Octopus: Where Do You Get Your Fix?

By L. Stolpman in Food on Apr 22, 2010 6:00PM

Octopus just waiting to be prepared at Isaacson & Stein.

Octopus - baby octopus grilled over hardwood charcoal, snap peas, braised baby leeks, romesco

Pulpo Gallego from Chef Garces. Octopus with confit potatoes, sweet paprika...Mmmm. Too bad we couldn\'t taste food created in the demonstrations!

Jose Garces of Mercat a la Planxa prepares gives the audience a closeup of the octopus he\'s preparing.

We were at Isaacson & Stein Fish Company a couple of weekends ago and saw some octopus that we were sorely tempted to buy. Of course, we're not entirely sure how we'd prepare it or how we'd make use of a full octopus. This got us thinking about where we go to eat octopus in the city. We are madly in love with tender octopus appetizer at MK (pictured) and our mouths watered as we watched Chef Jose Garces of Mercat a la Planxa prepare Pulpo Gallego.

We're going to head back to Isaacson & Stein this weekend to pick up some octopus to try our hand at preparing it. In the meantime, tell us where you're going to get the best octopus or how you like to prepare it at home. You can also check out these Chicago restaurants that serve octopus.