Mercat a la Planxa's Jose Garces flays Bobby Flay on Iron Chef [Philly City Paper] Applebee's "owns riblets." Wonderful; another reason not to go. [NYT] Joanna MIller delves into a vegetarian nicoise salad. [My Vegetable Blog] A teaser for Paul Kahan's upcoming the Publican. [Drive-Thru] Food Chain on Alliance Bakery Break-In [Food Chain] TOC reveals the secret of Carnivale's Mojitos. [TOC] Chris Borelli of the Tribune braves the opening of the Aurora Sonic [Tribune] TOC's......

We don't usually toot our own horn, but sometimes the opportunity is just too good to pass up. Last weekend we participated in Schadenfreude's 2nd Annual Alt-Media Slam contest along with Gapers Block, Time Out Chicago, and the Red Eye. The event had a wide-open feel as last year's champs, The Chicago Reader (and their trophy), failed to make an appearance. Tempers flared, slams were thrown, and only one team was left standing as champions:......

Tomorrow night at the Hideout, Chicagoist will be going up against Time Out Chicago, Gapers Block, and the Red Eye in Schadenfreude's second annual Alternative Media Slam. We're not sure how a Tribune company paper counts as "alternative," but last year's winner (cough bullshit cough) the Reader wouldn't participate this year. We'll be trading yo-mama–style rap-battle insults with the other esteemed publications...and the Red Eye. Hey-o! We're practicing already. The show starts at 9pm and......

Lauri Apple of Gapers Block asked me a while ago if I'd be interested in representing Chicagoist in a DJ battle against her / Gapers Block at The Burlington tonight. Naturally I accepted the challenge without a second thought. I believe we'll be splitting the evening into five musical themes* with each of us allotted 30 minutes to outdo the other, or something like that. I'll have free stuff from Chicagoist and she'll have Gapers......

Chicago Magazine's February issue has a list of 171 Chicago-based websites they think are worth checking out. Naturally we're in there ... twice! Once under "News Reporting" and then again as Sun-Times critic Jim DeRogatis' personal picks. The thing is until today, the only place this list lived was in the magazine, even through Chicago Magazine's website has been telling us "story coming soon" for weeks now. Luckily for us Time Out Chicago's web editor......

Behold, Outside the Loop Radio's year in review special, featuring yours truly, Steve Rhodes of The Beachwood Reporter and Dave Schalliol of Gapers Block. The Bulls' interim head coach Jim Boylan is making changes for tonight's game. Ben Gordon will be riding the bench and Chris Duhon will be starting in his place. [Sun-Times] No, the City is not going to dispatch smoking police come 12:01am New Years Day. But put out the cigarette,......

Watch us on WTTW's Chicago Tonight tonight at 7, or rebroadcast at 1:30 and 4:30 a.m. for you night owls. We'll be alongside esteemed colleagues Andrew from Gapers Block and Kevin from CTA Tattler. (Think of it as a reunion, except with me instead of Rachelle.) The blogger segment should go on around 7:30, and if at some point Phil Ponce notes that "blog" is short for "web log," everybody drink!......

Clear your afternoon: Gapers Block's own Naz Hamid is facing off against Chris Glass in another round of Layer Tennis from our pals over at Coudal. Whew! That was a lot of internet in one sentence. The match starts at 2pm. Go Naz! Qué es Layer Tennis? It's immediate, competitive--but classy--design! Like the inside of Wes Anderson's brain, only less affected and without possible subtle racism. The artists swap a file back and forth; each......

"One Mint Julep" seems to be a fitting theme for this week, in both photo and song (Last.fm doesn't lie). Let's move on, shall we? Today is "Charlie Trotter Day" in Chicago, in honor of the 20th anniversary of the opening of his eponymous restaurant. The Sun-Times had a couple of nice pieces this week in conjunction. We linked to Janet Fuller's story of Trotter's first two employees, who are still with him today, in......

