ROISTNEA

Lisa Shames identifies the difference between Alinea and Roister: “It’s less about the technical wizardry going on in the kitchen and more about wanting to know how they’re able to make simple-sounding dishes so delicious.” She loves comfort food like fried chicken and pimento spread, but notes “Roister isn’t just about making comfort food fancy. There’s lovely crudo—on one visit, hamachi garnished with pickled bananas, coconut cream and puffed rice—smoked oysters and A5 Japanese wagyu adorned with sea urchin butter too.” (CS)

STORY OF O

There’s an extra O in macaron at Maison Parisienne, and as Michael Nagrant tells that story, it’s pure food porn: “The eclairs here are made with custardy pate a choux dough that will make you angry that Dunkin’ Donuts represents the art form with dry, sugary, chocolate-coated long johns. Triangles of bourdeleau (not a fancy red wine but a peach-topped tart) bursting with almond-flavored cream are worth every calorie.” (Redeye) But Friend of Fooditor Kenny Z, acting on the review, had a partial rebuttal in response here.

KNOCKIN’ ON BLUE’S DOOR

Phil Vettel gives a “Not bad” two stars to Blue Door Kitchen, the revamp of Table 52, but makes it sound a little like something for everyone but nothing you gotta have: “At the top of Blue Door’s menu are pierogi, filled with charred eggplant and topped with pickled beech mushrooms, with just a bit of creme fraiche underneath. One item down is a nicely composed roasted beet and carrot salad, with dabs of feta and macadamia nut. The vegetable fritter sounds Southern; the harissa-dominant aioli companion most assuredly is not. Seared tuna is essentially a stealth salade nicoise; pureed padron peppers add a Cuban accent to thin-sliced pork belly with carrots and pineapple.” (Tribune)

OLD TIME REVIVAL HOUR

Anthony Todd and other Chicagoistas eat everything at Revival Hall—okay, odds are you’ve eaten nearly all of it yourself already, since it’s a collection of places from around town. But he mostly gives the downtown versions high marks, with a few exceptions. Go here to find out if Smoque or Antique Taco survives the trip into the Loop!

KNOW YOUR CORNER BAR

The liquor magazine Imbibe skips reviews of new single-batch whiskies for something far more important in life, the central importance in life of your Chicago corner bar (which in this writer’s case  actually is The Corner Bar at Palmer and Leavitt): “When my family and I first settled into our home in Atlanta, the people next door… politely asked at what nearby congregation we planned to worship. We were a mixed couple, right? Last year, we relocated our Judeo-Christian selves to the Chicago neighborhood of Bucktown in the northwestern part of the city. Our new condo-mate, Brad, crossed our shared courtyard to introduce himself and got down to a different kind of query. Had we picked out our drinking hole yet?”

SWEET MISS LEE

South Side Weekly has a sweet interview with the eponymous owner of soul food spot Miss Lee’s Good Food, who started her own place after working at the famous Gladys’ Luncheonette.

GREAT AMERICAN BURB FEST

How many breweries do we have now? Enough that ten of them took medals at the Great American Beer Festival this weekend, almost all from the burbs, including Temperance, Two Brothers, Horse Thief Hollow, Solemn Oath and more.

WOODPECKERSKI

Friend of Fooditor Rob Gardner tells a tale of post-Soviet rarities turning up on the scene… and disappearing just as fast. This is why there’s no keeping discoveries to yourself, you have to share what you find via the internet—it’s literally a matter of keeping these places alive. (NewCity)

A SHADOW RISES IN MICHELINDOR

Michelin Chicago is only a month away. They’re just doing D.C. for the first time and if ever a city was made for Michelin’s brand of credentialism, it’s Washington, every starred restaurant will feel like they just got a degree from Harvard. Anyway, to prep for the upcoming, Friend of Fooditor Lou Stejskal pointed us to this essay from a high-flying diner about what he finds disillusioning about the fat guy’s red book, namely that it discourages, rather than celebrates, the diversity of local cuisines: “Many restaurants that are promoted to three stars shy away from shocking their increasingly international, ‘one time in a great restaurant’ clientele, by not showcasing rich, fat and unfamiliar food, but rather, for example, by serving pork belly that is trimmed not to taste fat and a single percebes that is deshelled and chopped up into pieces not to look ‘ugly’.”

LEGGO MY STEAK AND EGGO

Never been a steak and egg breakfast guy, but I understand why hard working guys start the day that way, and Nick Kindelsperger looks at some places that serve this blue collar combination, including Uncle Mike’s though not, curiously, the Steak and Egger.

IT’S KEVIN BOEHM’S WORLD, WE JUST LIVE IN IT

So we were coming out of the Roister Friday night when all of a sudden a bunch of police cars and black limos go down Fulton. We knew it had to be the president, and sure enough, he and his entourage headed for Swift & Sons. Later that night Boka Group co-owner Kevin Boehm said this on Facebook: “What a night. Met the President at Swift & Sons and just caught a foul ball at the Cubs game. Just a normal Friday.” 

This has been a public service of Fooditor, just to let you know that you’ll never measure up in life to Kevin Boehm.

UPDATE: Unless you’re Erick Williams.

HAIL TO THE CHEF

Are you ready to vote? No, who cares about that, we’re talking nominations for the Jean Banchet Awards, which open here today. Let your voice be heard on who the best in Chicago dining is, including in a new category, Alternative Dining.

WHAT MIKE ATE

If it was downtown, Coda di Volpe’s housemade pastas and Neapolitan pizzas would be a touch generic. On Southport, a mostly disappointing dining street, it’s a great addition to the neighborhood, a little pricy but chic and grownup-looking and, so far, pretty solid at modern Italian food (okay, I still don’t know what celery was doing with octopus even after having it, but the octopus was cooked perfectly).