Entries associated with the tag "Mike Sula":

In this week's Food & Drink we look at three restaurants that put a unique spin on a traditional cuisine:

Shabu-shabu--cook-it-yourself meat, seafood, vegetables, noodles, and dumplings--is traditionally prepared communally, but at Shabu House, in Niles, each customer gets his own boiling pot of broth to play with.

We would have gotten to Soul a lot sooner if Mike Sula hadn't insisted on walking out to Clarendon Hills. But once he finally reached his destination, he found quite a bit to like about this upscale soul food restaurant from Bill Kim of Urban Belly and Le Lan--especially chef Karen Nicolas's penchant for pairing rich, sweet meats like a foie gras-glazed duck breast with bitter greens like rapini. 

I, meanwhile, could spend months continuing to explore the vast and varied menu at Lincoln Park's Miss Asia, which offers dishes from 13 Asian cuisines, including hard-to-find ones like Cambodian, Nepalese, Laotian, and Singaporean/Malaysian as well as Thai, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indian, and Chinese. (Note: though mutton is a Mongolian tradition, you won't find it among the Mongolian offerings here--and that might be a good thing.)

There are three Chicago restaurants on Esquire's list of the best new restaurants of 2008, and one of them--Laurent Gras' L2O--has been named restaurant of the year. Mike Sula's rapturous review of the restaurant lays out some of the reasons why: the in-house bread (and butter) program, impeccably fresh fish impeccably employed, "sommelier prodigy" Chantelle Pabros, the micromanaged yet intimate overall experience. Gras' blog about the restaurant remains enthralling as well, food porn of the highest order (food erotica?).

The two other Chicago restaurants that made the grade are chef Takashi Yagahashi's French-Asian Takashi, which Sula also admired and adored, and the similarly impressive Mercat a la Planxa, from Chicago homeboy Jose Garces. 

The November Esquire doesn't hit the stands till next week, but the complete list is up on the Menu Pages blog, where Helen Rosner broke the news this morning. 

Look for the Reader's own list of the year's best new restaurants in our special issue on food and drink, out November 13.

In this week's Food & Drink, Mike Sula and Anne Spiselman check out some of the fancy-schmancy hotel restaurants that are springing up all over town these days-- rotten economy be damned. Sula found a lot to like about Perennial, Kevin Boehm and Rob Katz's new restaurant in the new Park View Hotel. Boka executive chef Giuseppe Tentori and Ryan Poli, formerly of Butter, are, he says, "working excellent ingredients into appealing, often colorful creations" like semolina-beet gnocchi and a glistening watermelon-tomato-olive-oil salad.

Things didn't go as swimmingly at C-House, the new seafood-focused restaurant and bar in the Affinia Hotel, but Sula doesn't think in-house executive chef Seth Siegel Gardner is to blame. Instead he fingers globetrotting executive chef Marcus Samuelsson (pictured) for the uneven, sometimes outright wrongheaded offerings. Samuelsson may be overextended: in addition to restaurants in Stockholm, Tokyo, and New York City, he just opened Marc Burger alongside the other quick-service turns by star chefs on the seventh floor of the State Street Macy's. (By the way, guess which Top Chef contestant is waiting tables at C-House?).

Spiselman reports that Ajasteak, the new sushi-and-steak place in the Dana Hotel, has a few bargains for those of us who can't even dream of paying $18 an ounce (with three- and four-ounce minimums) for meat, no matter how premium. She found the maki ($7-$14) comparable in price to other contempo spots and "good as it was gorgeous." She also sussed out a deal in the yakitori appetizer of Japanese Kobe: two to three ounces for $18.

You'll find 13 more recent openings in the listings, among them Texas de Brazil, where Julia Thiel was underwhelmed by the gimmicky wine angels. 

The ladies' room at the Signature Room at the 95th was the Reader's pick for best restaurant bathroom in its Best of Chicago issue. Little did we know that restroom appraisal had become such a hot topic. This week WTTW's Chicago Tonight followed our lead, enlisting Reader restaurant critic and food columnist Mike Sula as its guide for a whirlwind tour of Chicago's best restaurant bathrooms. You won't see his face (a restaurant critic has to be able to dine anonymously), but you will see historic urinals, a bathroom fish tank, and a restroom/sensory deprivation tank. (You'll also learn about MizPee.com.)

For reasons that will (hopefully) become clear sometime soon, we at the Food Chain found this particularly interesting.

This week the Hopleaf reported on its web site that there would be no more glogg served at the bar, due to the passing of the colorful Hans Gotling, who used to own it when it was called Clark Fosters Liquor. Hopleaf owner Michael Roper, who bought the bar in 1992 from Gotling, said he'd usually get a call each year around September from the old man asking him to order ingredients, but not this year.

