Food Chain: Bleader, Chicago Reader

My favorite cake

Mike Sula — Mon, 13 May 2013 14:03:35 -0500

I've requested the same simple birthday cake every year since I was teenager. It's a recipe from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for a buttermilk lemon cake that my mom clipped and slightly modified.…

Paul Kahan brings home a Beard and other food news bites

Mike Sula — Fri, 10 May 2013 12:36:02 -0500

• Paul Kahan (tied with David Chang for Outstanding Chef), Stephanie Izard (Best Chef: Great Lakes), and the Aviary (Outstanding Bar Program) all won James Beard Awards on Monday.

• Myron Freedman, owner of the venerable Lincolnwood steak house Myron & Phil's, died Thursday night, reports the Skokie Review.…

Saucy sandwiches at Sauce and Bread Kitchen

Mike Sula — Mon, 06 May 2013 15:55:00 -0500

When I last checked in with Mike Bancroft, he was pushing a line of three excellent hot sauces in order to fund Co-op Image, the youth arts-education center he founded on the west side. Since then the sauce business has been very good to him—and to the arts center.…

Now open: Pilsen's Dia de los Tamales

Kate Schmidt — Mon, 06 May 2013 10:28:00 -0500

Last Thursday and Friday were so cold I sympathize with Cesar Ruelase, the local who, disgusted with Tom Skilling's penchant for predicting weather less foul than the reality, has launched a campaign to demote him from meteorologist to "weather guesser." Things brightened when I hit the new Pilsen storefront Dia de los Tamales, now going on its third week.…

The "Bad-Ass B.L.T." at Mr. Spanky's tans hide

Kate Schmidt — Wed, 01 May 2013 11:30:00 -0500

"I would say 75 percent of my customers come back within 72 hours," says John Schultz of his tiny Bridgeport sandwich emporium, Mr. Spanky's. I have no reason to doubt him.…

Red-flannel hash redux, from Leo's Lunchroom

Mike Sula — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:40:38 -0500

On Saturday, Friend of the Food Chain Eric May threw a pop-up tribute to Leo's Lunchroom at the Piranha Club. Through the late 80s and early 90s, the Wicker Park diner was pretty much the only place you could eat in its immediate surroundings on Division.…

Ben Schiller leaving Boka Restaurant Group

Mike Sula — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 10:01:28 -0500

On Saturday, barman Ben Schiller put in notice with the Boka Restaurant Group, for whom he's overseen the cocktails at the flagship, GT Fish & Oyster, and Girl & the Goat since 2009, after making his name at In Fine Spirits. He's signed on with the Fifty/50 Restaurant Group as a partner in the Berkshire Room, the forthcoming craft cocktail lounge in the new Acme Hotel, in River North, and will be helping out at Homestead, the farm-to-table restaurant above Roots Handmade Pizza.…

Mas alla del Sol stakes a claim on Edgewater's Ethiopian strip

Kate Schmidt — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:34:04 -0500

"What used to be here, do you know?" we asked a courtly waiter at Edgewater's new Mexican restaurant, Mas Alla del Sol. "I don't, but it was"—and here he shuddered, "filled with trash, a dump."

And so it goes: one man's heap of junk really is another man's treasure.…

Rare Manoel de Oliveira screens at Facets this Saturday

Ben Sachs — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 16:29:19 -0500

This Saturday at midnight, Facets Multimedia will present The Cannibals, a rarely screened 1988 feature by Portugal's greatest filmmaker, Manoel de Oliveira. Local filmmaker and professor Michael G. Smith, who will introduce the screening, describes the movie as "a freakish filmed opera in which every line of savage satire is sung."…

"Malort Face" and other Key Ingredient Cook-Off bites to come

Kate Schmidt — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:57:00 -0500

When Julia Thiel and Michael Gebert head out to do the shoots for our chef-to-chef challenge, Key Ingredient, they never know what to expect. Michael Carlson started his demo with a stiff shot of Malort.…

Swing from the trees with the handmade noodles at Lazzat

Mike Sula — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 15:53:00 -0500

Did you know that apart from Lincoln Square's great Jibek Jolu, that there are (at least) two other central Asian restaurants in Chicago? Don't feel bad if you didn't.…

Black cumin: It's not black magic

Mike Sula — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:30:00 -0500

There's something about taking an ordinary food and attaching the word "black" to it that is irresistible to me, because I'm helplessly attracted to the seductive powers of the Dark Arts. Whether it's black garlic, black salt, black pudding, or black noodles, if I see it, I'll eat it.…

The Ohio House Coffee Shop is closing and other food news bites

Mike Sula — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 16:17:06 -0500

After more than half a century the Ohio House Coffee Shop is being replaced by a chain, reports Crain's.

