Photo: Joe Compean

By Chris Chandler

The Lithuanian priests had finished their meal of wild boar and zeppelins, and were putting on their coats when one said to Andrius Bucas, “I feel when I open this door I will be stepping out into the streets of Vilnius.”

Bucas is proud of that moment, because he has tried to make his restaurant a home away from home for Lithuanians. The ancient maps and portraits on the walls include one of Vytautas the Great, who ruled in the late fourteenth century when Lithuania was the largest country in Europe, stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. The cooks and waitresses are Lithuanian, and much of the food is imported. Bucas says you shouldn’t have the breaded pork tenderloin without the mushroom sauce, with two kinds of imported wild mushrooms.

But the zeppelins are the key item. Read the rest of this entry »

By Michael Nagrant

“Seriously, just give me 15 minutes alone with that sandwich.”

You know you’re in for it when the business card for a group of local food bloggers contains a double entendre that can be construed either as a commitment to serious eating or a potential sexual encounter with a sandwich. Welcome to the Internet trough that is Chicago Gluttons, chicagogluttons.com.

Assuming you’re not a total anal-retentive, or in the parlance of the Gluttons, a total ass-bag, there’s a good chance you’ll probably pig out on their posts till you pop the staples on that recent gastric bypass.

Don’t worry about bringing a fork to this literary meal. The Gluttons’ writings are so infused with the braggadocio of bling-era hip-hop that the only utensil you’ll need is an Internet browser open to urbandictionary.com. The Gluttons are also the bastard Internet writing stepchildren of Richard Pryor, Chris Rock and Sarah Silverman: aka equal-opportunity comedic destroyers of all or anything one might hold dear. Read the rest of this entry »

By Michael Nagrant

The Bridgeport blue-hair mafia is not happy. This gathering of neighborhood ladies bedecked in sweatsuits, tattoos and cut-off jeans who came in search of “an egg roll and some good fried rice” is expressing confusion over what a “tasting menu” is and disgust over Han 202 restaurant’s “extraordinarily expensive” $20 price tag (for five courses). After a bout of sighs and bickering, they decide to stay, but spend the next ten minutes having their waitress discuss the relative spice level of all fifteen entrée choices.

The thing is, who could blame them. Not only does Bridgeport not have a restaurant like this, but there’s nothing like it in all of Chicago. Eclectic (along with phenomenal and to die for) are probably the most overused expressions in all of food reviewing, and yet there’s no better word to describe Han 202. Chef Guan Chen and his wife Yan operate so idiosyncratically, they make the peculiar Schwa look like as professional as Charlie Trotters. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Eric Young Smith

By Chris Chandler

Congressman Harold Washington and labor leader Charles Hayes were seated at table 14, Izola White recalls, when Washington told her “I’m going to be mayor, and Charlie’s going to take my place.” And so it came to pass. Many times Mayor Washington and Congressman Hayes dined again at Izola’s, 522 East 79th Street. Theirs are the first two portraits you see as you enter the main dining room.

There are a number of soul-food restaurants with fine fare and proud histories, such as Army and Lou’s, and Edna’s. But my friend Richard Barnett brought me to Izola’s on a Saturday morning, when judges, lawyers, politicians and professionals gather for food and conversation. Richard was greeted by friends at almost every table as we made our way toward the back, with several lengthy exchanges. As we were about to sit down, Richard engaged then-Illinois Senate President Emil Jones in a brief, formal conversation. Over bacon and eggs, Richard confided, “I just talk to him because I know he doesn’t like me. He’s a regular.” Richard is a reformer. He has helped seventeen judges get elected and was a key player in Washington’s 1983 victory. Read the rest of this entry »

Broke? Hungry? Looking for a free tater tot buffet? Well fret not, because BrokeHipster.com has it covered. The two-week old Web site was created by Hilary Rawk and James Villalpando after the they kept running into each other at free events throughout the city. The two started talking and decided “we should really start writing this stuff down,” Rawk says. Though the site may seem geared towards strapped-for-cash college students, just about anyone can find a great deal-everything from a free show to an inexpensive dinner. Rawk mentions that she’s even had couples with young children show an interest in the Web site. “It’s really difficult for people to spread their money, so it helps out with everything,” she says. Though BrokeHipster.com is still in its design phase, according to Rawk, they might start spreading the freebies to cities throughout the US, Canada and Europe. “We have people in Toronto who are interested in helping out,” she says. An official launch party is also in the works in August, with plans to “make sure that everything is free for the people who come,” Rawk says.

