Omnivorous

Jack “Boss” Hogg

Lloyd DeGrane

The Little Chipper

A visit to Peerless Potato Chips, one of the region’s few remaining independent holdouts

By Mike Sula

Jack “Boss” Hogg plucks a bag from the end of the line at the Peerless Potato Chips plant, rips it open, and dumps it. The machinery is supposed to drop exactly three ounces of freshly fried chips into each one, but every so often the scale hiccups, and Hogg, who’s packing them into boxes, can feel it when one is light. “I’ve been doing it for almost 50 years,” he says.

Peerless, based in Gary, Indiana, has been in the chip business longer than that. Hogg’s father, John Norman Hogg, a British fighter pilot who immigrated to the U.S. after World War I, started the company in 1928. After he lost a finger working for Carnegie Steel, he bought a slicer and a fryer and started selling chips to small groceries and the blind pigs that served millworkers in the final years of Prohibition.

With the recent sale of Jays Potato Chips to Pennsylvania-based Snyder’s of Hanover, Peerless is one of the few inde-pendent chip makers left in the region, and with big boys like Frito-Lay eating up more and more shelf space, their position is increasingly precarious.

In John Hogg’s day, the playing field was more level. He was secretary-treasurer of the industry trade organization—the National Potato Chip Institute—at a time when thousands of small chippers operated across the country. “They’d go to conventions,” says Jack’s younger brother, Scott. “My dad, he’d be sitting there at the bar with Old Man Jays, Old Man Frito-Lay.” Not that the competition was all that friendly. In the 50s, Jack says, a few rivals used to slash Peerless bags as they sat on the shelves or even poke them with hypodermic needles to inject them with kerosene.

“I remember years ago we couldn’t have a truck go into the city of Chicago,” he says. “Cops would pull you over. . . . Nobody came into Chicago.”

Jack grew up working in the plant, and after a tour in Vietnam with the Green Berets, he took over from his old man. Peerless used to do its best business with walk-ins, but they started locking the factory doors in the 80s as the neighborhood went downhill. Over the years taverns and small groceries have become less important to chippers, and the industry has come to depend more and more on supermarkets, a niche just as cutthroat. “I’ve had buyers for supermarkets sit there, look at me across the desk, and say, ‘You give me a thousand dollars per store,’” Jack says. “He’ll guarantee us four feet for six months. Then that guy’s gonna get caught . . . and he’ll be gone, and another guy wants a thousand out of you.’”

So Peerless has never had much presence outside northern Indiana, though you can find its potato chips in some suburban stores and at the new Strack & Van Til supermarket on Elston. But that recent foothold in Chicago doesn’t mean it’s getting any easier. “I got a store right up the street here a few blocks, I got a liquor store on the corner won’t buy from me,” Jack says. “I think over the last ten years we probably lost 75 percent of our shelf space.” On the back of Peerless’s 11-ounce bags the company prints an appeal to its “valued customers” complaining of the “questionable marketing practices” of “conglomerate competitors” that should melt the heart of any self-respecting locavore.

The chips are sold in hot, vinegar, and barbecue flavors and in a wavy variety, but the regular old chips in the red, white, and blue bags are paradigms of the form: pale gold, thin, lightly salted, and relatively grease-free. In the summer months they’re made from low-sugar white pearl potatoes grown by a Kankakee farmer. In the winter the potatoes are shipped from storage in North Dakota, then from rotating suppliers in Florida and other parts of the south.

Each week 48,000 pounds of potatoes are loaded into a hopper, cleaned, pulled through a slicer, and dropped into the 325-degree vegetable shortening in a 1950-vintage Ferry Fryer Jack Hogg bought from a Cuban lawyer in Miami. He and his six plant employees begin each day around 4 AM, and he spends much of the morning stationed at the end of the fryer, breaking up occasional clusters of chips with a long spatula before the conveyor lifts them from the oil and carries them under the salter. He reckons he eats about a pound of chips on the line every day. Try it, he says, and “you’ll never eat them cold again.”

