Category: food

I’ve been on a burger binge lately. I think it’s one of the comfort foods that really isn’t all that evil if you do it right. Of course, it can get evil fast, with mayo and cheese and grilled onions, but a burger with just lettuce, tomato, pickle, and raw onion can fit into a pretty healthy diet. It’s just ground beef, with vegetables, on a bun. Not great for you, with all the saturated fats and such, but things could do a lot worse to your body.

That’s the health angle. From a pleasure standpoint the burger is king. Mark it down, I would rather have a burger than pizza. There, I said it. I don’t seek out new-to-me pizza places as much as I seek out new-to-me burger places because burgers provide more satisfaction.

High pleasure value and may not kill you that quickly – that ain’t bad.

So it’s nothing for me to descend to the depths of a food court for a burger experience. And descend I did for M Burger – to the subterranean Thompson Center food court. It’s perhaps the worst atmosphere I’ve ever consumed a gourmet burger in, which affected the experience a little bit, but the burger came through it okay.

M Burger is the creation of Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises. There are a handful in Chicago right now and they’re trying to capitalize on this real or perceived market for reasonably priced gourmet fast food that’s fresh and sourced locally. They get it right, but they aren’t destination burger joints that you would take a date to. My expectations were a little askew; M Burger is no Edzo’s, but it’s a great fast food lunch.

I had the double with lettuce, onions, pickle, and special sauce. That’s their standard condiment stack. I always go with the house condiment stack no matter what. Sure, if I’m building it myself, I do lettuce, tomato, pickle. That’s all. Mayo, mustard, ketchup, and special sauce don’t do much for me, unless the burger is really dry.

But who am I to say what’s best on a burger. I’m not a chef. I don’t know. I’m open to suggestions and if they want to toss some special sauce on, that’s cool with me. My stock answer when asked by the counter person is, “Everything that’s free.” That usually excludes things like bacon, cheese, and grilled onions, which don’t add any value for me.

It was good. The patty is a quarter pounder fried on a griddle. It’s pretty lean, there’s no grease dripping or glistening pools visible on the burger. The special sauce seems In-n-Out-ish in its nature and adds some good flavor and texture.

M Burger is one of the rare burger places who don’t use tomato as a standard topping. I’m okay with that (I think you can get it, I didn’t ask). The tomato is the single biggest perpetrator of the broken burger: the one that falls apart in your hands from too many toppings and too much juice. In this case, with the double stacked quarter pounders, a tomato slice would have killed the center of gravity. I appreciated the clean experience because it was the work day, I was with another human, and I had a collared shirt on. I have an image to keep up.

It all fit together nicely and tasted great. I paired it with an order of fries, which are thin cut with some skin on. The burger was $3.99 and the fries $1.99, so it’s more expensive than fast-food but not out of line.

I’ll be back. You should go. Let’s meet for lunch some day.

My sister is the frosting queen of Northwest Ohio. Her secret: Crisco. That may sound kind of repulsive to those who didn’t grow up with a can of Crisco on the counter like we did. To me, it sounds like a great way to add some density and texture to one of life’s small pleasures – frosting.

Yep, frosting-love is a curse of the Steffens. I was home a few weeks ago and found myself spreading my sister’s frosting on some cheap shortbread cookies and it transformed each cookie into a religious experience. It reminded me of a food item I had about a month ago that did not need any transforming, but the frosting still really stood out. That’s it in the picture – Art Smith’s Hummingbird Cake from Table 52 (note to self, when cheap shortbread cookies and Crisco remind you of a masterpiece by Oprah’s former chef it could mean something is horribly wrong with your tastebuds).

Smith’s dessert was described on the menu as such:

Banana-Pineapple Cake, Cream Cheese Frosting

That’s a big turn-off for me. I don’t like fruit in my cake. Period. I was on the brink of getting the chocolate cake thing or the pecan pie thing, but this was a special occasion (late Valentine’s Day dinner with G) and the wait staff did a good job of selling the fact that the fruit was “added only for moisture and sweetness, you don’t taste it all.”

In the end, I went with the Hummingbird and I’m glad I did. Actually, I was glad for three days because it lasted three separate sittings and held up very well in the takeout container. Yes, that’s two sittings of just shoveling it in right from the takeout container after dinner.

It’s kind of carrot-cakish but better. It has more brown notes, like a caramelish and brown sugar type of flavor. And despite the thickness of the frosting, it was light enough that it didn’t ruin the cake/frosting ratio and stood up to being hauled around in a takeout container and pawed at for three days. It just works and has completely changed my view of fruit in cakes.

