In June 2020, Raeghn Draper and Leah Ball founded the CHAAD Project, which stands for Chicago Hospitality Accountable Advocacy Database.
Category: Food & Drink
Posted inFood & Drink
It’s a little out of hand with Milo’s Market at the next Monday Night Foodball
By the time the cameras showed up, the corner of Allen and Kimball had gotten too hot for Milo’s Market. “People would come by like a BYOB, and we would sell food out of the back of the house,” says Gilberto Bahena. “People came out walking their dogs, ‘What’s going on?’ And we’re like, ‘We’re […]
Posted inBest of Chicago
2022 Food & Drink poll winners
The people, places, and things voted Chicago’s best—and runners-up: socially distanced dining, outdoor dining, beer garden, food relief effort, local grocer, gourmet market, cheesemonger, butcher shop, meal kits, online cooking instruction, local food product, preserves, farmers market, local farmer, urban farm, home garden supply, Caribbean restaurant, Chinese restaurant, Chinese takeout or delivery, Greek restaurant, Indian restaurant, Italian beef sandwich, Italian restaurant, Korean restaurant, Mexican restaurant, Middle Eastern restaurant, Polish restaurant, Thai restaurant, Vietnamese restaurant, soul food restaurant, seafood restaurant, vegetarian restaurant, vegan restaurant, steak house, fried chicken shack, pizza, pizza by the slice, pizza delivery, gluten-free pizza, sandwich, banh mi, burger, quesabirria or birria de res tacos, taqueria, barbecue, hot dog, falafel, pierogi, soup, ramen, sushi, food truck, new pop-up, pandemic pivot from a restaurant, overall restaurant, place worth a wait, bang for your buck, restaurant group, chef, up-and-coming chef, cannabis chef, new food trend, bread, sourdough, bagels, doughnuts, bakery, desserts, paleteria, ice cream, coffee roaster, barista, local spirit, local distillery, cocktail, carryout or delivery cocktails, liquor store, local beer, local brewery, beer shop, wine bar, wine list, wine shop, and more
Posted inBest of Chicago
2022 Cannabis poll winners
The people, places, and things voted Chicago’s best—and runners-up: “adult use” dispensary, “adult use” (rec) budtender, medical cannabis dispensary, medical budtender or patient care rep, clinic to get certified for a medical card, infused chocolate, infused gummies, infused beverage (drink, drop, syrup, tea), consumable, other (mint, tablet, snack food, etc.), product for increased libido, strain or consumable product for pain relief (include producer), strain or product for relief of anxiety (include producer), strain or product for sleep (include producer), topical, vape concentrate (strain & brand/producer), non-vape concentrate (strain & brand/producer), cannabis accessory selection in a dispensary, cannabis accessory boutique (non-dispensary), cannabis supper club, home chef, or caterer, local CBD source (local non-dispensary shop or brand), pet CBD product, cannabis advocacy or restorative justice organization, grow support resource, home grow supply shop, and more
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
The Wurst brings back the Beef Wennington at the next Monday Night Foodball
There was no way Ricky Hanft’s dad was gonna wait for an hour in line for an autograph from a second-string center. This was at the 1995 Chicago Auto Show, and Bill Wennington was just a bench guy who hadn’t yet won a championship with the Bulls. But that made no difference to the nine-year-old […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
The breeze is warm, the summer is long, and the patio is (almost) open for the new season of Monday Night Foodball
I have good news, bad news, and splendid news. Bad news: through no fault of her own Alisha Norris Jones, aka Immortal Milk, has pulled out of the next (April 3) Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up at Ludlow Liquors in Avondale. Good: Jones has rescheduled for a Monday in late summer and […]
Posted inFood & Drink
With elegant dumplings and meaty mountains of rice, Helmand channels the cradle of Afghan culture
You have to be fast to eat the seekh kabob at Helmand. “If it gets cold it’s going to be like rubber,” says Wahid Tanha, the owner and chef of this new Afghan restaurant in Albany Park. No matter what else comes to the table, “the first thing you have to do is eat it […]
Posted inUncategorized
Better Boy reveals an easygoing, fine-dining future at the next Monday Night Foodball
Better Boy works hard. Better Boy thrives anywhere it grows. Better Boy is meaty and juicy. Better Boy explodes with flavor. No, I’m not talking about Solanum lycopersicum, everybody’s favorite brawny, bloodred, beefsteak tomato. I’m talking about Adam McFarland and Tom Rogers, the chef duo that grew out of a fertile landscape of esteemed fine-dining […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
Cross the barbecue bridge from Texas to Korea with Knox Ave Barbecue at the next Monday Night Foodball
Joe Yim was a math teacher and football coach before he ran away to study central-Texas barbecue on hallowed ground. He has lessons to offer: “Watching five smokers with 100 briskets [is] like running a classroom,” he says. “You gotta put each one in the right place and know what their needs are.” Over two […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
Stop by Pink Salt and Maa Maa Dei’s Bangkok rice and curry shop at the next Monday Night Foodball
You’re tired. You’re hungry. You’ve spent all day staring at the walls of your cubicle. All you want is a home-cooked meal, but the last thing you need right now is to haul up your granite mortar and pound out your own green curry paste from scratch. You don’t care about the inevitable side-eyes on […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Meat Moot smokes low and slow, and its cleaver-flipping ‘butchers’ steal the show
Fedora’d men in butchers aprons hoist hunks of wobbling flesh aloft like sacrificial offerings. Stationed before a bank of smokers—meat vaults loaded with parchment-and-tinfoil-swaddled briskets, beef ribs, and lamb shoulders—they slowly tug glistening bones from steaming muscle, smiling as it collapses. The meat smacks against wooden cutting boards, quivering under downpours of salt and spice […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
It’s all Indigenous (except for the fry bread) with Ketapanen Kitchen at the next Monday Night Foodball
There are more than 34,000 Native Americans living in Chicago according to the 2020 census—and that’s probably an undercount. So who’s cooking at all the weddings, funerals, feasts, ceremonies, and powwows? That would be Jessica Walks First, the omnipresent chef behind Ketapanen Kitchen. Walks First was born on the Menominee Indian Reservation in northeastern Wisconsin, […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Meet the rising bread queen of Chicago
In the video for the song “Agege Bread,” the late comedian Sir Kay Kamoru plays a naif—a rural, Igbo visitor to the UK who, when confronted with a full English breakfast (bacon, sausages, eggs, beans, tomatoes, etc.), embarks on a madcap quest across London in search of the soft, squishy brioche-like staple bread of Nigeria. […]
Posted inFood & Drink
M is for Mariano’s
Despite the popularity of the wine bar in Mariano’s locations across the city, nobody knows who Nob is or how the grocery store bar got its name. Regulars call it the M bar, for Mariano’s. And at the M bar, neighbors love to hang out and grab a drink—or three.