — a commingling of genes that could turn out gorgeous, but to Nagrant just feels overwhelmingly derivative.

Of course, if you can make it through eight paragraphs of (largely unfavorable) compare/contrast with other Chicago restuarants, you're rewarded with the revelation of two saving graces: Impeccable service, and an off-menu concoction of liver, heart, and kidney that ranked as one of Nagrant's best dishes of the year.

But if we were one of the Bristol team, our vision would have clouded over (tears? red haze? both?) by, say, paragraph five — you know, the one that contains the sentence "The pork belly at the Bristol features a chewy rind and dry meat girded by a greasy country-fried pork loin and a limp spaghetti squash cake." Here's hoping they fought through to the light at the end of the review-tunnel.

Breaking Down The Bristol [Hungry Mag]
The Bristol [MenuPages]
The Bristol [Official Site]

Phil Vettel, where have you been all our life?

Or, perhaps more accurately, where have you been all our yesterday? Because seriously, honestly, your four-star rave for Avenues most certainly was not on the Tribune's website Thursday morning. Or afternoon. Or at all.

To read this review properly, we need to approach it with a little bit of a sense of context. Friends, Chicagoans, blog-readers — lend us your ears, and read what happens when we write a review-review before we've even had our coffee.

This isn't the first time Vettel's reviewed Avenues, of course. Up until fairly recently its kitchen was helmed by former wunderkind Graham Elliot Bowles (who, now that he's past thirty, is just a wunder), and back in 2005 Vettel saw to it that the formerly three-and-a-half star restaurant was elevated to four, largely carried by Bowles' irreverent, flavor-driven, class-busters approach to ingredient sourcing (pop rocks on foie gras, lamb-and-mint beefed up with crushed Altoids).

But this past January, Bowles left in order to put his own name over the door elsewhere, and now the kitchen at Avenues belongs to Curtis Duffy, another young gun (he's just a year older than Bowles) whose formidable skills have been well documented during turns as chef de cuisine at Alinea and, before that, a pastry chef at Evanston's seminal Trio.

Okay. Now you know what you need to know.

There are two questions that run through Vettel's new review of Avenues. One: Has Curtis Duffy proven himself? And two: Considering our tanking economy, does the mega-high-end experience at Avenues justify itself?

Vettel's answers to both questions is an easy yes: Duffy's food takes center stage here, there's no compare-and-contrast with Bowles' very different take on dinner. Instead, Vettel outlines Duffy's plan of attack over the multi-course meal: wow 'em early on (meyer lemon gel filled with liquid brioche as the vehicle for the classic caviar service), and segue into the talent portion of the evening, with top-notch ingredients prepared in straightforward ways that highlight their flavors ("straightforward" here referring to things like parrot fish with a cocoa emulsion and braised pistachios, or a risotto of japanese barley, manchego, and gelled red wine).

As for the question of economy, Vettel makes a case for the necessity of extravagance during lean times. And here we begin to feel like Avenues is getting the short end of the stick: The tasting menu here is on par, cost-wise, with those at comparable institutions like Alinea and L2O, and those restaurants didn't get the same kind of self-conscious price justification in their Trib reviews — because when they were being reviewed, the fiscal longview wasn't in the shitter. Unfortunately, this accident of economic fate does make an editorial review of such a high-priced meal require justification, and the narrative conceit of "Justify This Meal!" that pervades Vettel's review serves as a subtle tint, painting Avenues as a much less accessible destination for John Q. Dinnereater than its peers. But that just isn't true — if anything, in our opinion, Avenues is a much less intimidating venue than many of the city's other high culinary temples. Still, it's a subtle slight, and one we'd guess is unintended, so Vettel: no harm no foul.

One final note, economy-wise: When we went back and checked out Vettel's 2005 Avenues review, we noticed that the price for the most ambitious of the tasting menus (15 courses) has gone up only two dollars, from $138 to $140. Which by our calculations might make this one of the best deals in town.

[Photo: Puffed tapioca, Curtis Duffy's offering at Chicago Gourmet, courtesy Tammy Green. All rights reserved.]

• Oh cookbook roundups, we love you. You are our favorite kind of roundup. David Tamarkin makes good with a listing of some recipe receptacles that we can expect this fall. This autumn, in particular, is dominated by three really big deal books: Alinea, of course, as well as the behemothic The Complete Robuchon (which rounds up every published recipe from international superchef Joel Robuchon) and the uber-behemothic The Big Fat Duck Cookbook from UK chef Heston Blumenthal, which weighs about eight pounds and costs $250. And that's just getting started.

• Here's a real head-scratcher: Tamarkin goes to Naperville to check out new restaurant Sugartoad (2139 City Gate Lane, in the Hotel Arista, Naperville, 630 778 8723), which is helmed by celeb chef Jimmy Sneed. The food is inventive and of generally high quality, but something's a little off. Like the part where the chef goes home for the night before Tamarkin is done with his meal. Wha? We're as baffled as he was. Still, the restaurant's good elements pull through enough to land it 3 stars (of 6).

• Heather Shouse also headed for the 'burbs this week, trying out Soul (1 Walker Ave, Clarendon Hills, 630 920 1999). Three weeks ago, the Trib handed it three stars (of four), and Shouse is riding a similar train with 4 of 6. The restaurant loses points presumably on the aggressively weird decor: Captain America, a blinged-out Zeus, and American Gothic all make appearances on the restaurant's wall. Good thing the food makes up for it: Chef Karen Nicolas and her sous, Wendy Carreira, are qualified out the wazoo, and their straightforward-except-perfect southern-inflected American showcase their talents phenomenally.

• Want to eat some smoke? Heather Shouse delivers three options for that quintessentially autumnal flavor: smoked-up bourbon and a soupçon of cigar smoke are the star players in Nacional 27's Extra Smoky Manhattan; at Cru Café & Winebar your Kurobuta pork-belly dish is accompanied by smoked pears; and leave it to Schwa to smoke cobia (a firm fish) and cow's milk cheese, and serve it all up in a jumble of ingredients and flavors that, despite their complexity, work out blissfully.

[Photo: Short-rib pot pie (omg we are dying) at Soul, via LTHForum]

• There's no review from Vettel this week, so to flesh out today's Tribune roundup we'll dip into The Stew for Chris Borrelli's First Bite take (blah blah, not a real review) on The Bristol. It's only been open for a few weeks, and while Borrelli is a little underwhelmed by the decor ("the overall impression is, sort of, um, how do I put this… the overall impression is brown. No, beige.") the food is an explosive success. The quirky, varied menu runs almost entirely perpendicular to expectations: instead of a BLT, it's an ELT (that's for "eel"), breakfast radish with whipped goat butter, even the much-discussed monkey bread all turn the quickly-becoming-staid notion of a gastropub on its ear. It is also quite intriguing to us that Borrelli posted this to The Stew at 3am, and yet it is remarkably devoid of both typos and beer-induced declarations of his love for us.

• Besides her somewhat gut-churning piece this morning on the city's health inspectors, Monica Eng is also curious about salted caramel. Namely, where can she get the best version of it? She hits up Starbucks (for their salted-caramel hot chocolate, which we have not yet mentioned to MP:Boston editor Leila, but which we are 100% sure will cause her to make a loud noise at her desk), Hub 51 (for some intensely flavorful butterscotch pudding with salted caramel sauce), and Hot Chocolate (for the chocolate tart served with salted caramel ice cream and pretzels). All are hits. Because salted caramel is scientifically impossible to make un-delicious. We'll prove it if you promise us a Nobel.

• Trine Tsouderos pays a visit to old favorite Kuma's Corner for the Cheap Eats column, and the venerable temple of burgers and death metal rates high praise: 3 (out of 4) forks, bogged down by some inconsistent service. Tsouderos quite brilliantly brought along her 81-year-old father in law, because Kuma's serves family-friendly death metal burgers.

• Tsouderos is also on the what the heck do marathoners eat beat, rounding up her friends to consume super-gross-sounding liquid-jellies and bars in the name of journalistic inquiry. We think the fact that she used highly competitive athletes as her sounding boards skewed the trial, though, because those people are insane and therefore we do not trust their palates.*

*Excepting Laurent Gras of L.2O, who apparently cycles hundreds of miles a week.

[Photo: The Iron Maiden burger at Kuma's, via sgt fun's Flickr]

We assure you, in fact, that our esteem for Nagrant's palate has little to nothing to do with the fact that he doesn't like the burgers at newcomer The Counter, and that in an entirely unrelated turn of events we have previously gone on record about our skepticism of the quality attainable by a burger restaurant that cannot even count their topping combinations correctly. In fact, he sums up our fundamental problem with Counter's menu much more succinctly than we did:

If I were writing my own burger manifesto, rule number one would be, “Burger joint menus should never make you feel like you’re taking a Cosmopolitan magazine ‘sexual experience’ quiz and leave you feeling inadequate.”

Burger Battle [Hungry Magazine]
The Counter [MenuPages]
The Counter [Official Site]
Epic Burger [MenuPages]
Epic Burger [Official Site]

[Photo: The fries at Counter passed Nagrant's muster. Via benyeh2's Flickr]

The Trib's Monica Eng files a first-bite (let it be noted: not a review) in The Stew today. The topic at hand? This season's quick-change act: new American/organic/"farm-centric" Farmerie 58, which a scant two weeks ago was Republic, a pan-Asian restaurant with the same owners and management.

With the exception of the sushi bar (salmon farms...?), the menu overhaul from the Republic days is complete: Eng samples a deconstructed salade lyonnaise (quail eggs over frisee over pork belly), a barley salad involving bacon vinaigrette and melted brie cheese, truffle fries, short-rib tartine, and tofu steak over edamame succotash. Mouthwatering, right? Unfortunately it all came out cold — temperature-wise, that is. And the attentive, knowledgeable service couldn't make up for the fact that, for a restaurant that calls itself "Farmerie," there's a notable absence of local farms ID'd on the menu.

Now our take on the matter: Farmerie 58 has been open barely a week, and various folks we've spoken to (and for what it's worth, they're the kinds of folks who would know) were nervous that the team involved would both meet their very ambitious October 1 opening date, and deliver a top-notch restaurant in one fell swoop. While management (and, um, publicity) has made it very clear that this is not a soft-open, we're inclined to consider it one. Merely as a matter of handing over the benefit of the doubt.

Farmerie 58 taps a hot idea, but food is cold [The Stew]
Farmerie 58 [MenuPages]
Farmerie 58 [Official Site]
Fall Preview Addition: Farmerie 58 [previously]

Yes, it is only Tuesday. And yes, we are about to talk about a Tribune Review. But (a) it's in Tempo/Q instead of Dining, and (b) author Kevin Pang is bylined as "Cheeseburger Bureau Chief," which — now that we have been anointed Special Guest Headcheese Taster — is next on our list of Titles To Acquire In Life.

Not to mention (c), the restaurant in question is Kanye's Fatburger (15110 S. La Grange Rd, Orland Park, 708 364 8380), which as Pang points out is "a consolation prize when it comes to Southern California fast food imports," but sure as hell better than nothing at all. Pang rates the burger high — but not too high. It ranks just under Culver's butterburger, but the beef is well-seasoned and freshly ground, and the toppings are good.

Incomprehensibly to us, the Trib's reviewer claims that the addition of bacon and a fried egg "were not worth the $1.98 investment," which means either that this was a burger whose perfection was so exquisite that adding bacon and a fried egg was like adding 1 to infinity, which is to say an infinitesimal drop in an unmeasurably large bucket, or somehow Fatburger managed to screw up the two easiest-to-make-delicious foods in the history of animal products, or perhaps Pang is sadly immune to the lure of bacon and a fried egg, in which case we question his Chiefhood of the Cheeseburger Bureau.

It's worth noting that yesterday, TOC could not confirm Kanye's involvement, but the Trib attributes the franchise to him. Pang also notes that while he was fishing out his wallet to pay the whopping $14.77 (for a kingburger, onion rings, and lemonade), Mr. West's "Golddigger" came on the store's music system. Which is enough confirmation for us, anyway.

What's the big deal about Fatburger? [Tribune]
Fatburger Comes Within Reach Of Chicago [previously]

• Pizza "truly is an art" at Chicago Traveler's review of The Art of Pizza. And the same day he's at it again, with a writeup of Gold Coast Dogs: a solid place to get a solid dog.

• Lots of moonlighting this week on the topic of Urban Belly: Mike Nagrant is bylined at Serious Eats, while David Tamarkin writes up the dumpling joint for Gourmet.com (after filing on it already for his home base, TOC).

• The Dolinskter originally wanted to get his bulgogi on at San Soo Gap Gan, but instead goes to Chicago Kalbi, where the crowds are sparser and the food is Korean by way of Japan.

