chicago eating

a year or so ago, a friend came to visit me in chicago and i made a list of restaurants to take her to. now that i'm preparing for a visit to chicago, i've gone back to the list and gotten several suggestions from friends about where to go. here are the new additions:

-Red Apple (polish all-you-can-eat)
-San Soo Gap San (Korean 24 hour joint)
-Al's, where my friend recently got a heaveny Italian beef sandwich...and my dad claims they have the best fries in Chicago
-Victorys Banner (vegetarian breakfast)
-Ethiopian Diamond
-Demon Dog
-the Phoenix for Dim Sum (is there a better place for it?)
-Margie's soda fountain
-Manny's deli (reuben and a phosphate)
-Soul Vegetarian, on the south side, which i have yet to get to
-Carol's, which is actually a bar
-Heartland
-Taste of Heaven (cake)--now on Clark
-Argyle (Double Happiness)
-Lula (good!)
-La Unica's little cafe (Cuban)
-Taquerias
-Tamales at Maxwell Street
-Devon (Indian) (Udupi Palace in particular)
-Cafe Iberico (Tapas)
-Andie's for potato chops
-El Nandu for empanadas
-pizza (Pizza D.O.C., My Pie, Pete's, Due's, Genos?)
-Francesca's on Bryn Mawr
-sushi (Shiroi Hana)
-Schezuan Gardens for fake meat (Surf and Broadway in Lakeview)
-Alice and Friends (request to sit away from the t.v.)
-Middle East bakery on Foster b/t Clark and Ashland
-Wow Bao at Water Tower Place
-paletas by the handful (coconut and rice flavored)
-oysy
-Mellow Yellow (1508 E. 53rd)
-river kwai-- on belmont & lincoln. a thai joint open only after 11pm with the largest portions.
-Greektown for spanakopita at the bakery and to the acropolis for soups and breads and coffee.
-a joint on kimball and lawrence for a korean open table bbq.
-el borinquen for jibaritos and puerto rican food.
-cafe colao for good baked quesitos.
-three r. for good filipino food on california & montrose or the fishpond on clark and montrose.
-el barco on ashland. for good shrimp empanadas and seafood.
-pizza metro on division and damen. also a nice four cheese artichoke ravioli.
-taylor st. italian ice on talyor & racine.. best ever.
-los comales at any of its fifty gazillion locations. for good mexican food.
-cafe bonbon on ashland and 18th for tres leches cake. i am serious. this is an outstanding cake.
-ragin cajun: hyde park on 53rd.
-dixie kitchen: hyde park.. good babycatfish, greens, and the BEST fried green tomatoes.
-"el nuevo mexicano" 2900 something clark. good margaritas and mole plaintain enchiladas.
-smoke daddy's on division and damen..motherfuckin' hot ass god bbq.
-roeser's bakery for homemade icecream on north and kimball.
-ps bangkok on clark, i think. not far from pickmeup. best sunday thai buffet.. pricey, yet extremely worth it.
-The Penguin for Argentine style ice cream
-Harold's Chicken Shack. yum.

gourmet backpacking

last weekend, a. and i went backpacking with school friends. they planned the meals and, wow, did they impress!! we were only out for two nights, so we could afford to carry a few cans of stuff and look at what we ate:

Friday
lunch: french onion soup
dinner: chicken coconut curry
drinks: jim beam from the bottle, wine from the bottle, "orange creamsicle"

Saturday
breakfast: pancakes (blueberry, cinnamon, nut, apple, chocolate chip, s'mores flavored)
lunch: build your own pizza, baked in an oven fashioned by matt of a big pot and tin pie pans
dinner: shrimp and crab pesto pasta
drinks: chocolate coffee, ice tea

Sunday
breakfast: oatmeal

after hiking out, we grabbed lunch at this large log cabin style saloon in mackinaw city. it was good and work just ended so i'm going home.

fair food

here's to fair food! this week is the treacherous Ann Arbor Art Fair in which the town is transformed into row after row of tacky art in white tents swarming with middle aged white women with strange cooling devices (the neck cooler being a popular one this year). but along with the nasty comes fair food stands. elephant ears, lemonade, corn dogs, chicken on a stick, hot pretzels, etc. you name your crappy deepfried fair food product and it's here! indeed, a cause for celebration; a glimmer of light in the pit of despair (hot and humid despair) that is the Ann Arbor Art Fair. i had a small corndog and a chicken on a stick for lunch today; a. got an elephant ear that i had a bite of. wonderful deepfried "greasy treats in freaky grease"!!! aw man. heaven!

it's good to have a fisher friend! last night, we reaped the rewards of e.'s successful Lake Huron fishing trip: a 15 lb. salmon! the fish was grilled up and topped with a grilled pineapple salsa. on the side were a green salad, a wheat-free pasta salad, tasty sliced grilled potato and potato chips. wow. so good! so fresh! we also, after a summer of crowding on the back porch, made it onto the front porch of the house, which is much roomier than the back porch. just dragged the grill out to the front. genius! too bad it took, oh, two months to figure out. sigh.

