1. HOMER NODS

So last week I said that it was interesting that in a town with tasting menus from everywhere, we haven’t had an Italian one—apart from one or more over the years at Next. On Facebook, Phil Vettel pointed out that Spiaggia had gone to a tasting menu format at one point. I know he’s right, because… I covered it for the Reader at the time. Hey, I remember a lot, but not everything!

2. LA VIE EN ROSEMONT

Okay, Western Springs, but I couldn’t resist. Paul Virant’s Vie long had a reputation as the one serious restaurant out west, worthy of note by city folk. Whether that was fair or not, Vie was certainly very good and well thought of—but it couldn’t withstand the bane of restaurants, the landlord who, after 20 years, decides you’rve made his property so valuable he should jack your rent up. So Vie closed and now Petite Vie (Virant has always been clever about secretly reflecting his name or initials in the name—at Blackbird he was known as “P.V.” because there was already another Paul there), has opened around the corner, in a building they own this time. Anthony Todd tells the story at Dish:

At first glance, the menu at Petite Vie is about as typical French brasserie as a menu could possibly be. From pâté to escargot to duck confit to steak frites, it is a menu of classics, without much obvious innovation. That’s an intentional choice. “When I opened Vie, I was 34 years old. At that age, you want to create your own unique food,” explains Virant. “As I’ve gotten older, I have so much appreciation and respect for the classics done well.”

That doesn’t mean that innovation and Virant’s signature touches aren’t hiding beneath the surface. Meat is still local, with Slagel Farms pork tenderloins being cooked hunter style with tomatoes, white wine, and mushrooms and then reappearing again in the restaurant’s housemade pâtés and charcuterie.

3. DOLINSKY TV

Here’s that half hour special that Steve Dolinsky did last week, in which he visits some of his favorites. He starts with barbecue, going to Green Street Smoked Meats, Smoque and Slab BBQ on the south side; but goes on to take in places like Kasama, Asador Bastian and Virtue, and then, of course, pizza! It’s a nice look at what’s hot and happening in our town right now, watch it or, even better, send it to an out of towner to encourage them to visit.

Meanwhile, here’s his latest regular piece, on Antepli Mediterranean, a Turkish-owned restaurant in a familiar (to me, at least) strip mall at Lawrence and Kedzie:

Dough is everywhere on this menu.

Sometimes, it serves as a base for cheesy, elongated pide, often studded with cured beef. Other times, it’s a delicate, thin crust for lahmajun – a Turkish flatbread with ground beef and lamb that you add sumac-laced onions to, along with fresh tomatoes, then roll up before eating. Another dough – phyllo – is the star of the handmade baklava, Antepli’s calling card among expats, missing a taste of home.

4. PLAYING MY VICTROLA

Michael Nagrant has a nice piece about going to a flea market and walking out with a Victrola—the kind of old-time record player with a big brass horn. If you’ve ever heard one in real life, they’re surprisingly loud—the phrase “put a sock in it” (old-speak for “shut up”) derives from that being one way to quiet one down a bit. Anyway, in the course of all that, he talks about going to Brian Jupiter’s new spot on the northwest side, Migos Fine Foods:

Jupiter acquired the space, so his wife who’s got a private baking hustle could have a place to work. She also makes cakes and sweets for Migos.  The fried chicken is basically Ina Mae’s-style. I love that. But also I know it and skipped it in favor of some other things.

I loved the halal tacos from Jupiter’s partner Azazi Morsi especially the juicy crunchy well-caramelized lamb barbacoa.

It’s just around the corner from a bar on Milwaukee I like, Moonflower, so I see a two-fer in my future. (UPDATE: see below!)