I was so smitten that I’ve started asking southern folk about the Hummingbird Cake in my efforts to bond with them using something other than college football. Here’s the thing though, I’ve asked no less than four people from Georgia and South Carolina and they look at me like I’m nuts. I don’t get it, if you Google this thing Paula Deen is all over it. Oh well, maybe it’s not as southern as I thought.

This makes me wonder if I’m tapped in to food from my region. If you ask me about deep dish pizza, hotdogs, cherry pie, and Italian beef, I’m going to have something to say. I guess I can’t think of anything else really. There are probably a whole host of things that people identify as midwest/Chicago food that would make me say, “Huh?” Test me.

Oh well, it was a great cake.

Every so often I get hungry for a burger. I’m not talking every day. C’mon, maybe four or five times a week I’ll think, yeah, a burger would taste good. It’s not like I have a problem or anything. Most of the time I don’t act on these urges; I push them down into that dark, dirty place with other urges like ones to punch the loud talker on the bus or to watch ten straight hours of the NBA Playoffs.

I cracked on Sunday and went to Owen & Engine for the first time with burger meat on my mind. I showed up at around 1pm and the place was pretty full. There are maybe ten seats at the bar and I was able to get two for a friend and myself (friend and I, friend and me, what’s correct?). The place is smaller than I thought, unless they have an upstairs or something. A steady crowd of neighborhood types and movie-goers kept the staff hopping (it’s right across the street from the Regal City North 14).

I asked the bartender about the burger and he says, “It’s amazing. It’s 40% ground beef, 30% short rib, and 30% brisket and done to temperature so if you usually order it medium-rare I’d go with medium. It’s hand packed and our kitchen really knows how to cook a burger perfectly. You’ll love it.”

Okay man, I thought, I would have been okay with, “It’s good.” I certainly appreciate the passion though.

So there it is up top – burger, medium, no cheese, $14. The grilled onions came with it, I didn’t ask for them but they were a nice touch. No lettuce or tomato, but you get a pickle spear. It comes on a potato bap, which is Scottish for bun. The chips (yes, fries) are nice and come with a distinctive malt vinegar garlic aioli, which was darn good, but we aren’t going to go into that.

Let’s talk burger. Tossing short rib and brisket into the mix makes for a darker, juicier, and less dense patty when compared to standard ground beef/ground chuck/ground sirloin patty. Here’s the cross section:

It looks like a massive half pounder but doesn’t eat that way. It’s almost light and crumbly, dare I say, and melts in your mouth. It’s so juicy that you get a little premature bun saturation, which I don’t mind. It led me to ask the bartender whether it was grilled or fried. His answer was, “Grilled.”

I pressed on for some clarification because I was surprised, there was no char flavor and it was so juicy. I asked again, “So it was grilled on a big sheet of steel?”

“Yes,” was his answer.

Okay, got it now. I call that fried. This distinction between grilled and fried isn’t something that makes sense to everyone, so I’m not faulting this bartender. Be sure, this would have been a different experience had it been set on a grill where the juices dripped into a flame and were reconstituted into the meat via flame vapor/smoke/stuff. I don’t prefer one over the other, heck, I don’t even consider grilled burgers and fried burgers in the same food group. It’s kind of like pizza; thin crust, stuffed, and regular pizza are three distinct groups worthy of singular consideration.

I got a little off topic there, sorry. You need to know that I loved this burger, this place, the sides, and the atmosphere. It’s really enjoyable. I can tell because when I left I was pumped up. I was sending pictures to G and telling her all about the malt vinegar aioli and the brisket/short rib combo. Oh yeah, I didn’t even mention the great IPA from Dark Horse Brewing. I can’t blow any holes in this place at all.

I can see taking people I care about here.

Cold meat on bread is a staple of mine. Oh sure, there was a chunk of my existence where I needed sandwiches warmed in some fashion, either via a conventional oven or one of those toaster oven things like you see at Potbelly. But I live in the now, which are simpler times, and cold meat on bread is usually what’s for lunch.

I’m not talking just any cold meat on bread. I’m talking the Gypsy & Danish Bacon, Boiled Ham sandwich from Fumare Meats in the French Market. Check out that picture and tell me it’s not a thing of beauty. At Fumare Meats they do it right so many different ways that it may take a few posts to sort through them all. And if you work in the loop and you’re not making multiple trips a month to the French Market, you’re missing out.

From what I can tell, here are the ingredients:

• Gypsy Ham
• Danish Ham
• Boiled Ham
• Lettuce
• Tomato
• European Butter
• Roll

They give out spicy mustard on the side, which I add prodigiously.

There are a few keys to the sandwich. First, the roll is chewy but fluffy on the inside (I think it’s a ciabotta). Chewy enough that you have to hold it strategically when you get to the ends so the ingredients don’t squirt out the side. I’ve had this sandwich maybe 20 times in the last few years and every time the roll has been perfect. They may buy them from someone else in the French Market the day of. They’re always fresh.