A suburban fishmonger admitted to mislabeling perch as red snapper and other crimes against the sea, reports the Tribune.…

Now open: Pilsen coffee shop La Catrina Cafe

Kate Schmidt — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 15:43:36 -0500

The exterior is so unassuming you could easily walk right past the new Pilsen coffee shop La Catrina Cafe—but inside it's a different story. Owners Salvador and Diana Galicia have turned their double storefront on 18th Street into a welcoming, comfy-chic space furnished with tables handmade by Salvador and elegant upholstered chairs along the front window.…

There's a sucker born every minute at Foo Noodle Bar

Mike Sula — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:35:00 -0500

The mighty Horseshoe Hammond goes to great lengths to pull in Asian gamblers, running free, (almost) hourly shuttles between Chinatown and the northwest Indiana casino in addition to less frequent stops at Broadway and Argyle, among others. Its La Cheng Asian Gaming Area, packed with baccarat tables, is designed on lucky feng shui principles, and conceals a hidden noodle bar which recently received a ringing endorsement from L2O chef and high roller Matthew Kirkley, who declared that "the best noodle shop in the Chicagoland area is not in Chicago, nor Illinois.…

This way for durian: Announcing the Key Ingredient Cook-Off

Kate Schmidt — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 08:24:00 -0500

"I love the Reader. But that column where people cook with yak phlegm?…

Hashing it out at Danny's Egghead Diner

Mike Sula — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 12:32:00 -0500

When the folks behind Broadway Cellars installed Danny's Egghead Diner in the erstwhile Alps East they did little to brighten the drab North Center diner's floral vinyl granny aesthetic other than hanging some Mexican folkloric art on the walls. But they did quite a bit better by installing chef Danny Coronel of North Park's late What's Cooking?…

No more peristalsis with deep-dish pizza soup

Mike Sula — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 14:56:57 -0500

As far as local cultural icons go, deep-dish pizza is the culinary equivalent of Al Capone. People all over the world who don't know Chicago continue to identify it with Chicago, and when they mention it, you're embarrassed first for yourself and then for them.…

Return to the Chicago French Market—and to Fumaré

Kate Schmidt — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 06:40:15 -0500

The first time I went to Fumaré Meats & Deli, at the Chicago French Market, I was too late to get my hands on the lunch stand's specialty: pastrami, aka Montreal-style smoked meat, which I learned to my regret typically sells out by 1 or 2 PM. On Friday I tried again, and just in time too.…

Jason Vincent is a Food & Wine best new chef and other food news bites

Mike Sula — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 13:53:09 -0500

• The Butcher & Larder's Rob Levitt guest posts about what to do with a ham, at Ruhlman.com.

• Crain's chats with Alec Mikhaylov of the great Alef Sausage Co., makers of 45 different kinds of Russian sausage.…

Going limp at Flour & Stone

Sarah Nardi — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 13:08:00 -0500

Sometimes a pizza is just a pizza. Yet for whatever reason, we seem obsessed with categorizing them according to geography.…

One Bite: Montreal-style smoked meat at Fumaré Meats & Deli

Kate Schmidt — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 10:07:00 -0500

I like bacon (note I do not ask who doesn't?). I like barbecue just fine, and smoked meats too.…

Beer-can pigeon: It's what's for dinner

Mike Sula — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 07:32:00 -0500

It starts every spring with the first melting snow. The grass that grows up to the base of my building makes its first appearance, crusted and smothered by a winter's worth of black-and-white guano.…

T's is shuttered and other food news bites

Mike Sula — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 10:37:00 -0500

Andersonville LGBT barstaurant T's was shuttered by the sheriff's office after facing thousands in fines from the state department of revenue, per the Windy City Times.

Louisa Chu on the lucrative and cutthroat Wisconsin wild ginseng trade.…

Andrew Brochu alights at the Monarch

Mike Sula — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 17:04:00 -0500

"I like to do both." That's what Andrew Brochu told me about his bounce between the progressive fine dining cookery of El Ideas, where he was then working, and the more pubby stuff that made his name when he opened the late Kith & Kin.…