Hi everybody, I just stumbled on this site via Serious Eats and I'm loving it so far. Major cheese fan along with all the usual favorites -- sushi, Thai, Mexican, Italian, French, Indian, Vietnamese, New American ... pretty much everything except, regrettably, most Polish/Russian food. But, that could also simply be because I just haven't had any good ones yet.

Moved here over three years ago from Los Angeles and after moping because there just aren't a lot of fast and loose taco trucks in Chicago, I've really come to enjoy the culinary environment here. I will say that I did not know jack shit about beer or whiskey until I moved to this city!

Aspirational writer, poor as hell, yada yada.

Welcome Short Pants! Look forward to reading your posts. If you want to get the full LTH experience, keep your eyes peeled for posts on the picnic coming up on 9/22--it is a true food blow out and an opportunity to meet a lot of our members. Hope you'll join us!

Hello!

I signed up here a little while ago, but missed this thread so here goes:

I'm Matt, and I've been living and working in Chicago for 15+ years, but have just started exploring the amazing dining in the city the past few years (I'm a late bloomer). I've had some amazing meals in that time, but my list of new places to visit keeps getting longer and longer. I'm an omnivore, but my wife is a vegetarian, so we're always on the lookout for places with great vegetarian options.

I'm also a wannabe pastry chef, and am currently obsessed with making homemade ice cream.

Thank you for having me!

And welcome to you too Matt! In my first couple of years on LTH, I started a list of places that I wanted to go to based on this board and for every place I tried, it seemed like I'd add 5 more. I finally gave up Don't be afraid to post a date/time/place of somewhere you've been wanting to try--it's a great way to check out places, especially those that your spouse might not be interested in or to enjoy a more extensive sampling of the menu. It's one of the best features of this community. Hope to meet you at a lunch or dinner soon!

Thanks for the welcome! And that picnic sounds amazing! Will definitely try to make it.

Not an introduction as such: my partner and I move to Manhattan in a week or so, I leave The Fresh Market as an accoladed cook/
trainer. I opened twenty stores during my tenure, among them the biggest grand openings in company history.

And now I'm here in the Dominican Republic. Finally got Time/Warner installed. We're at tree top level so I can truly be Christopher Robin. The neighborhood reminds me of a cross between the Oaxacan edge of Wicker Park in the early aughts and the lower Mission in San Francisco in the 90's. More San Francisco, really with the greenery, the hills, the Cloister's tower. Could be Coitus Tower if you squint. Local Food: a great burger at District 12, consistently strong pan-Chinese/Malaysian at Amy's, good al pastor/lengua/carne asada tacos from Tulcingo Azteca. Those are just around the corner places. Reviews from downtown to come.

Hi, Scott W. here, I'm a librarian at the Harold Washington Library Center downtown. Since my section has all the cookbooks, I've had to turn a passing interest in food culture into something resembling expertise, so here I am: to learn and more than likely get schooled on everything I don't know about local eats. Big thanks to Ronnie for welcoming me to the Forum, and if anyone out there doesn't have a library card, I promise not to glare.

Oh, born and raised on the South Side, now living in Andersonville. The only things I ever learned how to make from a recipe were chocolate mousse and beef stroganoff, the first being my favorite dessert (at the age of ten) and the second my father's favorite meal, because I had a revelation: if I knew how to make those things I could eat them whenever I wanted.

I was a bit heavier then.

SW

Hey All,

I've been a lurker on this website for a long time, probably about five or six years. I finally decided to join because I think I drive some of my Facebook friends nuts with all the posting I do about eating and drinking.

I'm in my mid twenties and my genesis of a love for food is a combination of childhood memories, Hot Doug's, and paying attention to chefs like Grant Achatz, Charlie Trotter, and Thomas Keller.

I am an intronise in the Chaine des Rotisseurs Baillage de Chicago, a supporter of the James Beard Foundation, and a guy who likes food all the way from a $2 hot dog at Jimmy's Red Hots, to a meal at Grace or Alinea. I just have a love and passion for food.

Professionally I spend my time working on the northwest side in my family's business. We are a small company that my father started 30 years ago. We re-concept and re-develop commercial-industrial buildings. I studied at DePaul university.

I look forward to hopefully becoming a loyal member and a good poster here on LTH. I know some of you already, too, so within no time it'll be like home!

Royal

P.S. Yes, my name really is Royal. I inherited it from my grandfather.

Royal Lichter wrote:Hey All,

I've been a lurker on this website for a long time, probably about five or six years. I finally decided to join because I think I drive some of my Facebook friends nuts with all the posting I do about eating and drinking.