Second, the ham is flavorful but not overpowering. You get a hit of bacon flavor so you know it’s there, and it’s enough to augment the boiled ham, but the meat doesn’t star in a sandwich like this. This sandwich is a symphony, no single ingredient will blow you away, but everything works together perfectly.

Lastly though, if I were to pick a star, I’d go with the European butter. If you look closely just underneath the lettuce, you can see a thin layer of butter. Butter? Yeah, butter. They just say butter on their menu, but when you ask them they refer to it as European butter, which, I’ve heard, is popular in Europe. It finishes off the texture of this sandwich perfectly. You have the chewy bread, the cold meat, the crunchy lettuce, the spongy tomato, then the dense creaminess of the butter. Amazing for such simple ingredients.

It’s a $7 sandwich and worth every cent.

So this thing is great, but there’s more. Don’t even get me started on the pastrami done in the Montreal-style. We’ll save that for another time my friends, another time.

I often partake in what I think many refer to as the “classic American breakfast.” It consists of two eggs, a hunk of meat, some potatoes, and a grain of some sort. It usually runs about 1200–1500 kcal and can easily satisfy two meals. The problem many have is that it doesn’t contain much innate sweetness, so if you need a sugar fix, you have to get a side of pancakes or wrestle with the cheap, plastic, single-serving packs of Smucker’s jelly. Neither of these are good options; the former because it’s just too much and the latter because it’s just not enough.

Revolution Brewing has figured things out. They’ve addressed this problem to near perfection. The grain of some sort is a fluffy biscuit and if you throw on some of the syrupy, fruity concoction that they serve in a little chrome sauce cup your sweetness cravings are satisified. Not too much, not too little, just right baby.

It’s all there in the picture above. That’s two eggs over easy, a sausage patty, fried potatoes, and the biscuit thing. Not bad for $10. Great stuff, but only one of the many reasons to visit this Logan Square gem. There’s beer. Lot’s of it.

I grabbed a beer since it was after noon and it was a holiday (NYE). I ordered a golden lager or IPA, unfortunately I can’t remember which and I don’t have the ability to tell by looking at it. I’m colorblind when it comes to browns and oranges.

Gail and I did try a little something special. We got a tasting of the B.A. Baracus, their Russian Imperial Stout aged in bourbon barrels for a year. It’s intense. I’m not a liquor drinker at all and I don’t particularly like bourbon or whiskey, but I found this sort of drinkable. I need to try it again, knowing that it could lead to a bad place. I dabbled in coffee back in the 90s by starting with cappuccinos and lattes, and now I’m a black coffee addict. You can see the parallels, not good.

This place is conveniently located on Milwaukee Ave just south of Fullerton. The 56 Bus goes right by it and it’s near the California Blue Line stop. You know what, if you have three hours and you’re stuck at O’hare, this would be an awesome quick trip. It’s a unique place in a cool Chicago neighborhood. In fact, I’m going to start tagging things with ORD layover so I can accumulate ideas for people stuck at O’hare for a while.

It’s bright and modern with a cool logo. I find myself raising my fist in defiance for no reason at all. I will be back.

Folks, we’re taking a trip south and discussing one of the most important food items in my life. It’s called the arepa and it’s near and dear to my heart. In fact, I get choked up just thinking about it (taking a moment, thanks). This food item has done two things: strengthened my marriage and brought me closer to my brother-in-laws. In general, it signifies the positive power that food often has over me.

In the Chicago region, they rock this food item at a small storefront in downtown Oak Park called Aripo’s. Pictured is the Arepa Domino; an arepa sandwich stuffed with black beans and cheese. Simple, beautiful, nutritious. It does me right in so many different ways. I love sandwiches, I love black beans, I love downtown Oak Park, and I love indie, single-storefront resties where the owner cares about serving high value foodstuffs.

I could stop there, but I wont. I feel like reminiscing.

My wife recalls the exact day we first tasted an arepa. She dreamily recounts sitting in my sister’s place in Miami and having arepas with scrambled eggs. My sister learned to make them from my brother-in-law, who was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. My wife was so smitten that she went out and bought some Harina P.A.N. white cornmeal and started making regular batches daily, for weeks, and weeks, and weeks. That’s what she does.

Then we got serious. My sister taught us about Don Pan, a Florida restaurant chain and one of the greatest fast food places in the history of mankind. It’s a must-visit venue when we go to South Florida. In fact, we always haul back at least a six-pack of arepas. They keep well.

Oh, how great would it be to have something like that locally in Chicago… at least the savory food, lunch-style portion of it?