• It's dinner at Alinea for the poor, undernourished Brian at Chicago Foodies. He acknowledges that the high-concept menu isn't for everyone, but it certainly is for him.

• The food is bangin' and the cocktails are slammin' for brunch at Cuatro. Or at least, so sayeth the NBC5 Street Team.

• Does Matt B ever stop? Still another Chicago Traveler review, this time he's at Veerasway, which helps him ease his nervous way into the flavors of Indian cuisine.

• Matt Doyle of Drive Thru is a die-hard meatatarian, but he still swoons over Chicago Diner's "Radical Reuben": a masterful seitan-based recreation of the classic deli sandwich.

• Chicago Gluttons continues their reign of Photoshop terror in a review of Habana Libre, as Fidel Castro sagely implores Darwensi, "You best finish that f***ing oxtail."

• Flora Lazar's favorite roast chicken isn't actually chicken at all: It's galletto (cornish hen), and it's from Riccardo Trattoria.

• We're actually not sure how Brian at Chicago Foodies could eat so soon after his Alinea meal, but he's back on the beat, reviewing Cyrano's Bistrot, where he's pretty sure his server was using a fake name.

• ChiBBQ King weighs in on the dog wars, casting a vote for Oak Park's Tasty Dog (708 Lake St, Oak Park, 708 383 2645).

• Want to spend an entire day in Wicker Park? Let the Decider be your guide: lunch at Uncle Mike's Place, dinner at OTOM, drinks at Bottom Lounge, and we bet you'll never guess what meal you should eat at Breakfast Club.

• Mlle Epicurista has dinner at Lockwood, in the Palmer House: "Did I like it? Is the chef any good? Is it worth the price? Yes. Yes. And, yes." Yes.

• Last, but certainly not least, it's dinner at Aria for Steve and Lisa from Focus on Food. Consensus: the food is good, but it "lacks a certain inspiration," and we've got a hung jury when it comes to the decor.

[Photo: Radical reuben at Chicago Diner by Tammy Green. All rights reserved.]

• Mike Sula's at Urban Belly. Like those who've gone before, he swoons for the dumplings — again, the lamb-and-brandy combination gets a particularly euphoric shout-out. But the adulation stops at the dumpling line: the rice bowls are "greasy," the noodle dishes have some high notes (the pork belly ramen is singled out) but most "exhaust the palate." The widely-panned soba/scallops in blue crab broth is "an unmitigated disaster."

• Early reviews of Duchamp noted an inconsistent kitchen, but Sula finds little to dislike besides some design decisions ("bar stools that resemble torture devices," and whatnot). The menu might rely a little heavily on Thomas Keller-esque quotation marks, but the "fish and chips" (fried skate with tartar sauce) holds up, as does the very of-the-moment dessert of mini chocolate cupcakes and mini ice cream sandwiches.

• Our favorite line from Reese Witherspoon career-highlight movie Sweet Home Alabama comes when she's back home in the titular state, is out for drinks with her old friends, and notices one has a curious accessory: "You have a baby!" she says. "...In a bar!" But per Reader critic Martha Bayne, that's more or less the scene at Old Oak Tap, where "every third patron seemed to be bouncing a baby between sips of Saison DuPont." The spruced-up bar menu (sriracha wings, crabmeat club sandwiches) aims high and lands middling, the beer list is eclectic but predictable. A solid turn on a predictable formula.

[photo: yet another Urban Belly photo, because neither Duchamp nor Old Oak Tavern is represented on Flickr. via]

• We can add some more information to our David Tamarkin file (what, you didn't think we had one?) as we learn that, as a child, his aspirations for the future included "something to do with street dancing and hosting a late-night talk show (at the same time, naturally)." This fact is actually relevant to his review of Tapas Las Ramblas, which is not so much his review as the review of Andrew, a 12-year-old aspiring restaurant critic who just got back from a trip to Spain. Mild jealousy of this preadolescent's travel itinerary aside, we can't fault his eerily jaded assessment: the food is good, not amazing, and it's perfect for “after you’ve had a drink and need a snack.”

• Widely beloved chef Mindy Segal, of widely beloved naked-lady-adorned restaurant Hot Chocolate sits in the Hot Seat, listing off her favorites. Kitchen gadget? Apple peeler. Inspiration? The city of Chicago. Restaurant? Urban Belly (already!).

• When it comes to sandwiches, we have to admit, we have never swooned over the Cubano. But that didn't stop Heather Shouse from counting down Chicago's top nine, from the mysteriously absent pickle on El Rinconcito Cubano's version, up through the mayo-heavy rendition at La Unica, all the way to the victor: newcomer Cafecito, whose "citrus-garlic-marinated, cumin-rubbed lechon asado" could plausibly make a convert of us yet.

Confidential to Tamarkin: When you list The Publican under "Just Opened," and then lede it with "If everything goes as planned, the new restaurant from the Blackbird team will open on Mon 6," you are LYING. Dirty dirty teasing lying. The only way you can make this up to us now is by doing some serious journalistically apologetic street dancing.

[photo: is this man David Tamarkin? via newfie bullet's Flickr]

Phil Vettel! We hope you got a bonus check this week because you have like nine billion bylines today. Or, okay, four, and two of them are really the same article, but still.

• Vettel #1: It was almost five months ago that Adam Peltz, our distinguished predecessor on this blog, reported on the opening of Marcus Samuelsson's C-House, noting that Vettel had gone for breakfast and written about it. And hey! Check this out! Today, at last, he finally files his real review. A lag that epic makes us raise a questioning eyebrow: As with many of the restaurants covered by multiple publications' reviewers, we notice here that Vettel's is far and away the most positive. And as with all those other restaurants, we're not sure if the tone has more to do with his sunny disposition, or with his tendency to file his reviews later than other media outlets, thus possibly giving the restaurant a chance to address weak spots pointed out by other critics. Or maybe everyone just knows exactly what Vettel looks like. But, if you'll pardon the pun, there's clearly something fishy going on: even Pat Bruno panned this place. But the restaurant is awarded 2 stars, with Phil's compliments to the chef: the only weak spot are some "not at their best" mussels, while nearly everything else merits a rave. Hmmm.

• Vettel #2: The dude went to Chicago Gourmet. His bulleted list of highs and lows: not enough chairs, shoddy music, unclear signage. Oh and all you people complaining there wasn't enough food? Phil thinks you're wrong — he managed to find plenty.

• Vettel #3: Sushi: Is it over? Phil gives us a list of 5 signs of the sushi apocalypse, including the use of chocolate sauce as a legitimate ingredient and a return to the fad of eating sushi off of naked people (they're already doing that in New York!).

• Vettel #4: Sushi: It's still awesome! Phil counterpoints himself with a roundup of Trib staffer's favorite rolls, including Chris Borelli's pick of the pickled mackerel roll at Katsu, a recommendation with which we heartily agree.

• Speaking of Chris Borrelli! He dons the Cheap Eats mantle to visit Duke's Alehouse and Kitchen in Crystal Lake (110 N. Main St., Crystal Lake, 815 356 9980). In a five-paragraph review, only the last (and shortest) two grafs deal with the food, and it's not all good: "gummy" polenta, underwhelming cupcake frosting, but "better" meatloaf. Chris falls for the pub's self-aware good humor and strong desire to rise above standard alehouse fare, awarding it two forks, which we'll read as an A for effort.

• Last but oh-so-certainly not least is Trine Tsouderos's listicle of three places to eat pork belly: the ramen at Urban Belly, the When Harry Met Sally (squid and pork belly together) at Korean Seoulfood Cafe, and the straight-up pork belly at Perennial. Of course in a perfect world the answer to the question "where can I score some awesome pork belly" would be "It is in all of us, my son." But this'll do for now.

[Photo: The pork belly ramen at Urban Belly, via food_in_mouth's Flickr]

• Maybe he's responding to Mike Nagrant's declaration earlier this week that he doesn't think Pat Bruno is a good reviewer, but Bruno is deviating from form yet again this week, levying an actual criticism of P.J. Clarke's!

  "as much as I enjoy some of the food ... I think it's time somebody took a hard look at the menu and made some changes; it's beginning to look just a little bit dated."

  But wait, un-stop the presses, 'cause he quickly reverts to the old Bruno we love and are exasperated by, entirely failing to elaborate on how, exactly, the menu of cheeseburgers, chili, and pasta with red sauce is any more dated here than it is at the dozens upon dozens of other Chicago restaurants with entirely identical inventory. Whatevs. He likes the food, and we learn almost nothing. Same old same old.
• Riddle me this: if Follia, which clocks in for Bruno's second review this week is so Italian that the dishes mentioned in the writeup are IN ITALIAN, then WHY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD is does the little info box next to the review read "Cuisine: American"? WHY IS THIS THE CASE? Anyway, Bruno is smitten by the pizza at this west loop joint, taken in by the pastas, and finds the desserts to be hit or miss — ultimately, the experience isn't bad for the price, but Bruno (weirdly) spends a lot of time dropping hints to the staff on how to make the food better (a side of broccoli rabe, a garnish of raspberry sauce, etc etc etc).
• Witom's back on his suburban beat (does he ever leave it?), at Cafe Havana (5 N. 105th St, Itasca, 630 773 8822), a recent open whose menu is still, per the manager, a work in progress. Witom's menu rundown has few surprises: pressed sandwiches, ropa vieja, black bean soup, bistec al cubana served with what sounds like chimichurri to us (WItom IDs it as "a special herb-infused olive oil dipping sauce"). Maybe our undies are still in a bunch from Tamarkin's Criticgate 2008, but this review is a freaking waste of space.

[Photo of P.J. Clarke's via yochicago's Flickr]

Not too long ago, we reported on the reportage surrounding restaurants knowingly (or perhaps unknowingly?) serving diners cheap types of fish rather than the pricey or rare varieties advertised on the menu. So we perked up at this MenuPages review that crossed our desktop the other day, from an anon reviewer to an anon restaurant:

I ate here with a group recently and was mortified when the Snapper Special turned out to be tilapia. I have always read about how some restaurants swap in a cheaper fish, but I never thought it would happen to me. Unfortunately, the snapper dish that is on the menu for 18.99 is the one they heavily promote on their website. I am a chef and know the difference when I am served a 2.99/lb fish in place of snapper. When I told the server, she said she would check with the kitchen - as if they would admit to doing something like that. It's unfortunate that they would try to take advantage of their customers. Stick to the pork items here.

[Photo of fresh red snapper via JordanH's Flickr]

• The Decider takes on virtually every one of Chicago's non-Sonic drive-ins, including MP personal favorites Mic Duck's Superdawg. [The Decider]

• The ladies of Chicago Bites head to Avec (in company of fellow podcaster Scott from Dinner Voyeur). Tammy thinks it feels like a cafeteria, but the food (especially the meat) knocks them all out of the park. [Chicago Bites]

• Head out to Schaumburg for some Greek food at Greek Village Taverna, where the waiters look like Telly Savalas! [Best Of The Best Dining Chicago]

• The Dolinskter delivers a cubano roundup, including a "way out of whack" rendition at newcomer 90 Miles Cuban Cafe. [CHuffPo]

• Mister Gebert visits Mado, and the restaurant endears itself to him on impact: well-priced, delicious food, with smart flavor composition. They even make liver palatable! [Sky Full of Bacon]

• The Chicago Traveler (did anyone ever notice his logo is reminiscent of Chicagoist's?) gives a writeup of Lakeview's Shochu: cocktails made from the namesake liquor don't disappoint, and there's satisfying Asian-inflected bar food. [Chicago Traveler]

• Here's a breakfast after our own hearts: Brie, spinach, and mushroom, in a panini, at Star Lounge Cafe. [Chicagoist]

• Mister Nagrant weighs in on More Cupcakes. Not the idea of having a lot, but the cupcake bakery by that name. [Hungry Mag]

• A present-tense review of Barnaby's in Des Plaines, where they're known for pizza but do a mean baby back ribs as well. [NBC5 Street Team]

• ChiBBQKing has so many meat/gyro/pork/ribs reviews up this week that we think you should just click over there and read them yourself. [ChiBBQKing]

[photo: it's a bird! it's a plane! it's a superdawg! via yummyinthetummyblog's Flickr]

Sometimes it feels like all we read about anymore is wine and Urban Belly. Don't get us wrong — there are worse fates — but when you're sitting at your computer all day and visions of lamb-brandy dumplings and bottles of pinot are swimming in front of your eyes, it can be a little overwhelming.

The Sun-Times hands us two journalistic confections from Mister Pat Bruno:
• Welcome to the Sun-Times fall dining preview! Have you heard about this place opening up soon called The Publican? Also a slew of other upcomings (and recently-openeds) that have already been covered to death on the blogs and in the other publications: More Cupcakes, The Bristol, Jackson Park B&G, and that as-yet-unnamed new place in Pilsen from the folks behind Lula.