In the afternoon after the line shuts down, Hogg checks in invoices from the company’s six drivers, pays the bills, and does the ordering. Most nights he’s lucky to leave by 9 PM.

Hogg’s sons, who worked in the plant when they were younger, aren’t interested in taking over when he’s gone. But even though he’s had chances to sell out, he’s not ready to let Peerless join Kelly’s, Chesty, and Mrs. Klein’s in the graveyard of regional chippers. “Snyder’s offered to buy, but all they wanted was the routes,” he says. “They didn’t want the building. Didn’t care about employees, nothing. They just wanted our shelf space.”   

For more on food and drink, see our blog The Food Chain.

Deep South

Twenty-four restaurants south of 52nd Street

Army & Lou’s
422 E. 75th | 773-483-3100

$ Southern/Soul Food | Breakfast, lunch, dinner: Sunday-Monday, Wednesday-Saturday | Closed Tuesday

A favorite of Mayor Harold Washington back in the day, Army & Lou’s has been dishing up well-executed southern and soul food for more than 60 years. For starters there’s Louisiana gumbo; in the bread basket are yeasty homemade biscuits, fresh, flaky, and warm. Steak, chicken, and chops come smothered with gravy and served with corn bread: quintessential comfort food. The fried chicken has light, deliciously crispy breading; pieces are so meaty that half a chicken makes a very filling entree. It’s worth ordering a few extra sides, though: greens are tender but not overcooked, sweet potatoes carry a hint of clove, and pickled beets and onions provide a tart contrast (there are also chitterlings, butter-boiled pig intestines best with plenty of hot sauce). Sweet potato pie and peach cobbler are made, our waitress told us, by a “little old lady from the neighborhood”—which is pretty much how they taste. —David Hammond

Barbara Ann’s BBQ
7617 S. Cottage Grove | 773-651-5300

$ American, Barbecue/Ribs | Lunch, dinner: Tuesday-Saturday | Closed Sunday, Monday | Open late: Friday & Saturday till 3, tuesday-Thursday till midnight | Cash only

Along with Lem’s and the Rib Joint, Barbara Ann’s forms one corner of an inverted triangle of south-side barbecue that the rest of the city would do well to study. Ribs and tips are quite good, maybe second only to Lem’s or Honey 1, but Barbara Ann’s turns out particularly excellent hot links. Fat and complexly spiced with hints of sage and hot pepper, they have a coarse grind that proves an unmistakably direct relationship to pork, something not actually all that common in your garden-variety sausage. The business model of a rib joint and an affiliated neighboring motel (Motel Two) is oddly perfect. —Mike Sula

BJ’s Market & Bakery
8734 S. Stony Island | 773-374-4700

$

Southern/Soul Food | Lunch, dinner: seven days | Reservations accepted for large groups only

BJ’s Market & Bakery, the flagship of John Meyers’s three-store miniempire, lays out honest food at an honest price, no fancy-pants frills, just down-home cooking you order at the counter and bring to your seat. A specialty here is moist, flavorful spice-rubbed smoked rotisserie chicken; a whole bird with two large sides makes a comfortable feed for two. Greens, cooked with smoked turkey leg, have great tooth; black-eyed peas, simple and good, weren’t cooked beyond recognition; even the green beans, though seemingly canned, had subtle seasoning that goosed them up a notch. Sweet potato fries make a good combo with BJ’s signature mustard-fried catfish. BJ’s on-site bakery turns out red-state renditions of chess pie (eggs, sugar, and butter—”it’s jes’ pie,” as the saying goes) along with banana pudding and peach cobbler. Alcohol is neither served nor allowed; on Sundays a big crowd rubs shoulders at the long buffet. —David Hammond

Cafe Trinidad
557 E. 75th | 773-846-8081

$$Caribbean | Lunch, dinner: Sunday, tuesday-saturday | closed monday | Reservations not accepted | BYO