Enter another brother-in-law of mine (who lives in Oak Park, IL). He says one day, out of the blue, “Have you guys ever had an arepa? We have a great arepa place in Oak Park.”

We couldn’t get out there fast enough. We love the Oak Park downtown and Aripo’s has catapulted it to the number one downtown in Chicagoland, in my humblest of opinions, with a bullet (High Fidelity reference). I always get the Arepa Domino. I bet there are only a handful of ingredients in this thing. It’s basically corn, beans, cheese, and spices. And it’s a lot of beans, and they’re steaming hot. The arepa is crispy and firm but soft on the inside. I could live on this.

So that’s the story. We share a lot of arepa-love inside and outside of the household with the relatives. The arepa is a special food item and Aripo’s is a must visit.

You know what I’m happy about? I’m happy that the lines are gone at the Doughnut Vault. I walked up and grabbed a chestnut and coffee a few Thursdays ago at 9:30am and didn’t have to wait. All those foodie posers are gone on the weekdays. You know who I’m talking about, it’s those people who wait in line for popular, unhealthy comfort food so they can snap a picture and put it on Facebook to appear cooler. What’s the point of that?

I have a new twist on that tired meme. I took this picture of a popular, unhealthy comfort food and posted it on Instagram with cross-postings to Facebook and Twitter and made a snarky comment so that it appears I live a life full of danger and excitement… and I threw in a funny hash tag to blow the doors off my unhealthy, comfort food street cred; all because I think it will make me appear cooler.

Okay, maybe I am a foodie poser.

No! I’m just a man, who grew up with a dad who owned a supermarket, which had a bakery in it, where I often sat with my grandfather eating donuts and drinking cold beverages, at a Formica counter, seated on spinning faux bar stools. That’s who I am.

So it shouldn’t surprise anybody that I occasionally deviate from from the path of righteousness and grab a doughnut. It’s in my blood. For all I know it’s a genetic blip that causes me to crave this stuff, probably inherited from my mother, like my early-onset male pattern baldness supposedly was.

I’ve had doughnuts on my mind since I saw a snippet from the Reader the other day about Munster Donut (thanks G). This truck-tire sized nutty, maple, caramel, sugary donut was just the antidote to get Munster Donut off my mind. It’s a massive raised doughnut with a glaze/frosting double whammy. By that I mean you get standard glazing on most of it, plus a subtle double dunk of chestnut frosting.

Note the nut pieces on top. #tasty

Note that I drink my coffee black. #hearthealthy

One other item I’d like to expand on – that little cracking in the frosting in the lower right need not raise any red flags. This pastry was fresh, fluffy, and gooey. The cracking, I think, is a function of the overlapping of the frosting styles causing a similar-substance adhesion issue. That’s a good thing! Who doesn’t love overlapping frosting?

In moderation, of course. Always in moderation.

Aside… not me talking, just me thinking… Munster Donut is not completely off my mind. I have friends in Munster. I want to get down there soon. This idea of a Three Floyds/Munster Donut combo sounds like an epic food adventure that I need to have in the mix in 2012.

I wanted a chocolate but they were sold out (that’s how it works folks, they make a batch and when they’re gone, they’re gone). Don’t worry, the chestnut isn’t settling, it’s a stellar fried pastry.

The folks at this sandwich shop are the real sandwich artists. I’m serious. Check that thing out. It’s called the Italian Parma Ham and Goat Cheese sandwich and it is 463 calories of amazingness. It’s not cheap. At $9.79, it’s probably only for special occasions like big birthdays (40 and 50) and milestone wedding anniversaries (50 and 75). Okay, maybe even to celebrate breaking 80 for the first time (in golf), but that’s the only sports related celebration I’ll allow for this sammy.

It’s from Hannah’s Bretzel and has the following:

• Parma ham (sliced in front of you, generously sized  – isn’t that prosciutto?)
• Goat cheese (spread with care, evenly across every last inch on one half of the bread)
• Arugula (ton of it)
• Asparagus (usually three pieces)
• White truffle oil (classy)

I’m a sandwich guy. Actually, I’m a pizza and sandwich guy. Okay, to be truthful, I’m a doughnut, pizza, and sandwich guy. This thing is so in my wheelhouse. I had it twice in one week a few weeks ago in a rare moment of weakness. That won’t happen again, mostly because there are so many great sandwiches at Hannah’s. I’ve already done myself a disservice by doubling up.

I think DDD needs to get themselves some Hannah’s next time they’re in town.

Check out all of Hannah’s links for the history of this Chicago original. It’s a beautiful website and it’s clear that the owner cares about making great sandwiches. This level of care gets passed down to the staffers also because I watched an especially conscientious sandwich maker train a newbie on making my sandwich one day. There was a lot of sandwich love happening.

Must visit for anyone.