• Our favorite thing about Bruno's review of Urban Belly? The URL basename: after a string of standard-issue tracking numbers, it's "brunobelly19," which we're now considering making our new AIM screen name. But seriously, folks, Bruno — like everyone else — is raving over Urban Belly, his particular favorite being the fourteenth item on the nineteen-item menu, noodles stir-fried with eggplant. Yum.

And from OSBMS (for new readers, that'd be Our Secret Boyfriend Mike Sula, who might actually be downgraded soon to make way for Christopher Borrelli, but that's another post for another time), over in the Reader, we get an interview with Tyler Colman, author of the intriguingly-titled Wine Politics: How Governments, Environmentalists, Mobsters, and Critics Influence the Wines We Drink. It turns out that the forces at work in getting a sip of wine from the vine to your mouth are far broader than just growers, distributors, and pushy wine-store clerks. Colman is in town for various signings and readings, check out Sula's Q&A for dates and times.

[Photo: a raspberry-topped cupcake from More]

• There's already buzz around David Tamarkin's takedown of localvorism (or however you spell it), which hinges on a logically consistent claim that a perfect exercise of locavorism results (ironically and myopically) in a scenario that is precisely opposite that which the locavore is intending to achieve. If you buy what Tamarkin is selling, but are now flailing about for some gastronomical tenets on which to hang your hat, he offers up some suggestions for responsible eating on the TOC blog. (P.S. In the course of reading the article and then writing this summary, we felt like a philosophy major all over again. Thanks, DT!)

• If you are locally (or at least farmers-marketally) minded, but also a fan of drinking? Have an Indian Summer: apple cider, maple syrup, cranberry liqueur, and rum. It's New England in a glass, but alcoholic. Which is to say, it's New England in a glass!

• Last but not least, Tamarkin makes good on his angry response to Steve Dolinsky, who committed the double sin of (a) lumping TOC in with the other unwashed blogging masses when he accused them of visiting places — specifically, Urban Belly — as soon as they opened, and (b) himself visiting Urban Belly on opening day. Per TOC's editorial review standards, Tamarkin held off on his visit for a couple of weeks after the restaurant's open, but winds up with the same conclusion Dolinsky did: Urban Belly makes a hell of a lot of rapturously delicious dishes.

[Photo: quesadilla al pastor from the Maxwell St. Market, via red vines' Flickr]

• The tasting menu at Terragusto gets highest praise, especially the steak: "The Rapture But With More Butter And The Slightest Hint of Nausea From Overeating." [Chicago Gluttons]

• Gebert continues his list of 50 under-the-radar spots with Umaiya Café, which clocks in a a good neighborhood pan-Asian, perhaps not worth going out of your way for. [Sky Full of Bacon]

• Mike Sula's veal is making faces at him at Sabatino's. [Food Chain]

• An eyebrow-raising review of Madame Tartine, wherein the reviewer dines with her French teacher and yet homophonically misspells "chic" like the Arab nobleman. Food gets the nod of approval, though. [NBC5 Street Team]

• The first overwhelmingly positive review for C-House that we've come across. [NBC5 Street Team]

• Two takes on Mana Food Bar: Drive Thru likes it but thinks it's pricey, Chicagoist pulls out all the stops and knocks it a rave: "just the kind of vegetarian restaurant Chicago needs," and "the food rocks." [Gapers Block, Chicagoist]

• Here's a puzzler: Pizzeria Calzone serves pizza, but not calzones. [Sky Full of Bacon]

• Great decor and service get a little undone by subpar sushi, but on the whole Rise, er, rises to the occasion. [Chicago Foodies]

• Another take on Urban Belly: complexity, layers, deliciousness. [Chicago Foodies]

• Add this to the hangover cure file: hamburger aktagawa at
Hamburger King: chopped hamburger, eggs, green pepper, onions, bean sprouts, and our reviewer suggests adding mushrooms. We're sold. [ChiBBQKing]

[Photo: a plate at Mana Food Bar, via Grant Kessler]

We sort of feel brain dead after doing that Gebert/Nagrant round up. Which just might be the perfect state in which to read the Sun-Times' dining reviews. Zing! Badum-chhhh! Heyo!

• Hold up! Stop the presses! Pat Bruno dislikes a restaurant! The perhaps lone institution in all of Chicagoland to earn his ire is 200 East Supper Club, the 20-month-old faux gentlemen's club on the Gold Coast. Bruno finds it baffling: an overlong menu that's short on originality and seriously short on quality. About the only plaudits he can bestow are on the "Melrose Peppers" (our brain keeps trying to see the "Melrose Place" pun in there, even though it is just the name of the variety) and the caesar salad — neither dishes feathers in most chef's toques. The bad, on the other hand, seems nearly endless: flavorless minestrone, overflavored brick-cooked chicken, factory-processed chocolate cake, and a linguine with clam sauce that Bruno declares "one of the worst I've ever had. The pasta was overcooked to the point of gummy. There was enough garlic to make the singer over in the corner start singing "Witchcraft." The clams (a few cherrystones in the shell and some chopped among the pasta) were insipid. The broth/sauce had no real flavor." Cringe.

• In his other filing this week, Bruno gives us kind of a head-scratcher. He starts out with this:

I have said it before, and I will say it again -- Star of Siam serves some of the best Thai food in Chicago and easily makes my Top 5 Thai restaurants in the city.

[Photo: Star of Siam's pad thai, at Taste of Chicago, via Zesmerelda's Flickr]

• Christopher Borrelli swings for a Pulitzer this week, hilariously and brilliantly bringing us the story of Alan Barrett, a.k.a. Mr. Breakfast. Barrett's goal is a simple one: to eat breakfast in a different Chicago restaurant every Saturday morning. He's been trying since 1999, and he's worried he's hit a wall. He's actually revisiting restaurants. Borrelli finds a sympathetic curmudgeon behind the epic quest: Barrett has a list of qualities a restaurant must possess to be acceptable, he is very picky about his silverware, he's reluctant to leave the north side, and he hates dim sum. We love this article so much we want to make out with it.

• If you haven't already been reading about it, in two weeks there's a big ol' festival in Grant Park called Chicago Gourmet. Even if you have been reading about it, Monica Eng has the scoop on what is, in many ways, the anti-Taste. $150 for a ticket, plus extra for seminars, and there's more sampling and demonstrations than you can shake a hand-harvested sprig of rosemary at.

• Phil Vettel opens his review of Perennial by admitting that, in fact, he has never eaten in the dining room. Rather, he talks us through time spent on the patio and at the bar. But the point, we think, is that the patio and the bar were both really really nice. The rest of it reads as really really nice, too — from the seasonal vegetable tart, to the "unusually meaty" pork belly, to the edamame-studded macaroni & cheese. Once again, Vettel's the last of the big reviewers to hit up a restaurant, and either it works to his advantage, or he's overly generous. The canneloni that Mike Sula called "a textural nightmare of overmanipulated manky meatstuff" is here lauded: "the well-seasoned filling makes this dish a hit." Of course, it's not all happiness and light (there's an "overcooked and flavor-impaired" bacon-wrapped trout), but still Vettel hands chefs Tentori and Poli a hefty three stars.

[Photo: the first thing that comes up when you flickr search "Perennial Chicago," via amma_maw's Flickr]

We started to feel nervous that Heather Shouse still doesn't have a byline (that we can find, we could be wrong) on TOC, for the second week in a row, but for the fact that David Tamarkin name-checked her in yesterday's TOC Blog post about Missy Robbins leaving Chicago's Spiaggia for New York's A Voce. (On that matter: We have eaten at both restaurants, and while we realize this is a great opportunity for Robbins, we think Chicago's getting the short end of the stick here. But we're intrigued to see what she does with A Voce's famous meatballs.)

Anyway, we wonder what Heather is up to. Maybe if we are a very good little girl and wish very hard, we will find out. Meanwhile, this week is a fiesta of Tamarkin, Julia Kramer, and a special visit from Mike Nagrant.

The headline story is a seriously feel-good one: Jo Brena Bleach earned her culinary stripes in the military — she was dining hall manager at Manas Air Base in the Kyrgyz Republic — and returned home only to immediately enroll in the French Pastry School. Now, every Saturday, you can find her at the 61st Street Farmers’ Market (at Dorchester), under the banner of The Bee’s Knees, selling homemade jams and pastries. She's one of the only vendors at any farmer's market anywhere in the city who actually lives in the neighborhood where she sells. We are kind of in love with the DIY-chic of her website, and can find nothing about this to snark on.

As for reviews, there's a lot on the docket.

• Tamarkin and Kramer round up three notable riffs on the classic chicken wing; interestingly, all are from recently-opened, recently-reviewed places. Perennial chef Ryan Poli serves his wings in a soy-orange glaze on top of spicy Asian slaw, and touts the wings' "cheapness" as a major point in their favor. At graham elliot, Chef Bowles first cooks his buffalo wings sous-vide, and then deep fries them. And at Duchamp, the fried wings get a Korean sweet-spicy glaze, and go hand in hand with a riff on classic American cole slaw, to cool the palate.

• Mike Nagrant visits Cafe 103 (1909 W 103rd St, 773 238 5115), which is so far south it's a scant 20 blocks from the city limits. But the food could easily find a home downtown — Nagrant says the seasonal dishes "could be on the Blackbird or Lula menus." Right now they're curiously devoid of patrons, but the owners wisely think it's just a matter of time before the neighborhood catches on to the gem in their midst.

• The big review this week is Tamarkin at Real Tenochtitlan, the latest incarnation of chef Geno Bahena's deft hand with the mole. A lot's been written about the man's way with sauces, but here's a telling sample: "Their nuanced interweavings of fire, fruitiness and spice is so expertly rendered that long after you’ve swallowed you can still feel the flavor echoing in your chest." Bahena's been restaurant-hopping for a while now, doling out the same dishes in new digs, but he promises this time he's staying put. If you haven't tracked him down before, Tamarkin's road map is a good place to start.

[Photo: the buffalo chicken at graham elliot, via]

• We are pausing our so-over-bacon ennui to rejoice: Bleeding Heart Bakery has given the world a bacon cupcake. [Chicagoist]

• Gale Gand's first CHuffPo post is up; she revisits the ancient Cindy McCain recipe-stealing scandal. We are being patient with this because we love her so much. [CHuffPo]

• One of our favorite cooking blogs of all time eats out in Chicago. On the docket: Smoque and Hot Doug's. [The Paupered Chef]

• The third most power-dining-y power dining experience in the entire world? NoMI, apparently. [BOTBDC]

• Obama likes the turkey leg with dressing at Macarthur's. We like the man's taste in food. [TheVote08]

• Maki topped with grape jelly? For reals, at Ai Lounge. Overall assessment: 'sokay. [Chicago Bites]

• Everyone's been reviewing Tamalli lately. For extra credit, compare and contrast Brent Kado's take with last week's Reader review. [CenterStage Chicago]

• Good times had by all at Vong's Thai Kitchen. [Chicagoist]

• Chicago-style pizza ... healthy?! Zemans takes on Bacino's. It's delicious, at least. [Slice]

[Photo: A full tray at Smoque, via The Paupered Chef]

The upside of today's Sun-Times dining section is that every single one of the two links from the main page works.

The downside is that we are growing increasingly agitated by the S-T's apparently inane editorial policy of accepting reviews that are based on only one visit to a restaurant. Our boy Witom has dinner at a restaurant along with one companion. After describing their two apps, two entrees, and two desserts, he spends the copious leftover space reiterating the menu more or less verbatim (which, for the record, is in this case the "summer menu," and hello it is currently September).

Say what we will about Steve Dolinksy, he draws the line between amateurs and real reviewers by saying "most of the big time critics will visit at least twice, if not three times, before they'll print a review." So either the team at the Sun-Times is the ill-advised exception implied by Dolinsky's use of "most," or Bruno et al aren't "big time critics." Ahem.

