Sheal Patel’s wife Shelly does not eat beef. That’s not unless it’s the Philly Masala, the gooey Desi-cheesesteak mashup that’s the signature of the Dhuaan BBQ Company, the weekly Pilsen-based pop-up he’s maintained for more than a year. I’ve flipped a couple vegetarians by barbecue over the years, so I know how satisfying that can […]
Category: Food & Drink Feature
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Worlds collide with Flavor Supreme and Lolo Agogo of Monday Snack Gathering at Monday Night Foodball
Did you miss the good times last Monday, when Joey Pham (@flavorsupreme), Kelly Ijichi (Mom’s Chicago), and their Monday Snack Gathering* cohort conjured magic from the depths of the Kedzie Inn’s roiling deep fryer? Chicken gyoza showered in black truffles flew around the dining room like a flock of sizzling hummingbirds. From that you’d never […]
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It’s deep-fried dopamine from Flavor Supreme and Mom’s Chicago on Monday Night Foodball
“Mom” is the nickname of the deep fryer at the Kedzie Inn,* so it’s a delicious coincidence that Kelly Ijichi of Mom’s Chicago will be on the baskets, dunking barbecued eel croquettes, chicken gyoza, and shrimp cutlets at the next Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up series. “The most beautiful thing for us […]
Posted inFood & Drink
The best tortillas are made with Michigan (and Mexican) corn
When Aaron Harris’s wife adopted a gluten-free diet he had to start from scratch when it came to tacos. He was raised on his grandmother’s homemade flour tortillas, and she was raised in Chihuahua, where wheat supersedes corn. “She and my mom would make big stacks of flour tortillas, and we would eat those with […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Get it hot, sweet, and wet on Monday Night Foodball, featuring Hot Mix Beef
I can’t name two more worldly bon vivants than Eric May and Titus Ruscitti. May, caterer, executive director of Roots & Culture Contemporary Art Center, and former head chef at Ox-bow School of Art; and Ruscitti, food writer and taco scholar, have eaten prodigiously all over the world—and in every corner and crevice of the […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Thattu and Maa Maa Dei unite for a congee collab at Monday Night Foodball
Congee is for when you’re sick. Congee is for when you’re cold. Congee is for when you need to immerse yourself in the warm womblike comfort of a steamy bowl of rice porridge. Or if you’re Margaret Pak of Thattu or Jaye Fong of Maa Maa Dei, congee is for anytime. Pak eats Keralan congee, […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Château Picklebone opens its fabled gates for Monday Night Foodball
Logan Square’s Superkhana International has been an incubator throughout the pandemic for young chefs sometimes short on experience but always long on big ideas. Chefs Zeeshan Shah and Yoshi Yamada have provided kitchen space and encouragement for all sorts of wild side hustles, and I’ve profiled some of them, like Keralan condiment king Thommy Padanilam […]
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It’s revenge of Funeral Potatoes at Monday Night Foodball
Now that the polls for Best of Chicago have closed I can say this without fear of tipping the scales of this venerable experiment in democracy: Funeral Potatoes are the great heroes of Monday Night Foodball. I’m in their corner for Best Meal Kits and Best Pandemic Pivot—which we’ll find out about on March 3—but […]
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Anticonquista Café roasts the only farm-to-cup coffee in Chicago
Last week, 1,900 pounds of catimor arabica coffee beans were sun-drying on a patio high in the mountains of Chiquimula, Guatemala, near the Honduran border. By the time you read this, a quarter ton’s worth will have been milled, hand-sorted for defects, and shipped via FedEx directly to their owner in Chicago, Elmer Fajardo of […]
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The Moonwalker Cafe brings a rare and porky specialty from Guerrero to Monday Night Foodball
Whenever there was a wedding or baptism to celebrate in San Luis de la Loma, Ana Mellin made the relleno de puerco. In the tiny town just up the coast from Acapulco, she and her cousins roasted banana leaf-swaddled, whole hogs for funerals too. The celebratory pig, stuffed with pineapple, plantains, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, and […]
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Nemanja and Marko Milunovic launch season two of Monday Night Foodball
Last September Nemanja Milunovic was on a roll. The former fine-dining chef’s pandemic-born Avondale ghost kitchen Kiosk Balkan Street Food had struggled for its first six months, until a positive review in the Tribune blew his business up. Each day he was selling out of the extraordinarily pillowy (and labor intensive) somun that he built […]
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Here’s season two of Monday Night Foodball
Monday Night Foodball has been on a holiday hiatus for more than a month, and I’m soooooo bored. I can’t spend another Monday night pacing the empty, echoing void of the Kedzie Inn, balancing imaginary plates of curried lamb ddukboki, Cambodian fried chicken sandwiches, and pimento cheese hash brown jalapeno poppers, plaintively calling out your […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Drinks with drama, cocktails for comedy
There was a time when concessions at Chicago live theaters were pretty basic: water, soda, candy, coffee, tea, and maybe some beer in a can or wine in a box (depending on whether or not the venue had a liquor license). But as theater bars have expanded their range of legal booze options (or in […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Trini Zaddy and Alteconomy conjure Afro Caribbean-Korean food for Monday Night Foodball
Sometime last summer Jennifer Kim told me she was keenly interested in collaborating with Nariba Shepherd for a proposed Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s ongoing weekly guest chef pop-up series at the Kedzie Inn in Irving Park. Kim, of course, is the ex-Passerotto chef who emerged amid the pandemic as the driving force behind Alteconomy, […]
Posted inFood & Drink Feature
The flood that birthed Love Cork Screw wines
Chrishon Lampley says she was a terrible writer when she started the blog Love Cork Screw in 2013: the Love section was about being a single woman who formerly owned an art bar, Cork had Lampley’s varietal wine selections, and Screw was her take on current pop culture. The year before, the highly successful art […]