Today in restaurant news: Alpana Singh's Boarding House gets one step closer to opening, Publican Quality Meats starts table service and Falafill has opened a location in the loop. more ›

Alpana Singh announces name and address of new wine bar, while Philip Foss and Shin Thompson will host an anti-restaurant week dinner. more ›

Today in restaurant news: Alpana Singh is opening a new wine bar and one of the owners of Fox and Obel denies bouncing paychecks. more ›

Chicago wine lovers shed a few tears this morning as Lettuce Entertain You Wine and Sprits Director Alpana Singh announced her departure from the company. more ›

Singh has been championing Illinois wine the past year or so and she brought selections from Blue Sky Vineyards in downstate Makanda and Prairie State Winery in Genoa for her Today appearance. more ›

It's time our Gluten-Free readers got some love from the world of fine dining! Mity Nice, which has undergone a fairly massive renovation and no longer feels like a food court dining room, is hosting a wine dinner curated by Alpana Singh, master sommelier and Director of beverages and spirits for Lettuce Entertain You. On April 12, Mity Nice will serve a four course meal, with wine pairings, all of which will be gluten free. The cost is $55, and the menu is below. more ›

On Saturday August 22, join master sommelier, host of Check, Please! and proud pug owner Alpana Singh, at Juicy Wine Company as she hosts a fundraiser for The Northern Illinois Pug Rescue Association. Enjoy summer wines, delicious food, a silent auction, including a chance to win a spot on Check, Please! and door prizes. The party is from noon-3pm and tickets are available here for $45 per person. more ›

We love a good mole here at Chicagoist, although not so much to follow Geno Bahena and his traveling freak show of moles from restaurant to restaurant. Seriously, does the man have a wanderlust or is his business acumen just not that good? more ›

Find out at her newly launched blog. more ›

For over 100 years the Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind has done amazing work attending to the needs of and empowering the blind and visually impaired. But they can't do it without raising funds, more ›

More Chicago Gourmet updates. Tickets went on sale yesterday for the Grand Cru Wine Tastings, September 27 and 28. Master sommeliers, including local talents Joseph Spellman, Alpana Singh and Serafin Alvarado, will select fifty of the best wines in the world for tasting. more ›

Saturday is the ninth annual "Open That Bottle Night," an event decreed by Wall Street Journal wine column writers Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher. Typically scheduled for the last Saturday in February, Brecher and Gaiter created "OTBN" as a column device, basically. They asked readers to open a bottle of wine they found symbolically significant, and then send in the stories related to that choice. Over the years we've opened up everything from splits of Van Duzer pinot noir to magnums of G.H. Mumm Extra Dry champagne, usually in celebration of something. more ›

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Check, Please! just launched an interactive video-based website today where visitors may send in restaurant recommendations and audition for the show. The site also contains over 300 reviews from the show's run, the one-minute segments that began running on NBC 5 on Tuesdays and Fridays (NBC 5 is a partner in the site). Now you can look up recent reviews in case you missed a recent review or just want to view a truncated... more ›

Joining Current Conditions in its "new regular feature" designation is Quick Bites, a weekly wrap-up of some of the interesting topics debated and discussed in Chicago's food media. The Time Out Chicago blog scooped Dish on Marcus Samuelsson news; the Ethiopian-born chef will be opening a new restaurant, C-House, in the Affinia Chicago Hotel in early 2008. Samuelsson is known for his work at New York's Riingo and Aquavit. If you've been feeling a little... more ›

Or, since this will be an Oktoberfest-intensive installment, "Das Freitagsbüfett." Most of these are around the general vicinity of Lincoln Park, Lake View, and Wrigleyville. Things kick off this evening with St. Alphonsus' Sixth Annual Oktoberfest Chicago. Admission is $5, or free if you RSVP at going.com/oktoberfestchicago. First St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church hosts their Oktoberfest Saturday from 5-10 p.m. Cost is $20 ($15 for seniors, $10 for children under 12). St. Michael in Old... more ›

Here’s what we missed while we were watching loud, fast planes and asthmatic midgets: Bailiwick Rep is working to expand their audience with Hogwash, a family friendly improv show, playing Saturday afternoons through November 17, and a special “Naked Night” performance of Barenaked Lads September 7 where performers and audience alike will bare it all. And it’s for a good cause. (link is NSFW, more or less) As foundation work commences for the Chicago Spire,... more ›

Last week Chicagoist was invited to a wine tasting at Mrs. Murphy & Sons Irish Bistro. We were told that there would be appetizers, an opportunity to meet the one and only Alpana Singh and, of course, wine to taste. It sounded like a good time, so we bundled ourselves up and got on the bus. Having never visited Mrs. Murphy's we weren't sure what to expect. In addition to being unfamiliar with the location,... more ›

Fans of "Check Please" missed one doozy of an episode last weekend, one that perfectly encapsulated the appeal and genius of the show. The episode, which reviewed Lincoln Park raw food hot spot Karyn's Fresh Corner, Lincolnwood steakhouse Myron & Phil's, and Chicagoist 2006 favorite Haro, was spurred to must-see status by the staunch opinions and sharp tongues of retired lawyer Fred Solomon (pictured, left) and model Manase Latu (right). The stage was set... more ›

Frequent viewers of "Check Please" will know what we're about to describe. One of the guests will describe the wine he may have paired with his meal, and the camera will do a quick cut to Alpana Singh, who has her head turned to the guest, listening intently. That look turns to an enthusiastic, knowing gleam if the guest chose an Alsatian riesling. It's one of those rare occasions where Singh lets her guard... more ›

You know Alpana Singh from the show "Check Please!" and from constantly being reminded that at the age of 26 she was the youngest woman to be inducted into the Court of Master Sommeliers. But did you know she also just wrote a book, "Alpana Pours: About Being a Woman, Loving Wine, and Having Great Relationships"? We're told that the main focus of the book is wine, of course, but it's also "peppered with off-the-cuff... more ›

If it seems that Chicagoist has been writing a lot lately about wine there's a reason besides we'e drinking a lot of it. Governor Blago has declared September as the first Illinois Wine Month. The number of wineries in the state has grown in the past eight years from twelve to sixty, producing an estimated 500,000 gallons a year. Grape acreage especially has expanded from 140 acres to over 1,000 acres in that same... more ›