• Thomas Witom's interminable tour of suburban bistros continues, this week at Jerry's Restaurant (505 Chestnut, Winnetka,847 441 0134). Witom's review reads like a checklist: Decor? Muted and anonymously upscale (check!). Appetizers? Lobster risotto (check!), something involving buffalo mozzrella (check!), soup in a shot glass (check! cringe! time machine to 2003!). Nothing bad to say about the entrees, though we also don't get too much detail beyond what a menu might tell us. But hey! Be sure to check out this crazy culinary trend: "Looking for a variety of tastes? Ask the server about ordering 'small plates' for sharing." Intriguing! Cutting-edge! Can it last? This might be too much for us. [Witom, Sun-Times]

• Bruno heads to Texas de Brazil, leading us to bring out our Oh My God How Many Brazilian Steakhouse Reviews Can We Read Before Going Insane list. We read the review, and have not yet (that we can tell) lost our sanity, so tally duly added. The usual oohing and aahing over the depth and breadth of the "salad bar," which is to salad what Whole Foods is to a loaf of bread. Here is a sentence that we entirely fail to parse:

As it goes with the picanha, and many of the cuts of beef here, there is a salty edge to the flavor (at the outset, the gaucho/waiter explains the salting or less salting process, so you get to choose a bit of that process, which is good), and this also sets Texas de Brazil apart from other churrascarias I have tried.

[Photo: An entree at Jerry's, via the restaurant's official site]

Threefer this week from Sula et famille, with the apparent cohesion theme of "restaurants we feel like writing about." They call it new restaurants. We say to-mah-to.

• Blue 13 has been open for a few weeks now, and the whole "look at us, we like rock 'n' roll, we have tattoo wallpaper" schtick is not really going over well with our intrepid reviewer. Still, Sula finds that the high-reaching food transcends the staid badassery: "fish and chips" of tuna, taro chips, and wasabi foam works, overcoming the foam handicap easily. The restaurant's most hyped dish — "steak and eggs on acid," a layered confection of pierogi, beef tenderloin, and quail egg, interlaid with wasabi — delivers on its buzz. Still, for every hit there's a miss: overcooked pasta, overcooked lobster. [Sula, Reader]

• El Veneno Mariscos (1024 N Ashland, 773 252 7200) has a scary name (it means "the poison fish"), but there isn't much to be scared about here. It delivers Mexican food, specifically food from Nayarit, a region on the country's west coast. Heavy on the seafood, it's really well done fare: shareably large platters and seafood cocktails ("one of the best I've had"), whole fish, and — critically &mdsah; delicious French fries. BYO. [Spiselman, Reader]

• Cash-only, ever-changing menu, tiny room... sounds like a recipe for haute barnyard to us. But no! Those same qualities are to be found at Tamalli, but — as the name implies — the star here is the humble tamale, expertly handled by the kitchen. Cornmeal-based dishes come out in near-infinite varieties, plus tacos, burritos, and a staggering selection of bebidas. Sula seems to go home happy. [Sula, Reader]

[Photo: Blue 13's steak and eggs on acid, via their official site]

What is up, Chicago Tribune? How is the dining section today? Are you having a nice afternoon? Tell us about it, stud.

• Phil Vettel contorts his roundup of the restaurants at the Oak Brook Promenade to fit in with the Trib's "walking issue" by suggesting an "appetizer tour" of the four sit-down dinner restaurants that occupy the area in the western suburbs. Go Roma is an order-at-the-counter pizza place with a decent smoked chicken salad. Fun fact: Vettel's wife works near a Go Roma. There are eight Chicagoland locations, so commence stalking! Moving along to McCormick & Schmick, a seafood-oriented mega-chain that has an enticing happy-hour appetizer special. Next door is Kona Cafe, ostensibly Hawaiian themed, and also a chain — 20 national locations. The only non-chain place of the bunch is The Grotto, late of State Street, which we imagine is entirely summed up in Vettel's description of the decor as "stone-look walls and textured carpeting." Color us totally uninspired.

• Steve Dolinsky is probably rolling over in his grave right now (the guy is dead, right?), since Monica Eng is visiting Urban Belly just a scant two weeks after its opening. In her defense, it's filed under Cheap Eats, but we're still a little surprised to see major-paper coverage of the place so soon after it opens its doors. Despite some weak points (blah blue crab broth, overpriced kimchi), the review is overwhelmingly positive: thrilling dumplings, terrific service, and ramen that "rocks." We'd expect nothing less from this do-no-wrong restaurant.

• Speaking of sandwiches on long bread, where should you go to get a Philly cheesesteak? Louis R. Carlozo has the answers. And the answers are, for the record, Philly's Best on Belmont (if they didn't make the list, they would have had to commit ritual suicide, given their name), D'Agostino's Pizzeria on Addison, and — the dark horse — Relish, in the food court at 520 N. Michigan. Sidenote: we have decided that we really like this Louis R. Carlozo guy, because he says "yo" in his column, and we love that.

[Photo: Cheesesteak from Philly's Best, oh my god we are ready to lick our monitor, via kim_scarborough's Flickr]

Okay, first of all, the front page of the Tribune's website is all "Source: Sarah Palin is John McCain's pick for vice president" and we are all OH MY GOD WE NEED SOME CONFIRMATION OVER HERE. We're sure you already know this, but Palin was the first runner-up in the 1984 Miss Alaska competition. That picture to the left there? That's her.

But the food! Yesterday's TOC double-header knocked the Tribune's Thursday dining roundup to today. Forgive us? You do? Oh yay!

• This week's special feature comes to us courtesy of Joe Gray, and it's a roundup of brewpubs in the greater Chicagoland area (we love using that phrase, we feel so Your Local Lincoln-Mercury Dealership). He goes in a loop from Northwest Indiana up along the lake: new kid Crown Point and old hat Three Floyds, both in the Hoosier state; Flossmoor Station in the South suburbs (what is up, place we went to high school!); and city-proper favorite Moonshine. We realize it is breakfast time, but hot damn, the things we would do for a brat and a beer right now. [Tribune]

• Christopher Borrelli sits down with Steve Dubianca, a.k.a. The Waiter — the guy behind titillating website waiterrant, who's now written a book. It's standard "be nice to your waiter or he'll spit in your food" fare, but with the added immediacy of being written by a guy who's apparently done plenty of spitting (metaphorical, if not literal). Dubianca tells us to walk into a restaurant "smiling and laughing," so our waiter won't hate us. We are kind of bored by this, to be totally honest. [Tribune]

As for actual pass-judgment-on-food-service-emporia reviews!

• Trine Tsouderos (she has such an awesome name, doesn't she?) is in Forest Park this week, checking out new gelato joint Paciugo (7510 Madison St., Forest Park, 708 366 6080). A roundup of hypergourmet, avant-garde flavors (Black Pepper Olive Oil, Strawberry Celery Sorbet, Mediterranean Sea Salt Caramel) pull in the headlines (and manage to pull off their unexpected flavors with aplomb, no less), but it's the more classic fare that really earns the gelateria its stripes: Amarena Black Cherry Swirl is "aromatic, tart" and there's a "sticky-sweet" S'mores. [Tsouderos, Tribune]

• And finally! Phil Vettel is at — have you heard of this place? — Hub 51, which is owned by these sons of some dude, or something. Vettel quickly dissects the restaurant's clientele into two categories: (1) Friends of Rich Melman, who are supporting his son's venture the same way your dad's old golfing buddy offers you a summer internship with his accounting firm; and (2) young trendoids who follow the buzz, regardless of the quality of the food. Besides his judgment of the clientele, Vettel is markedly more generous to the lateste LEYE venture than have been those reviewers that came before. Maybe it's because R.J. and Jerrod have read what Shouse et al have had to say ("serve better food, please" seems to be the refrain) and have instructed the kitchen accordingly, or maybe it's because Vettel is more forgiving of "downright boring" pork, or is blinded by the glitter of clever dishes like "crackling peanuts," (ground peanuts mixed with Pop Rocks, which we are totally making at home), but he hands the place two stars, seemingly without too much justification. [Vettel, Tribune]

[Photo: Sarah Palin, First Runner-Up Miss Alaska, 1984, via BeldarBlog]

With the Fall Preview out of the way, we can move on to TOC's actual reviews.

But first, some truly excellent (we mean this. We really really mean this.) service journalism from Heather Shouse: A province-by-province breakdown of the various subgenres of Chinese food, plus listings of where in the city to get a sampling of each. Regional styles like Cantonese and Sichuan are familiar to most Chinatown-goers, but Shouse illuminates the flavor profiles of less ubiquitous cuisines, like Taiwanese, Shanghainese, Hakka, and Buddhist (not so much a region as a culinary philosophy). [TOC]

As for actually passing make-or-break judgment on restaurants!

• It's been almost a month since the opening of Duchamp, and David Tamarkin has an experience there that reads like an eerie retread of last week's TOC review: inexplicably inconsistent food quality, overwhelmingly wonderful atmosphere. The lows on the menu strike Tamarkin as novice mistakes — all the more confusing, considering that chef Michael Taus is no new kid on the chopping block. And yet that patio lures you back in! Here's our request for the TOC team: Revisit Duchamp and Piccolo Sogno in, say, January, when you'll be less susceptible to the seductive charms of their apparently drug-laced patios. [Tamarkin, TOC]

• Speaking of Heather Shouse (again!) she's at Marc Burger (Macy’s, 111 N State St, 7th floor, 312 781 1000), where chef Marcus Samuelsson (ostensibly of C-House, more accurately of various New York City eateries) has set up shop alongside other luminaries in this "gourmet food court" to peddle burgers and other bun-borne delights. The burgers are good, but for $13 they edge in on the pricey side for what is, essentially, food court grub. Try the mahi-mahi — Shouse thinks it's better than the fish at C-House, and it's like a quarter of the price. [Shouse, TOC]

[As long as we are repeating photos, let's revisit Prof. Dr. Marc Burger, Forschungsinstitut für Mathematik, Zürich, Switzerland, via his faculty page]

• Bruno's #1 was the site of a TOC review last week: Mana Food Bar, the vegetarian small-plates dig that Heather Shouse liked more in concept than execution. The two reviewers seem to have been eating at a completely different restaurant: while Shouse found the pho to be "truly disastrous" and "nearly inedible," Bruno really likes it (and helpfully tells us that the name of the dish is pronounced "puh"). He goes on to like everything else, but — we've got to be honest here — he talks us through the menu with the sort of condescending chirpy supportive tone that we normally associate with mid-1980s reviews of completely alien ethnic food, like "Peruvian chicken! How novel! Your palate will be amazed! Who knew they had chickens in Peru!" Dude, Bruno, it is not food from the moon. It is a vegetarian restaurant. Cease thy amazement. [Bruno, Sun-Times]

• Speaking of condescension! Bruno's next stop is Haussmann Brasserie (305 N Happ Rd, Northfield, 847 446 1133), and the review starts out with a real suckerpunch of a rhetorical question: "If a restaurant comes off as being too elitist, will it drive customers away?" Well hell, Bruno, you tell us! All in all, Haussmann Brasserie reads like a cookie-cutter French bistro: Bruno predicts he'll find onion soup, frisee salad, steak frites — he does. Cauliflower gratin, croque madame, endive salad, yawn. It's done well, but there are no fireworks. Where was the elitism again? [Bruno, Sun-Times]

• Thomas Witom is in Lake Forest this week, at Bank Lane Bistro (670 Bank Lane, Lake Forest, 847 234 8802), where chef Michael Gottlieb pulls out all the stops for a meal that actually has our curiosity quite piqued. The menu is seasonal, and Witom recommends a prix fixe — there's the standard four-courser, but we get excited whenever we see a tasting menu whose course count enters the double digits, and for $88, Bank Lane's 10-courser might be one of the best per-plate bargains in the area. Seared tuna with Japanese spices, softshell crab tempura with meyer lemon sauce, foie gras decked out with homemade pancetta, jalapeno, sambuca-infused strawberries, and Virginia peanuts — it's whetting our appetite just reading about it. Witom says he can "personally vouch" for the quality of the cheese plate, which kind of makes us wonder whether the rest of what we're reading about comes second-hand, but whatevs. This place sounds kind of awesome. [Witom, Sun-Times]

[Photo: Bibimbap at Mana, via No Olives's Flickr]

• First up, Green Village (5848 N. Broadway, 773 275 5677), which was formerly the middle-eastern restaurant Paradise. It's now an appealing hybrid of middle eastern and Ethiopian food (retaining all the "eye-popping, idiosyncratic" art and decor that made Paradise so much fun), and the food is handled competently — a slightly dry falafel is offset by an ideally fragrant Jerusalem salad, slightly dry beef tips are overshadowed by a lamb kebab so good that it draws passersby off the street. [Schmidt, Reader]

• Not too far from Green Village is Lalibela (5631 N. Ashland Ave, 773 944 0585), which is straight-up Ethiopian. Their well-executed dishes are apparently going underappreciated — the restaurant is uncannily devoid of customers — but there's plenty to draw in a crowd. Vegetarians will be happy with the usual lineup of spiced stewed vegetables, but carnivores are the real winners: lamb seasoned with onion, rosemary, and jalapeño knocks it out of the park. [Schmidt, Reader]

• And finally, site of our own personal first Ethiopian restaurant experience, Blue Nile. It's a solid, florid winner: the end of the meal saw "comically high stack of boxed-up leftovers" measured against a "comically small bill," and that's after our dear reviewer ate her weight in mouthwatering-sounding preparations of lentils, meat, and vegetables. [Paghdiwala, Reader]

[Photo: Ethiopian platter at Blue Nile, via Andrew Huff's Flickr]

• Let's all say it together: recession. The entire food team at the Tribune gives us a delicious take on our economic downturn, listing their favorite food deals all over the city. Highlighted here, among others: the $5 glasses of wine at La Madia that, if you are at the bar, come with free pizza samples from 4-6pm on weekdays; the $6.50 bureka for two at Deta's Cafe, the $23 prix fixe dinner at Cafe Matou, and — for a special evening — Phil Vettel suggests the $89 Surf 'n turf for two at Holy Mackerel (70 Yorktown Center, Lombard, 630 953 3444). [Tribune]

• Monica Eng asks a really good question: With Mayor Daley so gung-ho on promoting health and active lifestyles, why's it illegal for street vendors to sell prepared fruits and veggies? Apparently "anytime [vendors] compromise the skin of the fruit, it becomes illegal," which seems a little overpaternalistic to us. And to Monica. Also, those cucumbers she talks about sound amazing. [Tribune]

• A whopping 3 stars from Phil Vettel to Clarendon Hill's new southern-comfort-esque Soul (1 Walker Ave, Clarendon Hills, 630 920 1999). The restaurant is the brainchild of the same guys who brought us Le Lan, but they've committed themselves here to the work of chef Karen Nicholas, who takes classic American southern and soul dishes and imbues them with a high-end twist. The usual suspects are there: hoppin' john, hush puppies, collard greens, candied yams. Vettel thinks it's handled expertly, and is particularly enamored of the work of pastry chef Stephanie Prida, whose "desserts are so impressive that it's probably just a matter of time before some deep-pocketed restaurant lures her away, so enjoy the sweets while you can."