This superfriendly family-run enterprise traffics in the flavors of Trinidad, which have been influenced over the centuries by African, East Indian, Creole, Syrian, Lebanese, Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese cooks. “Brown down” stews—begun with a caramelized sugar base—and rich, spicy curries dress slow-cooked meats like jerk chicken, goat, beef, and oxtails and are accompanied by rice and pigeon peas. Alternatively, most of these can be ordered wrapped in a fresh fried roti, a circle of soft flatbread that can withstand a considerable portion bulked up with a mild potato-and-chickpea curry. Fat, snappy shrimp popped under the tooth, and curry crab and dumplings were similarly fresh. These all came with a choice of filling sides—sweet potatoes, callaloo, red beans and rice, collards, macaroni pie, plantains. The bright, sparkling space adorned with Trinidadian flags and lively with island tunes has a lot of nice house-made touches like the sweet and deadly Scotch-bonnet hot sauce and drinks like mauby, an unforgiving, bitter, and debatably restorative cold infusion made from the steeped bark of the carob tree. I had more appreciation for the sweet, bracing, and uncontroversially refreshing ginger beer, or sorrel, a fruity purple punch brewed from the hibiscus blossom. —Mike Sula

Calumet Fisheries
3259 E. 95th | 773-933-9855

$Seafood | Breakfast, lunch, dinner: seven days | Cash only

In a 1998 Reader story, Calumet Fisheries’ Hector Morales lamented the decline in business that came with the death of the steel industry on the southeast side. But the tiny shack at the foot of the 95th Street Bridge is still smoking its own chubs, trout, and salmon steaks, heads, and collars over oak logs. Brined overnight, these creatures remain moist after smoking. The vulnerable constitution of shrimp is the best endorsement of this process, remaining juicy and intensely smoky—though the monsters come dear at $19.95 a pound. Polyglot sailors still weigh in for fried catfish, and the fresh, crispy breaded aquatic life—frog’s legs, shrimp, scallops, and smelts—are expressions of maritime rhapsody, like the sea spray that escapes the breaded crust of a juicy fried oyster. The dramatic location—it’s where Elwood jumped the drawbridge in the Bluesmobile—is an ideal spot to clamber down to the river’s edge with an order of deep-fried ocean critters and watch ships chug by. —Mike Sula

Daley’s Restaurant
809 E. 63rd | 773-643-6670

$Southern/Soul Food | Breakfast, lunch, dinner: seven days | Reservations not accepted | Cash only

Daley’s is one of the oldest existing restaurants in the city, if not the oldest, though ask any waitress exactly how old and you’ll get a different answer every time—usually something like “A long time, baby.” The previous owner, Nick Kyros, says an Irishman opened the place in 1892 and ran it until his father took over in 1918; now he’s turned it over to his son Michael and co-owner Nick Zar, though he still hangs around some, he says. Today the majority of his employees and customers are neighborhood folks who pack in for massive portions of mostly solid, sometimes-from-scratch soul food at practically historical prices. It’s not hard to eat incredibly well, though you have to be selective. The biscuits are light and fluffy, but the mashed potatoes are instant. The chicken gumbo is tangy and thick but mined with canned green beans. One serving of smothered chicken can look like it was fed on steroids while another looks starved. The beefy, cheesy patty melt is a sure thing, as is a side of cabbage with bits of ham, and just about anything can be livened up with the bottle of spicy red pepper vinegar on each table. Nobody stays alive for more than a century without doing something right. —Mike Sula

Dat Donut
8251 S. Cottage Grove | 773-723-1002

$American, Breakfast | Breakfast, lunch, dinner: monday-saturday | closed sunday | Open late: 24 hours monday-Friday | Cash only

