"chicago restaurants" news and stories

When you travel, don't you wish you could just casually call up the best chefs in town and ask, "So where do you eat?"

If Chicago is on your itinerary, you're in luck. In its September issue, Departures magazine asked the city's top culinary talent not only what their favorite haute spots are, but about where they eat well on the cheap, and who's the next cook to watch in the Windy City. From L2O's Laurent Gras and his love for inexpensive Hawaiian barbecued short ribs to Alinea's Grant Achatz's "secret indulgence" of sweetbread veal nuggets, this advice will make Chicago your kind of town.

Head over to Departures for the full list.

Stories like this make me happy I don't like ice in my cold drinks.

The Chicago Sun-Times tested 49 different restaurants and fast food places in the area and found out that not only did 1 in 5 have ice cubes that had high levels of bacteria, 21 of the 49 had toilet water in the Sun-Times restroom that had less bacteria than the ice cubes. The paper actually names the restaurants.

Now, this either means the restaurants aren't handling their ice cubes correctly (or there's something in the water), or the urinary and digestive tracts of Sun-Times employees are unusually clean.

I remember I worked in a restaurant that had a large sink behind the bar that we just filled with ice, and it was left open. I can imagine what could have fallen in there or how clean the sink was when the ice was put in.

I don't eat sushi, so I'll have to take the Chicago Sun-Times' word on this.

Seems that Chicago-area restaurants that serve red snapper aren't really serving red snapper at all, they're serving cheap substitutes! And it wasn't an isolated case. In fact, samples were bought from fourteen different restaurants in the city, and none of them were actually red snapper. They found this out by doing DNA tests.

Coming this fall: CSI: Sushi.

The FDA calls it fraud and they are investigating.

I don't mean put tiny packets of honey roasted peanuts and a vacuum-packed bag of wilted celery cticks in a flimsy box and charge yourself $4.95.

Conde Nast Traveler magazine challenged chef Gene Kato of Chicago restaurant Japonais to create an in-flight meal that was spoil-proof for three hours, leakproof, and didn't stink strongly enough to disturb your neighboring traveler (Conde Nast used the word "odiferous"). It couldn't be too difficult for something Japanese-inspired, since the concept of mobile food in bento boxes comes from Japan. Chef Kato created Miso-glazed Fried Chicken with Japanese Truffled Soybean Salad. The recipe is on Conde Nast's website.

I challenge Chef Kato to make something to take on a Korean Airlines flight that's not "odiferous." Kimchee anyone?

[via: Gadling]

I'm probably mistaken, but I feel like tea sommeliers must be some of the nicest people around. The Chicago Sun-Times profiles Bou Chu, the tea sommelier at the NoMI restaurant in the Park Hyatt Hotel. The best part of the story is the sidebar: Chou's recommendations for pairing teas with certain foods like hot dogs and lobster.