A look at some restaurant specials around town during the weekend of February 14.

Ai Japanese Restaurant
A four-course dinner for two gets you a bottle of Hana Awaka sake, beef tataki skewers, spicy miso king crab, soba crepes and tofu-wrapped tuna. Ai Japanese Restaurant, 358 W. Ontario, (312)335-9888. Feb. 12-14, 5pm-11:30pm. $88.

Berghoff
If you’re on a tight budget but still want to celebrate this Hallmark holiday, head to Berghoff’s where a four-course meal with options including seared salmon and grilled hanger steak and a handmade truffles will cost a mere $38. Berghoff, 17 W. Adams, (312)427-3170. Feb. 12-13, 4pm-10pm. $38.

Bin 36
Leo McCarey’s 1957 romantic drama “An Affair to Remember” will play while guests dine on a three course meal with wine pairings. Bin 36, 339 N. Dearborn, (312)755-9463. Feb. 14, 6:30pm-11pm. $48.

Bonsoiree
Money not an issue? Then head to Bonsoiree, where for $100-$130 you’ll get an eight-course menu featuring winter point oysters, asparagus soup, steamed abalone with fresh cherries and chocolate truffles. Bonsoiree, 2728 W. Armitage, (773)486-7511. Feb. 12-15, 5pm-10pm. $100-$130. Read the rest of this entry »

By Michael Nagrant

Last week Oprah discovered ethical eating and the whole Michael Pollan anthology. She also piled it on with a profile of Alicia Silverstone’s new vegan cookbook, aka “The Kind Diet.” Unfortunately the former lip-biting Lolita vilified cheese for ruining her once perfect skin, and thus her new tome should actually be called The Clueless Cookbook.

Based on how many people read James Frey, bought Neti pots or went to see Tyler Perry movies in the last few years, I’m pretty sure the end of food is near. Just in case, I’ve taken some time, and once again in the tradition of Ms. Winfrey, I share a few of my favorite things you should nosh on before the food O-pocalypse comes raining down.

Curried Butternut Squash Soup – Bagel on Damen
I never met a vegan I liked. But maybe that’s because I’m self-hating. Certainly I’m thinking about converting after a few slurps of the vegan-friendly fiery brew of smooth pureed butternut squash outfitted with caramelized sweet bits of Granny Smith apple served at this new Wicker Park hot spot. Now, where can I score a pair of leather-free shoes?

Croquetas de Pollo – Pasha
Everyone’s always saying they’d eat a tennis shoe if it were deep-fried, but why chow on a pair of old Nikes when you’ve got these luscious crispy golden brown orbs oozing with chicken, chorizo and spicy aioli? Read the rest of this entry »

By Michael Nagrant

There are a lot of toddlers who were more sophisticated than me in 2002. After all this was the decade where fat little Gap-clad cherubs named Holden or Zoe swaddled in architecturally significant strollers pushed by their progressive parents went from mother’s milk to maki in seconds flat. I, raised on La Choy chow mein and almond boneless chicken, made it to my mid-twenties without ever eating raw fish.

Back then “toro” was a lawnmower manufacturer or a bullfighter’s cry, not the silky fatty foie-like tuna I’ve come to covet like scantily clad pictures of Scarlett Johansson (for their art value of course). That all changed in the fall of 2002 thanks to a wicked hangover.

Some things are immutable. You die. You pay taxes. If you’re a Michigan football fan, you tailgate in six inches of mud in the driving rain or bundle up for a God-given pimp slap of a blizzard if you are somehow privileged to score tickets to the year-end Ohio State game, even if it takes place in the urban-planning disaster that is Columbus.

And, as in the fall of 2002, if both teams have a shot at the Big Ten championship, and Michigan has a chance to spoil the Buckeyes’ undefeated season and potential national championship, you certainly do not sell those tickets. In fact, if you have extras you hoard them so you can procure a seat for your warm thermos of hot chocolate.

But, when hours before the game you’re in so much pain from drinking with your old college buddy the night before that you can’t get out of bed, and you’re $20,000 in hock for school loans and a year out of college making almost nothing and some dude is offering you $400 a ticket, bitterness, greed and confusion conspire against you.

