PRE-ORDER MY BOOK NOW

It’s off at the printers, so you can pre-order my book THE CHICAGO WAY and save 15% off cover price ($36.00, hardback) by going to its page at Indiepubs and entering the code FOODITOR15. (Or order it wherever you order books, including your local bookstore, but the only discount I know about is this one.)

I’m also going to put announcements for the book at my Skyfullofbacon.com site. Not that they won’t also be here, in the Fooditor newsletter, but that site is set up like a blog, so an easy place to put announcements of events, reviews, and so on.

Publication date is February 3. More news to come, but for now, place your pre-order and when I have public events, I will sign your copy if I am able to.

1. ALINEA MINUS ONE

“Did you expect Alinea to lose a Michelin star?” I’ve been asked several times in the last few days, after Grant Achatz got ahead of the story by announcing it on Instagram before the actual stars are announced next Tuesday.

Look, I have no idea what Michelin is ever going to do. Their idea of what makes world-class dining is so distant from mine that I cannot judge what they’re thinking. Locally, I think if anything is going to get a new star, it’s Feld, but after that, what seems like a Michelin pick? There’s talk of Cariño going from one to two, which I think is pretty fanciful (how many other Mexican restaurants anywhere have more than a single star?); Maxwells seems like it has things together, so maybe it’s a likely candidate, but it’s not the kind of food they go for. One alternative is, in lieu of giving new awards, you can futz with other parts of the list to get attention—and so three three-stars, Alinea, the Inn at Little Washington in Virginia and Masa in New York, are apparently all getting docked a star this year. Enough news for one year! Or not, we shall see on Tuesday, and care for about a day.

As far as 20-year-old Alinea getting one of its stars zapped—two years after Smyth gained theirs, interestingly; were they thinking, we can’t leave Chicago with no three-stars at all?—I knew somebody talked in my book about when Michelin first came to Chicago in 2011, and Alinea got three stars out of the gate—but Charlie Trotter did not (he got two). It was Ray Harris, the banking executive who famously ate at Trotter’s 400 times:

When Grant comes along, he’s the hottest new thing. So Charlie is then, like, the old guy in town, they’re all these young whippersnappers. And then Michelin comes along, and clearly, Grant’s said it, clearly Charlie was a Michelin three-star restaurant for the vast majority of his career. So, did the guy come in and have a bad night? Obviously, Charlie got in enough scrapes over time that maybe people started saying, okay, he’s a little weakened, let me go after him.

…Michelin to me has never gotten it right in the United States. Even today, I mean, if you go to Paris, I’m going to say there’s eight three stars. And there’s probably 30 or 40 two stars, and 150 or 200 one stars. Then you come to Chicago which has a population in the metro area equal to Paris. And they give what, one or two three stars, and maybe three or four, two stars and 15 one stars.

Michael Nagrant (who was a contributor to the Alinea cookbook) has a piece about it:

While there’s gonna be a lot of media-driven schadenfreude about this demotion, there are still only 36 two-star restaurants in America. This means that Alinea is theoretically still in very rarified air and according to Michelin is performing at an incredibly high level.

But we also know that The Chicago Tribune and the New York Times both trashed Alinea in the last year giving them two stars, which sounds nice, but considering the Tribune gave at least three stars (really, check it out) or more to almost every single restaurant it reviewed this year, they’re saying Alinea’s one of the worst restaurants they reviewed. Two stars at The notoriously picky NYT for a spot like Alinea is also basically like saying, hey bro, you should close your doors.

2. ALL NIGHT CAFE

Late night spots are awfully rare in this town, so Lisa Futterman’s piece on a place called Izakaya Shinya is News I Can Use Someday:

In true izakaya spirit, Shinya is open only from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. and everything on the Walmart-size menu is under $20 and shareable. There’s a hit list of yakitori, skewers of grilled meat and vegetables. I love the wagyu, which arrives on its own little robata charcoal grill; the crunchy brûléed sweet potato; and the offbeat chicken bits, like torikawa (skin), hatsu (heart), and sunagimo (gizzard).

3. TACOTLANDIA

I’ve actually been to Tacotlan in Hermosa, for pretty standard tacos, but I hardly recognized it from Louisa Chu’s description of some of the fusion dishes they have there:

A smoky carne asada classic taco, made with inside skirt steak arrachera, the traditional beef cut that’s a touch tougher, remains most popular with old-school customers. The delicious al pastor taco, however, hints at Chinese char siu with delicate bits of pineapple amid the pork. And a rajas con queso taco slips silky peppers into a lavish serving of cheese.

