memo to lula

you are dead to me.

i'm more sad than angry really, it's just a shame. you've been going downhill for a while now but i've pretended to look the other way preferring to remember how great you used to be. i remember our times together fondly - our romantic dinners, funny hangover-curing breakfasts and impeccable style. but those times are gone, and you know what did it? it was that fucking ceaser salad. this was one thing i could count on you to do right, and last night was the last straw. my lettuce was drenched in dressing like a fucking TGI fridays. who are the assclowns you have in the kitchen now? you're too busy. i can't fault you for that. the attention to detail is lost. too many plates going out.

and the clientelle. remember when it was just us? there was some space around us. everyone was from the neighborhood and in a band. now it's a bunch of d-bags from chowhound coming in. fuck you for ruining my love in lula people of the world. fuck you for making its owners some well deserved money for busting thier ass and creating great dishes. fuck you for making it so popular.

i guess this makes me one of those guys who like, well - i liked them better one thier first 7"... and that makes me sad, but fuck you in a general direction to the tragectory of a restaurant and how the world works, cuz i can no longer love you baby, like i once did. i take solace in the fact that my departure will probably not hurt you at all since you're doing well with your new lovers, but believe me when i tell you fair lula, we had special times together, and i will look upon them fondly always.

shhhhhhh. don't say a word baby, it's ok.

this is for JP

treat. one of the original lula dudes new place. they just opened for brunch this weekend and it was awesome. great green eggs & ham/pesto/scramble/w/prosciutto. also had pancakes w/chai syrup. excited to go try it for dinner.

last night dinner at sabri nehari on devon, pakistani food. i'd never had pakistani food, and though it's similar to indian food for sure, it's definitely different. interesting to note the differences. outstanding service, decent food. highlight of the night was when sundown hit and the waiter cleared out an area and layed out a white tablecloth on the floor for 2 women to pray towards mecca. R felt like a slut with her legs exposed. the waiters wouldn't address her at all, everything was to me. totally different cultural stuff - we were the only whiteys in the place i think. then just walking around devon for a while is awesome.

Called Out

i revisted Glen's (see review below) and noticed a sign on the window that said:

TRASHY
FOOD
SNOB...

DO
YOU
LIKE
FISH?

amazing. someone reads this besides JP. ANYWAY, so i without a doubt have to go back for dinner and fish. unfortunately this visit was another brunch visit, and the service quibbles from the first visit were totally ironed out. the owner (i believe) pointed us to our table. i had the red hot cakes which were pretty good, which i ordered as a last ditch appeal to the inner kid. i was going to go for the new orleans scramble instead, but the red hots sucked me in.

so kudos to you fine people of glen's for caring and reading.

ONWARD. you might recall my sad review of raj darbar (see below). there is a new contender/replacement for indian food in the city that doesn't involve going up to devon. Hema's Kitchen II on clark. we ate there last night, the 2nd time actually since the fateful raj darbar meal. this place is on. we tried the indian fish fry which was ok, but the lamb vindaloo was amazing. i'm not feeling flowery right now so i'm not gonna go into details, but that place is great.

also i love going to ethnic restaurants where non-ethnic, yet ethnic themselves (follow me?) people work there. case in point: polish waiters at both Hema's and Friendship. long live the melting pot of the city. i love living here. as an aside: i don't think i've written about friendship. it is good. it was a little wierd last time when the homeless guy was at the table next to us, but still - the food is pretty great.

del Toro - Wicker Pork

del Toro
1520 N. Damen Ave

i wasn't a big fan of MOD, and i'm sorta put off by the whole restaurant-as-nightclub/hotspot thing that seems to go hand in hand with trendy places, but whatever. oooh - spain's really big these days, let;s take the flavor of the week place from a few years ago and redo it with this weeks flavor!

we got to the place and it was super packed with douchebags and i started the night saying "this place is gonna get slammed on TFS", but eventually the food came, and i had to change my tune. the tapas were good. really good. the wine was good. really good, and it came in cool shaped glasses that were sort of like an abstracted coke glass. the croquetas were awesome, i espeically liked the serrano ham and also the pork with braised baby carrots.

as the night progresses the place thinned out and became more manageable. we had been seated in the front by the bar at a cocktail table since the wait was so long for real tables and it was cold because of the huge plate glass door.

i am looking forward to going back. my initial distate of the place was mostly rooted in the packed status of this being a new hotspot that everyone's trying to get into (it was on a tuesday at 8:30, i wouldnt have expected a 45 min - 1 hr wait for a table for 2!) perhaps reservations are in order - but i hate making reservations. i like to find things and choose them in on the spur of the moment like we did del toro.

i need to go back especially for the deserts. we were too full to get them (because i insisted on ordering the pork instead of going to desert). there was an amazing looking hot chocolate and churro dish, and about 4 others that i really wanted to try.

it's hip and trendy, but they have the chops to back it up. i wanted to shoot it down, but they get the thumbs up from me. i'll be seeing del toro again for sure.

oh and dear god, contrast to twist - night and day difference. del toro is sooo much better.

Twist - tapas, wrigleyville

WTF - the reviewers had a totally different explerience than me. this place sucked. no desire to go back. maybe it's just what we ordered, but 3 or the 4 tapas plates were mediocre to suck, and only one was pretty good. the wine sucked ass (spanish rioja) and the bread was stale.

booooooooooooo twist. i'm not going back.

i do recommend the sun night improv olympic comedy thing though. 5$ and it's really funny. it's like seeing a show at the fireside for comedy people. the openers are still getting the craft down, some of them were great, others - well, they're still working on it, but the headliners were a little older, more experienced and on.

next time i'm trying heaven on seven on clark or tryst before the show.

