From the "DUH!" Files: Apparently fast food meals aren't good for kids. The Center for Science in the Public Interest released a report this week that concluded that kids meals at fast food chains exceed the 430 calories-per-meal limit. Among the worst offenders, Chili's makes the list twice with kids meals at or over 1000 calories each. [via MenuPages Chicago] "Rock Star Chef City" alert: BOURDAIN is in town through next week finally filming......

Dor the Downtown workforce, uFood Grill opens today at 200 W. Jackson. Founded by George Naddaf of Boston Chicken/Market fame, uFood follows that franchise's emphasis on healthy dining options, with menu items made from lean meats, natural and organic ingredients, fresh produce, whole grains, and lower-fat cheeses and dressings. Nothing is fried. And especially for you at the nearby Board of Trade wasting time reading us when you could be in the pits, uFood is......

To paraphrase Merle Haggard, "It's not close, but it's not bad." A Sonic Drive-In franchisee has chosen to set up the first greater Chicago area franchise of the venerable fast food chain in Aurora, in a retail development at Kirk and Butterfield Roads anchored by a Wal-Mart. You know, so the NASCAR set doesn't feel homesick. Seriously, we're pretty stoked for this. The Sonic double cheeseburger with chili and tater tots on the side is......

14th Ward Alderman Edward Burke is at it again, with his radical attempts to give you nutritional information and clean up your water! His proposal that restaurants should provide calorie counts on their menus, originally proposed 15 months ago, is back on the table. It’s been revised to only include chain restaurants (defined as having more than 15 locations nationwide), but really. How silly of him! No city would ever do anything like that!......

More bike or foot patrols was not part of Fraternal Order of Police 3rd Vice President Greg Bella’sdemands for a more fit police force. Photo by Tobias Higbie. We reported in yesterday’s Extra, Extra, that top cop Jody Weis -- a buff body builder married to a personal trainer -- wants to modify the current incentive for officers to stay healthy and fit. Instead of the $250 bonus payment for officers to run a......

In November we took a look at La-Van Hawkins, a Chicago-born restaurateur who made a fortune in fast food franchises. Hawkins was planning on opening a slew of Nancy's Pizza and Al's Italian Beef franchises on the South Side even as he was waiting to be sentenced to 33 months in prison on corruption charges. We should have known something was fishy in DenmarkStony Island. Hawkins' plans took a hit when he recently closed seven......

Bridgeport's treated us well. As we've written numerous times both here and elsewhere, the neighborhood grew on us. When we first moved out south eight years ago we never would have thought that we'd have lived here as long as we have; we just thought of Bridgeport as a stop-gap to moving back to the north side. Now it seems like others are clued in to what we knew long ago: this neighborhood rocks.......

We were visiting our mechanic at Gateway Auto this morning -- dropping off our own slightly ill vehicle -- and noticed a bright yellow 1967 Ford pickup truck in their lot. We commented upon how cool it looked, and the owner told us it was in to be converted to run on vegetable oil. Yup, vegetable oil. Basically, once they are done adding a new fuel tank and filter system, the owner of the truck......

Just in time for the playoffs, no less. Using actual lettuce to spell out the words "fresh salads," a billboard near Clark and Addison has been transformed into an ad for McDonald's premium salads. The ad was created by Leo Burnett and follows their successful "sundial" ad campaign, which used the Golden Arches logo to cast a shadow over various breakfast items. The ad company worked with a horticulturalist on this billboard, which is capable......

With unseasonable weather descending upon much of North America, schools getting ready to reconvene, and sports seasons getting exciting, it's a busy time of year for us here in the Ist-A-Verse. Luckily, even with all the things we have to do, we still managed to get together to let you know what we've all been up to. After cooling down from a hot weekend of many badass Sunset Junction Street Fair photo dispatches, LAist asked......

Pop quiz! Which is better: a Chicken McNugget or a small morsel of chicken meat that has been battered and fried to look like, smell like and taste like a Chicken McNugget, a piece of chicken lacking only the telltale McDonalds' wrapping? If you answered the McNugget, you aren't alone; A recent study of preschoolers in which the children sampled identical McDonald's foods in name-brand and unmarked wrappers found that the unmarked food always lost.......

Parents, we know it’s happened to you: you’re in the middle of running errands when your kid begins screaming, and you realize you’re starving, too. Where do you and your little one go for cheap, fast food at lunchtime that actually tastes good? Head out to Art of Pizza on Ashland Avenue! For $3 (tax included), you can buy a slice of pizza almost as big as your head, in your choice of thin crust,......

If we are weighing "want to know" vs. "don't want to know" when it comes to where and how McDonald's food is prepared, Chicagoist definitely falls on the "don't want to know" side. Ignorance is bliss, people, ignorance is bliss. Yet McDonald's doesn't think most people are like us. The Oak Brook-based fast food behemoth will introduce six blogs next week from a team of "Moms' Quality Correspondents," six corresponding mothers who will get behind-the-scenes......

One of the things we like the most about Chicago is that when the weather agrees, this city behaves much like a resort town. You can walk, jog, ride a bike, rollerblade, or skateboard along a massive lakefront to any number of beaches. And when you arrive at the beach of your choice, you can hang out for the afternoon, drinking, eating, and more drinking like there isn’t a care in the world. We stopped......

Vegetarian Hot Dogs?...

