Category: play

Have you ever figuratively called something an institution? For instance, you’ve heard people say that the University of North Carolina is a College Basketball Institution. Who’s going to argue with that? UNC has played basketball with a level of excellence, passion, and class for such a long time that they have only a few schools that are roughly comparable. It’s quite a complement to be referred to as an institution.

When I refer to something as an institution, I’m dead serious. I don’t use the term lightly. Hold your breath! Margie’s Candies at 1960 North Western Avenue is a Chicago Institution, and I’m not messing around.

Notice also that I only use a single modifier with the word institution. A single modifier institution (SMI) is the ultimate complement. I could have said it’s a Chicago Ice Cream Institution and that would have grouped it with other fine ice cream purveyors in town. But by just calling it a Chicago Institution, I’m saying that it’s worthy of comparisons to not only other Chicago food institutions, but any other great, Chicago landmark institution like the Steppenwolf Theatre or the Joffrey Ballet. I’m saying that Margie’s is as much a part of the fabric of this city as those venerable institutions.

Margie’s has served homemade ice cream and candy from this tiny north side spot since 1921. Here is a more detailed history from the Chicagoist blog. I’ve been hearing of Margie’s for about a decade now but didn’t venture there until about a year ago, when some good friends bought me a box of Margie’s chocolates for my 40th birthday. Man were they good.

That was when I started noticing how people talked about Margie’s. It almost makes you cry when you listen to heartfelt stories of how special it was to visit Margie’s as a kid. I’ve started mentioning Margie’s whenever I meet someone that grew up on the north side so I’ve heard a lot of these stories lately. I’ve been there multiple times but never sat down in the place for ice cream.

So, it was only fitting that my wife and I and another couple went there after a stellar meal at Think Cafe (no pictures, sorry) a few weeks ago. It was a Friday night at about 9pm and the wait was about 15 minutes. The clientele defies explanation. It’s kids, teens, young adults, and old people. It’s hipsters, parents, artists, and professionals. It’s all ethnicities crammed into a store front that can’t have a footprint much more than 600 square feet.

Plus it’s old, real old. It has that old smell too. That smell that you know is just from stuff being old, not from being dirty. And the middle of it is taken up with this huge display case of their chocolates. The decor is dated. I won’t lie, it feels like you’re stepping into the way-back machine and punching in about 1950.

But when the wait staff sets the clam shell bowl of ice cream in front of you, who cares. Pictured is the Turtle Sundae, which is Margie’s signature dish. The ice cream is fine. It has a wonderfully high butterfat content, but I’ve had ice cream as good elsewhere. There are other things that really set Margie’s apart.

First, that clam shell bowl really allows them to spread out the ingredients for maximum in-bite aggregation. Let me explain. When you get a sundae in one of those tall parfait glasses or even one of those large round bowls, the ingredients clump together in horizontal layers and it’s difficult to get all the way to the bottom so that you can each ingredient in each spoonful. Not so with the clam shell bowl. Margie’s has the whipped cream, ice cream, and toppings laid out on the vast clam shell stage so you can pick and choose the exact amount of each ingredient that you want in each spoonful.

Second, the chocolate comes on the side in a warmed, decorative tin. This is a great touch. It insures that you get really hot fudge. Your fudge doesn’t sit on the ice cream in a prepared state just cooling down while the wait staff services other people. It comes hot, on the side, so you can add it whenever. It really allows you to completely customize the experience. I like to do two pours so I can have hot fudge throughout the experience. Oh, did I mention that the chocolate is delectable.

Finally, they add some standard ingredients that aren’t so standard at other places. My Turtle Sundae had a fresh banana and a fine, European style cookie in it. Both were great touches. I go two-fisted with the cookie to start things out. That means I put the cookie in my left hand and the spoon in my right. I scoop up some ice cream and topping with the spoon, put it in my mouth, then follow up with a bite of the cookie before I even start any major jaw movement. With the banana, I try to parse it out so that I can have a little with each bit. It gets you about half way through it.

Like I said, it’s a Chicago Institution, and I don’t use those words lightly.

Did you ever pose a question like this to your spouse or significant other, “Honey, can you paint me a masterpiece today?”