I can’t say I’d ever had four Ben Franklins in my pocket before, or really ever again. But they do burn the proverbial hole once they’re there, and the surest cure for a hangover is massive amounts of food. Flush, that means fancy food, and somehow this time the Awesome Blossom at Outback Steakhouse wasn’t going to cut it.

I do not remember how we ended up at a Columbus sushi bar Read the rest of this entry »

Hong Kong-Style Baked Rice

By Michael Nagrant

Chinese teenagers are apparently strung out on the Internet. Many news sources in the last couple of years reported that because of the one-child policy imposed on urban couples in 1979, the current generation of sibling-less teenagers and young adults is turning to the internet and online gaming in record numbers for companionship. There’s also a burgeoning crop of Chinese boot camps to treat internet addiction if your child actually believes he’s become his World of Warcraft avatar. The Chinese government, which believes among other things that high rates of teen pregnancy are related to Web surfing, has started shutting down rogue internet cafes like Eliot Ness busting up prohibition speakeasies. I know all this because I too am addicted to the internet, particularly Google, and I wanted to get a sense of the culture of folks I was dining with Sunday at the new Chinatown spot Sweet Station.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Michael Nagrant

I’m trying to imagine Mayor Daley making out with a supermodel. Thankfully I’m not really spending much time thinking about his sputtering sweating visage as much as imagining what kind of daddy issues a supermodel would really need to make that happen.

Though I’m sure he dreams of dripping Italian-beef gravy on Carla Bruni’s naked body, Daley is no Nicolas Sarkozy. However, he did finally realize a bit of the French dream when he allocated eight million of his secret-slush-fund, err, I mean tax-increment-financing dollars, to open Chicago’s burgeoning French Market in the west part of the Ogilvie Transportation Center on December 3.

Finally, clout we can believe in. Well, sort of. Though the market’s six weeks old, for most of the last month, many of the stands weren’t at full operation, and some had yet to open. You’d think Daley would be hoisting a glass of Old Style in celebration, but as of last week Frietkoten’s beer taps were still empty since they haven’t received their liquor license. (They must have donated too much to aldermanic thorns in Daley’s side like Bob Fioretti, Brendan Reilly and Scott Waguespack.)

On my first few visits the whole thing felt a little half-baked, like I imagine the whole idea of this thing went down in the first place: I see Mayor Daley on some European tour getting shuttled around in a private double-decker bus by the East End equivalent of the Chevy Chase character in “European Vacation” saying “Oy, ‘ere’s Big Ben, Parliament.” Eventually the whole trip ends up in Paris at the Marché d’Aligre with pan au chocolat dripping from Daley’s craw and him saying, “We gotta get us one of dem markets back in Chicawgo.” Read the rest of this entry »

Sunday night’s a stern nine degrees outside, but the 100-plus patrons at Big Star beam like crazy at the unconscionably fashionable new spot right by the Blue Line’s North and Milwaukee stop.

The ceiling of the late Pontiac Café is cut through by eight or more skylights, and emptied out by daylight, its simple box might resemble Blackbird’s simplicity that requires an ever-moving throng for the room to come to life; notably, the players here include Blackbird partner Paul Kahan, as well as other contributors from avec, The Publican and The Violet Hour, just across Damen to the west. Like the Rainbo Club to the south, it’s panopticon-style: there are no obstructions to the looking and being looked at, unless you count the fine small tacos in front of you, notably the De Panza, two bites of crunchy braised pork belly that would make a fine final meal along with a two-liter bottle of Dr. Pepper, using the bar’s Kold-Draft ice cubes. ”Super-fresh” is a phrase that rolls off Kahan’s tongue, and along with Buck Owens-style country on the turntable, it’s a daydream of a roadhouse, bare walls, dim bare bulbs dangling overhead. Read the rest of this entry »

By Michael Nagrant

Can you really trust a Jamaican restaurant that serves German chocolate cake? Then again, maybe that’s not really a good standard as you can’t really judge a German restaurant by that caramel-pecan-topped slice of goodness either. For German chocolate cake was not born in Deutschland. Rather in 1852, an Englishman named Samuel German invented a chocolate bar for the Baker’s Chocolate Company which was eventually named “Baker’s German’s Sweet Chocolate” in his honor. Someone made a cake with the stuff, and in 1957, an American submitted the recipe for the cake to a Dallas newspaper and thus it’s more American than apple pie, which is actually English.

