Food: September 2007 Archives

Wednesday we told you about the closing of Penang Malaysian Restaurant and Sushi Bar in Chinatown for multiple health code violations. Even though a Penang spokesman would only comment to Chicagoist that they were "doing the best (they) could to correct the violations," manager Joe Leung felt slightly more confident when he told Crain's that they only had "plumbing problems" and expected to re-open that same day. We received an e-mail from Tim Hadac from...

Though Sara Mair may not have won the whole kit(chen) and cab(f)oodle, it seems that her stint as a contestant on Bravo's incredibly addictive Top Chef has not been a complete waste of her time; now she has speaking engagements and a wider audience interested in her take on jerk chicken, Top Chef judges and, most importantly, cheese. Perhaps you're a member of that potential audience? If so, then you should be making plans to...

To celebrate the new TV season, TV Guide is sponsoring free coffee at a bevy of area independent coffee shops. We aren't quite sure what connection TV Guide is trying to make here (You need caffeine to stay awake while reading this magazine? If you watched all of last night's shows you might need a little extra boost this morning?), but free coffee is free coffee, so we aren't going to think too hard about...

State Rep. Edward Acevedo (D-Chicago) is no stranger to the long green. As one of the chief sponsors of HB 429, the wine shipping bill that aims to bring Illinois in compliance with the 2005 Supreme Court ruling in Granholm v. Heald by limiting the ways consumers can obtain wines, Acevedo received $7,500 in campaign contributions from the Associated Beer Distributors of Illinois for carrying their water. Turns out that Acevedo is also the litigious...

Last month the craft beer community lost one of its greatest advocates with the passing of Michael Jackson, the "Beer Hunter." Jackson's research and writing on this singular subject laid the foundation for the beer, wine, and spirits writers that followed, raised awareness of the passion and commitment to excellence that the best brewers apply to their craft, and lifted beer to a level where it was considered worthy of mention in the same breath...

This post contains spoilers about last night's Top Chef. When last we checked in with our friends on Top Chef, we prophesied that Brian and Dale would be the next two contestants to head home. Brian, you had a good run, but we aren't sad to see you pack your knives—especially if it means one more chance for Dale. The four finalists went to Colorado (similar to how last years' finalists went to Hawaii). Like...

The October foodie calendar kicks off in a major way Monday night when Intelligentsia hosts a tasting of the fabled Panamanian Hacienda La Esmeralda at their Fulton Street roasting works. Last May, Intelligentsia made headlines for purchasing 100 pounds of La Esmeralda for $130 a pound at the Best of Panama auction (okay, carry the one … yeah! That’s a lot of money for coffee). It’s the highest amount ever paid for coffee. On October...

It's been three long years between features for Wes Anderson. But the wait is almost over—The Darjeeling Limited comes out next Friday. But, if you're lucky, you might get to see it early. This Saturday at TeaGschwendner in Lincoln Park The Darjeeling Limited is throwing a tea party. A $5 cover gets you access to "Darjeeling tea-tasting stations, petite Indian delectables, raffle prizes and trailer sneak peeks." And a pass to a free screening to...

The city Health Department just sent out a press release announcing that Penang, the popular Malaysian restaurant and sushi bar at 2201 S. Wentworth, was shut down yesterday for "critical violations of the City Health Code" after being tipped off by a person calling 311, reporting the sight of a rat entering the building housing Penang. Among Penang's many offenses, inspectors found live fruit flies and rodent feces throughout the kitchen and "premises" (one can...

Conventional wisdom says that we should not speak ill of the deceased, but that's a tall endeavor if we're to take the pundits' criticisms of William Wirtz as law, although one has surprised us with his restraint. The longtime Blackhawks owner and liquor magnate passed away early this morning at the age of 77 from cancer. It's easy to say that Mr. Wirtz was stuck in a bygone era, treating his beloved hockey franchise as...

Years ago our mother and stepfather moved from Chicago and eventually settled in the town of South Wayne, Wisc. The town is unincorporated; it could quite literally be the middle of nowhere. But even the middle of nowhere has to be close to somewhere, and it just so happens that a few miles east of South Wayne is the town of New Glarus. Mothers are always smarter than they let on, and ours is wise to the fact that if we're making the trip to South Wayne, it's partly because we're loading the trunk with Spotted Cow and other wonderful selections from the New Glarus Brewery on the way home.

"Tea is a fashion, coffee is a passion," wrote commentor Tim, the last time we wrote about the trendiness of tea. Tim, we hate to break it to you, but at this point, tea seems to have moved beyond trendy and into a full-fledged lifestyle choice. Says who? $5 million in sales this year at Argo Tea, for starters. Today's New York Times has a flattering profile of IT-cum-tea entrepreneurs Arsen Avakian and Simon Simonian,...