5. BUENOS DIAS

I must admit I know little about Buenos Aires (no matter how many times I’ve watched Starship Troopers), other than that it’s the capitol of (double-checks) Argentina, but now at least if I somehow find myself there, I will have a Titus Ruscitti post to guide me:

The city itself is huge so despite spending 18 days there and often logging more than ten miles a day on foot, and ubering all over, I really didn’t feel like we took in all of it properly. For example we never made it to a tango show though we saw plenty of tango dancing outside in the park and areas where there were lots of tourists and what not. If I had to pick one word to describe Buenos Aires that word would be ‘intoxicating’ as we could not get enough of it. I loved exploring all the different barrios. There’s 48 neighborhoods in Buenos Aires and I tried to take in as many of them as I could with visits to different ones often revolving around food and fun. But before we get to all of that let me just give a few handy tips for anybody thinking of visiting the ‘Paris of South America’ as some people call it.

6. ORANGES AND LEMONS

Lemon is a bar. Lemon is a performance space.

Here revived icons and cerebral creations like the Beet Salad (sotol, feta vodka, orgeat, amaro and beet shrub) share the same menu page as a killer Mojito and fancyish riff on the never-say-die Espresso Martini, aptly called Express-Yo-Self. (As the partners like to say, “Give the people what they want!”) Midwest Handshakes—a.k.a. a short Budweiser plus a shot of Malört or bourbon—will set you back just $5.25 all day, every day.

Not to mention that your drink might come with a side of percussionist Alex Santili’s ever-changing jazz ensemble on a Thursday night, or a couple of dad jokes any day of the week, courtesy of managing partner Zack McMahon and his fellow bartenders who are steadfastly amassing corny one-liners. “I’m currently reading a book about antigravity and I can’t put it down,” was a recent favorite.

So says Maggie Hennessy’s Time Out review about the place in West Town.

7. IN THE LA-BOR-A-TORY

“Pasta lab” sounds like a preposterously affected name for the place where you roll out your pasta, but Tre Dita comes by it honestly enough: “When chef and restaurateur Evan Funke went to Italy in 2007 to study pasta making, he was struck by the ubiquity of ‘pasta laboratories,’ where patrons could observe chefs at work,” begins Chicago mag’s piece, which goes on to discuss the science of it and three pastas to try at the posh place in the St. Regis hotel building.

8. DEPT. OF BUG-EATING

Hey, it’s only once every 17 years, so David Hammond has to make the most of it. Another piece on eating cicadas:

At this period in our history, few people in this part of North America would willingly eat a bug. I get it. Bugs do not seem even slightly appetizing, and when I recently posted about eating insects on Facebook, I got replies like the green vomiting emoticon and several with the simple response, “Nope.”

…Basically, my feeling is, if a food is traditionally and generally eaten by people in any part of the world, I will at least sample it (if only once). I will admit, however, that there are some critical exceptions to that approach.

9. GALIT TV

CBS Saturday Morning has a great-looking piece on Galit.

10. UPWARD

I noted a couple of weeks ago the ongoing fight between former Grace owner Michael Olszewski and Loyola University over his COVID-closed restaurant Onward. Eater has a piece on Khmai, the Cambodian restaurant, opening up on the Loyola campus—but fails to mention what the location used to be. Anyway, here’s some details:

Sang’s opening a pair of restaurants on Loyola’s campus. Beyond a supercharged return of Khmai, adorned with a black and gold color palette and Bridgerton-inspired Regency-style table settings, Sang will unveil the more casual Kaun Khmai — “child of Khmai” in Khmer — an all-day affair with fun cocktails and Cambodian street food. Sang says she created the new addition to better serve the neighborhood, and not depend on the university community

Hope they enjoy the $16,000 chandelier!

11. ALDEN CRAPWEASEL LATEST

Here’s something no one has protested, but I will. The Trib seems to be stripping bylines off old stories, replacing them with “By Chicago Tribune.” Here’s an example: Paula Camp’s last review for the Trib, of Avanzare in 1988, which talks extensively about the fact that her first review, in 1982, was about that same restaurant—which she misspelled:

Since that inauspicious start I have written nearly 500 columns and articles about restaurants for this newspaper-spelling the names correctly as far as I know. After more than 2,000 meals eaten in the line of duty, with the April 15 column my tenure as Tribune restaurant critic will come to an end.

If I didn’t tell you, though, would you know who “I” was? A few would, overwhelmingly most would not, or would assume someone else. It seems a pointless and gratuitous act of archival vandalism by a Visigoth-owner who apparently despises its own talent and wishes to strip them of any identification with their work.

