Be careful on the two-wheelers, especially if you're a chef. Phil Vettel took time out from covering his Bizarro-world Chicago Gourmet to report that both Laurent Gras of L2O and Café Matou's Charlie Socher were in recent accidents. Gras, a bicycling enthusiast, was hopsitalized for a week and is now back in the kitchen. Socher wiped out his motorcycle (hopefully he wore a leather jacket for a controlled slide); chef Polo Heredia is filling......

Taking a look at the reader's choice selections this go-round, it looks as though I roped myself into a style theme. Three of the four selections — including this week's — have been porters. By no means was this intentional; they were simply the selections that stood out the most. Digressing, this week's selection comes from D.H. "The Meterologist" Lee. His words about Anchor Porter: "I know it's not the most summery beer, but it's......

All About Beer magazine (via) listed their "top 125 places to have a beer before you die" (a nice arbitrary number, by the way). Five local taverns made the cut: Hopleaf (#24), Clark Street Ale House (#43), Map Room (#47), Goose Island (#84) and John Barleycorn, which makes the cut ten spots from the bottom at #115. Our doppelganger in the Emerald City wholeheartedly agreed with the inclusion of Hopleaf and Map Room, although Map......

Starting off this week with a bit of a review. We slugged back our share of Original Schlitz Friday night at Green Mill. Guess what? It isn't that bad. Actually, as far as clean lagers go, we prefer it over Pabst Blue Ribbon (coincidentally, Pabst brews both). At $4 a bottle, it's also priced perfectly (PBR on draft at Green Mill runs $4.50). Louis Glunz Beer Company has formed the "Glunz Beer Culinary Council."......

We're going to be doing a special Valentine's Day version of the Buffet next week. Until then, here are some events to tie you over. Big City Swing is hosting a wine and chocolate tasting from 10:30 p.m. through 3 a.m. Cost is $15. The Alliance Francaise de Chicago is hosting a cooking class tomorrow open to kids between 7 to 10 year old accompanied by a family member. Expose your child to French culture......

Love for the Hopleaf is easy to generate, despite it being one of those Yogi Berra joints - so crowded, no one goes there. This is especially true in this post-smoking ban era, now that people can actually (gasp) eat in the front section without getting choked out by massive clouds of carcinogens. It's been years since we started going to Hopleaf for Kwak and mussels, but only recently discovered the massive amounts of awesome......