by Keir Graff
It's February. Shit.
Outside your window, the greenhouse-effect rollercoaster rampages, its riders' hands raised aloft in delight or surrender, depending on whether it's twenty degrees above or below normal. If it's not snowing, it's raining, and if it's not freezing, it's melting. Ice or puddles, take your pick - scratch that, the vengeful weather gods will pick for you.
Comfy or cabin-feverish, you're still confined. You slouch at your computer, its wan glow brighter than the cloud-tempered daylight that seeps in yon window, as you play the umpteenth game of solitaire. Your spouse, S.O. or roommate rounds the corner yawning: "What is there to eat?" The fridge is as bare as a presidential behind. You'd venture out, but only a fool goes outside in February. You'd pick up the phone book, but it's too heavy and you're too tired. Fortunately, a world of eats awaits online. With a few feeble finger-flicks, you're surfing, selecting and salivating at the possibilities.
Just typing a few logical keywords, like "Chicago" and "restaurant," will unearth a plethora of pages, many with links older than the golf course at St. Andrew's. Here's the skinny on what's good and what's best left alone. The best single site I found is called InterDiner. Representing sixteen restaurants, some with multiple locations, the service allows you to peruse the menus of each and place your order over the Internet. Many of the restaurants are basic, offering staples like soup, sandwiches, pizza and Chinese, but there's also Thai and Middle Eastern, as well as fancier fare from Da Nicola and Little Bucharest. InterDiner doesn't cost you anything extra, and the restaurants add only a small delivery fee, usually about two bucks. Ordering from Old Jerusalem using a credit card, a confirmation phone call came within minutes of logging off the computer. Food arrived forty minutes later, neatly packed and plenty hot. Granted, service will vary with the restaurant, but being freed from a bale of take-out menus is a pleasure indeed.
There are a great number of other clearinghouses of restaurant information, of varying quality. Most simply post their menus and vital stats; it's not as nifty as ordering online, but you can make your selections, give them a ring, and then swing by to pick up your grub or have it delivered. Mangiare lists menus for many Italian restaurants around the city, while the national Kerry Menus displays those of nearly a hundred Chicago eateries, from the Corner Bakery to the Como Inn. You have to call to inquire about pick-up or delivery, but it's a start.
Restaurant Row provides maps, driving directions and visitor reviews, but precious little else. Cuisine Net has a search engine that allows you to search by location, cuisine, price and amenities, and which seems useful but is perhaps too exclusionary. Rather basic requests kept coming up empty until, broadening our terms, we found Hat Dance - now out of business. Order-to-Go claims that "Now all of your favorite places will be available with a single click of your mouse," but in fact you can't order off the site. There's an obsolete link and about four menus; the site was last revised 11/13/97, so skip it.
Dining IN Chicago claims to have restaurants that allow you to order online, but unfortunately the links to them are all defunct. There are a few useful links, to places like Robinson's Ribs, Tsang Chinese and Carmen's, where you can find menus and delivery phone numbers, but by and large, you'll spend too much time weeding through the litter. An email to the webmaster was returned to sender, and a link to the alleged producer of Dining IN Chicago was also dead. Sadly, this experience epitomizes much of what is on the web. Perhaps entrepreneurs rushed into business, only to find that it's harder and not as profitable as they'd thought. Still, they must maintain their obligations to their earliest clients, and so these web pages flounder on, like ghost ships in the cyber sea. Delivery Express publishes a hard copy of their guide, which presumably has more listings, but the online version has a scant four restaurants in Chicago. All, however, do offer carry-out and delivery.
Many individual restaurants have their own web presence. Charlie Trotter's has a lavish site, although I doubt the chef's degustation menus are meant to be snarfed out of Styrofoam boxes. Restaurant websites span the spectrum, and though some are neglected (like the ZDE Restaurant site, which urges you to Reserve Now!!! for Thanksgiving Dinner), they tend to be better-maintained than the clearinghouse variety. You can find menus for take-out Greek food from Pegasus, pan-Asian from Hopcats Brewery and BBQ from Brother Jimmy's. Cafe Iberico has photos of their dining rooms, so you can admire them as you munch your take-home tapas.
If you are a homesick Chicagoan, away from your beloved city, or if you know one of same, you can use the web to order them a taste of home. Both Carson's and Lou Malnati's use FedEx to ship flash-frozen ribs and pizza, respectively. It ain't cheap (especially Carson's), but if you're stuck in South Dakota it may mean the difference between living and mere survival.
copyright 1999 New City Communications, Inc.