One Bite
Monday, January 14, 2013
Cooking One Bite Food Chain Food & Drink Collared: Hamachi kama from Mitsuwa
Posted by Mike Sula on 01.14.13 at 05:23 PM
- Mike Sula
- Yellowtail collar
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
One Bite Food Chain Food & Drink Don't overlook the humble caldo de res at Tio Luis
Posted by Mike Sula on 01.09.13 at 01:26 PM
- Mike Sula
- Caldo de res, Tio Luis
Unless you methodically worked your way across the menu how would you know what other treasures it held? Friend of the Food Chain Rob Lopata applied Standard Ordering Procedure to suss one out. On a recent visit he noticed the majority of customers were huddled over steaming bowls of beef soup. Caldo de res doesn't get much mention in the broader literature either (in English anyway). Diana Kennedy doesn't bring it up in any of her books, and neither does Bayless. There are plenty of digital recipes but little information on its provenance in the universe of regional Mexican cooking. Maybe that's because it's so elementary—stock, beef, and an assortment of vegetables. What culture (excepting Hindus and Chinese Buddhists) doesn't have a beef soup in its history? What else are you going to do with the tough, bony cuts of beef that won't grill well?
Monday, December 24, 2012
Cooking One Bite Food Chain Food & Drink Braunschweiger ballin'
Posted by Mike Sula on 12.24.12 at 02:00 PM
- Braunschweiger ballin'
Thursday, November 29, 2012
One Bite Food Chain Food & Drink Snack time: Spicy sriracha peas
Posted by Mike Sula on 11.29.12 at 12:32 PM
- Mike Sula
- sriracha peas
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
One Bite Food & Drink One Bite: salsa de molcajete at Masa Azul
Posted by Mike Sula on 11.27.12 at 12:56 PM
- Masa Azul/Facebook
- Salsa de molcajete
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
One Bite Food Chain Food & Drink One Bite: Northern City's baby potatoes with soy sauce
Posted by Mike Sula on 11.21.12 at 01:00 PM
- Mike Sula
- Baby potatoes with soy sauce, Northern City
Normally I don't eat at a restaurant on its first day in business, but the sheer coincidence (or not) of two new Dongbei restaurants opening so close together compelled me to have lunch on day one at Northern City, whose chef, Cheng Hai Wang, used to work at Ed's Potsticker House, Chicago's very first Beijing-ese restaurant. Ed's happens to sit smack in between Homestyle Taste and Northern City, which by the Power of Threes has now established this little corner of Bridgeport as a northern-Chinese restaurant row.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
One Bite Food Chain Food & Drink Wild Ophelia beef jerky chocolate bar
Posted by Mike Sula on 11.20.12 at 10:30 AM
- Mike Sula
- Wild Ophelia beef jerky milk chocolate bar
But it is sort of curious that Vosges Haut-Chocolat's Katrina Markoff chose this particular combo to star in the creation myth of her mass-market chocolate bar line Wild Ophelia, which she launched last spring with a gypsy Stevie Nicks-style mascot that looks quite a bit like Markoff herself. According to the boilerplate, in childhood Ophelia ran a "sweet stand" at garage sales in the summer and hit upon dipping strips of beef jerky in sun-melted chocolate.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
One Bite Food Chain Food & Drink Piggy Moo Cluck at Kingsbury Street Cafe
Posted by Mike Sula on 11.14.12 at 02:37 PM
- Mike Sula
- Piggy Moo Cluck
That's also the reason I've avoided the Kingsbury Street Cafe, which opened a little over a year ago right across the street, and which, in a moment of acute panic upon viewing the Whole Foods parking lot, I demanded we detour to. It's a breakfast/lunch-only restaurant from a decades-old family-run wholesale baking operation, whose previous posting was in the staff cafe at Harpo Studios (you'll be required to sign a nondisclosure agreement at the end of this post). After Oprah evacuated, the Dong family moved their HQ here, where once in a while a Volkswagen Touareg vacates a spot on the street and a Lexus RX Hybrid swoops in to claim it.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Cooking One Bite Food & Drink Cooking with pasta from Rockford: Valentino's fusilli gigante
Posted by Mike Sula on 11.12.12 at 04:00 PM
- Mike Sula
- Valentino fusilli gigante
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
One Bite Food Chain Food & Drink One Bite: lamb and beef from Covo Gyro Market
Posted by Mike Sula on 10.17.12 at 04:38 PM
- Mike Sula
- The lamb and beef from Covo Gyro Market
The gyro is one of the more dubious Greek contributions to western civilization. I'm not talking about the glistening, hand-stacked layers of beef and lamb roasting on vertical spits and shaved onto warm pita—that was actually a Turkish innovation (see doner kebab). Those have been around forever. I'm talking about the greasy, salty, breadcrumb-extended, molded mystery meat cones hawked by thousands of platinum blonde temptresses with something more on their minds than cheap sandwiches.
Although they were popularized by a handful of Greek-owned Chicago companies, the real father of the mass-produced gyro cone was a Jewish entrepreneur from Milwaukee named John Garlic. Yep, it's true.
Since then it's been relatively difficult to find a gyro made from real meat. You could go to a half dozen or so Middle Eastern joints for shawerma—but those are usually beef only. And if you're feeling porky, there's always Mexican (or Polish) al pastor.
But now there's an excellent option in Wicker Park at Covo Gyro Market, from the folks who own the "eco-friendly" minichain Prasino.
