Food Chain
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Chicagoland, Food Chain, Politics, Food & Drink At Least Their Convictions Aren't Dissuaded By Bad Press
Posted by Whet Moser on Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 2:24 PM
The city cracks down on Kitchen Chicago a second time.
Chicagoland, Food Chain, Lit & Lectures, Film, Food & Drink Dinner & a Show: Tuesday 2/9 (New Restaurants Edition)
Posted by Whet Moser on Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 1:54 PM
- James Kennedy
Show: Funny Ha-Ha Loves You Readings and performances by James Kennedy (The Order of Odd-Fish), comedian Cameron Esposito, Poetry magazine associate editor Fred Sasaki, and poet Robbie Q. Telfer (Spiking the Sucker Punch), along with short films by Steve Delahoyde. Claire Zulkey (An Off Year) hosts.
6:30-8pm, Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia Ave., 773-227-4433 or 866-468-3401, $5 suggested donation to benefit Neighborhood Writing Alliance.
Dinner: The Southern The former Chaise Lounge is now the Southern, a more casual bar and restaurant featuring the regional cuisine of chef Cary Taylor (Blackbird, Ambria, Avenues). One of several restaurants that are too new to review.
1840 W. North Ave., 773-342-1840
Monday, February 8, 2010
Food Chain, Food & Drink Too New to Review: Prairie Fire, Leo's Coney Island, the Southern, Revolution Brewing Company, and More
Posted by Kate Schmidt on Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 8:29 PM
Prairie Fire, the latest restaurant from Sarah Stegner and George Bumbaris of suburban Prairie Grass Cafe, opened today in the former Powerhouse space at 215 N. Clinton. The extensive, eclectic menu ranges from appetizers like warm baked feta with banana peppers, duck and chicken liver patés, Asian-style shrimp and ahi tuna, and pizzas to 20 entrees including steaks, Greek-influenced dishes, five fish preparations, and a breaded pork schnitzel.
Leo's Coney Island of Chicago, the local outlet of a Detroit mainstay for Coney dogs, breakfast, burgers, and other diner standards, opened soft in Lakeview last week; its official opening is Monday, February 15.
Chef Cary Taylor’s regional-American reworking of Chaise Lounge, the Southern, opened Friday, featuring dishes with a southern twist such as duck cassoulet with black-eyed peas. There’s also a decent selection of cocktails (including mint juleps and Planter’s Punch), bourbons, and southern beers at what’s touted as being a “kickass bar.”
Food Chain, Food & Drink The Beards Anoint Calumet Fisheries
Posted by Mike Sula on Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 12:48 PM
Bravo to the great Calumet Fisheries, which was just given one of the James Beard Foundation's America's Classics Awards honoring "small, regional restaurants, watering holes, shacks, lunch counters, and similar down-home eateries that have carved out a special place on the American culinary landscape."
Following last year's feature on No Reservations, the humble south-side shack's profile has blown up quite a bit. But it wasn't always so.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Chicagoland, Food Chain, Film, Music, Food & Drink, Performing Arts Dinner & a Show: Saturday 2/6
Posted by Whet Moser on Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 2:36 PM
- James Blackshaw
Show: James Blackshaw A 12-string guitar can be an unwieldy thing, but in the right hands it's a peerless source of rich sonorities. Young Englishman James Blackshaw has such hands, and he puts them to good use on the splendid live album Waking Into Sleep (Kning), a solo performance recorded in Sweden in 2006: the stirring melodies of "Spiralling Skeleton Memorial" and "Sunshrine" billow into kaleidoscopic patterns of swirling tones.
10 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, 773-276-3600 or 866-468-3401, $8, $5
Dinner: Big Star Unlike Paul Kahan's other ventures (Blackbird, Avec, the Publican), Big Star is a bar. But you may have to remind yourself of that, because it's got probably the tastiest Mexican menu of any bar in Chicago. Both food (by Justin Large, formerly of Avec) and drink (by Michael Rubel of Violet Hour) are pitched to a very agreeable price point, making the place a surefire, low-cost, high-value good time.
