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.