By Michael Nagrant

In my fourteenth year I had the good fortune of befriending a teenage entrepreneur and a crew of stoner pizza makers. The entrepreneur, my buddy Mike, was the proud owner of a lucrative paper route as well as a premier lawn-care business in Shelby Township, Michigan. Even before Mike could drive, he had a fleet of commercial walk-behinds and tractors, and a shiny trailer to haul them. He was generating mid-five figures while I was still begging my mom for quarters to secure Slurpees at 7-11.

I’d tried to get a paper route, but my father who’d been a Detroit News carrier and a Boy Scout declared that both endeavors had ruined his young life and insisted no son of his would ever join either organization. And for awhile I was sullen as my fellow second-grade homies rocked cool blue-and-gold Cub Scout caps. But, as fathers generally are, years later anyway, he was right. Without his steadfast boycott, I would surely be writing this article from a basement lair drooling over a growing collection of William Shatner memorabilia and animal porn. Read the rest of this entry »

Pork slider

By Michael Nagrant

Why’s Russell Crowe wearing a chef’s coat and standing in the lobby at Goose Island Clybourn? Maybe craft brewing has finally reached the tipping point and he’s studying up for a role in a beer version of “Sideways.” I can see it now, Crowe bellied up to some tavern next to his sidekick, maybe Steve Zahn, bellowing, “I am NOT drinking any fucking IPA.”

Or, better yet, I thought, maybe Crowe’s studying up on Goose brewer/owner Greg Hall to portray him on some future biopic about the craft-brewing revolution. But, just as I started imagining Crowe, as Hall, locked in Jedi-like combat with the sudsy showman Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head brewery, I realized the Crowe lookalike is actually John Manion, former head chef of the old Wicker Park fave, Mas. But, damn, with his slicked-back tresses, sharply coiffed beard and brooding eyes he sure looks like a dead ringer for Ben Wade in “3:10 to Yuma.” Read the rest of this entry »

Tiramisu

By Michael Nagrant

For five years, I’ve been a food writer without a country, or at least a great neighborhood restaurant to call my own.  You might protest that as a West Loop denizen, I’ve been luckier than most, what with the glittering jewel of restaurant row on Randolph and carnivorous visions of glistening lamb spit-roasting in my Greek-joint-littered backyard.  But expensive, even if inspired, lacquered glitterati-filled palaces and ethnic-focused conveyor-belt kitchens do not a neighborhood restaurant make.  The bustle of such places may boil the blood, but they do not stir one’s soul.

A real neighborhood place is the Hemingwayesque ideal, the café of his short story “A Clean, Well Lighted Place,” where an old man can drink his liquor or take his supper in the company of humanity, staving off the crippling loneliness of old age.  Read the rest of this entry »

Beet soup at Birchwood Kitchen

By Michael Nagrant

If Chicago’s newest gourmet sandwich shops Birchwood Kitchen in Wicker Park and Lunch Rolls in the Loop were twins, they’d be Julius and Vincent Benedict from the 1988 film, “Twins.” In case you’ve forgotten the plot, and really who could blame you, Julius and Vincent were the product of a secret experiment to create the perfect child from six different fathers. While the exercise spawned the superior intellectual/physical specimen of Julius (Arnold Schwarzenegger) it also created a fraternal twin, Vincent (Danny Devito) made from the leftover genetic garbage.  Neither Birchwood nor Lunch Rolls is particularly deficient like Vincent (in fact they’re both pretty decent options for their respective hoods), but as sandwich-slinging brethren they’re definitely opposites. Read the rest of this entry »

Almaz Yigizaw/Photo: Eric Young Smith

By Chris Chandler

A large painting of a warrior hangs on the west wall at the Ethiopian Diamond restaurant. I ask my friend who it is. “That’s Towedros. He united Ethiopia.”

“But where’s Menilek?” he demands to know, and scours all five large paintings. Menilek, Demesew Admassie explains to me, defeated the Italians in 1891. It was the first time an African nation had defeated the European colonizers. Ethiopians are very proud of their history.

So that is why you can order Doro Wete, drink a glass of honey wine, linger over coffee and incense, and be dining as people have done for thousands of years.

Almaz Yigizaw, the chief cook and owner of Ethiopian Diamond—her name means diamond in Amharic—grew up in Gondar and learned to cook from her grandmother. To this day, she judges her cooking on whether it tastes just like hers. Read the rest of this entry »