Gotling didn't actually mass produce the spicy mulled holiday wine in the back of the bar anymore, though he batched some up for insiders. Years ago, "Hans was giving away free samples on folding tables out in front of Wikstrom's delicatessen," says Roper. "And then if people liked it they could go in and buy some. Except Wikstrom's doesn't have a liquor license." The city cracked down a few years ago, so Gotling sold the recipe to a Minnesota distillery that bottled it, put his name and picture on it, and sold it legit through liquor stores. But Gotling wasn't in it for the money. The Sun-Times published his recipe last year and he gave it to whoever asked. "In the old days he had a mimeograph machine and he would give people copies on how to make it themselves," says Roper. "He gave away lot of bottles. He was the precinct captain so it was kind of a political thing. That's also why he never got busted. He would always take a couple cases over to the precinct for the police officers and he'd take some to the fire station."

When Gotling took ill, the distillery stopped production, and the Hopleaf exhausted its supply early last season. Roper says they carried on the tradition because Gotling owned the bar for 35 years, and still made it in the back after he'd sold out. But Roper, a Maltese who owns a Belgian pub, doesn't plan to continue it. "I'm not Swedish," he says. Besides, "It's a smelly messy thing to make. It's a lot of work and we just decided not to do it."

Of course that doesn't mean the end of glogg in Andersonville. Scott Martin of Simon's Tavern continues to make it every year. 

I wish I'd had a copy of Colleen Rush's new book, The Mere Mortal's Guide to Fine Dining, about ten years ago. She pitches it like this: "The book is not a prissy etiquette guide that makes you feel like a clod for not knowing where to put your napkin when you leave the table (for the record: loosely gathered, to the left of your plate--not in your chair). It does cover basic table manners, but the book is also about the food--like understanding the difference between a porterhouse and a T-bone and where other cuts of steak come from on the cow. And what dry-aged really means. Or how to order a cheap bottle of wine without looking cheap to everyone at the table. It even covers how to say "tastes like chicken" in five languages."

Come to think of it, I could use one now, especially after hearing her advice on how to remove olive pits and gristle from your mouth. A local, Rush will be signing the book this Sunday, December 17, at the Lake Claremont Press trunk show at the Laughing Iguana, 1247 S. Wabash, from noon to 5 pm; call 773-728-1600 if you want more info. 

I love my neighborhood Cermak Produce; vast well-staffed meat counter, fresh produce, carnitas, Mexican Coke, and a long selection of pan-Latino goods. But early this summer I was startled to see a line of designer eggs produced by the Port Washington, Wisconsin, concern Egg Innovations, "the Cage Free Company." With Omega-3, Certified Organic, Cage Free, and Vegetarian varieties, they had slick packaging and Whole Foods pricing. For all I love it, Cermak isn't the sort of place that stocks products that tout their animal welfare street cred. My checkout girl was surprised too. "Do we sell these?" she asked  when I lined up with my Omega-3s.

I didn't know much about the differences. The busy packaging wasn't much help and the company's Web site implies a lot of overlap. Cage free? Sounds good. But what about the Certified Organic Eggs ("if you are concerned about man made chemicals in your diet and animal welfare")? What's the difference between "cage free" and "free roaming," a lifestyle the organic chickens apparently enjoy? The Omega-3 eggs are bulked up with fatty acids, antioxidants, and Vitamin E, and so are the Vegetarian eggs. Yet the others are all brown, so why are the O-3s white? And what is a vegetarian egg anyway? Why can't they just create one Super Egg with all these admirable qualities?

"We identify major retailing trends," says Egg Innovations president John Brunnquell. "And we've identified four: nutrition shoppers, lacto-ovo vegetarians, animal welfare shoppers, and organic shoppers. There's a lot of commonality to them but each one has their own unique issues."

Cage-free fans are concerned about beak trimming and, obviously, cages. Simple enough. So are lacto ovo vegetarians, but they're also working with a modified diet, so the company makes sure those eggs get some Omega-3 fatty acids and Vitamin E, the same stuff that goes into the Omega-3 eggs. This is where it gets confusing, and a little strange. Brunnquell says the "nutrition" shoppers who buy those tend to prefer a white egg. "It's probably in my opinion subconscious," he says. "For us its a matter of which chicken we would feed to lay the egg." The organic egg seems to come closest to my fantasy Super Egg and Brunnquell didn't seem to disagree. "The issue is cost," he said. Organic feed is alot more expensive, which is why those eggs generally retail for forty to fifty cents a dozen more than the others.