You'll remember the story of Dave Warwak, the middle school art instructor in Fox River Grove who put down the paints, chalks and paste to passionately talk to his students about the virtues of the vegan lifestyle. If by "passionately" we meant "beat the kids over the head about how all hot dogs are sketchy-assed." When he was busted for doing that, he took the concept of "keeping it real" to Chappellian levels, demanding that...

We were stoked (yes, stoked) when Southport Grocery and Café opened a few years back. The fresh sandwiches on artisan bread, the tasty cupcakes and cookies, the savory omelets — the spot has become a great place for brunch, lunch and takeout. So when we heard that our favorite neighborhood market now has an online grocery store where you can purchase homemade and gourmet goodies without leaving your home, it was too much. We...

Asking for salt and lime with a premium tequila has long been a pet peeve of ours, but since we regularly found ourselves behind a bar, we bit our tongue. Not anymore — we're demanding you shed the "training wheels." It isn't as though we're talking about mixtos here, where nearly half of what's in the bottle is cane sugar. These days every major tequila brand seems to be launching a 100-percent, pure agave line....

Carly Simon once sang "anticipation ... is keeping me waiting." Keep those lyrics in line now that pre-orders are being taken for the long-awaited Alinea cookbook, due from Ten Speed Press in autumn 2008. Ordering the 100-recipe book, currently listed at a downright-cheap-for-Alinea fifty dollars, also affords buyers some added perks. Buyers will receive a limited-edition copy of the book signed by chef Grant Achatz and members of the Alinea creative team. All pre-sale...

A new ruling from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals may finally put an end to the Cavel horsemeat slaughter saga that has been on our radar for some time. On Friday, the court upheld the Illinois Horse Meat Act, effectively shutting down the DeKalb County-based slaughterhouse. The ever-prolific Richard Posner penned the 15-page opinion. In his trademark witty style, he writes, But even if no horses live longer as a result of the...

While the fish-taco revolution is swimming across the area, there are plenty of other events happening this week. Before we list them, however, we should let you know that the cockroaches are taking over our downtown restaurants. This week's victim of the ultimate survivor, Bice. Cockroaches were the least of their problems, however. A Health Department inspection also found no hot running water in a kitchen sink and fruit flies in the bar. If you...

Fear not, wine guzzlers. The summer festival season may be over, but there are still (legal) opportunities to drink wine outside while the weather's still nice. We speak of the Winefest Chicago, happening this weekend in Northcenter. A "starter kit" for the event is $25 and includes a tasting glass and initial tasting tickets; for the lushes out there (you know who you are), you can buy additional tasting tickets if needed. Winefest isn't all...

Mention fish tacos to people and chances are that they either give you the gas face and say “Eewww!”, or repeat the term and giggle. Simply typing those words conjures in our mind innuendo-laced memories of our Uncle Stu holding his index and middle fingers to his mouth, flicking his tongue between them and talking about how he loved "eating fish on Friday at the 'Y'." Today’s Tribune, however, is all about fish tacos. Kevin...

This post contains spoilers about last night's Top Chef. We were initially excited when we heard Dale Levitski was going to be a contestant, but once we started watching this season, we became kind of blah on the guy. Despite his numerous — and infuriating — blunders, he soldiered on, inexplicably making it to the final five. In last night's challenge, he again pulled an amateur move, forgetting to put the honey sauce on his...

What do Brooke Shields, Grant Achatz and this Chicagoist mama have in common? All three have a professed love for the convenience and taste of HomeMade Pizza Company. HomeMade Pizza Co. sells uncooked pizzas that you then take home and pop in the oven. Twelve minutes later, you’ve got a fresh-tasting, thin-crust dinner. Voila! June Cleaver has nothing on you. Menu options include funky, artisanal options like goat cheese and herbs or a combo of...

We've been spending an inordinate amount of time at Skylark lately. We think it's the combination of the background music the bartenders play and the tater tots with the three different dipping sauces. Their draft selection also ranks high on the list, but we've already had all twelve selections. So we've decided to highlight one that we've found ourselves returning to again and again.

The "vere" part is pronounced like "were." Now that you know how to pronounce "saveur," it is time to pick up a copy of the food and wine magazine by the same name. The October issue of Saveur is dedicated solely to Chicago; not too surprisingly, a piece of pizza is featured on the cover. And here we were pumped about getting a single article in Gourmet. Like Gourmet, Saveur doesn't put all of its...

Now that we’ve recovered from the sugar crash, we can tell you about some of the things we found during our visit yesterday to the National Confectioners Association’s All Candy Expo at McCormick Place, which ends tomorrow. The industry-only event draws 20,000 visitors to town to sample over 2,000 gums, candies, and snack foods. New products and trends within the industry are also unveiled with all the accompanying sizzle to prospective retailers and wholesalers. The...