12. LISTEN UP

It’s quintessential Chicago guys week on podcasts!

Ed Marszewski (Maria’s, Marz Brewing, Kimski, etc. etc.) is on En Process.

Dave Bonomi (Coalfire Pizza, Peanut Park Trattoria) is on The Dining Table. How Chicago is he? It’s the first Dining Table episode where I’ve noticed they said “This episode contains adult language and may not be suitable for young children.”

While on actual radio, WBEZ’s Reset talks to Mindy Segal.

WHAT MIKE ATE

A low-key week of trying little places:

Two coffeeshops I went to for breakfast pastries. First, Moonwalker Cafe (not to be confused with Moonflower bar, though they’re not too far apart. I had a breakfast sandwich—egg and sausage on a brioche bun—and a pastry with cherry filling. Which led me to the conclusion that I don’t really like breakfast sandwiches that much. At least not on burger buns (English muffins being another matter). I’m going to stop having them, but the other thing, and the general atmosphere, wasn’t bad—a friendly neighborhood place. I also went to Side Practice Coffee, Foster and Damen, because they were hosting a pop-up from the soon to open Del Sur Bakery, a Filipino bakery. (Curiously they had a sign in the window offering, on a different day, pastries from another Filipino dessert place, the unfortunately named Umaga.) A morning bun with calamansi cream in it nailed the Tartine recipe perfectly and I enjoyed the tart cream pretty well. A basque cake with flowers was durned purty. A croissant with longanisa in it was fine, but I was breathing longanisa for hours. In any case, I look forward to seeing what else they have when they open for real.

I needed to grab a bite solo in my neighborhood-ish, so started hoofing it to Laschet’s Inn, but wasn’t too enthused aboutit, so I checked my phone to see what else there was nearby. I foundChayhana, a Central Asian place in a spot on Irving also called iCafe that I had written about years ago, I think for Serious Eats but apparently irretrievable. It’s classed up now with new decor; I ordered lagman, which is basically a stew with chewy noodles, which I’ve had before in Russian and Central Asian spots, and a mostly vegetable soup (this is a part of the world where vegetable soup will contain beef, fyi) called mastava. Surprisingly, the latter was the star, some meaty depth to the broth, while the lagman was a rather bland noodle and meat dish, like something made in middle America in the 60s. Pleasant but not especially distinguished, it may be another decade before I try it again.

As this week’s photo suggests, I went to a media preview for Briny Swine, a South Carolina-style barbecue place that also offers blues acts—booked by none other than chef John Hogan (River Roast, Savarin, etc.) Though it’s an outgrowth of an actual place in Edisto, it plays like a slick southern-themed joint a la Bub City, cooking and smoking barbecue entirely with wood in two huge Lang smokers, while offering other things as well like oysters, fried green tomatoes and okra, chocolate pecan pie and banana pudding for desserts, etc. Located where a Blockbuster and the (deeply regrettable) Italian chain Vapiano used to be on Clark between Fullerton and Diversey, it comes off like someone plopped Fitzgerald’s in the middle of Lakeview. I can’t really review it off a media preview, but I pretty much enjoyed it all, and will come back sometime.

Finally… I hadn’t planned dinner and it was rainy out Saturday night, so I took advantage of my work on this newsletter and decided to check out Michael Nagrant’s suggestion, Migos Fine Foods. Which I probably would have found sooner or later anyway, given its location—for various reasons I find myself heading up Milwaukee through Portage Park not infrequently anyway, and I’m pretty sure one of my sons and I had had breakfast some years ago in the space next door when it was a place called Fannie’s.  Anyway, as he suggests it’s an eclectic mix of things—fried chicken, tacos, doughnuts and cakes, housemade agua frescas… I went for the beef barbacoa tacos, which were very nice, meaty and robust; and I got a side of white beans with hunks of pork in them (note that other things on the menu are halal), which was hearty, and terrific. There’s not a lot to get excited by in this part of Chicago, but I think I’ve found my place around there.