September 2008
1 post
3 tags
Baklaver
Oh bakalava, I hardly knew ye
until I went to Istanbul.
You were cheap honeyed pastry, made of dried flakes and common ground nuts at Sultan’s Market
Until I saw your richly green cousins in the windows of Divan Yolu.
Pistachio! Hazelnut! Chocolate! Random Nut!
All the flavors I could not imagine, sitting in tiny perfect boxes.
I dig my plastic fork, 1 lira at a time, into...
August 2008
4 posts
7 tags
Get Your Streetwise: Part I
In the first few days, I was way too involved with looking and snapping photos to consider restaurant eating an viable option. Instead, I was gripped with the traveler’s compulsion to see MORE MORE MORE and sitting in one place for more than half an hour wasn’t going to accomplish that goal. My stomach growled and Istanbul replied with an army of food carts on the corner of every...
Bir bardak çay lutfen
Or “One cup of tea, please” served admirably well almost everywhere we went in Istanbul since the tea culture in Turkey is embeded in the core almost every transaction. We were offered çay at every turn: on a boat, in a rug store, in a scarf shop, on the street, by random restauranteurs whose sheep’s head offerings weren’t doing any favors to squeamish tourists. I saw...
Istanbul is not Constanti-schnitzel?
“The kebabs, you’ve got the try the kebabs,” every guidebook intoned religiously if going to Istanbul without eating skewered meat would be like missing the Aya Sofya (Hagia Sophia). Well, three of the friends who came with me to Istanbul DID miss Aya Sofya, but their alert tongues also caught a relatively obscure culinary fact, that wiener schnitzel was plentiful and delicious...
Ezra Klein: Food + Politics
I don’t know if any readers would think that a political blog is a great resource for ideas, but Ezra Klein of the American Prospect is just that: a witty policy wonk with a huge appetite for good eating. It might also help that his profile picture looks like Rachel Maddow’s cute younger brother. His latest post inspired me to share his love of fooding and politicking with everyone...
July 2008
9 posts
Green Giant
Hasbro must have had future foodies in mind when they churned out the McDonald’s Fries Play-Doh maker because my current obsession with my pasta maker feels like the same school yard bit: put formless dough in, get tubular food item out! Now that I’ve conquered fettuccine, I decided to move onto ravioli and this recipe in Epicurious.com, ravioli di ricotta e asparagi con salsa di...
Toby From the Violet Hour Responds →
If readers are interested in the PROPER formula for 100% authentic Violet Hour Drinks, Toby the owner of the Violet Hour has responded to my post in lthforums. Its back to the drawing board for me!
The Violent Hour
Waking up this morning with unexplained bruises meant that last night’s effort at stay-at-home cocktailing went a little TOO successfully. I haven’t really written about the drinking aspect of my life, but it is safe to say that I would spend my last $11 dollars on drinks at the Violet Hour. If you are in Chicago, get thee to the unmarked door at 1520 N. Damen quickly. If...
2 tags
WatchI certainly know what I’ll be doing this Sunday. I plan a trying a brain taco, despite all the hullabaloo about “mad cows disease” and then for a tearful reunion with the flor de calabaza empanada. These empanadas are filled with zucchini flowers, whose earthy flavors and silky texture I haven’t been able to forget. I’m so excited to eat it again! Expect a full report...
I am going to Istanbul in about 12 days and...
Naked Fig
George, the chef at my favorite grocery store August, has just informed a crustfallen me that the fig season was going to be over until MID-AUGUST. While my dear friend did manage to procure some at Whole Foods, they just were not the same. Here’s a memory of happier days:
3 tags
4 and 20 Blackbird
If more potheads were foodies or vice versa, then that old English rhyme may sound much more mouthwatering. In another birthday recap post here, I document my dearly generous friends’ efforts to reward my constant name-dropping of Paul Kahan’s restaurant.
We had a funny back and forth with our waiter/sommelier all evening, but he did pick a stellar pinot noir for both the meat and...