With all the commentary from Elizabeth's Uncle Julio's post still fresh in mind, we gleaned this little tidbit from today's Sun-Times. Zagat released the results of its first-ever fast food survey. Using the same three criteria that they use for every other restaurant they rate (food, service, and atmosphere) Panera Bread came out on top as the best overall fast food chain. Raters praised the quality of Panera's "fresh-baked breads" and "top-notch sandwiches." Wendy's was......

We are in the midst of Lent right now. Though Chicagoist isn't entirely Catholic, we do know that part of Lent involves not eating meat. Which means, if you believe a part of your meal should be accessible via the drive-thru window, you may be feeling a little bit peckish these days. Chicagoist decided to take the proverbial bull by its horns and determine once and for all, which fast food fish sandwich is the......

With the sun out, the temperatures high, one can only think of one thing-- what's going on in the World of the -ist's? Bostonist dug deep to uncover Barack Obama's unpaid parking tickets, their Governor's latest ethical lapse, and a plagarizing sports writer. Chicagoist had everything in twos: two views on having the Olympics, losing two members of their Super Bowl team, and two music festivals. DCist put their noses in legal books as......

It's impostor week here at Chicagoist, with fake websites, fake money, fake cab drivers, and fake Johnny Knoxvilles. All that's missing are the cheesy disguises. Kids, don't try any of this at home. We kick off the Conrad Black trial news bonanza with some evidence that perhaps he wasn't the most astute media consumer. He fell for a satirical website created by the Canadian magazine Frank that's supposedly raising money for his defense. He even......

It looks like the Tribune has more than just money and stockholder problems these days. Glommed from the Reader's Food Chain blog yesterday is this article about the politics of modern eating. In her attempt at writing a humorous piece (vegetarians are acid casualties with their own bad eating habits, haven't heard that before), Emily Nunn comes across instead as obstinate toward and proudly ignorant of what we would know about where our food comes......

Austinist gets arty with an interactive guide to SXSW, loved some local art galleries and a new art exhibit and lamented the possible loss of "Friday Night Lights" production to New Mexico. Bostonist was happy they finally found an Anna Nicole Smith connection to their fair city and that an Apple Store was opening up. They were less happy that new rules have been established limiting underage shows and that their Governor is spending......

"When I was a kid, I wanted to be a pilot," started Abeng Stuart (at right in the picture, with partner Dre Palmer), owner of the Bronzeville eatery Wings Around the World. "With these wings, it's the next best thing." Stuart isn't just spouting mere hyperbole. Since opening last September, Wings Around the World has steadily been bringing in customers from all over the city. We have to admit to some skepticism; knowing that that......

Winter heralds a kind of hibernation in Chicago. Present balmy weather excepted, the colder temps discourage the usual plans that would be a great idea in spring or summer. Citizens hunker down in their radiator-kissed apartments, ignoring the world at large outside. That's why now is the perfect time to shut down the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier for maintenance and repairs. Before the end of January, the 150-foot whirling dervish will wind down until......

In order to allow for better preparation for your weekend jaunts, we are, from now on, going to combine our "what to do" posts into one article on Saturday mornings. We figured, no better weekend to start than when 90% of the city will be watching the Bears kick ass on Sunday anyway. Be sure to send us any information on events, we can search for things all we want, but you are the ones......

Two fast food restaurants have opened halal outposts on Devon St, creating competition over whose chicken is the best and whose chicken is more halal. Kentucky Fried Chicken and Brown's Chicken and Pasta are battling it out for the hearts, minds and stomachs of observant Muslim fried chicken eaters. But not everyone is a fan. The problem stems from a less-than-precise definition of halal. Halal refers to what is permitted under Muslim law for consumption,......

You have to love Ed Burke. Either he truly means well, suffers from the "Second City" inferiority complex, or he reads Chicagoist and can't help himself. Regarding our post last week about Culver's decision to ban trans fats, we wrote: "We guess that as soon as City Council hears about this, they'll get that Second City chip on their collective shoulder and pass the trans fat ban that Ed Burke's been slowly hydrogenating with......

In an effort to be your one-stop McDonald's shop, Chicagoist has the following sad news to report: A unique, historic Crystal Lake branch of the mighty empire is shutting down. Granted, that's not as tragic as the overall fast food gentrification trend, but there's something special about this particular Mickey D's: it's housed in a piece of Chicago. Four years after the very first McDonald's opened in Des Plaines, Crystal Lake became home to the......

By this point we’re pretty much used to Chicago catching some flak for its portly midsection. So we were saddened, though not surprised, that our very own Children’s Memorial Hospital is the focus of a study that explores the effects of having fast-food restaurants located inside pediatric centers. Out of our country’s 250 children’s hospitals, 59 of them have fast-food joints located on-site. Children’s Memorial found a way to one-up the other 58, however,......

We’re not sure what Facets connection to the culinary sphere is, but they’ve got another food-related documentary running through this Thursday. This time it’s a film that shares a glimpse into the eerie world of industrial food production. Our Daily Bread documents the goings-on and the mechanized workings of modern farms and slaughterhouses. Yikes. OK, we haven’t actually seen Austrian filmmaker Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s movie quite yet (look for us there this week), but the trailers......

Few things epitomize South Side fast food like the breaded steak sandwich. During our years living out south, we've had too many of them to mention. They range in quality from succu-fuccu-lent works of art rivaling any steakhouse entree, to gluttonous monstrosities that serve as Exhibits "A" through "LMNOP" that obesity isn't a "glandular" problem. Craving a breaded steak yesterday, but minding our renewed focus on eating smaller portions, we took a walk to......