Most importantly, which ones taste the best? Over the summer I tried 'em all, each time pausing in front of the egg section too long, puzzling over which to choose before I grabbed one randomly in frustration. Eventually I vowed to find a favorite and bought a dozen of each all at once. I fried, boiled, scrambled, and made omelets scientifically, one of each, each time taking notes and pictures and eating with separate forks. I'll be hornswoggled if I can identify a significant difference. Well, the white shells on the Omega-3s were easy to peel, and the Vegetarians had a darker, prettier yolk, but a tendency to break (consistent with my impression of vegetarian humans). They all tasted the same.

"All are raised in a cage-free environment," says Brunnquell, and none of the hens' diets have drugs, hormones, antibiotics or animal byproducts. "You won't see a dramatic taste difference between our four types of eggs." Now he tells me.

But its easy to see the differences between these and "commodity eggs," as Brunnquell calls them. I compared the Cage Free eggs with regular Jewel brand Grade A Large whites and Rose Acre Dutch Farms Grade A Extra Large whites (also available at Cermak). The Jewel eggs were sad little weaklings with flimsy whites and tiny yolks that flattened in the pan compared to the Egg Innovations, which sat up proudly, with firm whites that actually got a little too tough when hard boiled. But the Dutch Farms eggs were something else.  Mind you, they're bigger than the the designer eggs, fearsome ammunition, but there was also something ineffably eggier in the way they tasted. Their omelettes were fluffier and had a tendency to crisp up, and the whites were softer when hard boiled, though those eggs also flattened. Rose Acre, of Seymour, Indiana, markets a line of cage free and Omega-3 eggs too, and the carton of regular eggs I bought claims their hens are "fed natural grains, drink fresh water & enjoy country fresh air in a spacious environment." Still, the carton is styrofoam and didn't have all those impressive "certified humane" stamps Egg Innovations' did.

Right now Rose Acre eggs cost $1.29 a dozen at Cermak, while all Egg Innovations varieties are $3.29 (up 30 cents from last month). For some reason Cermak (or its distributor) is absorbing the higher cost for the Certified Organic eggs. Get 'em while they're cheap.

Last weekend some friends presented me with a Sweet Sue Canned Whole Chicken, a legendary foodstuff first given prominence by product design enthusiast Paul Lukas in his great zine Beer Frame. I’m proud to have it though I’m concerned that I seem to be growing a collection of similarly unappetizing canned and packaged foods, many with unintentionally puerile labels. They aren’t things I plan to eat until the inevitable world economic collapse, but the frequency with which people have given them recently makes me wonder if some sort of cosmic canary in a coal mine is singing, and if I’d better stash these treats in the bomb shelter, stat.

All of this had me thinking about a story I wrote years ago about the Potted Meat Museum, a flabbergasting collection of canned victuals, including favorites such as Rose Pork Brains with Milk Gravy and Coastwise "naturally organic" Wild Arctic Musk Ox. It’s a private collection housed in the Lakeview apartment of curator and Web designer Holly Gibson, but she was good enough to share her treasures with the world via a very slick Web site which I’ve only just discovered was hijacked by pornographers a few months ago. Potted meat indeed! 

Gibson herself seems to have gone into hiding, but her sister says she's working on a relaunch. Until she gets it back up enjoy some images from my own meager collection of packaged edible curios.

This is a big week over at LTHForum. Saturday night marks the forum's annual holiday party (sold out) at Ed's Potsticker House. If it's anything like last year's romp at Klas it will be a feast for the ages. Also, Doug Sohn of Hot Doug's has named today's Celebrity Sausage special for LTH founder and Reader restaurants contributor Gary Wiviott. It's a gyros sausage with tzatzkiki, kalamata olives, and feta cheese, which sounds good enough to almost completely distract me from the disturbing concept of eating a tube steak named for the big guy.

Congrats Gary!

According to Delilah’s owner and “beer weirdo” Mike Miller, annually there are around 40 beers in the marketplace specifically identified as “Winter” or “Christmas” beers. There’s no single style that typifies them, but they’re usually brown, sometimes spiced or unpasteurized, and almost always strong, which makes them good, even desirable, for aging. At the end of every year Miller puts the bar’s leftovers in the basement in anticipation of the next Christmas and Winter Beer Tasting. This Saturday is the eighth annual, and Miller has enough old brews on hand for some really rare and interesting deep vertical tastings, say five years of King and Barnes Christmas Ale, from an English brewery that's been inoperative since 2000. “I want to know what all the Christmas beers taste like in the marketplace,” says Miller. “And I want to know what many of them taste like after a couple years in the bottle. The only way for me to find out is to do it myself and it would be very irresponsible for me to open 100 beers for my own personal consumption. So I invite everybody to come and join me and get a good session of booze school in.” $20 gets you 20 sample tickets. Registration starts at noon and the tasting lasts until 5 PM; the bar's at 2771 N. Lincoln.