Viva la Pasta
I’ll skip the perfunctory apologies about not blogging earlier and reward any readers with a shiny new toy:
My friend, who knows me better than my mother, bought me this gorgeous contraption for my birthday. All that glittering steel made me crave fresh home made pasta because after all, if Nikki Cascone could make it, how hard could it be?
As it turns out, fresh pasta is pretty...
June 2008
6 posts
Hyde Park: A Grocery Epic
I made the 12 mile bike trek to Hyde Park today to eat at my favorite fusion restaurant. Yes, Rajun Canjun is everything I think cheap good food should be. My friend tells me that the owners of Rajun were Indian immigrants who took over the local Cajun restaurant, but when the neighborhood revolted at the prospect of butter chicken instead of fried, the Indian owners decided if you can’t...
Catfish Custard: Or How I Stop Worrying and...
From yelp.com
As much as I trust the people on chow.com and lthforums with my tender tastebuds, I was more than a little doubtful around the infamous haw mak or Catfish Custard at Spoon Thai. I imagined a severed catfish head, whiskers and all, peering up at me from a pastry shell—I grimaced, this was the stuff of nightmares or that Saturday Night Live Iron Chef skit, featuring “shark head...
6 tags
Eating Out and In
With so many great chefs in Chicago (Achatz of Alinea, Bowles of Avenues and Graham Elliott, Bayless of Frontera and Topolobampo, Kahan of Blackbird, Trotter of Trotter’s, Takashi of Takashi—the list blurs my mind), it would be financially and nutritionally crippling to gorge at every one—how I envy the four stomachs of cows! I am making an effort to cook in my home territory and...
Oyster? I Hardly Knew Her!
I guess the Sportsman’s Club of Mount Sterling, IL really wants to tap your inner Chevy Chase, and the phrase “Testical Festival” is just too funny to pass up. It’s not just your run of the mill mountain oysters we’re chewing on; every edible farm creature will be on the chopping block, offering textural sensations unknown to only the most sophisticated of palates. If you’re...
4 tags
Gawker Takes on Sexy Chef →
Does anyone else notice that whenever a cheftestant says something like “I use my sexuality” to get ahead, it sounds like the most feeble dare ever? I am specifically thinking about Top Chef Season 2’s Marisa of the woefully firm panna cotta and Season 3 of Hell’s Kitchen’s Joanna, both boasting of womanly arts that could seduce the judges only to fall flat when it...
Some Like It Hot and Saucy
I wish I could take credit for the salivary stimulating photo above, but an intrepid Yelper beat me to the punch (my lost camera somewhere at Rainbo, come back to me!). My only badge of authenticity being a Korean friend who recommended, of all places, a Chinese restaurant with stellar Korean fried chicken. On an agonizingly slow Brown Line train ride (CTA, millions of dollars are going...
May 2008
2 posts
On Top Chef: Chicago Locales
If Top Chef is the foodie Superbowl, then Hell’s Kitchen is Roller Derby and Next Food Network Star is like watching Olympic curling. Bravo has somehow, through its fabulous charms, made the most legitimate of cooking competition shows, attracting real talent and using none of the gross-out gimmicks of Gordon Ramsey’s program. As for this season, I’m surprised that TWO hipster...
New Yorker Profile of Grant Achatz and his mouth... →
April 2008
4 posts
Best Chinatown Bakeries of Manhattan →
This inspires me to do a similar bit for Chicago’s Chinatown.
Iron Chefing
I may have fetishized the whole conceit of “Iron Chef” a little since I watch it the same way others watch the playoffs. Here are the facts: Iron Chef in Japan is supposedly based on the folklore of a high ranking nobleman who commissioned various famous chefs in his village to cook in a competition. This is probably something ingenious that the Japanese made up to sell their...
Serious Eats Reads My Mind: Portugese Egg Tarts... →
I have been obsessed with the Portuguese egg tart or “pasteis de nata” since I found the Ironbound district of Newark. The Chinese version called “dan ta” has been a staple since I clapped my eyes on my first dim sum cart at the tender age of 7. The difference? The Chinese version is less sweet (no caramelized sugar on top) but I found the Portugese version as satisfying,...