I'm in my mid twenties and my genesis of a love for food is a combination of childhood memories, Hot Doug's, and paying attention to chefs like Grant Achatz, Charlie Trotter, and Thomas Keller.

I am an intronise in the Chaine des Rotisseurs Baillage de Chicago, a supporter of the James Beard Foundation, and a guy who likes food all the way from a $2 hot dog at Jimmy's Red Hots, to a meal at Grace or Alinea. I just have a love and passion for food.

Professionally I spend my time working on the northwest side in my family's business. We are a small company that my father started 30 years ago. We re-concept and re-develop commercial-industrial buildings. I studied at DePaul university.

I look forward to hopefully becoming a loyal member and a good poster here on LTH. I know some of you already, too, so within no time it'll be like home!

Royal

P.S. Yes, my name really is Royal. I inherited it from my grandfather.

Welcome and happy new year! It's very nice to have you on-board.

=R=

What ever happened to NAV MAN? I miss his posts.

I've been lurking here a while...not being a Chicago resident, I'm mostly content to watch. As you might have guessed from my SN, I reside in (Madison) Wisconsin. I'm an antiques dealer by profession, which means lots of travel, which means lots of restaurant food (not that I needed the excuse...I'm a terrible cook and long ago rationalized eating out every day).
I am planning to do some longer posts on Madison dining since it appears some of you make an appearance up here...Madison has a great farmers market (that every single native takes for granted...we never consider it special until outsiders ooh and aah over it), excellent Lao food, and a few weird outliers in other cuisines that you wouldn't necessarily expect. We are sorely lacking in BBQ (recently, a few contenders have opened), soul food (the average life of a Madison soul food restaurant, including IMO some pretty good ones, is about 6 months), Middle Eastern any better than average, or decent Indian food. The recent news is the explosion of authentic Chinese places catering to the large numbers of Chinese students at UW-Madison. Seriously, in the last year we've gained a Dongbei place, 3 Sichuan places, and a Hong Kong noodle spot, and all of them seem to be doing well. I'm sure this is nothing special for a big city, but Chinese food used to be pretty woeful as recently as five years ago.

Outside of my amateur foodie hobbies (the dirtier, and the more hidden, the restaurant the more I like it, as long as the food measures up), I like DIY music of most every variety, foreign languages, science fiction, and anything to do with bicycles--riding them, building them, racing them. I like to travel and will be soliciting advice on areas I haven't been before.

Wisco,

We will love getting your close-to-the-action reports on food in Madison and beyond.

Not every local takes your Madison market for granted. My friends Terese Allen and Joan Peterson have written a food calendar book to orient people on when to expect to find seasonal fruits and vegetables. It pretty much is a guide on what to expect at the Madison market.

Some good Wisconsin food is also of interest: diners, hamburgers, pizza, cheese and do you have fried eggplant at fast food joints like they do in Milwaukee? That is something we do not see in Chicago.

Welcome to the tribe!

Regards,

Hi, I'm mostly a lurker, but I might as well introduce myself.

I grew up in mid-Michigan, where my ancestors have been farmers for generations. My parents broke the chain and became an autoworker and a kindergarten teacher instead. I have degrees from both Michigan State and University of Michigan, though I am a loyal Spartan. I grew up on hearty, country cooking, and now, like all the other members of my family, I'm trying to retrain myself on how to cook in a more healthy way. But, my favorite meal will always be BBQ grilled chicken, buttered noodles, corn on the cob, and strawberry shortcake.

I moved to Chicago 9 years ago for my job, and have lived in Andersonville with my 2 cats ever since. I work for the public library, so I don't have a ton of money to spend on fine dining, but because I work in a branch, I get to travel to neighborhoods all over the city, which is great fun, and also means I get to try lots of neighborhood restaurants.

My sister is a lawyer for Kohl's Coroporate, so I spend a lot of time visiting her in Milwaukee.

Cathy2 wrote:Wisco,

We will love getting your close-to-the-action reports on food in Madison and beyond.

Not every local takes your Madison market for granted. My friends Terese Allen and Joan Peterson have written a food calendar book to orient people on when to expect to find seasonal fruits and vegetables. It pretty much is a guide on what to expect at the Madison market.

Some good Wisconsin food is also of interest: diners, hamburgers, pizza, cheese and do you have fried eggplant at fast food joints like they do in Milwaukee? That is something we do not see in Chicago.

Welcome to the tribe!

