One Trick Pony

Baklaver

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:29:29 -0500

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 your delicious belly
Soaked in bee’s knees nectar and sticky with flavors.

Get Your Streetwise: Part I

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:58:00 -0500

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 mosque, which for a city that has a mosque a minute, is quite a few. The ubquitious grilled corn and seasame encrusted bread rings didn’t entice me since I’d been spoiled by the Mexican corn at Maxwell street slathered in butter and spices. The Turkish corn just looked so forlorn and barren compared to the calorie nightmare I usually enjoy.

I followed the tram tracks out of Sultanahmet and, either by sheer force of will or by the gravity of a downward decline, the Bosphorous pulled me towards the Galata bridge, an activity that was high on the “To Do In Istanbul” list. All the reading I had done about the fish markets near Galata bridge mentioned the fish sandwiches. What they didn’t mention was the high pressure salesmanship that made buying a sandwich like wandering through a used-car lot with hundred dollar bills sticking out my pockets.

I guess the difference between the locals and the visitors is that the tourists fall prey to the highly aggressive waiters while the locals fish for their own damn fish sandwiches. While the balik ekmek was satisfying, it was almost too simple in its combination of bread, greens, onions and grilled fish. I kept craving some sort of creamy or lemony counterpart.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed my balik ekmek and imagined that not only twelve hours earlier, that fish was probably enjoying a nice swim in the Sea of Marmara. While the Galata bridge isn’t the prettiest bridge in the world, it does house an entire strip of restaurants in its belly, which makes for an interesting, if stressful walk.

My second sandwich was in the Beyoglu district right off İstiklal Caddesi, in the most elegant ”fish market” I’ve ever seen, the Balık Pazarı. Maybe many years ago, Balık Pazarı was a smelly, noisy fish market, but what I encountered were table-clothed restaurants, elegant indoor malls and another tasty sandwich encounter: the fried mussel sandwich.

Instead of loading up on bread, this 2.5 YTL sandwich had nicely seasoned, freshly fried mussels with the perfect cream sauce. Standing next to us, there was a woman steadily making a formidable pile of mussel shells. The stuffed mussels were selling for 0.50 YTL and with her large Russian looking boyfriend paying, girlfriend was making a killing in shells.

When I hit the Egyptian Market, or the Spice Market in Eminönü, I discovered Turkish pizza, or pide.

While you could get pide with cheese, I love the version I kept ordering over and over again—a mixture of crumbled lamb, tomatoes, and herbs. I didn’t think I could find New Haven style pizza in the middle of Istanbul, but this tasted alarmingly similar to my best experiences at Piece.

Walking around the bazaar afterward, I kept noticing the flippy tricks the dondurma (ice cream) man was doing with his spatula. Turkish ice cream is made with goat’s milk, thickened with salep and stuck firmly to just about anything. After being easily upsold to five scoops of dondurma, I decided that chewy ice cream wasn’t really my thing. While the chewiness of the ice cream was novel, salep gave had a weird after taste and didn’t win any flavor points with me.

I did manage to eat full restaurant meals in Istanbul, but it wasn’t until Joanne, Susie, and Crystal arrived that I finally abandoned my itinerant eating, more on that later.

Bir bardak çay lutfen

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:55:00 -0500

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 young and old men running up the uneven streets of Sultanahmet, carrying trays of teas swinging from hangers that uses centrifugal force to keep the liquid intact. Since I spent my first day in Istanbul wandering the streets with my neck craned at every mosque, it was pure luck dropped me in front of the Aile Cafe, a grape leaf covered tea garden in Çemberlitaş, off the main drag of Divan Yolu. Like any eager neophyte, I used the one bit of Turkish phrase I mastered to the great pleasure of the tea shop owner. I proceeded to drag my friends, one by one, as they arrived in Sultanahmet to the Aile Cafe, to sit under its green shade, to smoke its nargile, and sip its powerful tea that left the tongue dry like a strong red wine. Since the area was heavy with tourists, we also eavesdropped on an American woman who kept dropping Miranda July’s name, hoping to impress, but her companions, a British artist and a South African male model type, looked underwhelmed. Experimental video artists, maybe not the best candidate for the ”I roll with Somebody Famous” line.

