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Reviews
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Kevin Hickey's Chicagocentric replacement for Seasons is playfully subversive| 04.25.12
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One puts the focus on food and friends, while the other serves up electronica and pro sports stars| 04.03.12
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The small plates at this Taylor Street spot look better on paper| 03.28.12
Features
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In this week's chef's challenge, Meg Colleran Sahs uses fermented fish juice sparingly| 05.01.12
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Erin Hayes makes a savory cocktail to match the potent Asian condiment| 04.25.12
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Thirty-six suburban restaurants worth leaving Chicago for| 04.19.12
Food & Drink
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Craig Fass and Mandy Franklin (Menagerie, Cooper's) opened their beer and burger bar the Bad Apple a scant half block south of the venerable Jury's, and while that institution attracts a decidedly different crowd, its burger is formidable and has been justly recognized as such for years. Now, with the Bad Apple shipping in a custom-ground beef mix from New York wholesale butcher Pat La Frieda, it's difficult not to imagine a gauntlet has been thrown down between the generations gathering on each side of Lincoln Avenue. In various instances Cass and Franklin see fit to bedeck their pedigreed beef with lily-gilding school-of-Kuma's-type arrangements, offering options like pulled pork and onion rings, ham and eggs, ham and pineapple, etc. But the more minimal preparations (one in fact named for La Frieda) better reveal a slight overmanipulation of the burger, resulting in a tougher, drier chew than the patties probably deserve. And since they cook up a size too small for their buns, I'd say Jury's has little to worry about in the burger department. A second category of sandwiches, many featuring some appealing beer-manipulated element--ale-brined pork, peanut butter and lambic jam, Witte-roasted chicken--show the kitchen is capable of a little bit more. A Kriek-cured duck confit with melted white cheddar on thick Texas toast is a gooey if salty alternative for those occasions when one can do without a burger piled high with centuries of geological strata. Accessorizing all of these sandwiches are golden brown hand-cut fries available in seven different flavors (truffle, curry, Old Bay, etc), which certainly appear attractive but could stand a much harder fry, particularly if they're expected to survive a deluge of gravy and cheese curds. As it stands they don't have the tensile strength to support their own weight at a 90-degree angle, much less the onslaught of the sloppy Montreal poutine, one of two offerings, along with deep-fried cheese curds, with an appeal directly proportional to the level of alcohol-diminished inhibitions. There's a handful of salads for relief from the onslaught of meat and potatoes, but if my chickpea, olive, and feta salad, laced with canned olives and overdressed in treacly honey-cilantro vinaigrette, is any indication, not much effort goes into them. Where the Bad Apple clearly has the upper hand over Jury's--and most likely every other place in the neighborhood--is in its extensive and diverse beer selection.