Well, hopefully you were greeted ten hours later with something as beautiful as this. This is my wife’s culinary pièce de résistance. This is her Sistine Chapel…her 1988 National Championship.

You laugh? You think I’m kidding? Not so fast, my friends!

This is just another foray by Gail into the world of bouillabaise-like dishes. This is clearly her best effort yet.

First she debeards the mussels, which is somewhat stomach churning. The fact that I ate and enjoyed something that had to have its “black fibrous beard” pulled off is a testament to my complete trust in her culinary expertise.

I would tell you how she makes this, but it’s too complicated for me. My eyes glaze over when she talks about it. Besides “debearding,” she uses terms like “vegetable reduction” and says that “just the right amount of Pernod has to burn off.” I don’t get it, I just eat it. Write me an e-mail if you want the recipe and I’ll have her recite it.

I’m an idiot when it comes to complicated food like this. I look at it and say “wow, black and yellow, kind of like the Pittsburgh Steelers.”

But I don’t need to understand each step or know each ingredient to actually enjoy it. I don’t know what fennel looks like, but I know I like it. I couldn’t pick out saffron in a blind taste test, but I’ve had a lot of yellow stuff that tastes damn good so I know I like it also. And anise flavor is good in many things; you’ll never see me tossing out the black Jelly Belly Beans. C’mon, all that plus a sauce with garlic and onions, man, how can it not be good?

Note the slices of French bread in the background. That’s a perfect medium for soaking up the sauce and providing a platform for the mussel as it makes its way to my mouth. It’s pretty much perfect folks.

This guy Sean Parnell has been to a lot of bars, and he writes passionately about them. You can read his take on about 250 bars at The Chicago Bar Project.

These reviews are very involved. Parnell seems to have an endless capacity to write pages and pages on the food, atmosphere, beer selection, and clientele at all of the bars he visits. He seems like a regular dude with a boatload to say.

I have a lot of work to do tonight, but I don’t think much of it’s going to get done because I have a bunch of bar reviews to read through. Keep it up Sean.

You have to try the muffins from Swim Cafe. It’s one of my top places so I’m going to dig into it. You may recall this little food adventure, which was my first recorded experience at Swim Cafe. And check out this article by my main man Michael Nagrant, who gushes over Swim Cafe. I strongly suggest you make the trip, because it rocks.

Pictured are the lemon coconut mini-muffins. They’re about one third the size of a regular muffin, roughly. Very small. You see where I’m going don’t you? That means you get outside and inside in each bite. That’s right, you get baked, crispy outside and soft, tasty inside in every bit. Contrast this to one of those those big, honkin’ muffins that you probably bought his morning; once you peel off the top, all you have is a fist sized hunk of doughy death that gets boring at around bite number two.

When it comes to muffins, think small, and think Swim Cafe.

I want to meet Nagrant (I’m just going to call him by his last name because, after all, he is my main man). I have a feeling that someday I’ll run into him at one of the local places because he seems to be a West Towner. What would I say to such a food writing superstar? “Hey, have you ever met Rick Bayless?” Or maybe “Hey, are you concerned that thin crust pizza is taking over the city? What should we do?” Hmmm, I better get a spiel.

That word six-pack has a lot of connotations. One of my newest uses of the term relates to a pack of hot asian buns. I got a six-pack of baos the other day from Wow Bao in Water Tower Place. What you see above is 1,035 calories worth of baos; one vegetable, one chicken terayaki, two kung pao chicken, and two bbq pork. My wife and I shared them on a random bench in the mall and it was so romantic.

Well, it was romantic until she got sick of me saying “I like to chow on a kung pao bao.” Go ahead, say it, it rhymes. I like to chao on a kung pao bao. Yeah, Gail didn’t think it was very funny either.

If you wondering what it looks like inside, here’s the cross-section for the Kung Pao Chicken:

The pastry surrounding it is fluffy and moist. I wouldn’t mind a little more kung in the kung pao (I wanted it spicier), but it’s still damn good. Each one is about 1/2 the size of your fist and takes about 5-6 bites to get down. The filling is strangely evenly distributed in the bun, which is a marvel of culinary science. I can’t find a seam in it anywhere, it’s wild.