Housed in the same building as a Leon’s Bar-B-Q, Dat Donut’s bakers knead, roll, and cut masses of dough with grace and nonchalance, at all hours, behind a broad glass window. Owner Darryl Townson boasts about 45 varieties—mostly based on different frostings, though many are only seasonally available. The standard glazed is a scarfable pillow with just a shine of sugar that feels about as heavy as a cloud (though it’s available in supersize). The buttermilk cake doughnut has an almost imperceptible crunch that gives way to a moist interior. Frostings run the gamut from fruity pastels to chocolaty browns, peanut, and coconut, though in most cases they don’t obscure the subtleties of the fine pastry. Nonstop 24-hour production of “a couple-hundred dozen daily” ensures a fresh doughnut practically anytime, but by day two leftovers require just a quick blast in the microwave to refresh. Service can be gruff but might be excused for the indignity of having to trade art for money through a bulletproof lazy Susan. —Mike Sula

Harold’s Chicken Shack #59
7247 S. Racine | 773-783-9499

$American | Lunch, dinner: seven days | Open late: Friday & Saturday till 5, other nights till 3 | Reservations not accepted

Among the older, more classically ornamented outposts in the great Harold’s Chicken Shack empire, #59 is a prime example of a dark, forbidding little hole in a grim neighborhood from which great fried chicken emerges. It also shows evidence of the maverick spirit of various HCS proprietors, who sometimes veer from the template of a uniform chain with interesting and positive results. The chickens fried here are large, with stout, meaty wings and breasts that remain juicy, tender, and unpunished by the hot fresh-tasting oil. Other little touches make all the difference: a highly seasoned peppery crust, an unusually thick hot sauce, and thin batter-fried french fries. Conveniently, #59 adjoins Lee’s E.T. Lounge, where “all parties will be catered by Harold’s Chicken Shack.” —Mike Sula

I-57 Rib House
1524 W. 115th | 773-429-1111

$American, Barbecue/Ribs | Lunch, dinner: seven days | Open late: Friday & Saturday till 2, Monday-Thursday till midnight | Cash only

This worthy barbecue shack has an enviable location overlooking the Dan Ryan on Ashland, smack in between two exits. Conventional wisdom that real barbecue should be able to stand on its own is not tested here. Like it or not, chewy, crispy tips and links will be sauced with a thick, sweet glaze—unnecessary, but not bad in moderation. It makes no sense that higher-profile north-side operations trafficking in gelatinous boil-b-cue are consistently recommended to tourists and neophytes when this place stands prominently at the city gates. —Mike Sula

Lagniappe—A Creole Cajun Joynt
1525 W. 79th | 773-994-6375

$$Cajun | Lunch, dinner: Tuesday-Saturday | Closed Sunday, Monday | BYO

This Creole-Cajun place in Auburn-Gresham started out as a catering and carryout joint only, but it now seats about 20 for dishes such as chicken or shrimp creole, an etouffee of the day, jambalaya, and a range of po’boys—shrimp, oyster, catfish, and soft-shell crab. Red beans and rice are available with or without a hunk of andouille, brought up from Louisiana; side dishes range from dirty rice (made in what owner Mary Madison calls the authentic way, with chicken spleen) to “candy sweets,” candied sweet potatoes. Madison offers a few more generally southern dishes as well—fried green tomatoes, Cajun grilled chicken, chicken wings and waffles, and pulled pork sandwiches. Banana pudding is the most popular dessert, but there’s also sweet potato pie, peach cobbler, and “cake in a jar” (which is pretty much what it sounds like). —Anne Ford

Lem’s
311 E. 75th | 773-994-2428

$American, Barbecue/Ribs | Dinner: Sunday- Monday, Wednesday-Saturday | Closed Tuesday | Open late: Friday & Saturday till 4; Sunday, Monday, Wednesday & Thursday till 2 | Cash only