Regards,

Ahaha, I knew this was going to come up: I cannot offer even one smidgen of advice on Wisconsin cheese. Or any of our other fine dairy products. Or the relative merits of various butterburgers. I am literally allergic to all of it.
So, Asian restaurants make up a big part of my rotation. As for fried eggplant, I haven't seen it in Madison. No real specific-to-Madison diner/fast food quirks, unless you count diners having fancy hipster coffee (it *is* Madison, after all.)
However, if you're looking for a good Wisconsin breakfast specialty, it's been a couple years but I recall the Walleye-and-eggs at the Cottage Cafe on Atlas Ave to be quite adequate and very cheap. If you're looking for traditional Friday fish fries, Dexter's Pub at North & Johnson is good (be prepared for a Loooooong wait during peak hours) as is Brothers Three at Fair Oaks & Hwy 30.

EDIT: one more local diner quirk: Go to Mount Horeb, WI, about 25 miles west of Madison (on a very nice bike trail, too) and try the Swedish potato sausage at Schubert's Restaurant. My favorite breakfast food in this world. All the traditional Swedish pastries and rye bread too.

Hi,

This looks like this is the place to be for information on food and food related items. So far the posts I have read are very interesting and everyone seems to respect one another. I am looking forward to some good reads and hopefully some good added input and feedback.

Missy G

Hi all!

Met several of you at the BBQ today, so thought I'd better sign up and do a little formal introduction. LTH has given me several awesome dining ideas before; I also enjoy some of the longer pieces that get featured here. In the future, I look forward to contributing and getting to know more of the community.

-How I got interested in food-
I like traveling which to me means learning about a place for what it is instead of what it's known for, aka tourism. There were periods when I wasn't able to travel extensively, so trying foods from different places became a proxy for traveling. I have a soft spot for ethnic restaurants run by old grandmas, but they're certainly not the only ones with an interesting story to tell.

-A little about me-
I grew up in Hong Kong, but I've spent quite a few years now in LA and Chicago. At one point I wanted to be an orchestral conductor but it turns out it's all the hard work of a musician with none of the booze and escapades (or is it), so now I'm a consultant.

Thanks!

I will come Chicago in Dec and work with CBOE as SW engineer. PM me nha daor

...

Dear BillVol,

Bienvenido! and thanks for your posts so far.

I used to live in Santiago too, for about ten years, so I particularly enjoyed your comments about keeping an eye out for Chilean food.

Compared to what Chicago has to offer, I do not miss Chile's idea of hot dogs ( ) or pizza ( ), but I heartily agree about the bread. It was great to be able to pop into any of half a dozen places on a walk home from work -- even at bakeries in shopping hallways in the subway stations -- and buy high-quality bread every day. There are of course some great bakeries in the Chicago area (I live in the northern suburbs); but it does require a car and a hunt; not the same thing as just buying it on the way home every day. I didn't need to worry about the waistline consequences of eating bread so frequently because I walked so much more there than I do here.

That said, at least while I was there, Chile held the world record for highest per capita consumption of carbonated beverages, and I didn't go along with them on that. If Chile's unofficial food motto is "mayo con todo!" its unofficial beverage motto is "Coca-Cola con todo!" But then, the summers are longer and hotter and drier there than they are here.

I also miss Chile's great big beef empanadas, with hard-boiled egg and golden raisins and mayo and avocado sauce on tap for dipping---I never went to the Jumbo hipermarcado wthout a stop at the empanada bar, and the ceviche-and-wine bar too! I miss Chilean fried seafood empanadas too, but I especially miss the baked beef empanadas. Appetizer-size Argentinean/Colombian fried, often cheese-filled, empanadas, are available at some places in Chicago, and they're very tasty, great happy hour treats, but they're different.

I particularly miss a certain bakery at the Rotunda Tomas Moro that sold huge quantities of empanadas on Sunday mornings. They sold them all week long but cranked out a lot on Sundays, and people (including me) lined up to get boxes of a half dozen or a dozen or more, the way people buy boxes of doughnuts in the US, either to stock up for the week or for a Sunday lunch with family. It wasn't that long ago --- when I first started living there, and perhaps back when you did --- that there were no shopping malls in Chile and practically no stores open on Sunday, so Sunday afternoons revolved not around going out shopping and errand-running but rather staying home or visiting family members' homes and eating long afternoon lunches. Sometimes at such family gatherings, empanada making becomes a group project (for those who had not stopped off at La Panaderia Tomas Moro): someone to cook the beef and prepare the fillings, someone to prepare the dough, someone to fold up the empanadas, somone to swap them in and out of the oven; cheers from the dining room when another batch was served.

I also miss produce sellers at red lights. Here, avocados cost $1 a piece; asparagus costs upwards of $2 a pound; in the summer in Santiago, you stop at a red light and roll down your window and someone will step off the curb and sell you a bag of ten avocados or an equally large bag of asparagus for the equivalent of about a dollar. Or, if you're in the mood for it on a hot summer day, any kind of ice cream/frozen chocolate/frozen fruit treat you need to cool off, for about 20 cents, before the light changes.