The weirdness comes in the last paragraph of the review: Vettel has what he calls an "Anton Ego moment" (funny, we always thought that was a Proustian moment, but Disney'll do over great literature) when faced with a dish of caramelized peach slices, raspberries in a port reduction, lemon verbena ice cream, and toasted pound-cake croutons. Which apparently, for Phil Vettel, was the summer dish when he was a kid. Which seems a little, um, highbrow? For a kid? Decades ago? But we digress. [Vettel, Tribune]

[Photo: A street vendor in Colombia selling sliced mangos, which are illegal to sell on the streets of Chicago, via xmascarol's Flickr]

In the left corner, Mike Nagrant: Eater-about-town and Ludicrously proficient writer.

In the right corner, Darwensi. Foul-mouthed dudebro and Chicago Glutton.

The issue at stake: Yats.

As we all recall, Nagrant eviscerated the newbie Cajun/Creole resto in a NewCity review, using phrases so pointed and piquant that we are reluctant to revisit them and potentially spoil our lunch. On the other hand, the Chicago Gluttons review is all sunshine and unicorns! Erm, in a manner of speaking. (Because this is a family blog, we are censoring out the more choice vowels and consonants. Asterisks ours):

It ain’t no muhf***in fire drill at Yats; these kids slang flavors like Sysco Foods slangs frozen buffalo wings. Every flavor in the dish is clean, not muddled. Cajun spices are balanced by layering at various stages during creation of the dish which yields a flow of flavors. Taking a bite of a Yats dish is much like slamming the last bowl from a box of Count Chocula. You get the marshmallows AND the toy. Any haters out there that think its not possible to have that cake and eat it too? Well, its time for you to step the f*** off.

We’re going bless Yats with our gold placard of Solid Food Goldness, but unfortunately doesn’t exist yet, so hold tight Joe. Utmost props for creating a product and making that sh** f***ing correct. Lastly, a welcome to the fine city of Chicago. We can’t wait for January when you will electric blanket our cold souls.

Yuckin It Up at Yats [Chicago Gluttons]
New City: Yats Ain't All That [MenuPages Chicago]
Yats [MenuPages]
Yats [Official Site]

[Photo of a groaning table at Yats via Chicago Gluttons]

• Misty at has a new favorite restaurant: Afghan Kabob (4040 W Montrose, 773 427 5041). It is apparently even better than the now-shuttered Afghan Restaurant. [CenterStage]

• 50 under-the-radar restaurants? We'd say it can't be done. Mike Gebert says bring it on. First up: Frank's Karma Cafe in northwest suburban Wauconda. [Sky Full of Bacon]

• Orange serves themed pancake flights. Like, for example, "movie night": a stack topped with Coca-Cola syrup and Coca-Cola mousse, and a stack topped with sweet and salty clarified butter and pieces of popcorn. We should eat brunch there constantly. [Fruit Slinger]

• Gluten-free baking is way harder than it looks. It involves things like xanthan gum. Deerfields Bakery in Schaumberg does a pretty awesome job of it, though. [Chicago Bites]

• Punning restaurant names: do we love them? We're not sure. En*Thai*Ce (get it?!) has "very good" food, despite the questionable name over the door. [Chicago Foodies]

• OSBMS went to Canada! And he ate like a king at Toronto's Cowbell, which is like their version of Mado. [Food Chain]

• Gebert also hits up Stanley's Grille: white noise, nothin' special, not horribly bad. Probably standing in the way of better stuff, though. [Sky Full of Bacon]

• Mike Nagrant goes all the way to Michigan to visit quite possibly the perfect restaurant: "The Journeyman is a culinary dream, a destination so incongruous with its location you’re not sure it really exists. It’s the real life embodiment of fictional isolation fantasies like the Brick bar and restaurant from the TV show Northern Exposure or the Mystic Pizza parlor." [Hungry Mag]

• The Mac & Cheese slice at Ian's Pizza is really more like a Mac slice covered with cheese. It's a subtle, yet crucial, distinction. [Chicago Foodies]

• EMILY WENT TO SCHWA. Y'all. [Chicago Dining Examiner]

[Photo: the mac-n-cheese slice at Ian's, via john kannenberg's Flickr]

• Speaking as one who honed her teenage palate in the staid bistros and canned-sauce Italian joints of the south 'burbs, we are quite psyched to learn of this introduction to the area: Phil Vettel hands over 2 stars to Dan McGee 330 W Lincoln Highway, Frankfort, 815 469 7750). Dan McGee is both the name of the restaurant and the name of the guy in the kitchen — a CIA grad who's paid his dues in hotel kitchens, at Charlie Trotter's, and on two other continents (which ones, Phil?! We yearn to know!). The place is in a strip mall, but if you can get past that, you'll find "compositions of generally familiar foodstuffs marked by artful, clean presentations and subtle seasonings." There are, of course, highs and lows: a "gummy disaster" of a risotto cake mars an otherwise lovely shrimp dish, but also a creative halibut/short rib riff on surf-and-turf. All in all we're on board: the south side's not the wasteland most folks think it is, and we're grateful Dan McGee is helping turn that misconception around. [Vettel, Tribune]

• We don't know how Chris Borrelli does it, but the guy gets the best article assignments we know of. First there was the kayak thing, and now he's out being BFFs with chef Martial Noguier (for now, but not for long, of one sixtyblue) and rounding up the city's best chilled soups. Borrelli summarizes the oxymoronic dish ideally:

Stripped of the rich smell, and devoid of the curling wafts that rise from a warm puree, no matter how sophisticated your palate, no matter how familiar with the concept you are, conditioning and experience kicks in and cold soup seems sort of incongruous. I should be finishing this bowl with a straw, you think, not a spoon.

• Dear Monica Eng,
Why do you have to call sandwiches "sammies" in your headline? We gave you the benefit of the doubt, actually, and arrived at the hypothesis that you were dealing with column-width space restrictions in the printed paper, so we actually counted the number of characters (including spaces!) in the whole hed, and you come in at 32 — which is 8 less than the 40 it took for A 'Biggest Loser's' calorie-busting tips. And you really only needed 3 more characters for "sandwiches." So, um, that hypothesis failed. Anyway, don't call them "sammies," please, because that is a Rachael Rayism, and we very strongly deeply and with great vehemence dislike Rachael Ray, especially now that we have learned that she makes $18 million a year.

Anyhoo, yes, we are totally on board with you: Knead Marketplace (13 S. LaGrange Rd, LaGrange, 708 482 7910) sounds like they make some really good stuff, and we are kind of digging the cutesy names. In fact, we would consider renaming "Barbara's Last Request" (seared steak, hollandaise sauce, romaine lettuce, and a poached egg in a fresh ciabatta roll) "Helen's Last Request." Our last request right before the "sandwich" thing.

xoxo
MenuPages [Eng, Tribune]

• Fun fact: It's cheaper for restaurants to buy an entire animal and butcher it in-house than it is for them to buy pre-butcherd parts. Heather Shouse convinces chefs at big-name restaurants all over the city to reveal how they're using every single part of their pigs and lambs, including the so-called "fifth quarter": the head, tail, feet, and offal. It's not for the squeamish, but it is for the hungry. Particularly dedicated to this whole-animal eating is Blackbird, where we learn that whole small pigs are deboned, brined, and then turned into confit, and that an entire lamb is deboned and ground to feed hungry lunch-eaters as lamb burgers. [TOC]

• We learn some more exciting things about Heather Shouse in her review of Mana Food Bar (1742 W Division St, 773 342 1742), namely that she is dating a vegetarian and thus "drowning in seitan." But Mana promises to change that: the vegetarian small-plates restaurant shies away from faux-meat, instead turning to fresh vegetables and legumes for inspiration. The results are mixed — no dish merits a rave (the closest we get is "garlicky, well-seasoned hummus"), but there's only one Marianas Trench of a dish: a "truly disastrous," "nearly inedible" attempt at pho. Four stars out of six. [Shouse, TOC]

• Kind of an opposite situation for David Tamarkin's coverage of Madame Tartine. The French bistro falls short more or less everywhere: cookie-cutter jazz-age-Paris decor that looks like it came from Target, underseasoned steak, fatty lardons in the frisee (we hate that!) — and those were the best dishes. The bad ones are, well, worse: rubbery lobster, flavorless duck confit, cruddy wine. Hey, at least the photo looks good. Two out of six. [Tamarkin, TOC]

[Photo: Beef diagram, via James*C's Flickr]

The gauntlet, dudes, is thrown down. When we heralded the opening of Yats (955 W Randolph St, 312 829 7930), we had no idea it would come to this. Mike Nagrant at NewCity has visited, and we are basically speechless in the face of this review:

I was so appalled by the experience and the food at YATS Cajun-Creole Cuisine, a new Chicago location of a popular quick-service Indianapolis-based restaurant, I’m having a hard time avoiding a hyperbolic damning diatribe. Eating there last week was the worst dining experience—and that includes trips to the now-shuttered Bennigans—of my career as a food writer.

Nagrant goes into excruciating detail about the food, but we're going to hold off on the temptation to just blockquote the entire review wholesale, and encourage you to go read it yourself. All in all, this is the most gleeful evisceration we've read since Anthony Lane reviewed The Phantom of the Opera. We feel a little bad for Yats — as commenter Marc Fishman pointed out, the storefront in Indianapolis is known to be pretty good, and there's a chance that the Chicago outlet is still just finding its footing. But for a review this bad? The footing must be pretty off the mark of found — not something we're inclined to generously forgive, considering Yats has four other storefronts in their mini-empire, and should know what they're doing by now.

Nagrant does note that the joint is BYO, so if you do visit, and it is this unpleasant, at least you can drown your sorrows in a brown paper bag. Small blessings, we suppose.