A civic treasure among the city’s honest smoke shacks, Lem’s has long upheld the standard against which all Chicago barbecue should be measured. The rib tips, with a higher ratio of meat to gristle than you’ll find at most joints, and the center-cut and small-end slabs are finished relatively fast over a relatively hot fire, bucking slow-smoke convention. They’re deliciously tender and caramelized, lined with the telltale pink smoke ring. When they run out, long lines form. Excellence is extended to the incomparable, complex sauce and coarsely textured hot links, which are too frequently served as mealy sacks of sawdust elsewhere. While disciples were saddened by the mysterious shuttering of the Lem’s on State Street in 2003, the mother ship, with its unmistakable neon beacon, endures. —Mike Sula

Miss Lee’s Good Food
203-05 E. 55th | 773-752-5253

$American, Southern/Soul Food | Lunch, dinner: Sunday, Tuesday-Saturday | Closed Monday

A 31-year veteran of the late, great Gladys’ Luncheonette, Miss Lee is the Florence Nightingale of home-style granny food without a bit of fanciness or fuss. But if cooking like hers were really that simple, everybody would be doing it. She’s justifiably proud of her desserts: her bread pudding and fruit cobblers are La Brea Tar Pits of sweetness—covered with a delicate layer of sugary, caramelized crust but soft and heavy underneath. She rotates a daily menu of high-density, low-gravity comforters like baked turkey and dressing, stewed chicken and noodles, smothered pork chops, catfish, short ribs, and roast beef. Each comes packed with a couple of biscuits or corn muffins and two sides (the creamy black-eyed peas and spicy collard greens are capital, and Miss Lee swears by her “yellow turnips,” i.e., rutabagas). The a la carte options are great too: there’s mac ’n’ cheese and a spicy rubbed bird of her own invention that she calls “herbal chicken” (add 50¢ for white meat). It’s a good thing food like this travels, because Miss Lee’s is carryout only. All the better—it’s the type of eating that goes down best with a sofa nearby. —Mike Sula

Old Fashioned Donuts
11248 S. Michigan | 773-995-7420

$American, Breakfast, Burgers | Breakfast, Lunch: Monday-Saturday | Closed Sunday

This Roseland shop gives the magical Dat Donut a run for its dough, with artisanal classics sold in a less fortresslike atmosphere more amenable to the appreciation of fine fried cake. Here the bulletproof barriers are almost an afterthought—you can reach over and shake hands with the baker, who will alert you to a new batch of fresh, shiny glazeds about to be unspooled in the display case. The blueberry is riddled with bright constellations of something that tastes suspiciously of real fruit. The doughnuts also come in pineapple and caramel frosted, buttermilk and honey wheat, coconut and toasted coconut, but the crown jewel is the apple fritter—not a doughnut, per se, but a six-inch discus of crispy, chewy, soft, sweet, spicy, fruity synergy. These dunkers, lovingly hand cut in the window and “Fried in Pure Vegetable Oil,” as the sign says, eclipse a perfunctory protein menu of hamburgers, hot dogs, Polishes, and fried fish. —Mike Sula

The Parrot Cage
7059 S. South Shore | 773-602-5333

$$$American, American Contemporary/Regional | Dinner: Wednesday-Saturday | Closed Monday, Tuesday

I was pleasantly surprised by the Parrot Cage, the teaching restaurant affiliated with Washburne Culinary Institute. Housed in the South Shore Cultural Center, the restaurant offers a superb view of the lake, and at dinner on a Saturday night the green walls and smooth jazz had a calming effect. I started with a flavorful butternut squash soup; my friend, a stickler, enjoyed his fritto misto of fried tilapia, shrimp, and calamari. His duck, a breast alongside a leg of confit, arrived crispy outside and tender within, with pomegranate sauce and a panzanella salad; I had a simple but satisfying dish of swordfish and capers in brown butter sauce, served with potato puree and sauteed spinach. For dessert there was moist, warm pear-cranberry bread pudding topped with a rosemary custard sauce and whipped cream, and a warm chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream and raspberry coulis. Service was friendly and prompt but never intrusive. In fact, we couldn’t tell which staffers were students. —Michael Marsh

