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By the way, if you go to the Julius Meinl on Southport, they don't force you to parade up and down the whole dreaded "corridor" before serving you a pastry and a coffee.

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...defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions." Screwtape in The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

Fuckerberg on Food

Yeah, but they won't protect me from being doored or driven into on my bike on their beautiful corridor either.

Yeah, there's a really high number of people doing random things in the street on Southport, often in groups. I don't mind walking, but driving or cycling is a bit scary.

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Leek
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Here's how I think the various arguments rank, strongest to most delicate and refined.

Food X inexcusably does not exist in Chicago > Food X place exists but is not authentic > Food X place exists and is objectively authentic but I've had better > Food X place, whatever its merits, does not exist in the right Chicago neighborhood. (Refer to different site for neighborhood discussion flow.)

Or, simply, NYC > Chicago

What about Lutz Cafe? Certainly a large selection, though I have no idea whether it's more generic Austrian vs. Viennese, what the difference would be, or how safe it is for cyclists.

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...defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions." Screwtape in The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

Fuckerberg on Food

I'm totally with you on Presidente, my beer of choice in NYC. You may be right about the merits of Dominican, but it would be nice to have some mangu for breakfast sometime. I should prolly just make it at home.

BTW Chi > NYC.

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"By the fig, the olive..." Surat Al-Teen, Mecca 95:1"

I think that if Chicago had more food carts, it would breed more great little restaurants, too. A food cart is a great way to take a first step into the restaurant business. Some vendors would find new customers in neighborhoods where they might never have expected them. What park would not be improved by the presence of hot dog and pretzel vendors? And the entire Chicago winter would benefit from the addition of the scent of roasting chestnuts, peanuts, and candied pecans wafting up from the street corners.

And while I'm not sure that Chicago should follow NYC in subsidizing vegetable carts, it would be great if there were some of those, too!

For those looking for a bar/bakery combo for coffee and sweets and booze, Uncommon Ground may fit the bill.

They've got a dessert menu. They've got coffee. They've got booze. They've got spiked coffees and other dessert-y drinks. Kitchens and bars at both locations are open fairly late, I believe. Midnightish on weekends for the kitchens, 2 or 3am for bars?

Uncommon Ground
3800 North Clark Street
Chicago, IL 60613
773-929-3680

or

Uncommon Ground
1401 West Devon Avenue
Chicago, IL 60660
773-465-9801

http://www.uncommonground.com/

Now that I think about it, doesn't 3rd Coast on the Gold Coast do desserts? Maybe not an extensive selection.

Oh, and for the Viennese seekers, there's Jolane's in Glenview. Julius Meinl desserts, plus a mix of American and Austrian entrees. Not worth a trip on its own, but certainly worth stopping if you're going to Abt.

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LAZ
Dining Chicago
Index to LTHForum Recipes, 2004-2008

...what Chicago *really* needs, IMHO, is:

a) Some kind of sit-down restaurant serving Keralan cuisine (ie not just a caterer)
b) Any place, of any kind (even food-cart!) serving Goan cuisine
c) Any place, of any kind, serving Parsi cuisine (preferably Parsi wedding-style food
d) Any place, of any kind, serving Sri Lankan cuisine

Heck, one of the above would make me very very happy...

c8w

Chicago needs a restaurant that serves Romanischistekan, the cuisine of the indigenous yak peoples of the Andes, who migrated eastward via the return trip of the Niña and, en route, picked up the foodways of the Spanish as well as the bourgeois of the Viennese/Habsburg elite, which they meticulously studied during their slow, two-century eastward migration before reaching their final settling point, the caves of Afghanistan. The Romanischistekanish "smorgasbord"-style meals are unparalleled and only cities that feature this cuisine can be worthy of claim to any valid food scene.

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Local Beet

c8w, I'm with you. South Indian and Punjabi type food are predominant in Chicago. I'm tired of the same boring standardized "indian" food everywhere and "curry" whatever the heck that is supposed to be. I would imagine this situation is analogous to the Chinese or Mexican food scene in the U.S. of the 1970's. Homestyle regional indian cuisine would be pleasant. At least there are some Gujarati places available. One can only wrangle a finite number of wedding or dinner invitations! I've started trying to prepare some regional food at home.

That's a red card right there.

I've been saying for years that if you haven't eaten in Jalalabad, you haven't eaten.

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"By the fig, the olive..." Surat Al-Teen, Mecca 95:1"

There was a Romanischistekanische shoe repair shop in Chelsea back in the mid-80's where Johnny Thunders (before he sold out) used to set up those smorgasbords in the basement on the DL. It was good times but only lasted for a couple of months. I've been trying to recapture that for years. I saw a tweet that Danny Meyer tracked down one of the abuelitas who hand-made those groat dumplings, delicate but gaudy like the petticoat of a Toulouse-Lautrec trollop. He's putting an ironic modern twist on the Romanischistekanische tradition at his new Brooklyn boite-cum-package store, called Old Style Zimne Piwo, if the vintage sign is any indication. The abuelita will wear her traditional garb and make dumplings while images of Keralan street life are projected onto her. The soundtrack is 100% North Florida Southern-Fried rock, mostly Molly Hatchet but a well-curated selection of Outlaws as well.

