Aged, like a fine wine.Photo: Patrick McMullan
Really, it was only a matter of time before geriatric sex guru Dr. Ruth Westheimer came out with her own line of mood-loosening libations. Her Vin d'Amour (translation: Wine of Love) hits shelves in early July, just in time for summertime trysts. One thing, though: Ruth's wine has half the alcohol content than most (6 percent to the typical 13), because that's the sexually prudent way.
Batter & Berries, 2748 N. Lincoln.Photo: courtesy Angela Rightout
Batter & Berries is a sunny, attractive new breakfast cafe near Lincoln and Diversey. Chef Derek Rylon got his start at a Hyde Park restaurant owned by a relative at age 13, and spent the next thirty years in big name kitchens from Shaw's and Maggiano's to Gibson's and Planet Hollywood. Now he just wants to kick back and make you some buckwheat pancakes, a deconstructed broccoli and cheese omelet, or a flight of French toast (including strawberry, blueberry, lemon and caramel) for breakfast. Or some Kobe sliders or his own stylized take on chicken and waffles for lunch. On the side you can have La Colombe coffee, or a BYO Mimosa on weekends. We've got the menus for both meals below.
Today Zagat and its parent company Google announced Google+ Local, which sounds a heck of a lot like their answer to Yelp. In fact, it's the same thing, user reviews on local restaurants with photos and a map, but you need a Google+ account — you do have one of those, right? Citizen reviews will also follow Zagat's famous grading scale, with 30-point ratings for decor, service, cost, and food. It's the first major move from the two since Google bought Zagat last fall, and it sounds like it will potentially mean more for Zagat than for Google.
Here's one of those great ideas you can't believe nobody thought to do before: ask the local gold standard of burger stand guys, Eddie "Edzo's" Lakin, for his favorite burgers in Chicago. Which A Hamburger Today did. Burger lists are usually so bad, prizing trendiness, bizarre toppings and excessive girth over quality, but that's not at all the case for Eddie's choices, each of which is chosen carefully for its representation of some cardinal virtue of burger-making, whether it's quality of beef (he admires the LaFrieda beef at The Bad Apple) or technique (northwest Indiana chain Schoop's is called out for its crispy-edged smashed patties). (Okay, one does get in for crazy ingredients, but that's a legitimate style by now, too and can be done well or badly like anything else.) Learn from the master here.
Temperature-hot, not spice-hot.
A drug cartel firebombed a snack-food company's warehouses and parking lots in the Mexican states Guanajuato and Michoacán over the course of the weekend. The manufacturer Sabritas is owned by PepsiCo; dozens of delivery trucks were destroyed in the attacks, said to be the "first time a multinational firm has been targeted in long-running drug wars." Members of the Knights Templar cartel have been arrested and while the Daily Mail reports the attacks resulted from extortion attempts, ABC reports that widely circulated e-mails suggest the drug cartel believed that the trucks — used to deliver Fritos, Doritos, and Cheetos — were also used to spy on their activities. Chester Cheetah was always a bit shady, but we never pegged him for a narc. [DailyMail UK, ABC]
Don't cross the streams!Photo: Reddit/AllenJacoby
After pole-vaulting its public image with the introduction of co-branded Doritos tacos (that Cool Ranch–flavored shell was confirmed last week, by the way, along with the promise of "cookie sandwiches"), Taco Bell has outdone itself once again by rolling out a breakfast drink called MTN DEW A.M. in its Fresno and Southern California markets. Let's face it, Fresno needed this. Photos of a drive-through card billing the "Mixology of Mtn Dew and OJ," hit Reddit the other day, and have since ignited our imaginations and captured our immobilized hearts. Fox News, thanks be, got word from a company spokesperson that if MTN DEW A.M. does well, the company is threatening planning to "roll it out to all our restaurants that serve breakfast." [Reddit, Earlier]
In the second installment of our video series "Finding Grace: The Making of a Restaurant," chronicling the creation of Michelin-starred chef (and former Alinea chef de cuisine) Curtis Duffy's highly anticipated Grace in Chicago, we meet sommelier and general manager Michael Muser. In a frank and funny nine-minute interview, Muser and Duffy talk about putting together a wine list for a menu that doesn't exist yet, finding the right balance between what customers expect and a sommelier's own wine geekiness, and the one wine that sommeliers wish they could drop from their list (and why customers won't let them). Check it all out, straight ahead.