Here, the owner of Aile Cafe is squeezing fresh orange juice, which for a full cup takes approximately four oranges. After my fourth visit to Aile Cafe, he attempted to do some match making over the nargile pipe and pointed to the three other American travelers that were lounging on the other side of the garden, staring a little too intently at us. We politely declined the offer by never looking in their general direction again and skipped out happily, romance-free.

Istanbul is not Constanti-schnitzel?

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:04:57 -0500

“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 in Istanbul. In this land of figs and lamb, how is it that fried meat cutlets fit in with the local cuisine?. Manuela Honsig-Erlenburg of Austria helpfully supplies that:

While many of the classic Viennese dishes stem ‘at least’ from former Austrian territories, i.e. Hungary, the traditional ‘Wiener Schnitzel’ has its roots not in Italy – that would be just about bearable – but Istanbul of all places…The more prosperous residents of what used to be Constantinople garnished their food with gold leaf. Those who couldn’t afford this luxury used golden bread crumbs instead. This was the birth of the crumb-coated escalope; right in the middle of today’s Istanbul.”

Maybe because my sense of humor is stuck at the Freudian anal stage, but reports of the wealthy eating gold makes me wonder about their poo and their ability to distinguish flavor from excess. The plebes clearly won the culinary war on the schnitzel. One can discern from the photo, that the artfully stacked schnitzel is from the kind of urban trendy restaurant that wouldn’t be out of place in Greenwich Village. If anyone wants that feel of modern Istanbul, visit The House Cafe. There will be more substantive Turkey postings to follow.

Ezra Klein: Food + Politics

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:25:00 -0500

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 else because how can you not love someone who uses 3 pounds of chocolate and 15 eggs for ONE dessert?

Ezra Klein

*Edit - It looks like Ben Miller was the real chef in this particular recipe. But I promise a purusal of Ezra Klein’s blog will reveal more food made by the man himself.

Green Giant

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:19:02 -0500

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 piselli, in spite of its excessive vowels won me over with its green on green flavors.

Ahh, the road to ravioli is paved with good intentions. It is inadvisable to let your raviolis rest on smooth metallic surfaces! They will stick and be as gnarly to remove as picketing Congress hotel workers.

After making the usual pasta dough, I blanched 1 lb of asparagus until almost tender and mixed it with 3/4 cup of ricotta and 2 tsp of fresh mint. Yes. MINT. Adventure, embrace it.

I am cheating quite a bit here since most of my raviolis stuck mercilessly to the baking sheet before they even had a fighting chance to boil. I salvaged two lucky ones and snapped the photo before everything fell apart. The green sauce is the “salsa di piselli” part of the recipe—1 cup of snap peas and 2 stalks of green onions blanched in 1 cup of salt water and pureed. The texture definitely needs adjusting, still a little too watery for my taste.

THE NEXT DAY

I had all the same ingredients left over, so I figured, why not another pasta dish?

For lunch today, I made fresh fettuccine and approached the pea puree with a little more flair—in the form of heavy whipping cream. The asparagus were simply blanched and added a great crunch to my lunch. I’ve been accused of being a “pepper monkey” but in this case, the extra spice is just what was needed.

Toby From the Violet Hour Responds

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 08:39:33 -0500

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

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 09:59:00 -0500

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 you’re not in Chicago, then there are alternatives aplenty in New York, but what to do for the people unwilling to drop $11 per drink in these tough economic times?

I present to you DIY Violet Hour. My eating partner had a former life as a bartender so this means that we had a little bit of advantage going into this experiment—however, I think a proper stab at Violet Hour drinks can be made by anyone. We tried three gin based drinks: The Riveria, Fox Hunt, and Briar Patch.

Fox Hunt

From the Violet Hour menu, the Fox Hunt is Tanqueray, Pimms, Lemon and Cynar. We prepared in these porportions for two drinks:
3 oz gin
2 oz Pimms
Juice of 1 lemon
Splash of Cynar

Reviews: Despite the pretty picture, this drink was bitter enough to drive a loner away from the prospect of true love. I think that the formula must need more tweaking because the bitterness of Cynar totally overwhelmed any other flavors.

The Briar Patch

From the Violet Hour menu, the Briar Patch is Plymouth, Lemon and Blackberry Syrup. Lucky for us, Stanley’s had a sale on ripe blackberries, which we boiled with water and sugar to make the syrup.

