Partners in Crime
Going Down Under for the Beverly-Bi
Most people are familiar with the Taylor Street Twosome, but how many know about the Beverly-Bi? The Taylor Street Twosome is the tradition of sucking down a nutmeg-spiced Italian beef, with your knuckles slathered in gravy and flecked with stray giardiniera, at the original Al’s, followed by a saunter across the street for an icy sweet-plastic-spoon dip into a wax-lined paper cup of Mario’s Italian Lemonade. The Beverly-Bi isn’t quite so easy
(2008-05-06)
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Tapped Out?
Tufano’s Vernon Park Tap may be just tired
The flavorless red sauce tasted as if the kitchen dumped out canned peeled whole tomatoes, chopped them up and warmed them through. The clams were gritty. The special salad featured limp red peppers and iceberg lettuce swimming in watered-down vinaigrette
(2008-04-29)
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Dancing with Tripe
Romania has more than just Dracula
All I really know about Romania I learned from Nadia Comaneci, Dracula and those late-eighties/early-nineties commercials depicting squalid orphanages. And I might have kept on thinking that the country was populated exclusively by agile beauties, blood-sucking monsters and doleful children if my favorite burger spot, Kuma’s Corner, didn’t have a two-hour back-up last Friday
(2008-04-22)
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Green-Market Dorks
mado and the making of a neighborhood restaurant
"We’re the green-market dorks," says Allison Levitt, chef and co-owner with her husband Rob of the just-opened Bucktown restaurant, mado. Levitt’s referring to the band of chefs who get up at dawn most every Wednesday and Saturday to scour the Green City Market looking for the best responsibly grown food for their restaurant kitchens
(2008-04-15)
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Cinful
Cincinnati chili in Chi-town
"You know Jerry Springer? I’ve inhaled with him more than a few times," says Ed, a displaced Cincinnati architect nursing a glass of red wine at the end of the bar. On my left, a barrel-chested buzz-cut man, another former Queen City native, a national guardsman about to be deployed to Afghanistan, reminisces about lazy afternoons watching Pete Rose and the Big Red Machine at Riverfront stadium. The transplanted faithful are out in force on the first Saturday night of Lincoln Square’s new Cincinnati-style chili parlor and lounge, Cinner’s
(2008-04-08)
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Eaters Up!
You can beat food at the old ballpark
Growing up a Detroiter, there was no mustard-only hotdog religion. The only encased-meat principle that was inviolable was that you got your chili-slathered Coneys at gritty Lafayette, and not the theme-park-like American when you were downtown. With no cultural taboo to hold me back, there were days I ate ketchup on my hotdogs
(2008-04-01)
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My Favorite Things: The Remix
A breakdown of some recent finds
Oprah’s weak. She only shares her favorite things once a year. I, on the other hand, am back with another edition of my favorite, food, wine and restaurant dishes
(2008-03-25)
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Back to the Blackstone
Opening Night at Mercat a la Planxa
The braised rabbit agnolotti with rosemary, truffle chestnut puree and brandied cherries is my favorite dish of the year. The funky creamy sauce, al dente pasta and tender rabbit was so comforting, it would probably soothe me through bankruptcy and a firebombing of my condo
(2008-03-11)
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The Out-of-Towners
Best of Chicago (that you can write about while living in New York)
Last week, Frank Bruni, New York Times chief reviewer, ate from coast to coast, scouring for America’s ten best newest restaurants (opened between Jan 1, 2006 and December 31, 2007) and JJ Goode, a New York freelance food writer, examined the nation’s best breakfasts.
(2008-03-05)
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A Return to the Yucatan
Xni-Pec is naked in the grotto
Last year, Xni-Pec restaurant might have been the best thing to happen to Cicero since Betty Loren Maltese got locked up. Putting a regional Yucatecan restaurant in the same category as the incarceration of a multi-million-dollar embezzler might seem like hyperbole. But for most, the Yucatan is Cancun, which means most people’s conception of Yucatecan cuisine is Senor Frogs or Carlos ’n Charlies. Any restaurant that challenged such notions had to be exceptional
(2008-02-26)
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