The Rib Joint
432 E. 87th | 773-651-4108

$American, Barbecue/Ribs | Lunch: Monday-Saturday; Dinner: seven days | Open late: Friday & Saturday till 2:45, monday-Thursday till 11:45

Lem’s reigns only 12 blocks to the north, so this Chatham smoke shack is often unjustly overlooked. Center-cut and small-end ribs are lean and meaty marvels of anatomical design. Conversely, the tips are fatty (not a criticism) and don’t frequently maintain their structural integrity. The meat in general evidences a deep pink smoke ring and has a slightly bacony flavor that wouldn’t be bad with some eggs and toast. Don’t be discouraged by the orangey and somewhat glutinous sauce—it’s not overly sweet, and if ordered hot it really packs heat. For those who require a healthy balance with their barbecue, the Rib Joint is conveniently situated a short distance from Dat Donut, shackled as it is to the inferior and mystifyingly lauded Leon’s Bar-B-Q. —Mike Sula

Soul Queen
9031 S. Stony Island | 773-731-3366

$Southern/Soul Food | Lunch, dinner: seven days | Open late: Friday & Saturday till midnight | Reservations accepted for large groups only

In 1971, when Helen Maybell Anglin opened Soul Queen, it became a buzzing hive of black celebrities and politicians. Today the walls are adorned with photographs of her highness receiving tribute from other African-American royals such as MLK, Ali, Cosby, Harold Washington, Joe Louis, Jimmie Walker, Bill Clinton, and Henry Kissinger (?!)—which is why it feels seditious to say that the Queen’s best days may be behind her. On my last visit there was a distinctly dispiriting vibe in the dim dining room, empty but for a pair of bejeweled young ladies who grazed the buffet while their older male escort remained in his booth conspicuously counting a large stack of bills through his sunglasses. The dishes that once attracted the Queen’s subjects don’t now taste of the carefully prepared home-style you’ve come for: turkey legs, stuffing, fried catfish, mac ’n’ cheese, greens, stewed cabbage, okra, and legumes all seemed born of a loveless assembly line. Surprisingly, the fried chicken, typically an item with a short half-life, bore up well under the heat lamps. The staff in their plastic tiaras couldn’t have been more cheerful and attentive, but there are much better soul food buffets around town. Nevertheless the fading 70s swank of the place still inspires a certain reverence. It certainly made a positive impression on the seven-year-old at my table, who pronounced the atmosphere “fancy” and refused to eat her mushy, blandly sauced ribs without knife and fork. —Mike Sula

Soul Vegetarian East
205 E. 75th | 773-224-0104

F 8 | S 6.3 | A 6.3 | $ (6 reports) Southern/Soul Food, Vegetarian/Healthy | Breakfast, Lunch: Monday-Saturday; Dinner: seven days | Sunday brunch | Open late: Friday & Saturday till 11 | Vegetarian friendly

rrr Raters agree that this unique restaurant—in business more than 25 years—is worth the trip. The menu offers vegan and vegetarian soul food—barbecued wheat gluten, stir-fried meatless “steak,” tofu tidbits, and many other unusual, reasonably priced dishes. “The food made me want to kiss the cook!” says another. —Laura Levy Shatkin

Sunugal Restaurant
2051 E. 79th | 773-721-5600

$African | Dinner: seven days | BYO | Vegetarian friendly

Sunugal’s menu sparks a double take with selections like fettuccine Alfredo and paella listed side by side with Jamaican ackee and salt fish. Best to put your dining fate in the hands of Senegalese owner Tidiane “TJohn” Soumare; just say, “Please bring me whatever is lookin’ good.” With that request, TJohn quickly laid out some crusty-charred chunks of lamb on a mound of rice and shrimp in a light tomato-based sauce—flavorful and well priced though not terrifically distinctive. We had better luck with jerk chicken: apparently butchered at random, these savory morsels delivered good chile burn with bursts of sweetness from golden bits of caramelized onion. Our grilled tilapia, moist and gently smoky, was complemented by cassava couscous (typical of southwestern Africa), and there were a number of traditional Senegalese platters coming out of the kitchen, including chicken Yassa (the bird simply marinated in lemon and onion) and jollof rice. Though TJohn was cool with the beers we brought, you’d do well to order his homemade drinks of ginger and sorrel, or perhaps milky bissap jus de bouye, derived from baobab. This friendly restaurant is an excellent place to practice your French (and how many places in Chicago offer that opportunity?). —David Hammond