We made the drinks in these proportions for two drinks:
3 oz of Bombay gin
Juice of one lemon
4 tbs of Blackberry Syrup

Review: The tartness of blackberry syrup was delicious with the cool gin. I would drink this again (and boy did I).

The Riveria
From the Violet Hour menu, the Riveria is Pineapple infused Beefeater, Lemon, Egg White, Campari.

We made some emergency pineapple infused gin by dropping pineapple chunks into the gin.

Pretty lemon picture.

For the Riveria, which was this gorgeous color between the ruby Campari and the pale pineapple juice color, we used these proportions for two drinks:
3 oz Bombay gin
1.5 oz Campari
Juice of half lemon
1 egg white
Splash of pineapple juice

Review: Not only was this drink delicious, it was gorgeous to look at.

Cost Savings - We each had about 5 cocktails that night, which would have cost us 10 X $11 = $110, thus $132 including tip.

Our total liquor costs were:
Gin $20, Campri $20, Cynar $18, Pimms $18, Juices $4, Blackberries $2 for a grand total of $82.

Yes! $40 dollars savings! And not to mention we have enough of every ingrediants to make twice as many drinks as consumed. Now if I could only get the lighting in my apartment right…

MFK Fisher is 100 today. I can’t believe I almost missed...

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:16:00 -0500

MFK Fisher is 100 today. I can’t believe I almost missed her birthday, but she is the single most influential foodie in my life, excluding my mother. Her writing is historic, thoughtful, and wholly sensory—with descriptions like the painful curling of truite au bleu flash cooked in broth or her languorous pea shelling ritual that makes eating a blessing rather than nutrition. There’s been thousands of words penned by and about her, so get thee to a bookstore/library and read “The Art of Eating.” The Chicago Tribune also did a nice little essay about her life here.

I certainly know what I’ll be doing this Sunday. I plan a...

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:42:23 -0500

I 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 on Monday.

I am going to Istanbul in about 12 days and through my furious...

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:17:17 -0500

I am going to Istanbul in about 12 days and through my furious googling, I’ve come across this gem: Alice Waters talking about her experiences in Turkey. I knew she’d get there before me.

Naked Fig

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:03:00 -0500

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:

4 and 20 Blackbird

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:00:00 -0500

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 fishe eaters. I love the curved lip on those wine glasses, like an invitation to sip.

Amuse bouche of trout with scallions and microgreens. The weird thing was that the scallions were so intense it made me think that the Jewel was selling me some inferior genetic strain.

From the Blackbird menu: Crispy veal sweetbreads with pickled golden turnip, green apple, candied coriander and goat’s milk caramel. These absolutely converted me into the camp of thymus gland eaters—meaty, crispy, and flavored so well that I believe someone corporation must make popcorn sweetbreads available on a $5 menu. All of us were convinced that the goat’s milk caramel was the waffle like thing on the right side.

From the Blackbird Menu: crispy confit of swan creek farm suckling pig with local soybeans, baby artichokes, preserved lemon and pork rinds. Where is Swan Creek Farm and can I move there? Since it was an appetizer, I didn’t think the suckling pig could come whole, but I definitely didn’t expect a cube of pork. I don’t remember what that contrasting green sauce was, but it paired beautiful with the infant piggy.

From the Blackbird menu: grilled wagyu flatiron with ramp kimchi, buttermilk spaetzle, chicory and green grapes. I have no idea what ramps are, but they are delicious pickled. My only nitpicky thing with this dish was that the buttermilk spaetzle was flat and boring, the only spot of beige on a lively plate of flavors. Apparently, spaetzles are a traditional Hungarian pasta, but they tasted awfully similar to American southern dumplings.

From the Blackbird menu: seared tasmanian sea trout with cherry molasses, kohlrabi, baby turnips, forbidden black rice and salad burnet. We gawked at this plate when it arrive—Really? Was sea trout the exact color of salmon? As it turns out, sea trout may look like salmon, but has none of the flavors.

From the Blackbird menu: grilled california sturgeon with boiled beets, stinging nettles, rhubarb and sunflower seed puree. Susie got the sturgeon, which was the most tender piece of fish I’ve ever had. Everything was consumed way to quickly for me to even attempt to pick apart the sauces.