There used to be one Chilean restaurant on the north side of Chicago, but sadly, it has closed, so I don't think there's any source in Chicago right now for specifically Chilean empanadas. I used to buy pebre by the quart there; now I make batches of it at home and eat it on good bread with butter -- sometimes that's my whole meal. And of course, in the winter, pastel de choclo.

Chicago is not alone in this dearth of Chilean cuisine. I look for it when I'm travelling and very rarely find it. I once had some time to hunt around in New York City and found and ate at the only Chilean restaurant there* (Pomaire; sadly, it's closed now too). I think there may be one or two Chilean restaurants in, say, the Miami area, but that's about it. (*Updated to add that there appear to be some pan-Latin cuisine places in NYC that serve, among other things, Chilean empanadas, but as far as I know there is not a dedicated Chilean restaurant in NYC any more.)

There's a Chilean woman who now lives in Texas who has a food blog, and a few Chilean food blogs, including one that aggregates recipes from other Chilean sites. I can send you some recipe and blog links, if you're ever interested.

All I can do for now is prepare Chilean dishes at home. And now you've prompted me to launch an empanada-making project.

...

Thanks for introducing yourself. I knew you would have a story to tell. I enjoyed learning more about you and your family. Again, welcome!

I believe I have never actually introduced myself here on LTHF.
{If I have another post in this thread, I am sure somebody will correct me.}
Here I go.
I'm going to go all the way back to 1996, when I first got my own internet account. (The internet service was actually being paid for by my dad, so he had an e-mail username ending in 1, and my e-mail username ended in 2.) Thankfully, I swiftly found a free, web-based e-mail service. I switched my main e-mail account there. I still insist that web-based e-mail accounts are where you should go for security, privacy, and anonymity.
On that subject, I learned quite early what somebody had to do in order to fend off spam and virus attacks, which back then, were directed at you if you had JavaScript | ActiveX® on, and you surfed to a World-Wide Web page where your assailant had seeded the tainted payload. In the 20th Century, it was simple to turn off JavaScript in Netscape | Firefox. It was in Tools>Options>General. Today, in Firefox (still the best W-WW browser for security conscious surfers), you have to mess with "about:config" (getting its dire warning message!) .
But even back then, I was into craft beer. I ran a craft beer tasting {free} at the (annual) United Soccer Boosters Convention. It was an add-on for people who arrived at the convention on Thursday. The USBC didn't officially begin until Friday. It was the cheapest marketing opportunity for brewers in North America. I didn't require a represenative from the brewery, nor a payment to the organizer's pet cause {Oops! This still occurs nowadays.}. I asked for two cases of 12-oz bottles of beer for each brand a brewery wanted to submit. We would ask the tasters which beers they especially enjoyed. They were identified by their age group, gender, and metropolitan area. After the convention ended, I collated the results and wrote back to each brewery where were the areas which especially enjoyed their beer(s). I would include text where I informed the brewery which submitted the beer I especially enjoyed. Over the years, there were a small number of beers which were completely consumed on Thursday night - and I made a special note of that to those breweries which had brewed that beer.
I scribe over the years because I did this for 15 years. The reason I ceased was the dwindling number of people attending the USBC. Twenty people are not a convention.
So I had the side door of a foodie. I always made sure to have at least one sleazy macrobrew beer for people not into "weird beers" (as I heard them described sporadically). (The pinnacle example being 1995 in Saint Louis, MO., where Budweiser was not present, but we had Falstaff. )
[*Pabst was never considered a sleazy macrobrew because it never sent us PBR; but it did send its variants like Pabst Genuine Draft {which won a Gold Medal @ GABF in its category}; Old Tankard Ale {back again!}; and Andeker; as well as other brands under its portfolio like Ballantine, Lucky, and Olympia.]
I would have to state that I stumbled into gastronomy because my mother's cooking was really substandard. I am sorry; but you will never espy me claiming something was 'as good as mother's' because it was just such. I dare state some pasta from 2008 is still in the cabinets because I was indoctrinated you do not throw out food .
There was a street food base for myself. From 1967-1970, mom was a secretary for Illinois State Senator Peter C. Granata. He was nominally a Republican, but it came to be known that he was one of the pipelines from the syndicate to public governments. As such, I am certain there is an F.B.I. file on my mother. Am I going to request it? No way, bunky. They may have opened a file on me as well, because each summer, I wasn't left alone at home here. I got to sit in the office on west Taylor St. waiting for orders to be processed, after which my Uncle Willy and I would take to the streets in his auto to the venues where they were ordered.
Every day I would have lunch from Al's Italian Beef. If there had been something like Foursquare back in 1969, I would have been the mayor of Al's Italian Beef.
But I was not permitted to have the Italian Beef! I had to settle for two of Al's hot dogs.
That sent me down the avenue of the Chicago hot dog, of which I still post here on LTHF today.
I am actually composing this in live time online. I wonder how can I jump forward to what I enjoy today. I can tell you that when I rode Chicago Transit Authority buses and “L”'s on a Sunday SuperTransfer in the 1970s, I would hit obscure food stands in neighborhoods distant from Belmont-Cragin, where I lived then, and still reside today. In the early 1980s, I latched on to a paperback book titled "Hot Dog Chicago". In 1984, I appeared on camera {the segment was taped at Yo-Joe's @ Addison & Narragansett} on the PBS television show adapting the book. When Pat Bruno was writing about stands for the Chicago Sun-Times, I wrote to him. My remarks about Lulu's (@ Taylor & Ogden) (then, a great stand purveying Kosher Zion hot dogs) were published. {I think the reprint of the article still hangs on a wall there.}
This still does not explain how I managed to get to LTHF here.
I'm really racking my mind here. I know my first post had to do with Japanese Ramen. So perhaps it was via a World-Wide Web search for "ramen" in Chicago. LTHF was one of the top-ranked results which was not specific to a particular ramen shack. Ramen is coming on strong here in Chicago. As somebody who has had it in Japan, I feel I can cohesively scribe about it insofar as how authentic the Chicago version of it is. (When in Japan, I have eaten "Chicago-style" pizza {most notably @ DevilCraft Kanda}, and I have had hot dogs there.)
So after a route #9 Ashland Ave. run of this article, I think this explains how I wound up here. If anybody else wants to question me or fill me in on something I may have missed, please go ahead.