This week in Restaurants we have the sixth installment of David “the Hat” Hammond’s excellent Beyond the Burrito series. If you haven’t already, you owe it to yourself to check out these deep explorations of the city’s varied regional Mexican cuisines—go here for parts 1, 2, 3 (all pdfs), 4, and 5. I’ve clipped 'em all and stored them on my cookbook shelf next to Bayless and Diana Kennedy. Sadly this is the final chapter in the series, but never fear—our prolific friend, colleague, and bon vivant still has plenty more to say on the subject. Stay tuned.

For the second year in a row, my ladyfriend's mom sent back a gigantic jar of homemade kimchi after Thanksgiving. Last year she sent the regular cut cabbage variety (tongbaechu) which she ever so lightly sweetens with asian pear (another excellent use for this most versatile of fruits, one that the Pear Lady declared "fancy.") This year I'm in possession of about six year's worth of whole-radish kimchi, aka chongak kimchi, aka "bachelor's kimchi," named for the long strand of greenery left dangling at tip of the white stubby radish. It's meant to resemble the the unshorn locks of young unchained Korean men of yore. I really like this bit of shrubbery, which is saturated with peppery juice, but the radish itself is still very fresh and slightly but nicely bitter. Personally, I like my kimchi on the funky side and I've been told this stuff needs a good three more weeks in the fridge before it's at its prime. Unlike Martha I can't give the recipe because the chef is strangely mercurial about her methods, but if anyone's really interested (and willing to come get it), I'll donate a small jar in the spirit of paying it forward, and reducing the the aggressive aroma dominating my fridge. First come. . .

I just dropped a new review of Mi Na Ri, the Korean fish joint on Bryn Mawr, on the Reader Restaurant Finder.

Korean restaurants frequently operate at a high degree of specialization, doing one or two things really well while still offering a variety of standards. I'm slowly but surely eating my way through as many as possible looking for places that go beyond bulgogi and bibimbap. New reviews of two very worthy spots just went up on the Reader Restaurant Finder: So Gong Dong Tofu House on Bryn Mawr is the place for eight varieties of sundubu jigae, soft soothing bean curd soup. Lincoln Restaurant is a tiny, inviting lunch counter that does the basics very well. Now, anyone know a place that does nakchi or poshintang? 

This week in the paper I wrote about Oriana Kruszewski a one-woman Johnny Asian-pear-seed who grows over 20 varieties of the fruit in her Skokie backyard. Unsurprisingly I wound up with quite a few pears that outlasted the research phase of the story. I was surprised to learn that the sweet and delicate Korean Giants I got from Oriana made good cooking pears. She advised that they can stand in for any old tart and sturdy European cooking variety, and there are professional chefs who visit her in the Green City Market that agree. On the day I hung out with her Mohammad Islam, executive chef at LA’s Chateau Marmont and a vet of Sarah Stegner's kitchen at the Ritz, staked a claim on pears and black walnuts for early December when his Aigre Doux Restaurant and Bakery opens on Kinzie. ("She has the best black walnuts I ever tasted," he adds.)

Riffing on a basic pear crisp recipe I found in, er, Woman’s Day Desserts, I chunked my pears, tossed them with ginger and five spice powder, and laid a gravel of Trader Joe’s Ginger Granola, flour, butter, and more five-spice on top. Initially I was hesitant to pull such a Rachael Ray move on this fine organic produce, worrying it would be disrespectful not to bake a cobbler or pie crust from scratch. But time got away from me and I just jumped.

Baking at 400 for at least an hour did not yield the gooey, fruity mess I’d envisioned, but the results weren’t bad. The Korean Giants held their shape, and remained crisp. Personally I prefer baked fruit desserts a few days old, after this resistance breaks down, but three days later they maintained a nice snap after some initial softness. Not a bad compromise. Not a bad breakfast.

Oriana has a simple, intriguing, if not precise, recipe for Snow Pear Soup, a savory/sweet Chinese brew of pears simmered in chicken broth with a translucent white growth known as Snow Fungus (aka “silver ear,” aka yin er). It is said to be good for the respiration in wintertime. “You don’t puree it,” she says. “The Chinese don’t puree soup. That’s what Americans do.”

• chicken stock
• barley
• Snow Fungus (or ask for silver ear or yin er in Chinese markets)
• Asian pears, cut in half, cored, skin left on
• almonds
• Cook the barley in the stock. Add Snow Fungus, simmer until soft. Add pears and almonds. Simmer until pears are cooked. Oriana says carrots work well too.