Much like last year (and the year before) I continued to look to the underground and gray market food economy as the place to spot the most interesting, creative, and groundbreaking chefs and foodlums in the city.
Tag: pop-ups
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
Preview a brave new Kimski at the next Monday Night Foodball
Won Kim does not care that your grandma hates his food. One month into a five-month sabbatical from Bridgeport’s Korean-Polish Kimski, and the chef is feeling fine. “I think I did a pretty good job trying to respect each culture,” he says. “I was downright fucking paranoid and scared to honor the babcias and the […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Finding euphoria
gods closet hosts monthly pop-ups that offer free clothing and a safe space for gender expression.
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
The once and future Sausage King of Bronzeville rules the next Monday Night Foodball
The Hot Dog Box is a ketchup-safe zone. “I know they say you’re not supposed to put ketchup on hot dogs,” says Bobby Morelli. “But I think you know I don’t really follow rules.” As befits the Sausage King of Bronzeville—or rather, Portage Park—Morelli can do as he pleases. Since I wrote about him a […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
Demand your deli from Schneider Provisions at the next Monday Night Foodball
Jake Schneider’s path in life was derailed by Shabbat. In college, he majored in economics and planned to be a businessman, but after he started cooking Friday Sabbath dinner for his campus Hillel organization, he realized his place was in the kitchen. On breaks, he returned to Chicago and knocked on restaurant doors, offering to […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Chả Cá Nuggs takes a nose-to-tail fin approach to eating the invasive copi
The invasive fish formerly known as Asian carp was renamed “copi” earlier this summer by the Department of Natural Resources. Short for “copious,” the state hopes that a vaguely Mediterranean-sounding rebranding will entice consumers to eat more of the bony, obscenely prolific, freshwater filter feeders that have outcompeted native species for all that good Illinois […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Vargo Brother Ferments embraces Fast Food Nation at the next Monday Night Foodball
Taylor Hanna and Sebastian Vargo are masters of the fine art of low and slow fermentation. And they’re strict disciples of the Paul Masson Primary Principle: “We will sell no wine before its time.” So after a long hard day in the Vargo Brother Ferments underground caverns, putting up their signature G-Dilla Pickles, PowerKraut, collard […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
Umamicue brings Texas barbecue—via Asia—to the next Monday Night Foodball
Her name is Odesza. Charles Wong’s bright red, 22-foot, 500-gallon mobile road pit comes from Texas, and so does the barbecue she smokes—at least in terms of method and material. But the flavors and textures of his brisket banh mi and smoked crab rangoon come from other lands. “I’ve always wanted to marry the Asian […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
The Melanin Martha celebrates Juneteenth at Monday Night Foodball
“I’m really trying to think of ways for us to take the trauma that’s linked to our food and uplift it in ways that makes us feel good and connected to who we are and our cultural identity,” says Jordan Wimby, aka the Melanin Martha, the subject of my column this week. You can see […]
Posted inFood & Drink
It’s a Lebanese-Armenian family feast at the next Monday Night Foodball
Lebanon and Armenia are separated by vast stretches of Syria and eastern Turkey, but when Mary Eder-McClure and Kat Stuehrk Talo compared notes about the heroic family meals they grew up on, they discovered that similarities in the food they ate shrank the distance. For one thing, there’s the abundance of generosity. And the stuffed […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Kedai Tapao returns to kick off a summer of Monday Night Foodballs
Annnnd we’re back . . . Last January when the couple behind Malaysian pop-up Kedai Tapao took an extended winter break to visit the folks back in Kuala Lumpur, Jennifer Pou-Alesi spent her first week quarantined in the comfort of her old bedroom, eating home cooking and tapao (“takeout”) of her street hawker favorites (roti […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Pig & Fire present Filipino pork belly tacos and sizzling pig face at Monday Night Foodball
When I first tap-tap-tapped the glassy, porky exterior of Roel Estanilla’s lechón back in January, I knew he was Monday Night Foodball material. Just a shard of the crispy skin jacketing the lush roasted pork belly would be worth the price of a ticket to the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up series at Irving Park’s Kedzie Inn. […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Ricky Hanft is bringing German deep cuts to the next Monday Night Foodball
Ricky Hanft is the sausage king of northwest Indiana. Currently in the case at the Wurst—his Griffith, Indiana, butcher shop—he’s stocking 30 different varieties of encased meats: among them French morteau, Ukrainian kovbasa, Vietnamese cha lua and cha bo, Armenian sujuk, Irish black pudding, North African Merguez, and Cajun boudin. There not a single jalapeño-cheddar […]
Posted inFood & Drink Column
Tigist Reda feeds you for Tigray at Monday Night Foodball
Thousands of civilians have been tortured, imprisoned, murdered, sexually assaulted, and expelled; their homes occupied and looted by an invading military that has blocked humanitarian aid from reaching those left behind. No, it’s not Ukraine. It’s the northern Tigray region of Ethiopia, which has been under siege since November 2020 when a civil war broke […]
Posted inUncategorized
Worlds collide with Flavor Supreme and Lolo Agogo of Monday Snack Gathering at Monday Night Foodball
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 […]