Chicago

A phenomenal dinner, with about 15 small, interesting courses over the course of three hours. Tiny intense burst of flavor from small flowers, herbs, and berries (nightshade, queen anne’s lace, fennel pollen, and other flowers) on top of a range of creative and perfectly-seasoned dishes each highlighting a few beautiful ingredients (including malted barley, bear jerky, beets, a few kinds of mushrooms, tomatoes, and roe). And by lucky chance they sat us right next to the kitchen. I do always enjoy that. ...

A few other notable small food stops in Chicago that I’d recommend based on this past weekend: Heritage Coffee and Bicycle Shop-- just a great atmosphere, good people, excellent espresso shots and sour cherry lemonade, some bike accessories to browse (and a full repair shop). Do-Rite Donuts -- the meyer lemon / pistachio cake donut was delicious, and perfectly cooked (moist fully-cooked cake center, slightly crispy outside). There were also many people in line for their next batch of gluten-free donuts. ...

Hot Doug’s, the encased meat emporium in Chicago, closes for good at the beginning of October, after 13 years. I’d been there once about three years ago, but only to get a basic dog before heading to Alinea, so news of its impending closing was enough to motivate a labor day weekend vacation back to Chicago… The line was several buildings long, down the street past some neighbor’s yard (maybe four times as long as shown in the photo here): ...

One of my friends at the 28-course from-the-cookbook-of-El-Bulli/molecular-gastronomy dinner at Next put this excellent summary image together (you can click through and then click again to zoom in to the full-size image). This is all but one of our courses (it’s missing the liquid-nitrogen-frozen caipirinha): It was a fascinating dining experience and tour through the history of experimental food– with each dish, they told us what year it had been served in El Bulli (for example, the red mullet gaudi was in one of the earlier years– conceptual in terms of its mosaic-like appearance, but without the “magic powders” of later foams and smokes). ...

One memorable evening in Chicago involved a group of 4-5 of us eating at Avec, The Publican, and Au Cheval in succession. Any of their web sites have far better food photos than my quick cell phone snaps below, but so it goes. At avec (a long, cozy, space with a lot of wood and light), the huge “chorizo-stuffed medjool dates with smoked bacon and piquillo pepper-tomato sauce” was one of the best things I ate all trip: ...

While visiting Chicago, I was usually getting dinner with other people who are into craft beer, making it easy to try a wide variety. It was a busy few evenings so I don’t remember all the details, but I jotted down a few notes of my favorites that I’m going to keep an eye out for in the future: Vichtenaar, a slightly sour Flemish Red Avery Maharajah, a very distinctively-flavored IPA (and one of a small number of IPAs I’m excited about these days– I’d had it before) Half Acre Over Ale (a brown ale, a bit nutty, a bit like toast, quite good – sadly I don’t think they distribute outside of Chicago) Half Acre Sanguis brewed with oranges and beets, and really excellent with strong food (smoked eel) Brooklyn Sorachi Ace (Sorachi Ace is a particular unusual hop that I think smells a bit like dill– I only knew it from the Mikkeller Single Hop series tasting I did with some friends last year) Revolution Coup d’Etat (from a local brewery, in the slightly funky belgian farmhouse/blonde/yeasty style) As a side note– I liked the design of the Half Acre Sanguis label quite a bit– my photo of it is a bit blurry but I found a blog post from the designer with the image: ...

Taking it down a notch the next day (no pun intended), an excellent beef sandwich (with hot peppers, dipped in beef broth) from Al’s Beef:

This is what we ate (and drank). Click through for a higher-res version.