Getting back on topic, the next pick on my wish list would be Neal's Yard Dairy although I don't think most of the cheese would be allowed in U.S. let alone in Chicago. Stepping off the courtyard into the shop in Covent Garden is an olfactory experience. Since, I'm technologically challenged, here is the link, www.nealsyarddairy.co.uk, without the cool formatting.

Since Chicago is one of the best food scenes in the world, maybe we should break the thread down into my dream list and must have list for the foodie scene

Your response elicited a mild smirk, until I got to this part:
which made Diet Dr Pepper come out of my nose a little.

Well played sir.

You went to the Romanischistekanische place on a Tuesday? You didn't know that they only make the maizkreplach on Thursdays?

Too bad.

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... this guy who must immediately set up in the park right next to my house asap
http://nymag.com/listings/restaurant/ny_dosas/

Sarcasm aside, this thread has offered some places I'd probably not have tried otherwise. And we can always hope that a chef somewhere is reading, waiting for his or her big chance...(I have heard that there are many Sri Lancan chefs and sous-chefs in Chicago working in all kinds of restaurants, maybe they just need a little push)

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Except for the late night part, Jolane's does remind me a bit of Cafe Intermezzo.

Oh, and Chicago needs a Waffle House.

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"things like being careful with your coriander/ that's what makes the gravy grander" - Sondheim

A good boulangerie. why is it so hard to find a good loaf of bread here. Specifically good baguette on the north side.

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agreed!!!

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You can't unfry things, Jerri.

Red Hen?

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LAZ
Dining Chicago
Index to LTHForum Recipes, 2004-2008

Amen!! Even Bennison's seems to be lacking interesting flavor and texture lately.

The baguettes at La Briola Bakery near Lombard are pretty good. Of course, nothing beats a good baguette from a boulangerie in France ( avec un cafe au lait bien sur). Not sure, but there might be one near the north side.

Yes. Heck, there are hardly any Gujarati places to start with - and there are tens of thousands of Gujarati's in Chicago (they own half the restaurants on Devon, for a start Yet, I cant think of a single "Gujarati restaurant" as such (maybe Big Suchir - a grocery store; and Rasoi - mostly catering, IIRC).

The "analogous to the Chinese or Mexican food scene of the 70s" is spot on IMHO - what we have is sort of generic "North Indian food" (not even a *real* Punjab-style place, I cant think of one authentically Punjabi restaurant anywhere in Chicago, with good sarson-ka-saag and makke-di-roti plus butter chicken etc... and no, please please dont say "Bhabis" What we have in Chicago is a sort of "Generic North Indian Mughlai food", curry-dominated, mostly non-vegetarian; and we have the generic South Indian food (Udipi, Mysore Woodlands - both authentic enough, but entirely focussed on vegetarian South Inidan food - essentially the food of Tamil Nadu and maybe parts of Mysore). Geographically Goa might count as Southern India (non-vegetarian and Porguese-influenced), and is unique; Kerala and Andhra definitely counts as Southern India, and both there are strongly non-vegetarian South Indian food (this is meat-based Indian food that is as different from Khan's meat-based, say, as French food is from Italian, and this entire category basically doesnt exist in Chicago).

These are the glaring things missing in Chicago IMHO - a city like London too used to be dominated by "Mughlai-style" Indian food a decade ago, probably, but it now much more varied with regional-style Indian food... there are probably more than a half-dozen Keralan restaurants in London alone, not to mention a few Goan-style places. In Chicago we have no Goan food of any kind; Andhra food consists of one surviving branch of Sizzle India (which concentrates heavily on vegetarian and Chinese to survive), and 1 catering spot IIRC; Keralan is just one catering spot (Royal Malabar - which, BTW, is offering a banquet-Thanksgiving-meal for 20 or some such.. with such traditional Thanksgiving favourites as Turkey, Avial, Mashed Potatoes and Gravy, Thoran, Dressing, Beef Fry, and, I think, Kingfish Curry

These are all styles of cuisine that IMHO *should* have a representation in Chicago - and could actually succeed if they do, maybe more so than another generic "North Indian restaurant" would.

Well, except for maybe the Parsi food thing - that was mostly just a personal hope, because it can be pretty damn awesome.. but I know we'll never really see a Parsi restaurant in Chicago in my lifetime

c8w

While Iam at it, a smaller (and hopefully more do-able) request for Santa this year... Chicago could really use a Kopp's, preferably in the Evanston/Skokie area

(not to mention the return of Tacos del Pacifico...)

c8w

Good independent donut shops with good coffee.

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Toria

"I like this place and willingly could waste my time in it" - As You Like It,
W. Shakespeare

Red Hen has not been reliably good for baguettes in a long, long time (JMO, of course). At best, one baguette out of 5 is any good at all. those odds are not good enough for me to buy Red Hen unless it's my only option.

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You can't unfry things, Jerri.