Requirements: Bubbles, booze, lots of ice.Photo: Hannah Whitaker
I gauge the turning of the seasons by which drinks I desire, and my strong yearning for daiquiris and mint juleps is as accurate as any calendar for telling me it's summer. Normally, I'd be stocking limes, mint, and soda. But my summer drinking plans have been disrupted by the fact that I am moving cross-country to San Francisco, so I need to use up all the leftover specialized booze that I bought, made a drink or two with, then stuck back into my liquor cabinet: things like Bénédictine and Crème Yvette that I don't want to lug to the West Coast. You probably don't have quite the same dilemma, but everyone has bottles of random booze sitting around. So, I wondered, is there a single technique that I can apply to any booze to make a great summer drink? Little did I know frat parties would end up inspiring the solution.
Roots Handmade Pizza will celebrate its first anniversary serving Quad Cities-style pizza tonight with 50% off dine-in pizzas, $1 Roots House Brew pours, $3 Cazadores tequila shots and a reception hosted by Cazadores at 9 p.m., the debut at 10 p.m. (with free samples) of its Stephanie Izard-created Girl & the Goat pizza (Pleasant meadows goat sausage ragu topped with Quad Cities cheese, smoked and aged cheddars and a yuzu-maple drizzle), and last but not least... birthday cake for all from Bleeding Heart Bakery & Cafe.
SoHo House New York.Photo: courtesy SoHo House via Facebook
If you dig a sceney scene, there's news for you here. If nothing makes you happier than tearing into an import from New York (something we're becoming notorious for, apparently), there's something for you here, too. SoHo House, a New York-based hotel and private club which the New York Daily News described as "a media-friendly alternative to the traditional London private members' clubs," announced expansion plans that include Chicago, Toronto, Istanbul, Mumbai and Barcelona. (The Chicago location, which will be on Green near the Fulton Market restaurant strip and is expected to open in early 2014, was announced back in January, but yesterday's announcement significantly increases the amount of detail about it.) Much of what's planned, like the glitzy glass-enclosed rootop bar and club, will be members only, but they did announce three open-to-the-public restaurants— an outpost of a London pizzeria called Pizza East, a burger concept, and a chicken concept. And this may be where bashing imports comes in.
America's Best Burger Town is ... Providence? That's what T&L says. New York ranks ninth, and L.A. is tenth, which seems ... off. Congrats to Philly, however, in No. 2. [Travel & Leisure]
It just looks so tasty!Photo: Francois Nascimbeni/Getty Images
Summer grilling season is here, but demand for ground beef is down, according to a report in USA Today. It's because of that whole pink-slime thing! Consumers are moving away from pre-ground beef produced by huge companies like Cargill in favor of beef that's ground at butcher shops and in-store. (Lots of people are choosing ground bison, too.) That's a good thing! Unless of course you work at Cargill, which according to the story "saw 80% of its customers for finely textured beef [the industry term for pink slime] disappear after the controversy erupted in March." Pink slime isn't that bad, they say. In fact, according to Cargill spokesman Mike Martin, "There's no legitimate reason why it shouldn't be part of ground beef." The emphasis there is ours, because, dude, really? [USAT]
The reinvention of Mindy Segal's Hot Chocolate is not finished yet. No one had said anything about a more serious cocktail program at the recently spiffed up and reconfigured Bucktown spot, but there's apparently one in the works, because mixologist Clint Rogers, who's been at Henri and The Gage, is now headed to Hot Chocolate as of June 5 to develop a cocktail program featuring both classics and house-created cocktails. The restaurant has a 2 a.m. license— who knew?— and Rogers told Eater they plan to "make it a popular destination for dinner, but [also] push it into an after-hours bar with a smaller food menu." [Eater]
FLOTUS hit The Daily Show last night to talk up her brand-new book, American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America, the latest effort in her campaign to get America eating healthy. "The garden is a good way to start the conversation," she told Jon Stewart. "When I grew up, you cooked broccoli until you could cut it with a fork." Adding, "It's not supposed to be that way." No, no it isn't. Check her tips on vegetable feasts, engaging kids in growing, and more on conscientious eating, straight ahead.
“I love TBK”
Open super late and great food especially for the intoxicated!
“Try the Steak & Potato Pizza!”
Can you say philly sandwich on a pizza?
“Good Overall, just that greasy smell”
The problem is that my clothes smell like grease after every visit. They need to do something about that.
