Pitchfork: The Food
By Chuck Sudo in Food on Jul 21, 2008 3:45PM
Temptation vegan ice cream from \<a href=\"http://welovesoy.com\"\>Chicago Soy Dairy\<\/a\> did brisk business all weekend selling soy milk ice cream ($4 for bowls, $4.50 for cones). We loved the chocolate chip cookie dough waffle cone.
Connie\'s Pizza is always a hit-or-miss proposition. If you visit the flagship restaurant on Archer, Connie\'s is a hit. Sadly, this was Pitchfork and what Connie\'s was serving up was just a step above what they serve at both Wrigley Field and Sox Park.
ÄevapÄiÄi. We have a weakness for this minced Balkan sausage made from 1/2 beef, 1/4 lamb and 1/4 pork. It\'s one of our favorites of the grilling season.
Here is ÄevapÄiÄi served medium on grilled pita with raw onions. The sauce is a roast red pepper and eggplant relish seasoned with cayenne that\'s very easy to make at home.
The coconut curry from Urb Village. Urb Village traveled all the way from Iowa to set up shop at Pitchfork. Kevin was raving about their curry all weekend, but we found it lacking in both seasoning and sweetness from the coconut. Moreover, the rice was undercooked.
Now here is a hell of a dish, easily our favorite of what we had over the weekend. This is red coconut beef over saffron rice from \<a href=\"http://thericetable.com\"\>The Rice Table\<\/a\>, a Skokie-based caterer that specializes in Indonesian cuisine. Chef Chris Reed and his staff were doing brisk business with this, chicken curry, satays and goreng-style noodles. It\'s hard to find good Indonesian in the area; The Rice Table is worth a mention.
Pitchfork's organizers are pretty strict when it comes to what one can bring into the fest. Among the regulations are no outside food and a maximum of two sealed bottles of water. During our visits to the fest over the weekend we were searched thoroughly to ensure we were keeping in line with those rules. Walking from stage to stage in the humid weather smothering the area all weekend all but guaranteed that we were going to wind up both hungry and thirsty.
Festivals — whether large events like Pitchfork or the average street fair — are where vendors hedge their bets on whether they can push enough product to justify the setup fees. The Goose Island beer and Sparks tents were doing great business all weekend, as were the bottled water and Fuze stations. However, we were slightly underwhelmed by the food vendors at Pitchfork, an amalgam of restaurants whose food just doesn't do it for us like Star of Siam, Chicago Diner, Abbey Pub and Wishbone. There were some food kiosks that piqued our interest and, overall, we were satisfied with the quality of what we chose.