No repartee this week, all business. - We've received e-mails from concerned people and had to check it out for ourselves, and it looks as though Cereality at 110 South Wacker has closed down, only a couple years after Chicagoist (among other media) made a big fuss about its opening. There's even a "For Rent" sign in its front window. This kind of reaffirms our faith in the human race; if people won't pay $4.50......

Schadenfreude put media professionals and bloggers on stage at their near-monthly Rent Party Friday night for an Alternative Media Slam/ Free For All / Put Down Insult Tournament. The Schad organized this inaugural competition out of respect for our work and because they wanted to see four local institutions sling muck at each other. And sling we did. Before we get into who called who what and who’s momma was being disrespected, let's be......

Some of us are still recovering from last week's Four Questions, but our readers have an insatiable thirst for answers. One recently posed an interesting question to us concerning Chicago's Olympic bid and the city's flag. As all Chicagoans no doubt know, the city's flag includes three white bars, two blue bars and four six-sided stars. The three white bars signify the North, West and South sides of the city, while the blue bars......

We are growing here at Chicagoist, recently adding some new faces to the group so that we can provide you with plenty of mind candy. That's why we are sad to report that one of our satellite offices is closing down. The Chicago Journal, via Gapers Block, reports that Filter, in Wicker Park, is closing. Swank Frank, our favorite place to get a fried twinkie at 2 a.m. will also be closing. Bank of America,......

Tom Sherman from fledgling Chicago tech site WindyBits filled up Mr. Fusion yesterday and traveled back in time to review nascent versions of your favorite Chicago websites. We're particularly taken with the proto-version of the Tribune (someone got a Flash book for their birthday), and the absolutely hideous, 1998 incarnation of the Sun-Times (image maps rule). Nobody escapes this internet version of their cool college friends finding their high school yearbooks, including yours truly. Tom......

If variety is the spice of life, then fans of online food writing just entered their own little spice house. It may seem as though these new entries are playing catch-up with the well-established, familiar bastions of food porn, but they do have different things to offer and influence established food coverage in Chicago. Gapers Block just launched their food blog, Drive-Thru. If you're familiar with the GB style, you know what to expect. You......

Not to be outdone by a former editor, our own Rachelle "Chicagoist Prime" Bowden, in her non-pixellated form, will share the dais with CTA Tattler's Kevin O'Neill and Gapers Block jefe Andrew Huff on Wednesday's "Chicago Tonight." Phil Ponce will moderate a discussion with the three, asking them about our respective internet fiefdoms, how blogs disseminate information, the stories broken on the respective websites, and if Huff's sideburns have a life of their own.......

Last night Chicagoist met up with fellow bloggers from Gapers Block and Coudal for some bowling at Lucky Strike. Saying we got our asses handed to us would be an understatement. Still, everyone had fun and it was great to see our old friends from across the interweb and to meet some new ones too. We're just hoping bad bowling score ≠ bad blog! More photos from Chicagoist and Gapers Block.......

It may seem like Chicagoist is cool, but really we're big time nerds. We get off on geeky new gadgets and websites and blogs. And we're not ashamed of it either. Let's look back at the nerdiest Chicago-area things that caught our attention in 2005. Our Biggest Nerd Crush went to Adrian Holovaty, internet wizard and co-creator of chicagocrime.org. We met him at an event and all of us were clearly drooling at how nerdy......

Last week Chicagoist wrote: "Memo to John Cruickshank: Time to fold the Red Streak. This is getting embarrassing." On Thursday, the "youth-focused" Red Streak will publish its last issue, three years after its first. While we'd like to think we had something to do with the closing, we know the Red Streak's fate was sealed long ago. Crain's is reporting that no jobs will be lost as a result of the closure, probably because most......

Here's the thing: anytime we hear the term "chick lit," our head starts spinning and we feel a little queasy. We're not sure what to think of a marketing strategy that degrades both the product and the (female, natch) reader and yet is somehow wildly successful. Frankly, we're inclined to ignore it, but the terminology just pisses us off. Which is why we're pretty fired up about tonight's Chick Lit Panel Discussion at Women and......