March 2008
15 posts
WatchThomas Keller of French Laundry.
Balthazar
I think the energy at Balthazar is amazing. I don’t mean “energy” the usual buzz word kind of way, but that there is always something overwhelming about the overflowing conversations, the squeezed in tables, and the general emulsion of clientèle rubbing elbows. Even though I can’t pinpoint the date when Soho became uber-commodified, Balthazar feels like an old world respite...
4 tags
Dude, Where's my Churro?
After spending one week in El Defe, I became thoroughly spoiled by the readily accessible churro—it was so plentiful in Mexico City that I never worried about finding the hot crisp snack, filled to the top with chocolate, strawberry, or condensed milk. When I returned to Chicago, I was heartbroken to find that as large as Chicago’s hispanic population is, I could not find a personal...
Two Sides of a Coin →
There’s two great food links I’d like to point out today on the diametric opposite sides of the tasting plain. One is a childhood love known as the bitterly divisive thousand year old egg. I’m aware of how its its weird brown-glass appearance and bile-like egg yolks is a major turn off to most people, but Serious Eats does a good job of explaining its flavors. My favorite way to...
Newark, Newark
The updates have slowed down mainly because I just started on a new out of town project, but this means continued opportunities to eat in different locations. Chowhound informed me that the Ironbound region of Newark was well worth a shot, its abundant Portugese and Spanish ethnic restaurants and stores are a foodie paradise. After a semi-harrowing wrong direction spin on the wrong side of Newark...
4 tags
Cafe Spiaggia
Rumor has it that Cafe Spiaggia serves exactly the kind of hand-crafted Italian food that its older and sophisticated sister, Spiaggia has—just $20 dollars cheaper. I spotted a deal on Opentable.com where I could easily nab 1,000 points for an early spot on Thursday night (their “boar gnocci” looked especially enticing). Overlooking a posh mile of Michigan avenue, facing Chanel...
Fennel and Blood Orange Salad
Until recently, I had been cooking my fennel in butter and salt, which is a tried-and-true formula for root vegetables. I heard through the grapevine that fennel was even better raw—I had my reservations, I thought it would taste like raw celery—but I took the leap of faith and sliced some raw fennel into the prettiest salad. I imagine that this is the kind of salad that women in pink...
Rice and Sugar Crack: Caramel Risotto
I love risotto, I love caramel, therefore I must also caramel risotto. This was the trajectory of my thought when I started making the another thekitchn.com recipe. The idea of sugary, soft grains of rice was just too good to pass up. The most difficult part of this experience was the sugar melting, as it passes between stages that made the sugar look like uncut cocaine to black tar...
Best Mexican Restaurants: Chicago →
This is a must read!
Western Origins of Japanese Food →
As much as I like to complain about the bastardization of Chinese food in America, the reverse is never mentioned, or even known. My mother used to prepare “xi-cihan” meaning “western meal” that comprised of a fried pork chop, peas, and a side of white rice, and I loved it. That most numeric journalist, Jennifer 8. Lee, has a new book “The Fortune Cookie...
Steak Frites No.2
I don’t shy away from steaks very often and J does so love to plate pieces of round brown meat. For this second bistro inspired dish, instead of “frites,” I made roasted parsnips and carrots. The mustard sauce is from America’s Test Kitchen recipe, a simple deglazing with red wine after the steaks were done and adding a few tablespoons of mustard to make the sauce.
4 tags
La Vie en Aigre Doux
Starting a restaurant review with the dessert is like flipping to the back of R.L. Stine’s Fear Street because EVERYTHING always happens in the last 20 pages. Aigre Doux apparently means “bitter sweet” in French and Nxtasy, an amazingly dedicated chowhounder raved about its Sticky Toffee Pudding, so taking advantage of restaurant week, I decided to test drive the dessert.
...
OMG! MSG →
I grew up pressing my fingertips into my mother’s MSG jar and sucking the skin afterwards. This is to say, I suffered from no such MSG-fear such as the one during the American 80s. I’m glad this New York Times article vindicates my favorite flavor-additive. Those who are in denial of its awesome powers better look at the ingredients of their favorite food a little closer.