1531 N. Damen, 773-235-4039
Friday, February 5, 2010
Food Chain, Food & Drink Health Department's License to Bleach
Posted by Mike Sula on Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 3:17 PM
"This puts me out of business for six months," a despondent Lazar said. "I have done everything by the rules. Instead of making the food at home, which I could easily do, I sought out and rented space in a licensed kitchen. When they finally said we could apply for a separate license, I did that. I paid my $600 and invited the inspectors here today."
If you haven't read Moncia Eng's astonishing post on the Health Department's so-far-unexplained destruction of thousands of dollars' worth of perfectly good food at Kitchen Chicago, please do so now.
Chicagoland, Food Chain, Film, Music, Food & Drink, Performing Arts Dinner & a Show: Friday 2/5
Posted by Whet Moser on Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 2:58 PM
- Megan Holmes
- Explode Into Colors
Show: Explode Into Colors "All-female Portland trio Explode Into Colors are big faves in their hometown, both with basement-party punks and on the outre-dance scene," writes Jessica Hopper. "They're killer live—with Claudia Meza on baritone guitar and vocals, Lisa Schonberg on drums, and Heather Treadway on percussion, keys, and more vocals, their setup is full sounding and for-real funky."
9:30 PM, Subterranean, 2011 W. North, 773-278-6600 or 866-468-3401, $10, 17+.
Dinner: Birchwood Kitchen There’s not a cheap shortcut to be found at this ambitious sandwich shop from former Pastoral cheeseman Daniel Sirko and partner Judd Murphy (also of Pastoral).
2211 W. North, 773-276-2100
Food Chain, Politics, Food & Drink, News That Olé Olé Lawsuit Is Just the Beginning
Posted by Mike Sula on Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 2:17 PM
Yesterday the news came down that workers from Andersonville's pan-Latino Olé Olé filed a federal a lawsuit against owner Regina Pavone for alleged misappropriated tips and unpaid wages, the latest escalation in a long-simmering feud between labor and management.
The timing is interesting. The plaintiffs are members of the local chapter of the nascent Restaurant Opportunities Center United, a national food service workers' rights organization that consolidated here in the summer of 2007, and the lawsuit seems like a prologue to a summit the group has scheduled for Tuesday during which they'll release Behind the Kitchen Door: The Hidden Cost of Low Road Jobs in Chicagoland's Thriving Restaurant Industry, what it's calling "the most comprehensive report ever conducted on the state of the restaurant industry in Chicagoland, and its implications for the region's economic development, public health, and working conditions."
Food Chain, Food & Drink Thus Spake Robert Sietsema . . .
Posted by Mike Sula on Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 2:11 PM
The Village Voice food critic weighs in on the amateur-pro debate in the Columbia Journalism Review.
I’m all for everyone having his or her say, but when it comes to cultural criticism there is a strong case to be made for professionalism and expertise. As the eminent film critic Richard Schickel wrote in 2007, in response to a New York Times article on the decline of professional book-reviewing and the rise of review-bloggers: “Criticism and its humble cousin, reviewing, is not a democratic activity. It is, or should be, an elite enterprise, ideally undertaken by individuals who bring something to the party beyond their hasty, instinctive opinions. . . . It is work that requires disciplined taste, historical and theoretical knowledge and a fairly deep sense of the author’s (or filmmaker’s or painter’s) entire body of work, among other qualities.”
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Chicagoland, Food Chain, Lit & Lectures, Film, Food & Drink, Performing Arts Dinner & a Show: Thursday 2/4
Posted by Whet Moser on Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 2:23 PM
Music
Show: Lights This peculiar Brooklyn band's second full-length, Rites (Drag City), combines throbbing disco, warbling folk, chill psychedelia, and Laura Nyro-style pop (thankfully not all in the same track), an unwieldy hodgepodge that hangs together largely on the strength of the beautiful but sturdy harmony singing of guitarist Sophia Knapp and drummer Linnea Vedder. The Entrance Band headlines; Lights and White Mystery open.
9 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western 773-276-3600 or 866-468-3401, $10, $5 (limited).
Dinner: Mr. Brown's Lounge "While the menu is mostly Jamaican fare, concessions to the bar crowd like chicken tenders and onion rings also make appearances. So I was little surprised to discover that the food is top-notch," writes Julia Thiel.
2301 W. Chicago Ave., 773-278-4445