Yats All Folks [NewCity Chicago]
Yats The Ticket [MenuPages Chicago]
Yats [Official Site]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Taking a break from the arduous drone of visiting all those innovative, hip, striving new places that make up the backbone of the restaurant reviewing industry, Pat Bruno revisits an old classic: Bistrot Zinc, a restaurant so resolutely francophile that they've retained the archaic "t" at the end of the "bistro" (see also: Margot, Cyrano's). It's ultimately a good experience for everyone: earning two-and-a-half stars, Zinc hands over "tender and delicious" escargot, and while the Vol au vent en croute "is so French you imagine Edith Piaf sitting next to you and singing in your ear," we personally take umbrage with the redundancy of the dish's name: "vol au vent" (literally "windblown") and "en croute" both imply there's puff pastry involved, mais non? For the francophobic, there's also a handy glossary of Bistrot Zinc terms. [Bruno, Sun-Times]

• Bruno's overall take on Perennial can be summed up in his attitude towards the entrees: faint praise here, with an assessment of "fine, which is my tempered way of saying there is merit but no magic." Zing! And that same damning adjective for the desserts: "fine, nothing spectacular, but at least they are nicely priced." The roast chicken is redeeming, as is the macaroni and cheese. But ultimately Bruno finds this to be a case of literally too many chefs — with a menu full of dusts, foams, mousses, confits, and any other vaguely trendy culinary conceit, the four marquee names involved should probably spend some time getting their priorities straightened out. [Bruno, Sun-Times]

• OSBMS is back on his beat! Well, sort of. Mike Sula's back headlining at Omnivorous, but he's not at a restaurant. Instead, he's at Arway Confections, a half-century-old Chicago candymaker who anonymously puts out all those chocolate- and yogurt-covered pretzels, nuts, and what-have-you that apparently we've all thought were homemade by our local sweetshop. Head honcho Craig Leva has some love for candy, but Sula paints him here as just another businessman, concerned mostly with bottom line. Still, the dude has a sense of humor: "'We can’t afford Oompa-Loompas anymore,' says Leva. 'Even that commodity went up.'" Love us some Wonka humor. [Sula, Reader]

[Photo: Bistrot Zinc, via zanzibar's Flickr]

• Chris Borelli gets the best assignment of the week: Kayak down the Chicago River and shout up to the restaurants to see who will serve him dinner without him having to get out of the boat. He gets some sushi, which is mildly exciting, but the real discovery is that if you paddle up to Robinson's #1 Ribs, you get a complimentary bag of chips along with your boneless rib sandwich. All done via a basket lowered with string! Also, apparently Robinson's serves kayakers "a lot." Which simultaneously blows our minds, and makes us want to kayak over there right now to test out this novel sandwich-buying process. [Tribune]

• TOC takes us on a glorious food tour of Lincoln Ave in Ravenswood, a stretch of street dubbed "Sin Strip" thanks to seedy motels that (we can only assume) rented out by the hour. But now! Lots of delicious food! We are particularly drawn to the idea of homemade sausages from Kiko's Market & Restaurant, and the Croatian coffee joint Cafe Uteja. Also, what decor decision could top that at Pueblito Viejo (5429 N Lincoln Ave, 773 784 9135): "a sprawling Colombian restaurant covered top to bottom in Christmas lights, fake flowers and dusty cowboy paraphernalia"? [TOC]

As for those critical opinion pieces we like to call "reviews":

• Cheap Eats pulls off another four-forker: Laura Bergstrom hits up a teeny-tiny Mexican joint in Geneva called Bien Trucha (410 W. State St., Geneva, 630 232 2665) that does what it does mighty nicely: a simple, straightforward menu of tacos, tortas, cazuelitas, and accompaniments, all made with top-notch ingredients and flavor-packed preparations. Small portions whisked to the table as soon as they're ready in the kitchen, margaritas made with fresh lime, rustic presentation — and everything's under $10. [Bergstrom, Tribune]

• Even though David Tamarkin's experience at Perennial is wildly inconsistent from one day to the next, he can't help but like the place. There's a sunny dining room, and ... well, apparently the room is enough. The food's not all bad — the chefs have "a wizardly knack for injecting the essence of summer into some of their dishes" — and Tamarkin's up for visiting again to give it another shot. In our humble opinion? The sinusoidal peaks and valleys in this review make for a less-than-convincing argument for this restaurant's ability to live up to its name. [Tamarkin, TOC]

[Photo: Corned beef & kraut on rye, at the O'Hare Berghoff, via Dotorious's Flickr]

When people find out that we personally vet the user reviews on MP:Chicago, we get pretty varied responses, not always positive. We're convinced, however, that what we do is essential. We see the underbelly, let us tell you. We see the bad reviews, the cruel reviews, the libelous reviews — and we save you from them! Having seen The Dark Knight this weekend, we've realized that essentially, we are Batman: we might not necessarily be the hero you want, but we are the hero you need. Allow us to share with you a story of the sorts of crap we protect you from on those mean streets of MP!

Recently, we got in this amazing, glowing user review for a steakhouse — all 5s, lots of exclamation points, a long explanation of detailed menu items and their prices. It was capped with a pretty intense exhortation: "i cannot say one bad thing about it! i love it and strongly recommend trying it!"

This smacked of shill to us, so we held off on accepting or rejecting the review until we had a little more context. Not ten minutes later — ten minutes! — in came another amazing review for this restaurant:

After hearing about [steakhouse] from few friends, it took me few weeks to finally find an evening and go to [steakhouse]. The food is superb and you shouldn’t go if you want a quick meal. The walls are red and the entire place is fabulously decorated. My rib eye was tender with a sumptuous sweet potato no need for butter or salt. Between few plates of t-bones, ribs, salmon and steaks, there wasn’t a scrap left on the table. If it wasn’t bad manners I would've picked up my plate and licked the bottom clean. Three hours later and I was blissfully stuffed to the gills. The service was also very friendly and professional. Definitely highly recommend!

I ate at [steakhouse] a few weeks ago with my boyfriend upon a recommendation from a friend who said the "steak was to die for". Being steak lovers we gave it a try. The seductive ambiance impressed us right away -colors of red and gold, ornate chandeliers and distinguished staff members encircled us. We started with the Sizzling Canadian Bacon which he loved and I liked. It was thick and flavorful (worth the $5 to try), the Crabcake was large and all crabmeat (no breadcrumb type fillers), the Classic Caesar was great (we both LOVED the dressing), the Sherry & Aged Gruyere Onion Soup was AMAZING- Differs from your traditional French Onion in all the right ways! The calamari was just average (we are not huge calamari fans, so you may disagree:). FYI: this is a lot of appetizers for two (but the left overs were great!) Ok, dinner: We split the 16oz. Bone-In Filet. I have never heard of "bone in for a filet?!, but we were told it has the most flavor this way- and they were right! Tender- Juicy- Cooked to Perfection- and Flavorful (they offer different sauces on the side for the steak, but I preferred it just the way it was- I believe he liked the [steakhouse] sauce). There is more..The Sides: You MUST get the 5 Cheese Truffle Mac (don't miss out), we also got the Brussel Sprouts, which were loaded with bacon and the creamed spin. All three for $24 were great and nicely portioned. We clearly could not fit dessert, but I look forward to hearing how it was so post your review.....Enjoy!

I absoutely loved everything. Service=excellent. Food=delicious (from entrees to appetizers...and i must admit its the best mac&cheese i ever had). Atmosphere=totally cool, comfortable, classy!!! Cant say one negative thing. I cant wait to go back and order up a few steaks and martinis!!!!

All told, over the course of 24 hours, a total of twelve reviews came over the wire. All with across-the-board 5s. All with far more exclamation points than any human should be allotted in a lifetime. All straight in the trash.

Note to restaurateurs (and evildoers everywhere): We are watching you. We know. We will not let you win this war.

Note to our employers: Please let us start wearing a cape to work?

[Photo: Bat signal, via jtdgarlic's Flickr]

• Blue Sky Bakery does a lot of things: they employ and provide job training to disadvantaged kids, who come away with work experience and references, and they make a killer breakfast or lunch. They don't usually do dinner, but Chicago Bites had the hookup. [Chicago Bites]

• Where oh where can you get Duck Nachos? Dorado, that's where! French-Mexican is brilliant, we must say. [Tasty Beat]

• Some excellent image manipulation (check out the biblical revisionism) and a truly spectacular post title in this rave of Mixteco Grill. [Chicago Gluttons]

• Fresh-baked bread, nostalgia-heavy atmosphere (baskets full of chips!), and inspired sandwich combinations: these are the things that make Panes (subtitle: Bread Cafe) absolutely worth the wait. [Hungry Mag]

• Average pastas, cold gnocchi a "spastic" server who admits to knowing nothing about the wine list, and prices that outpace the quality all conspire against the much-hyped Piccolo Sogno. Arugula pizza's not awful to share, though. [Gastronomic Bypass]

[Photo: The Yob Burger at Kuma's Corner, via rachelleb'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]

• Planning a picnic? Of course you are. It's simply not summer unless you're planning a picnic. So do it the well-informed way: a roundup of the best excuses, events, and locales, plus a handy guide to what you'll want to bring to supplement your blanket & basket. Those marching ants say gracias, Emily Le Beau! (We have just now arbitrarily decided that all Chicago-dwelling ants are Spanish-speakers) [Tribune]

• Speaking of fried peanut butter-and-banana sandwiches! Julia Kramer puts her investigative journalism hat on, and finds out why exactly it is that beloved menu items will just very rudely disappear from menus. Like the aforementioned Elvis-killer, formerly on the menu at Over Easy Cafe. Also missing: braised octopus at Avec, brisket panini at Vella Cafe, and the McRib you-know-where. [TOC]

Now how 'bout them thar reviews:

• Phil Vettel does a twofer, hitting up Brazilian all-you-can-eat-meat places Texas de Brazil and ZED451 this week. Mandatory groan-inducing-yet-endearing Vettel pun: "sometimes I think it's called "Brazilian style" because each meal contains a brazillion calories."
Phil one-stars Texas de Brazil and two-stars Zed451 (turns out the name is a head-scratchingly oblique reference to Fahrenheit 451! Who knew!). TDB is too salty, not quite as exciting as Zed's expanded offerings — the mini-chain doesn't restrict itself by the Brazilian rules of only seasoning with salt, and only using Brazilian cuts of meat. Also: totally exciting salad bar! [Vettel, Tribune]

• Over on the cheaper side of things, Epic Burger lands a solid three forks (out of 4) from Glenn Jeffers. The all-organic, eco-friendly patty joint is, in fact, epic — in the best possible way, with the juicy meat not even needing the various veggies and sauces sharing bun space. Additional awesomeness: the egg-and-pepper sandwich, and milkshakes that sound pretty darn heavenly. [Jeffers, Tribune]

•We're going to resist the urge to make "bro! dude! bro!" jokes and be serious for a moment: We are riding the Heather Shouse train right now. Her review of HUB 51, whose various claims to buzz we don't really feel we need to explain to you anymore, is one of those things that sits with us just right. Like a critical David, she knows where she stands vis-a-vis a Melman Goliath:

Regardless of the flaws, regardless of my personal feelings about the place, this isn’t the kind of restaurant that is shaken or even affected by reviews.

[Photo: Epic burger, via Joe M500's Flickr]

It was a slow week for reviews &mdash perhaps it was the heat? The rash of DOH closings? The fact that you were celebrating National Hot Dog Month by only eating hot dogs that you had personally prepared at home? Whatever the reason, approximately five of you decided to leave restaurant reviews. Of those five,* two have us a little bit concerned.

From an anonymous reviewer, on an anonymous restaurant:

I think the owner had snorted cocaine before attempting to make this menu.

From reviewer Jack, giving his form of support to Maravillas:

After a long night of binge drinking, nothing does me better in the morning/afternoon like a huge burrito and a cold mug of horchata...

Now, while we realize that the first anon is not copping to drug use himself, he clearly has a familiarity with it to the point where he can detect its influence in menu design. As for Jack, we gently point out to him that, among the other quite serious dangers associated with binge drinking (don't do it, kids!), binge drinkers in the UK are increasingly discovering that — ready for this? &mdash their bladders explode. Like, literally.

We don't want that, Jack. Both because we care about you as a fellow human being, and because if this happens to you, you won't be around to leave more reviews. Everything in moderation! Just say no! Get high on life!

*It was actually more than five.

[Photo: Puppy & beer (don't try this at home!), via everydayexplorer's Flickr]

On purpose, we left one of Pat Bruno's reviews out of today's review roundup. It's a review of Nacional 27, which not only is a restaurant that we went to with our ex-boyfriend for our twenty-first birthday like five (billion) years ago, but is also a restaurant that Bruno had previously reviewed, all the way back in 2001.

Our hope was that Bruno would use his re-review to redress some of the shortcomings of his turn-of-the-millennium musings. Like the part where he actually denies the science behind ceviche:

The theory behind seviche is that the raw fish is marinated in citrus juice, which suggests the idea that the juice ''cooks'' the fish. I don't buy that, but that's another story [emphasis added].

So we were thinking that in today's review, he'd recant his 2001 ceviche creationism. But no &mdash the only thing he says about Nacional 27's ceviche is that the hamachi mojito and ahi tuna-watermelon were much better than the halibut and shrimp varieties.

Another interesting element from 2001 &mdash if by "interesting" we mean "sweepingly scathing":

While I find some of the dishes here quite interesting, I am also aware of more than a few shortcomings. I am baffled, for example, by what the kitchen is attempting. I see a friction that grinds uncomfortably between the concept of what should be enjoyable culinary craft and fanciful flights of inspiration, more than a few of which do not exactly pan out.

