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 […]
Category: Food & Drink
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 […]
Posted inFood & Drink Feature
Overgrown Orchard makes the best wine in Gary, Indiana
Stan Wash, dwarfed by towering metal shelves stocked with faucets and toilet seats, raises a small glass of butterscotch-colored liquid to his lips, takes a taste, and gasps. “WHOO! Oh my goodness! UGH! That’s so tannic!” We’re standing in a cavernous plumbing warehouse in Gary, Indiana, where Wash and a partner, Zach Getzelman, press, age, […]
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Dill Pickle and Mercato: A partnership based on shared values
This holiday season, Dill Pickle will partner with Mercato for delivery, making it easier than ever to equitably shop for food from home—while helping others along the way.
Posted inFood & Drink
Social and sober
The “sober curious”—individuals who abstain from drinking to explore the positive effects of sobriety—have a new enclave in Andersonville. Eli Tea Bar, an alcohol-free social space, offers options for those rethinking their relationship with alcohol, including more than 100 loose leaf teas and special in-house blends, bubble tea, and kombucha on tap. Bar owner Elias […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Catch the new issue of the Chicago Foodcultura Clarion
There’s a tasty surprise in 3,000 copies of the Reader this week. It’s the fourth and final issue of the Chicago Foodcultura Clarion, the zine by Spanish food artist Antoni Miralda, University of Chicago anthropologist Stephan Palmié, and their marauding horde of ravenous, sugar-crazed foodlums. This issue features Palmie’s fascinating history on Reese Finer Foods, the erstwhile […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Hold the Banana Phone for Monday Night Foodball
There’s been an earthshaking development in the current schedule for Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s weekly chef pop up series. Barbecue Life Coach Gary Wiviott has canceled his November 22 stand at the Kedzie Inn in order to, as they say, “spend more time with family.” Something like that. We’ll have him back next year […]
Posted inFood & Drink
For beer, FOBAB
It’s exhilarating just to anticipate the annual Festival of Wood and Barrel-Aged Beer (FOBAB). I don’t know if it is the prospect of being surrounded by so many high ABV (alcohol by volume) beers that brings this out in me or the fact that there was only a virtual version last year. The sheer thought […]
Posted inRestaurant Review
The Malaysian family recipes at HD Cuisine are worth a journey
There’s one table and one small booth inside HD Cuisine, a tiny Malaysian restaurant in a suburban Wheeling strip mall. Altogether there’s enough space to seat 11 people. If the weather’s nice and your timing is right, you can enjoy your nasi lemak, beef rendang, or Penang Hokkien mee at one of two tables set […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Pink Salt’s northern Thai food sweeps Monday Night Foodball
Palita Sriratana moved to a building with a nice bright balcony last year. By summer she’d filled it with pots that sprouted cilantro, holy basil, and morning glories all of which found their way onto the vibrant Thai menus she continued to pop up and cater around the city ever since exiting her brick-and-mortar stand […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Ramen_Lord teams up with Maa Maa Dei at Monday Night Foodball
Mike Satinover’s doors of perception were blown wide open some ten years ago when the 21-year old study abroad undergrad was sent to a famous noodle shop in Sapporo, Japan, for a bowl of miso ramen: “What arrived was ethereal. A scalding hot bowl of rich, intense miso and pork soup, with punches of garlic […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Get you some good gumbo from Bumbu Roux at Monday Night Foodball
The pandemic was no match for Bumbu Roux, Chris Reed’s melodious Indonesian-Creole food combo. He and his mom Priscilla-Jane were approaching the one-year mark at Politan Row, serving up blackened catfish, and red beans and rice, alongside beef rendang, and chicken bakar, when COVID came to town. The food hall shut down and never reopened, but […]
Posted inFood & Drink
The Reader’s first food critic was a diabetic undergrad with an appetite for the undiscovered
T he Reader has covered food and restaurants in Chicago throughout its half-century existence, though not nearly as consistently or comprehensively as music, film, drama, or most of the other arts—certainly not every week when I came on as a starving editorial assistant way back in ’95. Back then there was a very occasional visual […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Limón y Sal launches pozole season at Monday Night Foodball
The nights are getting colder. Your body, sensing the darkness ahead, craves warmth, reassurance, fat. It’s finally pozole season. But for Javier Garcia it’s never not pozole season. He grew up in Guadalajara, eating bowls of the thick, sticky, hominy, and pork stewy-soup (stoup?) for every event, birthday, and celebration. His mom’s pozole ruined him […]