When we first began writing this post we considered giving it another title: "Get on your hands and knees and crawl". We decided against this title because the actual subject of the post wouldn't be immediately clear, and the event we speak of deserves perfect understanding. If you like sweets, the Andersonville neighborhood or the Swedish American Museum, then the Andersonville Dessert Crawl is right up your alley. For $20 (in advance) or $30...

After a week of following the Green City Market Localvore Challenge, Chicagoist is feeling pretty good. OK, we admit that yesterday’s brunch at Prairie Grass Café made up of local products (chicken from Country Cottage Farm, braised greens from Kinnikinnick Farms, corn, roasted peppers, mashed potatoes, Wisconsin cheese, grilled pears, grapes, raspberry ice cream) definitely ended things on a high note. But even before we got to try co-chefs/owners Sarah Stegner and George Bumbaris’ flavorful...

This week Chicagoist bought pork tenderloin with the plan of writing about making it into a dish for the site. The only slight set-back we faced was that we had no idea what we were actually going to cook. We'd already done tenderloin this, rather classic, way and felt, at least at first, over-inspired. When cooking, we often start ourselves off with a main ingredient (often enough meat) then research all the ways others...

Our fourth day of the Green City Market Localvore Challenge went something like this: Chicagoist once again had some wonderful local eggs from Country Cottage Farm with mushrooms and onions for breakfast; for lunch, we took a beef patty from Heartland Meats (Chicagoist likes that since Piedmontese beef is lower in fat, it cooks in about 1/3 less time—hey, it was 3 p.m.; we were hungry!) and mixed it up with some mushrooms and added some chopped basil from our new plant (see photo); and for dinner, we took one of those sprouted wheat tortillas from Tiny Greens Kitchen we bought at Green City Market and topped it with some Wisconsin cheese and tomatoes, put it in the broiler with more of that fresh basil and—voila!—pizza. Throw in an apple or two and it was a great food day.

Cyrano's Bistrot is open again, after a week and four inspections to combat a roach infestation caused by condo renovations above the restaurant. Congratulations, Chef Didier. Just don't expect us to visit anytime soon. Gabriel Magliaro of Half Acre Beer Company has been busy. Half Acre and Bloodshot Records have a promotion where Bloodshot is offering a sampler album as a free download to Half Acre fans. Magliaro will also be at Whole Foods...

In case you hadn’t noticed, Chicagoist was a little cranky yesterday morning. After our second full day of the Green City Market Localvore Challenge, with our ‘allowed’ food pretty much gone, we were feeling a bit deprived. Once again, the feeling of only wanting what we can’t have was rearing its ugly head. Plus, we couldn’t shake the fact that if we knew how to really cook (sorry mom!) our localvore lives would be a...

We've been trying to work out a better fart joke for the headline but that seems to be the best one we could come up with. In truth, Chipotle, the makers of huge gut-busting diet-trashing insanely-delicious burritos really are going to harness the power of wind. Not the I-just-ate-beans kind. The breeze-across-the-Midwest kind. They've just received approval to add a wind turbine to a new location they're planning to open in Gurnee Mills. The 60-foot...

We know from experience that local foodies can be a vocal and opinionated lot. Two new groups are now looking at adding their input to the discourse. The Greater Midwest Foodways Alliance, according to their mission statement, is "dedicated to celebrating, exploring, and preserving unique food traditions and their cultural contexts in the American Midwest." They plan on supporting the mission with public events, developing archival resources, and creating print publications. Their inaugural event, focusing...

Now that summer is doing the quick fade, certain foods and beverages that we avoided during the warm months are creeping back into our diet. They tend to taste better during cooler weather. One of those beverages is a good stout. We mean a good stout, with the viscosity of motor oil and brewed with malt so heavily roasted you'd think they burned the brewery down making the beer. We bought a couple bottles of...

While on vacation in Tennessee this summer, Chicagoist went to multiple get-togethers that started with wine and cheese. One particular cheese caught our eyes (and more importantly our mouths) and didn't let go. This cheese was a semi-soft goat cheese. It resembled gouda in texture only creamier. It was a bit manchego-like in taste but with a clear goat's milk flavor, enhanced by a rosemary crust. It was cut either extraordinarily thin and eaten...

Here’s a question for you: If politicians can use the “I didn’t inhale” line when asked about past drug use and the military can hide behind its “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” slogan, can localvores get away with eating non-local foods if they don’t swallow? OK, mind out of the gutter, please, and Chicagoist isn’t referring to the chew-and-spit diet featured on a Sex in the City episode. Instead, what we were hoping was to get...

In last week's "Buffet" installment we had an item about a roach infestation shutting down Cyrano's Bistrot. The infestation, which the Health Department called "pretty severe", encompassed Cyrano's kitchen and a basement prep area and was discovered during an inspection as to whether chef/owner Didier Durand, one of the most outspoken critics of the city's foie gras ban, was selling the contraband delicacy.