5 tags
You're So Damn Fine: Wine Poached Pears
When it comes to looks, yogurt panna cotta with wine poached pears is a cloying beauty queen; the blushing half moons of pears curled on top of a creamy and slightly tart panna cotta—it’s like dessert for any of Alan Moore’s Lost Girls. I was intrigued by the recipe in thekitchn.com because it was a two-fer, the wine would poach the pears and then boil down into a syrup which...
3 tags
Spice Up Your Life: Cake Edition
A large part of my decision making process has to do with whatever is on sale—in this case, it was the 69 cent molasses and the recent UN efforts of my favorite spice girl:
Although Chow.com promises that this cake only takes minutes to put together (Lies! It took me at least half an hour), it is well worth its sugary moist goodness. Especially with Kulfi. From Chow.com’s Ginger...
February 2008
24 posts
4 tags
You Must Crust
What to do before an gripping Romanian abortion thriller? Clearly, one must eat loads of comfort food to stomach the emotional roller coaster ahead (btw, the movie was astonishingly good). Crust has been much talked about in Chicago food media, but it’s worth the hype and while I exhibited the formerly lame attitude of “I’m sick of everyone talking about it so I’m not going...
Meat Paintings →
Serious Eats has this up a few days ago, but the meat paintings of Victoria Reynolds are just a little too carnal and “butcher shop” for me. I highly recommend the meat paintings of Mark Ryden for his whimsical depiction of large eyed lasses and luscious chops, because presentation is everything when it comes to meat. Here’s one of my favorites:
7 tags
WatchWhile this writer in Metromix deals with his childhood “frog eating issues,” it reminded me that at Silver Seafood last Saturday, my friends chowed down on what could be the earth’s equivalent of popplers—except on our rock, popplers are battered-fried, sauce-covered frog meat. On the menu, the item is listed as “Sate Frog” but make no spears about it, this dish...
11 tags
The No Romance Dinner
Don’t get me wrong, along with millions of people, I think Valentine’s day is a crock; but that doesn’t mean you can’t get a good meal out of it. Unfortunately, I think I might have overdone it this year. We headed to Zocalo since J like it so much when we went for my birthday. For a true hedonist experience, we just decided unleash the belt and let the chewing do the...
J'Accuse!
Getting my letter to the editor published in Time Out Chicago was not the fame and fortune I had hoped! Now that ambition has died, this is what Heather Shouse, whom I have tepid feelings for, writes in rebuttal: Congee is definitely a Chinese class; as are fish balls, but unfortunately we didn’t have room to include every comfort food from each country we covered, so we went with one. ...
3 tags
“I had a great drink today at Crust. It was a mixture of espresso liqueur, anise...”
2 tags
Parsnips: Carrot Top's Albino Brother?
It is winter time in Chicago, land of 20 below wind chill and crappy Jewel-Osco shopping. In a time when root vegetables are probably best, I needed more option and decided to try out the freaky looking carrot thing, known as a parsnip. I wikigated [disclaimer: J claims the origin to the word wiki-gate, which means to investigate via wikipeida] the vegetable and found its rather interesting...
Chef Hunter: Bourdain
It’s really hard not to have a crush on Anthony Bourdain. Between the hard drinking, the knuckle-cracking wit and the ‘I don’t give a shit’ attitude, Anthony Bourdain is the kind of guy that girls who used to read Camus on campus would love. He’s a little embittered and likes to be alone, but the no bull-shitter type really seems to attract a female following since at...
4 tags
Buon giorno Principessa: Milanese Eggs
Breakfast is hugely important because it is the one time of day where pigging out is acceptable, nay, necessary. Tired of the old omelet gimmick (last night’s leftovers = dubious omelet), I did a google search for new breakfast ideas and found Milanese Eggs. You’ll have to excuse my very American cabinet substitutes because a proper Italian would never accept Oscar Meyer ham...