It was obvious after but one bite that I was going to polish off the skirt steak. Certainly skirt steak is not the best cut of beef around, but in its simplicity there is unflagging enjoyment. Tender, flavorful, juicy, the steak got an accompaniment of mashed boniato (a type of potato) with a tangy avocado salsa adding an extra kick of flavor. [2001]

As for the grilled marinated skirt steak, I have had better and I have had worse. This one was a little tough around the edges and lacked that deep, grilled flavor that I associate with skirt steak that I have had, say, in a steak burrito. A form of guacamole and a salsa cruda flanked the steak, and both were kind of boring. [2008]

Ah well. What remains consistent, even after all this time, is the inconsistency of the quality. The ice cream sandwich is "a joke," calamari a la plancha was "squishy-bad." Give it another seven years, Bruno, why don't you?

Dinner dance [Sun-Times, 2008]
Nacional 27 [Sun-Times, 2001]
Nacional 27 [MenuPages]
Nacional 27 [Official Site]

[Photo via Nacional 27]

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]

• 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]

We might have left our school days behind us, but we relish the opportunity to expand our knowledge. It's rare that we'll come across a new thing or a fun fact that doesn't make us jump up and down (sometimes metaphorically, sometimes literally). MenuPages reviewers are, as we've learned, wonderful teachers.

Reviewer "onastick" is clearly trying to tell us something (about our appearance? about our mental state?) in this review for Pockets:

the turkey chili is awsome for those cold winter nights and paired up with bread sticks and ranch dipping sauce its even better! don't be afraid to check this one out my fluffy friends!

While we don't necessarily think of ourselves as fluffy, we do like to think of ourself as fairly savvy on Kids These Days, flitting about with the 1337-speak and the txting and the being on our lawns. But we had never before encountered the emoticon that Anonymous gave us for Hollywood Grill. We shamefully admit that at first we thought it was a typo, but now we appreciate the counterpoint it provides to :P:

filling and satisfying food at any hour :9 the place can get super busy but the staff are very nice people.

And in closing, a virtually Homeric review from "almad," who is apparently quite the fan of Carnitas Don Rafa. We truly, seriously, deeply appreciate her explanation of the menu items, and her helpful hint (no, seriously) for replicating the restaurant experience at home:

We are a big fan of carnitas . Carnitas is a very famous Mexican dish. It consists of braised pork and can be eaten by itself. Everyone who loves pork has to try this. If you are adventurous there are different parts of the pork to be savored, but if you are like me I stick to just to meat (masisa). Don Rafa's carnitas are so juicy and flavorful. You can order a plate of carnitas which you can eat with hot tortillas, and the most amazing red salsa EVER!!!. They also give you a side of rice and beans. To tell you the truth I just order a Torta Don Rafa (A torta is a Mexican sandwich) ... a sure hit. But ... if for whatever reason you are not into eating pork .. there are plenty of amazing menu items to please the pickiest of eaters. They have lots of margaritas ... their specialties is the mechiladas (I know I am not spelling this right ... but try it and you won't care how it's spelled). The deserts are also good ... but we never leave room for them (hard to)

Their children menu consisted of a smaller version of the adults menu. They brought her a cup of simple tomato/noodle soup and she just loved it. When her plate of mini tacos arrived with a side of french fries she exclaimed ... "I like this restaurant". Something that made both my husband and I sooo happy. Ohhhh and when everything was over they gave her a small Jell-O with a nice little toy (she even brought out her 'Gracias' which she learned from Dora to the waiter)

Well ... for my summary ... I just love it ... love it ...love it. The food is amazing ... the price is awesome ... the staff is super helpful (I think it is the same staff from years ago ... always smiling)... the restaurant is so nice and clean (I dare you to go to the bathrooms ... there is even a real changing table for those with little kids). I love that it's kid friendly and that my daughter is looking forward to eating there again. Ohhh and if you want to take some carnitas home to eat later they sell them on the other side of the restaurant (take a lot of red salsa and then cook the carnitas with the salsa until the salsa is reduced ... then just heat up some corn tortillas and voila ... tacos).

• Mado is "redonkulous." (NB: that's a good thing.) [Chicago Gluttons]

• More Mado: Even better the second time around, this time for Spanish night. [Vital Information]

• Outside city limits, Louie's Grill in Forest Park is a classic: counter seating, banter-happy regulars, sassy waitresses. [Tasty Beat]

• All-natural beef burgers? Near-endless topping options? Nitrate-free bacon? Under $10 for the works? Yes please at Epic Burger. [Gastronomic Bypass]

• Where oh where is the perfect cubano sandwich? Is it at Cafe Marianao? Habana Libre? The search is on. [Chicago Dining Examiner]

• Emily Szopa got a reservation at Schwa! Let the countdown for her mid-August review begin... [Chicago Dining Examiner]

• Bland entrees, boring mole, thrilling desserts at Taqueria La Oaxaquena. [Chicago Bites]

[Photo: Cupcakes from Molly's, via zoxozo'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]

One of our most vivid elementary school memories is of a teacher standing in front of the room explaining how a single word can be used in more than one way with the same meaning.

"You love your mom, right?" she said, and we nodded our heads.
"And you love cheeseburgers, right?" and we chirped our assent.
"But you don't love cheeseburgers the same way you love your mom, do you?" she concluded triumphantly. And we oohed and ahhed at the wonders of verbal nuance.

Of course, then we grew up, and we had some really excellent cheeseburgers, and we began to wonder if we didn't, after all, love cheeseburgers in perhaps the same exact way we love our mothers, which is to say that being near them fills us simultaneously with a sense of all being right in the world and also with a very strong desire to have a beer.

This week, MenuPages reviewers were also feeling the love. Some loves are quotidian:
• Anonymous on House of Wah Sun:

I love this place and anyone who loves Chinese food should stop by.

• Lisa from Oregon on Palace Grill:

I love the meatloaf and they have awesome bread.

Some loves are sublime:
• Anonymous on Simply It

I'm falling in love with Simply It.

• Anonymous on Thai Valley

I love Thai Valley... I love the people and especially the food... If you are ever around Wilson and Kedzie you have to try it you will fall in love.

But for every love that is good and pure, there is a love that makes our inner 12-year-old snicker and grin:
• An anon reviewer, for a restaurant that will go unnamed, but which might (we suspect) be the origin of all internet spam, ever:

i love asian meat. The best asian meat I'd ever had in my mouth.

So... maybe these are not all loves of the maternal-analog variety. We'll not think too much about it for now, and just let love exist as that delicate, beautiful, many-splendored thing that it is.

[Photo: Made With Love, via helenlikesyou's Flickr (um, that's us!)]

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]

• 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]

Usually when reviewers declare a restaurant or a dish to be "the best" in Chicago or the world or in the history of space and time, they are talking out of their asses. Anyone with the breadth of experience to be able to credibly make such a claim would never have the audacity to actually do so. And if they did, it would be with qualifying remarks that show some self-awareness of the subjectivity of the opinion. For better or worse, none of these strictures apply to MenuPages reviewers! So, then, here are some of the "bests" of the past week:

• On June 26th, "Christi" claimed that Aroy Thai has the "Best Thai food ever":

I'm a picky eater and definitely a Thai food snob, and this place is fantastic! Now, if only they would expand their space to accommodate me and my friends and family, then I would be the happiest customer.

• On the same day, "Chuck Debbie Glen Alexis and Danielle" had a conference and decided that Zen Noodles is the "Best of the best in Chi-town Panasian":

Parking was not too bad and the food was simply the best We've ever had. We did it "Family Style" and got to try several different things in one shot. We had one vegan in the bunch and she was floored by the "Tofu Saute', especially the peanut sauce. The rest of us had different favorites of the four dishes we shared. The Green Curry Chicken was voted in at #1, a blend of green curry coconut sauce with Thai Basil leaves, veggies and chicken. A close second was the "Rama Chicken", a plate of cooked broccoli and chicken covered by a peanut sauce that is "out of this world good"(sounds simple but what's wrong with that). Surprisingly in at third was my original favorite, when it was Hi Riki's(sp?), "Basil Chicken". which is a dish flavored by what has become one of my favorite spices, Thai Basil. In at #4 was "Garlic Shrimp" which is a spicy blend of a garlic sauce covering perfectly sauteed shimp and other good things( can't remember). We were in Chicago for a week and I have to say that Chicago does live up to its reputation as one of the best restaurant cities in America. That's what should make our endorsement of "Zen Noodles" even more exciting for lovers of PanAsian food. Can't wait get back Chicago and Zen Noodles. Oh yeah, the serving sizes were fairly generous and the price was what you'd expect to pay in any city in the country.

• On June 27th, "Kenneth & Isik" judged Cousin's to have "The Best Lehmacun in North America":

My wife and I live in Minnesota. We drive 6 plus hours just to eat Demir Bey's lehmacun and pide. It is truly the best you will find in the USA. We been to several different restaurants that provides Turkish cuisine, but have never found anything that compares to Demir's. However, the most important of all he always make time to greet and have a chat with us.

• Also on the 27th, "bklyn" wrote a short review for Arturo's Tacos entitled "Great":

The Shrimp soup and Chorizo Tacos here are the best!!!! The price is right too.

• Finally, on the 30th, "Pat P." unilaterally declared the "BEST DONUTS EVER" to be from Old Fashioned Donuts:

I have been eating these donuts since 1973, and I have not tasted anything near these great tasting donuts. If you have not tried them you should . Not only do they have good donuts, they also have good food. The polishes and fries are to die for. Now that I live out of town, I only get them when I visit the city.

[Photo: Arturo's Tacos al pastor, via Fancy Toast (who calls them the best in Chicago, for what it's worth)]

• One of Chicago's more successful Peruvian restaurants, Ay Ay Picante impressed Bridget & Tammy enough to earn a 17/20 [Chicago Bites]

• Most of the restaurants participating in Kid's Restaurant Week excreted out the same mac and cheese that parents spend the rest of the year avoiding, but Coco Pazzo Cafe put some effort into it and made real adult dishes tweaked toward younger palates [Drive-Thru]

• For fried chicken without the leaden aftereffects, try Crisp's light and crispy Korean preparation [Chicagoist]

• It's a shame that Drake Bros.' Bookbinders soup is made with red snapper instead of turtle like in good old days, but it's very tasty anyway [Hungry]

• Super-healthy built-to-order salad spot Freshii is a good idea in theory, but the slow service and tasteless results make it less appealing in practice [Stew]

• Early word from graham elliot is, they're still finding their sea legs with respect to service, but you can't argue with their fat, juicy pork chops [Food Chain]

• A fabulous piece of parrotfish, among many other dishes at L.2O, succeeds at impressing...even if the dish's description was overwraught and possibly inaccurate [Food Chain]

• Pairing culinary minimalism with scratch cooking and a sophisticated sensibility about ingredients, Mado has been winning the affection of foodies and the praise of critics in the few months it's been open [Drive-Thru, Gourmet (the latter adapted from TOC)]

• While Margie's Candies may have gotten accolades in Forbes for having the best ice cream in Chicago, our local food corps has vehemently disagreed; just because a place is old and cramped doesn't mean it's great, and did you know that the science of ice cream-making has improved dramatically since the Depression? [Drive-Thru, Serious Eats Chicagoist]

• The vanilla-on-vanilla cupcake at Swirlz Cupcakes disappoints, but specialty flavors like Key Lime make a trip worthwhile [Chicago Bites]

[Photo: wonder what the fortune was...via mousiekm/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]

A restaurant can have fabulous food and an awesome atmosphere (bear with us), but snotty service can truly sink the ship. But the converse — where stupendous service solidifies a stellar experience — is just as plausible.

Okay, that was terrible! But the point is, many reviewers latch on to the merits of a particular server or chef, and make them the focus of their reviews. Observe the following three cases:

• On June 18th at the suspicious hour of 3AM, "Gilbert" left a review entitled "Best server" for Smith & Wollensky:

I ate at the Grill at Smith and Wollensky and had the most delightful server, a sincere, funny, intelligent and knowledgable young man named Dan. It was myself and 5 business associates, he knew how to read our table, he knew the menu very well, had many good suggestions. He was attentive but not obtrusive. He was funny and interesting, He made our evening amazing. If you go to Smith and Wollensky be sure to eat in the Grill and make sure Dan takes care of you if he is working that evening...

• A few hours later, "Dionna" implored the world to "Get a Roberto Roll" at Midori:

I previously reviewed this Sushi joint but have decided to add on to it. Robert has been with Midori for almost 19 years and it shows. He's awesome at what he does. He makes this tasty roll called the Roberto Roll that you just have to taste to believe. Please don't ask what's on it. I couldn't tell you. I devour this thing the second the plate is laid in front of me. Spicy, sweet, taste bud popping goodness. I am not just whistling dixie here. You know those times where you take a bite of something and the sides of your cheeks hurt from the flavor pop? This is it. I have never been disappointed dining here. Not once. Also, treat yourself to a Roberto Martini. It's tingly good,too.
I can leave here spending under 20 bucks if I skip the drink but why?