It’s like a sandwich, but no mess because the filling can’t fall out of the side. You’re probably thinking that they got the protein to starch ratio all wrong because there’s so much more bun than filling. But that’s not how it seems when you eat it because the pastry is pretty light, so it doesn’t overpower the filling.

I’ll tell you what they need; they need some dessert baos. How about a strawberries and cream filled bao or a Nutella filled bao? If they did, I would get a six-pack of four savories and two sweets, then top it off with a cup of coffee. Man, that would be good.

When I hear Shepherd’s Pie I think to myself, I don’t want some shepherd making my pie, I want the shepherd out in the field, making sure nobody steals my sheep; I want grandma making the pies.

Make sense?

So no, I didn’t order the traditional Irish dish and instead opted for the Kerryman salmon sandwich. I got a lot of heat for this decision. My buddy ordered the Shepherd’s Pie, three shots of Jameson (you can see two glasses in the background), and two Guinness pints. Now don’t you think that’s a little excessive? Don’t you think an Irish person would be offended by such blatant pandering to their culture?

As an American, if I were sitting in McDonalds over in Dublin and some Irish fellow ordered up two Big Macs, a super-sized fry, two Cokes, and and a chocolate shake, I would be insulted. Only a few people in America really do that. That’s a caricature of the excessive American fast-food diet that’s really only accurate for about 75% of this country. Many Americans, of course, would get the Diet Coke.

So yes, I got the salmon sandwich. I did so because it was actually called The Kerryman Salmon Sandwich, so I figured it had some Irish roots. It was a huge, grilled salmon filet with cheese and a dill cream sauce, on toasted bread. Wow, was it good. I haven’t had a thick and meaty non-fried fish sandwich like this since my grouper sandwich in Florida.

The bread it was served on was a toasted Italian-style white bread (but a little more dense), which was perfect because it fit the elongated nature of of the salmon like a glove. Also note the thickness of the salmon filet, which converts to about a one-to-one protein-to-bread ratio. That’s right in my wheelhouse baby, you know that. Finally, check out the flecks of dill in the sauce. I’m not a heavy user of dill-specific sauces and I don’t know much about them. I was just glad not to have a standard tartar sauce served with it.

The Kerryman was busy on a Thursday night. It’s at 661 N. Clark Street so it’s close enough for a little bit of a downtown crowd, but also attracts some of the Rush Street set. The outdoor patio was packed, but finding a seat upstairs was not a problem. My buddy loved the Shepherd’s Pie and the fries were good. Just another fine, Irish Pub-style experience in Chicago.

What’s a guy to eat at a Bears pre-season game? How ’bout a Johnsonville bratwurst and some chili cheese fries? Yep.

It was decent. It about lined up with expectations. But keep in mind, unless I’m going to US Cellular, I go in with low expectations. All the other parks in town feel like burger flippin’ rookies compared to the fine chefs at the Cell.

So no, there were no grilled onions left for my brat. And no, there was no corn on the cob. And yes, the mustard was watered down. But plant my buttocks next to my wife in section 445 on a clear, 72 degree night in August with about a full moon and view of the lake – well, you could shovel dirt in my mouth and I would say “mmm, what’s for dessert?”

Dessert was actually a vanilla shake at the Ghirardelli Chocolate shop on the Mag Mile. Hey, we walked from Soldier Field, so we needed some carbs!

I don’t know about you, but if I’m attending a sporting event, I plan my meals around it. I time the meal previous such that it’s about 5 hours before the event. I like to eat either in the parking lot or in the stadium. Grabbing dinner at a restaurant before or after is not an option if you’re hanging with me. If it involves a game, I would rather eat cold cuts in the parking lot than hot food done perfectly in a restaurant. I think it relates back to my childhood when my parents would take us to the race track in my hometown and we would get hot, shredded chicken sandwiches. It defies explanation, but the sandwich tasted better with the roar of the stock cars and a dusting of dirt. Mom just couldn’t duplicate that atmosphere at home, no matter how much TLC she put into the shredded chicken and mushroom soup concoction. Mom, if you’re reading this, did I just give away your recipe?