It has been one year since we've been introduced to any new neighbors.

As Thanksgiving approaches, I am thankful for all the LTH members who share on this wonderful forum! Introduce yourself neighbor! This is a great thread.

Hi there.

I'm Cate, a former full time (and now occasional) journalist ... about two decades now. One of my first writing assignments when I was a contributing editor at Seattle magazine back in 1999 was a piece about a local Reuben sandwich. I wasn't a food nerd then, but that began the shift.

I was raised in Hammond, Ind., so a Chicagoland gal to be sure. But in the '90s, I moved around a bit--lived in Seattle and London. In 2001, I made my way back to Chicago (living in Boystown and Wicker Park), where I worked in B2B journalism (law), met my now husband ... and ate out a lot. We eventually moved to Oak Park, lived there for 10 years, had a kid ... and ate out a lot. We recently moved to Lake County.

My husband (also a new LTH member) and I like to research and write about food, especially when we travel. (We respect and appreciate non self-promotion rules and have no intention of using this forum in that way.) We discovered LTH a couple months ago while doing research on one of our food/dish/restaurant interests (can't remember which).

Happy to be here and excited to continue to learn from all the great folks and info in this forum.

GlakeCate wrote:Hi there.

I'm Cate, a former full time (and now occasional) journalist ... about two decades now. One of my first writing assignments when I was a contributing editor at Seattle magazine back in 1999 was a piece about a local Reuben sandwich. I wasn't a food nerd then, but that began the shift.

I was raised in Hammond, Ind., so a Chicagoland gal to be sure. But in the '90s, I moved around a bit--lived in Seattle and London. In 2001, I made my way back to Chicago (living in Boystown and Wicker Park), where I worked in B2B journalism (law), met my now husband ... and ate out a lot. We eventually moved to Oak Park, lived there for 10 years, had a kid ... and ate out a lot. We recently moved to Lake County.

My husband (also a new LTL member) and I like to research and write about food, especially when we travel. (We respect and appreciate non self-promotion rules and have no intention of using this forum in that way.) We discovered LTL a couple months ago while doing research on one of our food/dish/restaurant interests (can't remember which).

Happy to be here and excited to continue to learn from all the great folks and info in this forum.

Great to have you on board, Cate. Welcome to LTH!

=R=

JUNE 30TH, 2019, 12:39 PM
Hi there.
I'm Cate, a former full time (and now occasional) journalist ... about two decades now. One of my first writing assignments when I was a contributing editor at Seattle magazine back in 1999 was a piece about a local Reuben sandwich. I wasn't a food nerd then, but that began the shift...

Cate, thanks for your introduction. I enjoyed learning a bit about you. I've enjoyed your posts and look forward to reading more. Welcome!!