If you were upstairs at ImprovOlympic Saturday at midnight, you saw these blogger hotties discuss Chicagoist and Gapers Block, what makes a good blog, and whether we make any money off these sites (Answer: not really). Inspired by this entrepreneurial spirit, The Late Night Late Show cast hatched a series of ventures to capitalize on the internet buzz. Pictured above: Rachelle and Andrew discussing blogs and one of the night's hairbrained schemes, a blended......

This Saturday night, Chicagoist Editor Rachelle Bowden (a.k.a. Chicagoist Prime) and Gapers Block editor and co-founder Andrew Huff are the featured guests on ImprovOlympic’s answer to Leno and Letterman—The Late Night Late Show. Hosts Mark Luge and Amit Mahtaney, channeling Craig Kilbourn and Ali G, respectively, stay up late every Saturday night to chat with Chicago celebrities and personalities. L.N.L.S. is mostly a straight-up talk show sprinkled with liberal doses of improv. Come out......

Chicagoist has complained about the lack of springtime this year, and complained some more about the chilly temperatures outside. But, now that things finally seem to be looking up for those that enjoy sunshine, we.... well, we have more complaining to do. Warmer temperatures mean that legions of lucky boat-owning inlanders will soon be sailing their crafts toward Lake Michigan, and that means those pesky drawbridges downtown will disrupt traffic and commuter routes as they......

Some of us here at Chicagoist don't have health insurance so news of Gapers Block Creative Director Nazarin Hamid's unfortunate tumble off his bike Sunday hit us right in the nuts. His bike's wheel caught in a groove on a downtown bridge during a scavenger hunt he mentioned last Friday. It sounds like he's, relatively, OK and recuperating. But a lost tooth, a broken tooth, a nasty gash, bruising and blood on the brain equal......

Today is Festivus and we've been reading a lot lately about how all the cool kids are celebrating. It's easy. All you need is an aluminum pole to display unadorned. Local customs sometimes allow decorations, but they must be non-threatening plain decorations, and tinsel is absolutely banned. What? It's distracting! At Chicagoist's Festivus party we would ask everyone invited (all of you!) to contribute to The Human Fund and the money would really go to......

Officials are still investigating the cause of the fire at the LaSalle National Bank Building on Monday night. Check out Alice Maggio's column over at Gapers Block for some history on the building. With zero fatalities in the fire and no incredibly serious injuries (the last four people hospitalized with injuries from the fire will be released today), many are praising the CFD's performance. City officials say changes made to resolve problems pointed out in......

We're kind of all over the place today, itching to get out of work Right Now, Or Even A Little While Ago. Our attention-span is shot to shit, so here are some afternoon tidbits: ++ Uh, does John Kass not understand time zones? Because…shows are on an hour later on the East Coast and the West Coast. So wondering how people get home by 5:30 to watch Tom Brokaw is also wondering how people get......

The DIY Trunk Show is this weekend, just in time for the holidays. The show features more than 70 of Chicago's independent crafters and artists in an all-day bazaar. Featured crafts are knitting, sewing, soapmaking, papermaking, and recycled materials. But expect each of these to be updated with alternative ideas. For example, instead of crocheted tissue box covers, expect mustache-shaped throw pillows, zines, graffitti, art, evil-eye jewelry, and dozens of other handmade, one-of-a-kind offerings.......

The CTA, which is projecting that it will lose $100 million next year, says that if it doesn't get more money from the General Assembly that it will make "massive" cuts to bus and rapid transit service and that "there will not be a CTA rider that is not affected." The CTA board will hold 3 public hearings next month, tentatively scheduled for October 12th, 19th, and 25th. Then they will have their budget hearing......

Remember the ol' TGIF theme song on ABC? (Or when people actually watched ABC?) "It's Friday night and the moon is bright/ Gonna have some fun, so you how it's done... TGIF!" And while the days of pre-"I Love the '90s" Urkel and the chubby/non-coke-using Olsen twins are gone, Chicagoist still takes those silly lyrics to heart, constantly humming them come week's end. Yes, good friends, the weekend is almost here. And here are......