Viva la Pasta

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:32:49 -0500

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 damn easy to screw up. My first attempt was hardly a photo-finish, with all the damp noodles tasting of gluey flour.

This time, I trusted a Mario Batali recipe. Three large eggs and 1.5 cups of flour. As Batali described this, the dough was initially a “shaggy” mess until some good old fashioned kneading.

After 3 more minutes of hard Soviet-style labor, the dough takes on a smoother texture and didn’t stick at all to my fingers. I contemplated throwing my successful dough in the air like Mary Tyler Moore, I feared my “dropper” instincts.

ooo, just like the movies!

My apartment did not come equipped with pasta-drying rack (curse you non-Tuscan home) so I improvised. Everything’s on the up and up as you can clearly see from the hygienic paper towels.

My obsessive food-plating eating partner took over. The recipe is a simple sautee of oyster and king mushroom with sliced scallions, garlic chives and *gasp* frozen peas. I enriched the sauce with some heavy cream and it was perfect.

Hyde Park: A Grocery Epic

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:37:47 -0500

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 fight ‘em, feed ‘em.

And while its origin of force fusion can be read as some sort of multicultural assimilation thesis, I prefer to think that nothing can be wrong in a world where I can eat fried chicken with paratha and mango lassi. While I was living in the HP (as it is affectionately called by locals), I was crying into my flavorless Noodles, Etc entree. I detested the Med’s Italian and their stranglehold monopoly on the student ghetto, the Asian food never strayed far from the suey, but one blessed shining beacon always came through, and that was Hyde Park Produce. If Hollywood made a movie about Hyde Park Produce, HPP would be a rag-tag group of outsider with hearts of gold. At least, this is what I imagined when gorging on their pungent pico de gallo and gulping down their fresh squeezed orange juice by the quart. Just a two years ago, they moved into a huge new location and they’re better than ever.

But things are looking up in Hyde Park. Now, there’s a green market IN HYDE PARK at Harper Court as well as a line of fancy looking rides outside of Jerry Kleiner’s new restaurant, Park 52. I guess the ole’ Kleiner did it again.

Harper Court Green market

Park 52

Catfish Custard: Or How I Stop Worrying and Learned to Love Spoon Thai

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:47:00 -0500

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 pizza bagel.”

During one of the beer festivals in Lincoln Square, I was finally within geographic proximity to the “translation menu” at Spoon Thai. By the time I had finished lurking on various food forums, this menu had taken on epic proportions in my mind. Way back in 2006, voracious foodies had to seek out the help of language experts, as documented here, before they could even dream the phrase “authentic Thai.” This menu had no prices, only a simple description with the curlicue Thai writing that made the laminated pages look like a magic potions list. During the first time around, we went with dishes that sounded solidly tasty: crispy pork with chinese broccoli and seafood soup.
When the crispy pork arrived on dark greens, it was apparent that “crispy” also meant fried, HARD. The pork was a pure nugget of fried flavor, with a crunchy outer skin and small morsel of meat on the inside. I was totally in love with the Chinese broccoli since they had managed to infuse the veggies with garlic, but the stems still snapped apart in my mouth like it had barely skipped through the flames. I will never understand southern cooking because crisp vegetables to me are next to godliness.

The second time around at Spoon Thai, I took the plunge with the Catfish Custard and Banana Blossom Salad. It helps to think outside the definition of custard when approaching the hàw mòk plaa dùk (tham eng)—the appetizer was snugly sitting in a banana leaf cup and and looked deceptively pedestrian. After the first bite, I pronounced the place pure genius. Hàw mòk tastes like, in no particular order, fish, coconut, lemongrass, basil—how the hell do these flavors go together? While my dining companion enjoyed the Banana Blossom Salad, I wasn’t nearly as shocked by the flavors, it was sour and used that definite pungent Thai fish sauce I used to smell in my old apartment. Even with a waitress that could rival my mother in pushiness, I’m still dying to go back and hit single curly line on the Spoon Thai’s menu.

Eating Out and In

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:44:00 -0500

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 grouped these amazing chefs’ recipes into single entry. Attempting these recipes is going to be nothing like going to their respective establishments, but I think my wallet will sing praises for my efforts. Or for those who aren’t in Chicago, here’s a way to touch the culinary gods.

