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 […]
Category: Food & Drink Column
Posted inFood & Drink
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 […]
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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 […]
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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, […]
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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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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 […]
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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, […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]