The elote buldak noodles may be my favorite dish, taking seriously spicy buldak carbonara instant ramen completely over the top with street corn kernels, butter, mayo, cotija cheese and chile powder. The Mexican toppings temper the Korean heat, bringing flavor into the conversation.

4. THINGMAKER

I just made a first reservation at Creepies—carefully waiting to exactly 30 days out from my desired date, and jumping on the computer as soon as I was up only to see that most of the prime slots were already taken. So it annoys me to hell that Grimod has been six times:

It’s thrilling just to be at one of those tables that everyone (at least for now) covets—to be surreptitiously situated alongside Chicago’s most discerning (or otherwise trend-chasing) diners and a silent witness to how the team handles this pressure.

To be clear, there’s a lot about Creepies I do already like. Give me one of those mixed drinks or a bottle of natural wine, throw in an order of fries, and I can watch the circus all night. Let me feel the warmth of the servers and see the continued creative effort of the chefs, and I’ll keep coming back just to be the first to declare when everything finally clicks.

5. MEXICO CITY BOMBERS

Titus Ruscitti also has News I Can Use Someday: his latest samplings of food in Mexico City:

Every time I visit Mexico City I come with a list of new and hot taco spots that I want to check out. I keep it handy when walking around and if we happen to pass by any of them I’ll make a stop out of it. That’s how we ended up at Tacos Meteoro in Roma. They serve up traditional Yucatecan-style tacos including a taco de trompo yucateco that grabbed my attention when I was doing a bit of research. I also liked that they only had five total tacos on the menu. I tried the trompo taco and the taco de lechon made with slow roasted piglet and both of them hit the spot. The trompo was super small and the slices were tiny too but as to be expected at a Yucatecan taco spot the salsa bar was stellar.

6. WHAT’S THE BEST MEXICAN IN THE LOOP

There isn’t one, I’d have said, at least not since that Mexican food court, Latinicity, closed during COVID (and it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t Burrito Beach, either). Anyway, Nick Kindelsperger says it’s a place called Momento:

What the hell is Momento doing in the Loop?

That was my first thought as I passed the purple-hued light emitting from the windows at the corner of Wabash and Monroe. Instead of a cookie-cutter quick-service chain, Momento looked like it tried to open in River North and simply got lost.

But if Momento did decide to open in such a touristy area, it must be an overpriced joke, right?

While certainly not cheap, Momento is clearly serious. Walk in the door, and you’ll be bombarded by declarations like “You think you know tacos? Welcome to your reality check.” and “Sorry, but aquí la salsa sí pica.” (here the salsa is spicy) But Momento’s real bragging point sits to the right of the host stand, where a chef makes blue corn tortillas to order on a constantly rotating circular griddle.

7. OLD COW

Michael Nagrant talks about Table, Donkey and Stick’s upcoming series of beef dinners:

Maybe young beef is tender as the night, but it’s also forever frozen in a Rob Gronkowski-state of immaturity of flavor.

Europeans know good eats and so that’s why they’re aging beef and breaking down old cows in their top restaurants in search of aldehydes and ketones and all those good molecules that make things taste different and delicious.

…[Owner Matt] Sussman has gone half-Matt Damon (We Bought A Zoo!) and purchased a retired Kilgus farm dairy cow to serve to Chicagoans over the next few months.

Sussman said, “We think people should have a chance to experience what these animals have to offer without dropping $100+ on a steak special or tasting menu at a fancy restaurant. As ever, we also believe folks should have the opportunity to experience the great wines of the world without maxing out their credit cards.”

Nagrant offers the list of upcoming dinners (I couldn’t find it at TDS’s site).

8. THEY TRIED TO SELL US EGG FOO YUNG

(“Sung to the tune of They Tried to Tell Us We’re Too Young”) I’ve never had chop suey or egg foo yung; I suppose I’ve had fried rice, because fundamentally that’s a technique as much as a dish, but I tend to steer clear of such things as being easy dishes for the roundeyes on Chinese menus, though I’m not so precious as to never eat orange chicken or crab rangoon. Anyway, Dennis Lee checks out a place called J&K Golden Wok, advertising the “best fried rice in town”, but it turns out that Dennis also has a gap in his Chinese food education:

Do any of you order chop suey regularly? I saw it on J&K’s menu and realized that I’d never actually had chop suey. In fact, I didn’t even know what to expect. Which is why I went in blind and ordered the chicken version ($11.75, $17.50, $35 for small, large, extra-large, respectively).

Is it supposed to be this pale? It ended up tasting a lot better than it looked; that nearly translucent gravy had a deeper umami flavor than I expected it would, but that wasn’t saying too much. Based off of how much we ended up eating of the other entrees I could tell this was our least favorite, which makes me wonder if this version of chop suey is just an outlier or if all chop suey is supposed to be this way. One good thing is that it’s heavy on the vegetables — J&K doesn’t have any straight vegetable dishes.