• Finally, in the most shilly-but-probably-not-a-shill review from June 23rd, "Alan" calls Cyrano's Bistrot "A corner of Paris in Chicago":

No matter what city I am in, I always look for a good French restaurant. After having tried six or seven such in Chicago that ranged from mediocre to rather good, I finally hit on Cyrano's. It is not only the best French restaurant in the city, it is one of the best I have found outside of France.
The menu includes more than the touristy type dishes like steaks frites and confit du canard, although they are available as well. Rognons de veau, a connoisseur's delight, is delicious. Chef Didier even promised he would make me coeurs de canard (hearts of duck) if I would call in advance. That is a dish I have seen on a menu and eaten only once- in a restaurant in Nantes.
The wine list is just the right size and features many selections from chef Didier's home region of Languedoc. The prices are reasonable and the service friendly and personable without being intrusive. The atmosphere is authentic and convivial, a little corner of Paris in the heart of Chicago, but well away from too touristy Michigan Avenue.

1) No shill for a French restaurant is so masochistic as to deride their steak frites and confit du canard, even as obliquely as this

2) The reference to Nantes' duck hearts is too awesome for a shill to generate

3) Trustable people en masse (i.e. LTHForum) seem to like Cyrano's

4) Okay, the namecheck of Languedoc is a bit suspect, but whatever

We're satisfied that "Alan" is satisfied.

Smith & Wollensky [MenuPages]
Smith & Wollensky [Official Site]
Midori [MenuPages]
Cyrano's Bistrot [MenuPages]
Cyrano's Bistrot [Official Site]

[Photo: a pile of duck hearts in China, via tconn1/flickr]

Everyone seems to be craving Middle Eastern food this week!

• Albany Park's Al-Khayameih not only serves some of the best Lebanese food in the city, they do it with flair [Chicagoist]

• A new chef and a revamping of the menu at Ben Pao doesn't take away from the fact that the BBQ pork is fabulous, and relatively authentic to boot [Chicagoist]

• While not breaking new culinary ground, Bluebird does a good job with small plates, has a wide selection of beverages and attentive service [Gastronomic Bypass]

• Very new Albany Parker Dawali Mediterranean Kitchen is still finding its desert legs, but the schwarma's pretty decent [Food Chain]

• Much-hyped Epic Burger in the South Loop has fancy ingredients, but the burger has trouble living up. Decent value, though [Food Chain]

• At the soft opening of Melman spawns' Hub 51, exactly the type of industrial hip sophisticated comfort food you'd expect. But good! [The Stew]

• Everyone loves the moles at Mixteco Grill, including Bridget & Tammy. Dessert's also recommned, and it's BYO (17/20) [Chicago Bites]

• Persian stalwart Noon O Kabab gets very high marks from Bridget & Tammy for their kabobs and other delicacies (18/20) [Chicago Bites]

[Photo: the Chicago River's very own alligator, via Sun-Times. You can eat them, you know!]

Pat Bruno has a monumentally boring review of Topaz Cafe in Burr Ridge. It's a Contemporary American with a little flare! Everything's delicious! And so forth.

But the Sun-Times' relationship with Centerstage, rarely highlighted, saves the day; Mike Nagrant has a useful feature on where tourists should actually eat as opposed where they were planning to eat. Dozens of mediocre, overpriced meals might be avoided because of this!

Meanwhile, several new reviews from the Reader. First, Anne Spiselman reviews Jack Rabbit, a new southwestern restaurant in Lincoln Square with big portions of inconsistent quality. We'd never heard of it, because that location seems to get a new restaurant every few months; Spiselman's not sure how long this one will stick around, either. But they have a website and serve brunch, so maybe there's a chance yet.

Mike Sula revisits Avenues, now that Graham Elliot Bowles is off somewhere and Curtis Duffy (formerly of Alinea) has taken the reigns. Sula points out that Bowles is a tough act to follow, but finds that Duffy is doing an admirable job of keeping Avenues avant-garde and delicious. Note that this opinion runs contrary to Heather Shouse's line, but maybe things have shaped up in the past two weeks? Both think that the restaurant is probably overpriced.

And then, the claws come out. Sula rips into ZED451, the all-you-can-meat suburbo-rama in River North. We've been a bit catty on the restaurant ourselves, and even Pat Bruno didn't like it (David Tamarkin thought it was okay). But all this pales in comparison to Sula's visceral loathing of the place, which certainly seems to fall into the substance-over-style trap. Much of the review is quotable, but perhaps this sums it up best:

This is the human counterpart to confined animal feeding operations, the industrial meat (and shit) factories that supply the sort of unexceptional product served here.

[Photo: a feedlot, via Socially Responsible Agriculture Project]

• 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]

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!

What we don't like about Pat Bruno's review of Takashi is similar to what we didn't like about Phil Vettel's review yesterday for Tallulah. Both amount to a laundry list of the restaurants' dishes with very little analysis and virtually no criticism. Even if they're helpful — in the travel guide sense — to diners, they're awful reviews for the casual reader.

Restaurant reviews without context, be it historical, social, gustatorial or even personal, are really boring. If we want to know how each dish tastes, we'll go to a blog or message board where we're likely to find pictures that are even more helpful than the prose. What Vettel and Bruno are doing in these merely descriptive reviews (which is not to say that all of their reviews are like this) doesn't add much value to the discourse.

Meanwhile, Mike Sula has found an entertaining foil for his Omnivorous piece in the form of Carole Travis-Henikoff, an "independent scholar and gastronomist" who just wrote a scholarly book about cannibalism. Basically, the book argues that cannibalism has been an accepted practice across cultures throughout human history, and as a side note, may have contributed to the downfall of Neanderthals (eat brains, get prions, Mad Neanderthal Disease). We're left wondering about "gastronomic cannibalism," all the more titillating for its illegality and immorality and potential deliciousness.

Less controversially, the Reader has a round-up of al fresco dining spots.

Takashi [MenuPages]
Takashi [Official Site]

[Photo: soylent beige, via Vancouver Vegan Association/flickr]

p.s. the title of Sula's cannibalism article, "From Roast Pig to Long Pig," is a reference to a slang term for human meat.

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]

Lots of important food news for the papers to digest today! Between the tomatoes, the Beard Awards, Top Chef and Father Day, you could write a whole book.

• What we didn't know about vanilla: it's indigenous to Mexico, and not the Indian Ocean islands where it's more famously produced [Tribune]

• At the Beard Awards, winner Grant Achatz makes the observation that doctors have no way to test one's sense of taste [Tribune]

• Stephanie Izard gives a pre-finale interview (one of many, actually), and talks about her upcoming restaurant [Tribune]

• Bill Daley picks the best wines for Father's Day &mdash key words include "big" and "bold" [Tribune]

• A very newsy article on the tomato salmonella crisis; California and Florida have been cleared of any wrongdoing [Sun-Times]

• Missy Robbins of Spiaggia pens a paean to Italian cheeses [Sun-Times]

• News about the Taste of Chicago: ticket prices are up 15%, and instead of country music, Chaka Khan will be performing (!) [Sun-Times]

And there are three life story stories that so enamor the Sun-Times:

• On Chris Favero of Frankie's Scaloppine and his pizza-making childhood [Sun-Times]

• On Finnie Haire of Haire's Gulf Shrimp, frying up his mother's shrimp recipe in Chatham [Sun-Times]

• On Tony Plum of Cinners and the oft-told tale of how he got his chili recipe [Sun-Times]

[Photo: Mexican vanilla on sale at a Oaxacan marketplace, via planeta/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)]

• Above-ground underground tasting menu at Bonsoiree keeps 'em coming back for more, Saturday after Saturday [TastyBeat]

• Everyone who's gone to graham elliot, which has only been open a week and a half or so at this point, has raved (or at least mostly raved). We're excited to see who has the first formal review [Chicagoist]

• In the summer, it's hard to turn down one of Karyn's Raw sandwiches; they're the right temperature, the vegetables are fresh, and they'll wash down all that BBQ you've been inhaling [Chicagoist]

• What do you make of Kuma's Corner's foie gras burger that comes with a donation to MADD? Also, this reviewer thought the fries were a little overseasoned [Drive-Thru]

• The classic American bar food at Midtown Kitchen + Bar isn't very good, but it beats the service by some distance [Gastronomic Bypass]

• At Shaw's Crab House, portions are generous, flavors are solid but bold, and the service is classy [Gastronomic Bypass]

• Another whole-hearted endorsement of Take Me Out's super-spicy Asian hot wings [Chicagoist]

[Photo: Grant Achatz wins!!! via AP]

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]

We don't mind when legitimate reviewers are absolutely in love with a particular restaurant, and choose MenuPages to share that love with the world. Here are three short paeans from the past week:

• "Delicious" wrote a review for The Gage on 5/27 entitled "Outstanding":

After 2 weeks of substandard fare and service, Gage, restored my faith in American cusine. Definitely in my top 5 best ever meals. Can't wait to go back

• On 5/29, "Mrs. Adrienne" contributed a review entitled "Excellent 5.0" for Miss Lee's Good Food:

I have visited Miss Lee Good Food on several occassions and the food is always great. The workers and the owner is very friendly. The customers are very found of Miss Lee good southern home cooking. Miss Lee will also give you the receipes to any of her dishes, most people who cook dont like to give out there receipes. I pray that god will continue to buisness her buisness.

• 5/30 brought an anonymous first review for Mado entitled "fresh, seasonal, delicious!":

Everything is market and farm fresh, so flavorful, and cooked to perfection. The wood grilled whole trout is amazing, as is the shortbread and dates with ricotta, coffee, and walnuts.

[Photo: an elk saddle at The Gage. American enough for you? via Zesmerelda/flickr]

Because of Memorial Day (which we spent remembering Trapped in the Closet scene by scene), here are two weeks' worth of blog reviews for your consideration

• Brunch generally a good bet at New Southern Big Jones, but make sure your beignets are freshly fried [TOC Blog]

• Despite all the promise of organic/local/seasonal ingredients at the newly-reworked Cafe at Wild Things! at the Lincoln Park Zoo, most of the food is conventionally sourced, and crappy to boot [The Stew]

• The only thing worth eating at Deta's Cafe is the burek, but it's so worth eating, wow [The Stew]

• A vegan can survive at Epic Burger on the hot, oily fries. Also, they make mushroom burgers [Drive-Thru]

• At not-too-expensive Frontera Grill, you can sample what made Rick Bayless famous without feeling like you bought the farm [Gastronomic Bypass]

• Fondue is romantic per the obvious sexual symbolism, and Geja's Cafe continues to be up to the task of providing that kind of atmosphere [Chicagoist]

• Despite being in soft opening, graham elliot churns out a flawless haute comfort experience [Chicago Foodies]

• Hard to do better than Hai Yen for casual Vietnamese south of Argyle [Gastronomic Bypass]

• Seafood temple L.2O is successfully bridging the gap between haute and molecular gastronomy (and worth the money) [Hungry]

• A largely positive assessment of chef-driven Mado recommends the antipasti and chicken dishes [Chicagoist]

• Many mixed reviews for Mundial Cocina Mestiza (although this one's positive), but the one thing they all agree on is the BYOB policy [Gastronomic Bypass]

• Another vote for the "Park 52 is fine by Hyde Park standards, so-so by Jerry Kleiner standards, and not worth the trip in either case" ticket [Food Chain]

• South Side culinary school restaurant The Parrot Cage is tasty and affordable, but the 9/20 rating from Bridget and Tammy means it won't change your life [Chicago Bites]

• Cell phone-free Perry's Deli in the Loop makes an excellent classic sandwich with turkey, ham, and the undersung Russian dressing [Chicagoist]

• New American bistro Tallulah gets 11/20 from Bridget and Tammy, but the potential for greatness is there [Chicago Bites]

[Photo: R. Kelly pretending to be ice cream in a waffle cone; "pls lik me?" via TheBestGossip]

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]

Welcome to the giant food media roundup, where we see what's hot — and what's to trot — in Chicago right now.

• Lisa Shames reports that smart chefs are now using "food glue" in everyday dishes; it's not just for molecular gastronomists anymore [TOC]

• Bill Daley's let's-ask-top-Chicago-chefs-for-gourmet-off-beat-hot-dog-recipes idea was a pretty good one. But we have to say, Charlie Trotter's Asian seared tuna dog is not going to happen outside of a whimsical high-low restaurant [Tribune]

• Chuck Sudo dumbs himself down to Sun-Times readership level for a roundup of barbecue places that have opened in the pas