Szalas
5214 S. Archer | 773-582-0300

$$$Polish/Russian/Eastern European | Lunch, dinner: seven days | Open late: Every night till 11 | Vegetarian friendly

The Gorale, a sheepherding people of the Polish highlands, have a substantial community on the south side—which explains the presence of not one but two fantasy European hunting lodges straight out of the Brothers Grimm on an otherwise mundane stretch of Archer Avenue northeast of Midway. (The other is the Polish Highlanders Association.) The wealth of rustic detail at Szalas includes a working waterwheel, stuffed animal heads, and staff in billowy peasant dress—you can even dine in a sleigh if your party can fit. The most interesting among the appetizers is moskul, a flatbread that looks like pita but is made of flour, potato, and eggs; it’s accompanied by a sheep’s cream cheese called bryndza and a schmear made of lard studded with bits of smalec, Polish bacon—delicious, though non-Gorale may find it hard to eat more than a bite or two without health qualms. Entrees don’t do anything to reverse the reputation of Polish food as hearty, though the Highlander’s Special—veal goulash inside a large potato pancake and dotted with sheep’s sour cream—is almost delicate for its kind. So too with dessert: fluffy orange-scented cheese blintzes that came with loads of fruit and vanilla ice cream. On weekends there’s live Gorale music. —Michael Gebert

Tropic Island Jerk Chicken Restaurant
419 E. 79th | 773-978-5375

$Caribbean | Lunch, dinner: seven days | Vegetarian friendly

Hacked to order, Tropic Island’s yard birds are generously steeped in the manifold spices that typify the island style, their flesh moist and soft, tinged with the rosy blush of a good smoke. They’re served on rice and peas with sidekicks of plantains and mushy cabbage; these bland starches act as a kind of protective barrier against the tiny tubs of dark, nuclear sauce you might apply to the bird if you have something to prove. The standard repertoire of homey and often bony Jamaican eats is in effect: oxtails, brown stew chicken, yard salad, beef patties, callaloo, and something called reggae stir-fry corn. But the pinnacle of long-cooked fatty comfort is the goat, which requires a small amount of dental work to appreciate. —Mike Sula

Uncle John’s Barbecue
337 E. 69th | 773-892-1233

$Barbecue/Ribs | Lunch, dinner: Monday-Saturday | Closed Sunday | Open late: Friday & Saturday till midnight | Cash only | Vegetarian friendly

When Mack Sevier, former pit man at Barbara Ann’s BBQ, opened his own BBQ joint, lovers of his unique style let out a collective smoky sigh. There’s only one place to get these heavenly hot links—lightly charred smoky pork sausage aggressively spiced with sage and perfect topped with a drizzle of hot sauce—and that’s from Uncle John’s wood-fired smoker. Meaty spareribs are smoked directly over wood, resulting in a crisp, fat-in-the-fire outer layer that yields to a moist and toothsome interior. Rib tips, luscious with juicy pork fat and crisp bits of char, are the perfect complement to hot links. Chicken comes smoked, fried, or in a tasty house special of fried boneless dark meat served with pickled jalapenos. Coleslaw, white bread, and a terrific house-made BBQ sauce round out each order. There’s no seating at Uncle John’s, and I suggest dining auto alfresco, as the tantalizing aroma will otherwise have you reaching for a rib before you’ve driven a few blocks. —Gary Wiviott