Dave Warwak was just another mild-mannered middle school art teacher in Anywhere, USA (actually Fox River Grove Middle School in McHenry County). Then, in January, he switched to a vegan diet, sold his boat and fishing tackle from his side job as a fishing guide, and became politicized on the issue of animal rights. Last week Warwak handed his students a book by John Robbins titled The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save...

Yesterday was full of firsts: we cooked breakfast and lunch at the same time (brown bagging), went to Whole Foods and didn’t have even one tiny free sample, and managed to pass the entire day eating only local food minus “exceptions” (see below). And we're craving chocolate, which isn’t any big news, except that this is only day one of Green City Market’s Localvore Challenge, and we have six more to go. If you’re haven’t...

As we posted earlier this summer there's quite a hidden history of tiki in the Chicagoland area that's been all but forgotten, which is why local author James Teitelbaum's research is so valuable. His book Tiki Road Trip chronicled his coast-to-coast quest for the best in tiki, both modern and vintage. It was so successful that earlier this year he published a new edition. This Thursday he'll be in town for a reading and...

As we posted earlier this summer there's quite a hidden history of tiki in the Chicagoland area that's been all but forgotten, which is why local author James Teitelbaum's research is so valuable. His book Tiki Road Trip chronicled his coast-to-coast quest for the best in tiki, both modern and vintage. It was so successful that earlier this year he published a new edition. This Thursday he'll be in town for a reading and...

For all of our talk about the great food in the city, Chicagoist has been known to slack a little from time to time. For example, it probably isn't the best use of our money or daily caloric intake to chow down on the Thai lunch special from down the street a couple of times a week. But we do anyway. And we know a lot of parents probably operate similarly; they know a Lunchable...

Poor Didier Durand. The chef/owner of Cyrano's Bistrot was visited by the Health Department Wednesday on suspicion of selling foie gras, only to be shut down with a cockroach infestation. A Health Department spokesperson told Crain's that the infestation was "pretty severe," encompassing both the kitchen and a basement food prep area. Durand said the pest control company he uses thinks the roaches were a result of ongoing condo renovations above the restaurant. Unless he...

Anteprima isn't your standard Italian joint, complete with garlic bread, minestrone soup and heaps of pasta drenched in red sauce. Instead of the usual fare, this Andersonville venue offers up dishes that are simultaneously traditional and modern, simple and complicated, and even better, every one we tried, perfectly delicious. The evening started out with a complementary amuse bouche of a zucchini tart; it was tender, and perfectly highlighted the sweet zucchini. For appetizers we...

Breaking: Dog owners who can't go a waking moment without your best friend, it's official. The Chenny Troupe website is reporting that the proposed ordinance allowing dogs to join their owners at outdoor cafés passed City Council this afternoon. This means that, beginning next year, restaurants and bars with patio/outdoor seating may buy a two-year license that permits dogs whose rabies vaccinations are in good standing to enter their establishments. As we wrote last week,...

Even if Joe Kafka’s Boston Terrier Beaker wasn’t so darn cute, we’re sure people would have a hard time resisting his even cuter Boystown wine shop Kafka. OK, we admit normally “cute” and “wine” aren’t two words we would want to see together. Then again, we normally don’t associate “cheap, easy and fun” with buying wine, but that’s this four-year-old shop’s motto, and with 250 wines under $15 and the rotating special of 12 wines...

Winston-Salem, N.C., may have given their name to a couple of brands of cigarettes on the shelves today, but it's not their tobacco products we love most. It's their doughnuts.

Around the virtual Chicagoist "offices" we're known as "Grandpa" because we're one of the older members of the staff. We also have a penchant for telling "back in my day" stories, so sit back and strap in as we take the Chicagoist Wayback Machine on a trip to the spring of 1987. Back then, Harold Washington was re-elected as mayor and he had the votes in City Council to fully implement his agenda; Andre Dawson...

Chemicals — what would we do without them? Twinkies wouldn't have a shelf life of a decade. Diet Coke wouldn't be diet. And microwave popcorn wouldn't cause some weird lung disease. We just read today that diacetyl, one of the main substances used to flavor microwave popcorn*, isn't so good for the lungs. Truthfully, when we read the first article about the first consumer that is likely to have "popcorn lung" (bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome, or...

In light of last week's news that almost a quarter of Ilinoisians are obese, should a new study that found that 98% of all food advertised to children between the ages of two and 11 was high in sugar, fat or sodium really surprise us? Slightly less alarming (but only slightly) was the finding that 89.4% of food-product advertisements viewed by 12-to-17 year olds, were high in fat, sugar, or sodium. The study was conducted...