Chicago suggestions?

Check out the menus of all the great recommendations here:
http://chicago.menupages.com/

.....so many...

go to site.....roadfood.com

.everything they mention is good, good, and good!

.....so many...

go to site.....roadfood.com

.everything they mention is good, good, and good!

I have mixed feelings about that site. When people post there and ask where to eat in Kentucky, everyone says Claudia Sanders. Yikes.

[Robin Garr]

.....so many...

go to site.....roadfood.com

.everything they mention is good, good, and good!

I have mixed feelings about that site. When people post there and ask where to eat in Kentucky, everyone says Claudia Sanders. Yikes.

Plug in Louisville and you get five hits: The Brown Hotel (for the Hot Brown), Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen, Kaelin's (for the cheeseburger), Lynn's (of course) and Mike Linnig's.

Isn't it run by the Sterns? Maybe I'm just being cranky, but they strike me as bringing to downscale dining the same issues that John Mariani brings to upscale dining: Quick-and-dirty research that turns up a few obvious candidates, some living on the previous generation's reputation, and then they head on down the road.

brasserie jo.....order the skate.....I do about 5 times a year

Why is no one in Louisville cooking this kind of food? Isn't there a market for moules gratinee, escargot, salade lyonaisse, skate with beurre blanc, onglet with pommes frites, cassoulet, coq au vin, pommes de terres dauphinois, tarte tartin, etc.?

I feel that way every other day! I was talking to a friend yesterday wishing there was somewhere I could just drop in for a salade lyonnaise. The skate I am willing to make at home but I can't poach an egg to save my life. I know we have Le Relais- but that seems like such a destination eatery. Do these restaurants do poorly here in Louisville, or has no one tried (hard to believe from the passionate foodies on this forum)?
If you build it I will come.

Try this for Italian Beef
http://www.gayot.com/restaurantpages/Ch ... 82&code=CH

Try this for Hot Dogs

http://www.superdawg.com/

Suggest Mi Pi for pizza

My Pi Pizzaria
2417 N. Clark St., Chicago
Tel: (773) 929-3380

Greek Islands on Halsted st. or Diana's for Greek Food.

I lived in Chicago till I was 30, my brother still lives there and we go back when we can.

GG.

Forgot in my earlier post one of my favorite upscale Italian spots: Spiaggia.

For your anniversary dinner, my top two choices are Charlie Trotters and Tru. Advance reservations required. These are also very expensive.

Spiaggia is a good fallback - it is the best Italian restaurant in the city.

Chicago is most famous for pizza, Italian beef and hot dogs, and steakhouses. While virtually any place downtown does a decent Italian beef/hot dog (the grungier the hovel the better the food), pizza is especially great at Lou Malnotti's, Uno's, Due's, or Giordano's (for stuffed).

For steakhouses, you'll get as many suggestions as there are people on the board! We've had luck at Kinzie Steakhouse, Chicago Chophouse, Morton's (remember, it started there with Arnie's Restaurant, named after Arnie Morton), and several others - tough to go wrong!

In general, Chicago Magazine is the best restaurant reviewer, so get a copy of that and you can normally swear by their reviews. And, they are up to date!

For steak, I suggest the Chicago Chop House. The rest of the places are mostly chains. You can go to Gibson's if you want to watch the spectacle (it is the anchor of the so-called "Viagra triangle" and supposedly many of the women at the bar are working girls) but the steaks and service have significantly declined over the years.

For pizza, there's always the original Pizzaria Uno/Due. But my favorite is the stuffed spinanch and mushroom with garlic at Bacino's.

For a traditional Chicago style dog, then you might as well start with Gold Coast Dogs. For gourmet options, make the trek up to Hot Doug's (make sure that the place is open, and be prepared to wait in a very long line).

Other good places to eat (thought not always cheap - do your due diligence) are:

Avec (my top recommendation for visitors)
Aria
Sushi Wabi
Bistrot Campagne (Lincoln Square)
Erba (Lincoln Square)
Hopleaf (Andersonville - best Belgian beer bar and great food - get the ham and cheese and don't forget to try the mussels)
Koryo (neighborhood Korean in Lakeview - pretty cheap)
Osteria via Stato (yes, I think it is a Lettuce Entertain You place, but pretty good)
MK
Kaze Sushi (Roscoe Village - try their special sushi with seasonal toppings)
Taco and Burrito Palace #2 (Lincoln Park - a great taco stand even if you are sober)

These are some that stand out to me for various reasons. There are tons of places to get a good meal in Chicago, but it is easy to spend a lot of money and not be totally blown away. Other than the Trotter's type establishments, my top recommendations are Avec, MK, Bacino's, and Hopleaf.

We had an excellent meal at Aria last year. Our waiter was a recent NYC transplant and claimed to have worked at Bouley's. He was superb. If you have a car, it is possible to find parking places on the street close to Aria. We did with no trouble!

It's been a few years ago since we went here but the lamb chops were amasing it's a old fashion steak house

http://www.geneandgeorgetti.com/frame_home.html

http://www.lecolonialchicago.com/


FANTASTIC!

I feel in love with this place when last in Chicago.

Wow- thanks for all the suggestions. We will be going at the end of July, but now we have lots of places to choose from. I can't wait.

Hello. I just had to write back to withdraw my endorsement of Charlie Trotter's as a special occasion place. I will admit it had been some years since I had been there, but it was always super top-notch. Well, I went back yesterday and was extremely disappointed.

First off, the prices are in the stratosphere. The basic dinner/wine pairing option for two is over $660 (including the 18% gratuity they automatically add to your bill). For this price, you have a right to expect perfection, and this place simply doesn't deliver.

There were only a couple of memorable dishes. One was a cantalope sorbet on top of feta cheese with some chopped radishes and a bit of mint. I thought this was like a haute cuisine version of the procsuitto/melon concept. There was also a pork loin dish that was excellent. But overall, the food, while solid, didn't blow me away.

I can actually forgive the restaurant for that. When you are doing the type of cooking Trotter does, it is inevitable that some dishes are either a) not going to work or b) aren't going to click with certain diners. So having an off food night is actually just the price of admission to seeking out this type of culinary experience.

What I can't forgive is their institutionalized service approach. I hate to say it, but this place has turned into a chop shop, a churn and burn, table-turning operation worthy of a Navy Pier tourist operation. My dinner from the time I walked into the door to the time I walked out, was two hours, by far the fastest dining time I've ever had in any such establishment. I don't think it is any accident that by holding the dining time to two hours, they are able to squeeze in an extra seating per night.

Everything they do is oriented towards speeding the process up.

- Automatically pouring Fiji still water as soon as you sit down - no one asked if I wanted sparkling (which, incidentally, I did), and I didn't see anyone in the restaurant who had it.
- Including a champagne in the wine pairing to avoid having to order aperitifs. You can argue that this is a nice thing, but it certainly has the effect of moving things along
- Dropping off the check while coffee cups were still half full.
- Maintaining a borderline non-existent digestif menu to keep you from ordering anything.

There were also a collection of other service faults (too numerous to list here - but I'm planning to write up a full report for my blog) and snafus ranging from highly mechanistic, depersonalized service, to parsimonious win pours, to having certain dishes substituted with no explanation of why.

I think if you were to go here for a special occasion thinking you were getting a magical meal, you could easily walk out disappointed and underwhelmed. I wouldn't consider this worth going to at half the price. It represents a vast change in approach from the impeccable food and service I used to see here.

I guess I should probably also mention that it has been a few years since I've been to Tru, so my endorsement is probably out of date there too. But all of the others, excepting Gold Coast Dogs and Hot Doug's, I've been to recently.