One might turn to the decorative reggae LPs hanging on the wall at the new Ukrainian Village island-influenced retreat Mr. Brown’s Lounge for a measure of the place. But, by that standard, you might run away, for there are far too many Maxi Priest and Shabba Ranks album covers on this wall to take the restaurant seriously. Yes, I know you reveled in “Mr. Loverman” between spins of Spin Doctors’ “Two Princes,” but Shabba also has the dubious honor of guesting on the Eddie Murphy track “I Was a King.” Read the rest of this entry »

Top 5 New Fine Dining Restaurants
Cibo Matto
Taxim
Brown Trout
Sunda
Kith and Kin
—Michael Nagrant

Top 5 New Informal Restaurants
Xoco
Café Senegal
Zebda
Han 202
Jam
—Michael Nagrant Read the rest of this entry »

By Michael Nagrant

Avenues

Since 2000, Chicago has gone from being a Rat Pack-worthy steak-and-potato-slinging stereotype to a destination for international culinary travelers. Chicago’s affordability, its diners’ willingness to suspend disbelief and its proximity to the sublime bounty of the Midwest all play a role in that transformation. Most important to the renaissance are the places that put everything together to inspire our collective culinary imagination, the best restaurants that opened in Chicago this decade.

Alinea
The history of cuisine was written in the kitchens of millions of chefs, but we only remember a few by name, guys like Escoffier, Careme and Robuchon. There are probably only three Chicago chefs, as of now, who have a shot at making that list: Jean Banchet, Charlie Trotter and Grant Achatz. Though Achatz started making a name for himself at Trio, Alinea was the game changer, the restaurant where every aspect of dining from menus and silverware to the wine service and emotional content of the food was reimagined.

Avec
Love it or hate it, this was ground zero for what is now today’s communal table free-for-all. More importantly, Avec was the place that launched a thousand salumi, the fringe of Chicago’s now-burgeoning charcuterie movement. Koren Grieveson’s restrained soulful style is still the late-night hang of choice for chefs.

Avenues
You probably don’t remember Gerhard Doll or David Hayden, the chef-stewards who drove the good ship Avenues through a successful seafood-driven era, but there’s no doubt you won’t forget the Pop Rock and foie-lollipop fantasia, the convenience-store chic of Graham Elliot Bowles. Without Bowles’ whimsical, accessible style, the emotional roller coaster of Grant Achatz’s cooking and the theater at Homaro Cantu’s Moto likely wouldn’t have quite captured the nation’s imagination, nor garnered Chicago cuisine the countless magazine features it received mid-decade. Today, Curtis Duffy, the culinary love child of Achatz, Thomas Keller and Alice Waters, is executing some of the most exciting cuisine Chicago has to offer. Read the rest of this entry »

By Michael Nagrant

Sometimes I wonder if anyone’s been shot over a piece of brisket. I knew that if you served the wrong type of sauce or rub on a rib in the wrong part of a country, you risked starting a war. But, I didn’t know just how hardcore the BBQ crowd could be until a few weeks ago when, as Chicago correspondent for SeriousEats.com, I declared that Chicago BBQ was better than Memphis BBQ. Commenters responding to my story impeached my sanity and my city (referring to Chicago as Podunk). These are the same folks who call fall-of-the-bone meat “baby food,” or baked ribs “pork jello” and who start nasty rumors about places with automated smokers. Tiger Woods probably has a better shot at reconciling with his wife than any potential restaurateur does pleasing the BBQ illuminati.

And sure enough, even before Brand BBQ Market opened in Logan Square six weeks ago, the BBQ vanguard were already debating Brand’s definition of burnt ends and making fun of their smoked tofu offering. Read the rest of this entry »