FOOD CART!

Chase scenes set in Chicago will never be the same—now that it’s legal to have food carts on the streets. This will come as a great relief to Mexican neighborhoods, that they’ll finally have tamales and elotes vendors out in plain sight. Eater has the fine print of the ordinance here.

PARKED GRILL

The questionable, Sun-Times-revealed deal that plopped Park Grill in Millennium Park (and made money for some Daley insiders) is good for many more years—the new mayor lost his lawsuit to terminate it.

TACO B’LOTTO

And the amazing fact that a Taco Bell sells sugary drinks continues to draw coverage at Chicagoist and Eater. In related news, the moon is expected to turn blood red with Jehovah’s displeasure.

REMINGTON STALE, CHERRY IN CIRCLES

Jeff Ruby is unimpressed with the routine American fare The Remington pumps out on Michigan Avenue: “While the kitchen shows hints that it could be more than a bland bourgeois diversion that serves fall-off-the-bone barbecue ribs or French dip sandwiches, the real question is why 4 Star bothered to enlist a chef as skilled as Todd Stein.” He also finds Peter Coenen’s food in the Cherry Circle Room often ruined by inattention—as with the 12-oz. double cut Chateaubriand, “which a nervous young staffer mangled tableside with a knife shakier than Boris Yeltsin at last call.” (Chicago)

HOT DOUG INC.

The latest Hot Doug spinoff is actually pretty cool—Avondale neighbors Honey Butter Fried Chicken made him a tribute sandwich on his last day, but he never had a chance to try it. So now you can try it at Honey Butter, with $1 going to a charity of Doug’s choice, the Shriver Center.

IXCALLRIGHT

Mike Sula might be expected to knock upscale Mex in one of the city’s great repositories of taquerias, Albany Park, but he has praise for a Bayless vet’s Ixcateco Grill: “Very much rooted in the mid-90s Frontera school: a piece of protein, a portion of starch, and a pool of rich, deeply pigmented mole or brightly acidic sauce ample enough for a happy while to be spent dredging it up with the thin, blistered tortillas freshly griddled—in this case by the chef’s own mother.” (Reader)

THE BLANCHAGAIN

Another week, another rave review, this time from Chicagoist, for Chicago’s new French wonder The Blanchard: “While I enjoy precious food in a tasting menu, when I’m paying for it course by course, it seems self-indulgent and wasteful. That being said, get the oeuf outhier, a perfect two-bite appetizer of egg, vodka creme fraiche and caviar served inside a hollowed out eggshell. You will instantly feel like royalty.”