Veggie Bite
3031 W. 111th | 773-239-4367

$Vegetarian/Healthy | Lunch, dinner: seven days

Veggie Bite looks like your basic flesh-and-dairy operation—the fiesta-bright yellow-and-blue color scheme, the backlit menu sign with pictures of burgers and nuggets, the stainless-steel shake machine, the piles of ketchup packets. But there’s a stack of “Why Vegan?” brochures on the counter, the Italian “beef” is made out of wheat gluten, and the “cheese” fries are covered in something called golden sauce. The menu has doubled as customers requested vegan versions of more and more meat dishes, including buffalo wings, gyros, meatball subs, and Philly cheesesteaks. (The owners won’t reveal their recipes, but they will say that most of the meat substitutes are made of seasoned, texturized wheat gluten.) Prices run just a bit higher than McDonald’s—a veggie burger combo with fries and an all-natural bottled soda is $6.89. Vegan lemon meringue pie, coconut cake, and other baked goods, sweetened only with brown or turbinado sugar or maple syrup, are available by the slice. —Anne Ford

Vito & Nick’s Pizzeria
8433 S. Pulaski | 773-735-2050

$Pizza, Italian | Lunch, dinner: seven days | Open late: Friday & Saturday till 1 | Cash only |Vegetarian friendly

Despite hints of balkanization in the Barraco family—there’s an unaffiliated suburban location—the original Vito & Nick’s has reigned as the thin-crust pizza of the south side since 1945. Its squadron of white-shirted dough boys is well trained, and great care is taken to ensure that pies emerge from the oven as nothing less than paragons of pie maker’s art. A bit thicker than the advertised cracker thin, the crust is toasty bottomed and only lightly cornmealy, and there’s nary a hint of glueyness topside—the perfect canvas for the ballsy sauce and bubbling cheese, baked to the very brink of browning. There’s a perfunctory selection of red-sauce and bar food, the most unusual example being the Big Nicky, a fat patty of spicy fried Italian sausage on pizza bread, thinly blanketed by melted provolone, served with waffle fries and a dipping cup of marinara sauce. This location packs families in, serves very large and inexpensive cock­-tails, and seems unaltered since its 1965 opening, with brown shag-carpeted walls, an enshrined portrait of the very late Vito, and weary waitresses whose dogs may have been barking here since day one. This location packs families in, serves very large and inexpensive cocktails, and seems unaltered since its 1965 opening, with brown shag-carpeted walls, an enshrined portrait of the very late Vito, and weary waitresses whose dogs may have been barking here since day one. —Mike Sula

Yassa African Caribbean Restaurant
716 E. 79th | 773-488-5599

$$African, Caribbean | Lunch, dinner: seven days | Vegetarian friendly

Yassa is run by a family from Senegal, a former French colony whose cuisine, apart from fresh-baked pain francaise, bears little resemblance to anything European. We started with thiebu djen, a fish stewed in tomato with onion, cabbage, and jollof rice; the last is typically “broken” by soaking and pounding with the hands or the butt end of a bottle. Yassa is grilled marinated chicken covered with a sauce of mustard, onion, carrot, and palm oil and served on a bed of rice. Senegalese couscous is made from millet, which gives it a deep flavor that stands up to lamb and vegetables in a thick and creamy peanut sauce. Fish grilled whole over charcoal had a golden red, deliciously chewy crust and white, firm flesh; debe, grilled lamb chops, were also very flavorful. Be sure to try one of the marvelous homemade African beverages: gingembre is fresh ginger root, pounded and sugared in Yassa’s kitchen, bouye is the creamy sweet juice of baobab fruit, and bissap is a gorgeous rich red liquor made from the hibiscus flower. There are also jerk and other Caribbean favorites on the menu. —David Hammond

Send a letter to the editor.

From the Reader blogs

On Film Ed M. Koziarski: "Mustachioed perverts in a spaceship fire upon a deformed, nude woman daily" in Lale Westvind's "Flesh Gun," screening in Chi(a)nimation All-Stars Sunday at Nightingale.
Friday at 11:37 am