Glenn's Diner

The best food in the world

Well, that's what it says on the awning, and shit - they already get props in my book making a claim like that. Is it? well, no - but it is pretty good.

we woke up hungover and i really wanted to die. after a shaky start (some miscommunication within the staff about who's section we were in or something, cuz we waited for what seemed ages before we even got menus after being seated) - things picked up nicely. our waitress seemed genuinely sorry and knew they dropped the ball, and was on top of her game the rest of the meal.

they had a lot of other specials that looked really good (both breakfast and lunch/dinner) as well, but i went with the scrambled eggs, which came with chives and parmesan. the potatoes were a really unique hashbrown concoction with vegetables and sort of a mayo-ish sauce. the white toast was sort of a good mid-level toast, not the standard diner wonderbread crap, but not top shelf stuff like la brea or other in-house artisan type stuff. it tasted like that peperidge farm white sandwich stuff you can get at the grocery store. perfect for breakfast. sorta mid-level stuff. the bacon was awesome. unlike any other bacon i;ve had. most fancy bacon these days is thick cut and has a great edge to it, this was thin - yet very lean and had a super smooth edge to it, maybe a hint of honey or something? it was a great long and mellow bacon.

coffee was pretty decent. sorta mid-grade like the toast. not the fnacy inteligencia stuff, but not diner crappe either.

overall i like this place. i'll go back. i'd like to try the dinner/lunch fare too. sorta a step down from a lula type place, but it's not trying to be anything but what it is - and i really appreciate that.

they also have bottomless breakfast cereal and boxes of cereal displayed on the wall. it is clear that kellog's makes the best cereals. but it's not at all done in a lame kitch marketing kinda way. hey - you want a simple ceral, awesome. rock it. if not, we also have all this other stuff.

i like this place.

Steak and Chicken

at the prodding and ridicule of my good friend JP, I give you this groundbreaking post of culinary insight.

Pete Miller's Seafood and Prime Steak

After scrounging up a bunch of great suggestions for Evanston meeting the pseduo-in-laws, our primary suggestion of Campagnola was ignored in lieu of Pete Millers. I'd had a shit week, so I got there early to throw back a few drinks before the rest of the crew arrived.

I like steak, quite a bit in fact - though going to a steakhouse usually isn't on the top of the agenda. This place was pretty awesome. Highlights include the waitress bringing out a HUGE tray full of raw steaks explaining the different cuts, how the relate to another and the differences between then.

I ended up wiht the NY strip and garlic mashed potatoes. Amazing mashed potatoes. I love mashed potatoes. Also had the asparagus salad for 4 (decent enough, but probably wouldnt get again myself), and the bread was amazing.

Big open loud space with jazz music playing in the heart of Evanston. Hey - it was good. Perfect sorta place for your parents or a not very adventurous, but really good meal. Beware, pretty pricey.

El Pollo Loco - Logan Square

We'd heard good things about this place. I got the 2 piece chicken dinner. They were out of breast, so I got leg and thigh. Sorta like the mexican boston market. I got beans and (see above) mashed potatoes. These mashed potatoes kinda sucked. Then beans were worse. The chicken was quite good actually. As a plus, they have a monster salsa bar. I'd get a burrito next time, but it's also really hard to justify with El Cid right around the corner.

Speaking of....

Boston Market - Old Town

You know, I've only had the carver sandwiches from this place, but I was out seeing a pretty awesome comedy thing (godshow) and needed a quick dinner, and Boston Market really ruled. Not as good as Lula's chicken dinner (or at least, Lula's chicken when they're on thier game, the last 2 times I had it....) but damn, for $7 or whatever, I really felt like I was eating a good home cooked meal. By home cooked I mean, something my mom or grandma would have made, not anything i would have at my home. So good for the fast food. So suprising.

Raj Darbar - Lincoln Park

I know - the good indian food is on Devon. Sister-in-law was in town on a very tight timetable and really wanted indian as her baby can't eat spicy food so she was dying for it. In the past i've always really liked this restaurant. The food has always been real good and it's easier to get to than devon. Im not much of a planner so convenience almost always wins. In the past I don't remember them asking how hot we wanted our food. This time we said "medium" (cuz, I dunno - you know how sometimes at ethnic restaurants, thier "medium", is like gringo "hot as crap?") which was a mistake. The kitchen clearly has adapted to the lincoln park palate and the medium was much like the medium tostitos salsa at the grocery store. ie - not very hot. So, order your food hot/spicy at Raj Darbar.

I genuinely like this place though, even though our server that night was for suck. I've been there man other times with much better reviews.

After dinner we still had some time to kill, so we showed the sis-in-law (who is incedentally quite the foodie herself, and lives in san fran) the randolph restaurant row area since she hasn't really ever spent time in chicago or eaten anywhere here but trotters. We went to....

Avec - Randolph

for a bottle of wine. sis-in-law picked a rose. I know that they're back in these days, but i still stick to my usual known suspects myself, so we had her pick something new and give it a whirl. it sucked. she apologized and said it was a poor example and she'd never heard of it before.

typical randolph crowd. i really like the interior of that place, it reminds me of a sauna. (lesson everyone, it's pronounced "sow-nuh" not "saw-nuh") last time i ate there it was decent but no blackbird.