tomorrow a. and i embark on our backpacking trip with a friend from school and her boyfriend. they are responsible for our food and we are going to be dining in style. i was expecting pasta, summer sausage, oatmeal and instant coffee. but, nope, we're having shrimp and pesto pasta one night, chicken curry another night, pancakes in the morning, soup for lunch. fancy! we're livin' it up! oh yeah!

my work schedule today lasts from 9am-5pm without a lunch break and i didn't eat breakfast. i'll probably die any second now. luckily, i get to leave here in five minutes. then i have to track down my friend as quickly as humanly possible so she and i can get dinner. or i might have a pre-dinner snack. that sounds good. hmmm...but from where?
 
today i had this weird interaction with my boss. the library is throwing me a going-away party and she asked me what kind of cake i want, but i don't eat refined sugar!!! what am i going to do? i think i might just go for the ice cream cake...it may be worth the headache that's sure to follow. yum! ice cream cake!

hosted a little bbq last night w/the usual suspects, minus a. who had to work (sad!). i made guacamole (avocado, onion, tomato, lemon juice, cumin, pepper, salt, cilantro) and coleslaw (cabbage, jicama, carrots, cilantro, white wine vinegar, olive oil, lime juice, pepper, salt, cayenne) and grilled up some veggie sausages. it occurred to me that my group of friends alone could probably keep Boca financially solvent. maybe they could sponsor us.

in addition to the Boca products, we had a mozzarella tomato basil salad, pasta salad, potato salad, and tofu tomato basil salad. and jen contributed a massive watermelon. beer was provided by the people who came to the going away party i held at my house last week.

summer bbq's are just the best. at my place, everyone gravitates towards the rather small back porch, right by the grill. maybe if i moved the grill to the front porch, people would hang out there. it's worth a shot. but i just adore sitting outside in the (finally!) beautiful michigan weather, eating good food, and hanging out with friends who rock. sigh. i'm going to miss it.

today, two meals quickly inhaled between before and after library shifts. sigh. made them both feel so illicit and wrong, even though they were perfectly lovely. a sushi combo from sushi.come (stupid, i know) and leftover tuna casserole from last night. the latter consumed in about three minutes but leaving me with quite the delicate breath. ew.

today i had a spinach feta pita from Rendevous for lunch. why are the Rendevous sandwiches twice the price of the Oasis sandwiches even though they are owned by the same people, attached to each other, share a kitchen and the sandwiches are the same size? i believe the "greek goddess" and the "spinach feta" sandwiches are exactly the same. but i was in a rush and didn't have time to wait in the long line at oasis so i threw away $2, more or less. and then, sadly, i spilled oil&vinegar dressing all over my pants. but the sandwich was good. good thing, too, for $5.50 and oil all over my pants. this is why i should never wear nice clothing.

last night a. made fantastic chicken curry. yum! coconut milk!

since i have to

many days in and around california and not an earthquake to report. phew!

+thursday evening: a beer at the Lex to settle me after my midnight arrival at SFO

+friday morning: early coffee and lunch at dolores cafe before heading south to san luis (pronounced, as it turns out, "loo-ee", not "loo-eez") obsipo for a commitment ceremony. weeee!!!
+friday late afternoon: my first ever meal at In-Out Burger, the only fast food joint Eric Schlosser finds acceptable. simple menu, not a frozen burger or fry in the lot, lettuce hand-shredded every morning. i got a cheeseburger, fries and a diet coke. all entirely tasty. it's true what they say. oh! and quite a crowd, there, too.
+friday night: drinks with the soon-to-be wifies/wifeys in s.l.o. and a late-night ill-chosen sweetcream icecream with peanutbuttercups. ate about 1/4th of it before i could go no more.

+saturday morning: sourdough pancakes at the hostel which i found to be of questionable taste. they are the hostel's "special treat" but, really, they're just kinda weird. decent coffee, though.
+saturday afternoon: burrito by the river in s.l.o. followed by last-minute pre-wedding edamame, cucumber salad and california roll.
+saturday night: wedding reception buffet with the usual suspects and lots of clos du bois wine, thanks to the grape-growing father of a bride.

+sunday morning: sourdough pancakes in s.l.o., more suspect when drizzled with maple syrup.
+sunday noon: chile rellenos and horchata at a taqueria somewhere outside of san francisco. fantastic! so good! perfection!
+sunday night: giant potluck at deep dish in mendocino including too much to remember but enough to feed the first-time-in-four-years munchies...if you see what i'm sayin'

+monday late morning/noon: gosh. uh. huh. somethin' at deep dish (leftovers? eggs? toast?) and "breakfast burrito" at the campsite courtesy of iman. everything tastes better when its cooked over a fire, yes?
+monday evening: lentil soup, vegetable soup, garlic bread, tostadas

+tuesday morning: avocado tomato omelette with hash browns and coffee in mendocino. perfection!
+tuesday evening: pork taco from La Taqueria in san francisco, brimming with pork (of course), sour cream, beans, avocado, etc. sigh.

+wednesday very early morning: coffee
+wednesday very late night post-flight: mac and cheese with boca brats and tomatoes fer me and the airport picker-upper.

+thursday: co-op salad for lunch, cottage inn pizza for lunch. so back in ann arbor!

+friday today: madras masala buffet after wandering all over town looking for a place without a line.