My first thought was it looks exactly like a standby of my local Chinese place growing up: moo goo gai pan. I could taste the MSG from Dennis’ photo.

9. ATSUBAYASHI MARU

By the time you read this I’ll know what I think of new Japanese-Nordic tasting menu Atsumeru. In the meantime, here’s what The Infatuation thinks:

This seafood is the best part of this West Town spot’s menu. Silky chawanmushi, earthy mushrooms, and crunchy puffed rice complement perfectly cooked skate wing. Delicious scallops bedazzled with tanburi are punched up with kabocha puree and yuzu. But there are also a few non-fish highlights, like tasty bookends that lean into Atsumeru’s Nordic side. A savory gjetost-stuffed pastry is a great early bite, while milk ice cream in pine oil and kombucha is an excellent dessert.

10. GOOD BURGER

At the Sun-Times, the story of Kozmo, a muralist whose signature character is a happy cheeseburger:

Now, you can find cheery cheeseburgers bursting from the center of pink-petaled flowers all around Chicago. Kozmo’s mom’s favorite color was pink.

The flowers wear various expressions of glee, an emotion that was a work-in-progress for a while as Kozmo explored what kind of creature her burger creation should be.

Now, “that’s what you’re seeing, more of a joyous burger flower,” Kozmo says.

11. HULK SMASH DOORDASH

It was a common news story a few years ago: restaurants discovering that they were supposedly signed up with DoorDash when they weren’t, leaving them to deal with angry customers when it turned out your order would not be fulfilled. Now DoorDash has to pay $18 million over it. Read the story at WTTW.

12. LISTEN UP

Joiners talks to Ken Fredrickson of High Road Wine and Spirits.

The Chef’s Cut talks about Joe Flamm’s new restaurant, Bar Tutto.

WHAT MIKE ATE

Whither steak? On the one hand it seems more popular than ever—as Chicago mag’s current steakhouse issue suggests—but I kind of suspect that the people who see beef as what’s for dinner, period, are a bit bored with having the same slice of cow, over and over. So we’re starting to get places announcing steak in a new, different way. The Table Donkey & Stick meal referenced above is one, but it’s following in the path of Asador Bastian, which touted (but on my one visit, did not quite deliver) unusual cuts of aged beef from places like Galicia (but mostly Texas). There’s also a thing where Korean barbecue is the model for a style of Korean steakhouse, like Perilla, which is built on the techniques and to some extent flavors of that traditional style.

I had something a little like that at Bonyeon this week, from chef Sangtae Park of Omakase Yume. (Disclosure: I and several other food writers were guests of the house.) It’s a dinner built on different types of wagyu, from the US and elsewhere (like Australia), one from pure wagyu bloodlines, but most a mix of breeds suited to growing in the U.S.

I have mixed feelings about wagyu—honestly, I like a steak that’s got some, shall we say, resistance to it. If I cook steak at home, it’s likely to be something like skirt or flank, which has good flavor but is far from melt in your mouth tender. My dad would always have filets and even as a lad I found them soft and a bit bland, I preferred the only other cut we mainly had in Kansas, a KC strip. (Not that I was eating a lot of steak as a kid.) Anyway, I think wagyu is well suited to the way it’s served on a tasting menu, thin slices cooked for just a moment and yes, melt in your mouth tender. But not that much of it in one meal.

Here, we never got a big hunk of flesh, but with a dozen courses, most featuring something like three cubes of the particular type of wagyu we were having just then, I’m sure I had the equivalent of a wagyu ribeye steak. They were all tender and flavorful, but what I remember about them, looking at the menu and my photos and trying to reconstruct what I ate, was the presentation around each one—galbi with some unusual banchan like pineapple, ribeye with a smoked eggplant sauce and black garlic jus, sirloin on a bed of sushi rice and truffle. At the same time, I was perfectly happy any time we got something that wasn’t steak—probably the best bite of the night was a hearty-sized shrimp or langoustine, and I was also very happy with a plate of black cod and bits of matsutake mushroom.

Anyway, if you’re a steak guy or gal, but you’re starting to feel like there must be more out there than the same red meat, this is a tasting menu that focuses on the satisfaction of red meat and the ethereal tenderness of wagyu but finds something new to do with them—several times in a row, and with the personal attention of one of the cooks (the fellow you see in my picture, chef de cuisine Alex Ching, was wholly devoted to the four of us at one end),  It’s $255, which ain’t hamburger, but in 2025 is practically mid-priced. The next time you’re thinking, I guess we could go get a steak, with less than total enthusiasm, this could be the answer.