Paul Kahan - His Beer Braised Chicken with Fava Beans has been a hit at three dinner parties, with even non-foodies friends begging for fava beans. The corn cakes are also delicious flavorful alternative to the breadbasket.

Grant Achatz - Why did the chicken cross the road? To get away from Grant Achatz and Thomas Keller who both have a lusty affinity for roast chicken. While most of these recipes from Food and Wine seem to focus on simple foods, the tomato confit sounds very interesting (is it meaty? fruity?). And if you’re really ambitious try this: Main Lobster With Wild Mushrooms and Rosemary Vapor

Who’s prettier, Achatz or his desserts?

Rick Bayless - Sometimes when I’m running around Bucktown, I think, “I could be running in front of Bayless’ house, RIGHT NOW!” and then I hastily peer around for any sign of the “Mexico One Plate At a Time” filming crew. Bayless has, according to my personal Mexican foodie, the most earnest sounding Spanish accent. I love his TV show because he literally seems in love with every ingrediant, maybe a little romantically when he breathily murmurs, “muy delicioso” He is at Foodandwine.com, but of course, also at Frontera Kitchens.

Who’s muy delicioso?
Avec’s Koren Grieveson runs the sister restaurant to Blackbird which is more casual and the apparent inspiration for that New York darling, Momofuku. I spoke with a furniture designer from Momofuku who flat out admitted that imitation was the sincerest form of flattery (this is no big secret as Momofuku.com will attest). Remember Chicago, we did that whole humidor looking restaurant first.

Takashi - Here’s a bit of Top Chef trivia: Takashi Yagihashi’s eponymous restaurant is in the same space as Cheftestant Stephanie Izard’s former seafood place, Scylla. One of my friends always bemoans the lack of presentable ramen in Chicago, so Chef Yagihashi has answered the call with Takashi’s noodles at Marshall Field’s (or now called Macy’s, whatever).

Graham Elliott Bowles- Taking on a tried and true method, meat on a stick, Bowles has probably made the most refined version. ever. As soon as I can get my hands on some foie gras, I’ll be testing this out (maybe with some cheap pate de canard first). He doesn’t have a huge amount of recipes online right now, but I hope with his new restaurant, Graham Elliott, that will change.

Charlie Trotters-You can’t have a list of Chicago chefs without including Trotter (even if I am a little intimidated by his list of ingredients). He’s also at Epicurious.com

Oyster? I Hardly Knew Her!

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:08:03 -0500

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 don’t have the cojones to down these babies, you can always relive the joy of Funny Farm on YouTube. Testical Festival

Gawker Takes on Sexy Chef

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:38:41 -0500

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 came to actual skill. According to Gawker, Nikki Cascone has crowned herself with the latest honorific of sexy chef. Eech, maybe lessons from Jenna Moroney can be learned.

Some Like It Hot and Saucy

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 14:28:00 -0500

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 where?), we found Great Sea along a lively strip of Lawrence in Albany Park, a street packed full of curious fonts in different languages and a haphazardly intriguing cluster of ethnic restaurants (i.e. was that really Restaurant Sarajevo we saw?).

Let’s be honest, Chinese restaurants are as known for décor as Ghengis Khan was known for table manners, and Great Sea is a notch above what I’ve seen in the past. I’ve had incredible dinners on cheap formica tables covered with removable plastic garbage bags, I’ve had delicate flavors lit by the harshest of fluorescent lights and so one becomes resigned to eat with their tongue and not with the eyes when eating Chinese. Of course, this principle does not apply to the actual plated entrée because the food will always look spectacular.

The atrium of Great Sea boasts a wall-o-glut to its happy eaters, each holding the number of wings consumed and a proud smile that throws indigestion to the wind. Sitting down to a plastic-wrap free table was the first good sign and when the plate heaping with thoughtfully cleaned chicken wings arrived, all doubts rushed out of my head as the spicy smell filled my nose.

Each little drumstick is scraped neatly at one end with about four bites of sweat-inducing spicy meat at the other end. There is no skin, but the outside layer of meat is fried to an chewy crisp which I had to gnash my front teeth to bite. The entire dish comes with the the dark, almost maroon colored sauce, which when ladled over the white rice, makes the plain grain explode in flavors. We had no other dishes that night, the little chicken lollipops had slayed us all.