Categories for Shh..cago

Ricobene’s

shhcago-meat.jpgAnother great place to eat and Chicago institution is Ricobenes.  It’s claim to fame is the breaded steak sandwich.  Its big, breaded, covered with this “red gravy” and extremely messy.   One picture bellow is the classy version from their website and the other a picture of the just opened sandwich posted on RoadFood.com.  Imagine something in between the two of them.

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I am a firm believer that city workers know the best places to eat in Chicago, and Ricobene’s is always half filled with Police officers.  So its also a pretty safe restaurant.

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Wait For It To Drop

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shhcago-meat.jpgOnce, when I was away from Chicago, I was talking to some people that I thought were from the Chicagoland area.  I got very angry with them when they tried to argue that the best hot dog in Chicago was from Portillos.  It made me angry because what some people from the suburbs don’t realize is that the best hot dog in Chicago doesn’t come from a chain.  It isn’t even from a particular place.  The best hot dog comes from small mom-and-pop grills that have names like “Nicks,” “Clark Dogs,” Niagra” or “Johnny’s Uncle Jims,” and it is because they almost all serve Vienna Hot Dogs.  Most of those places get their meat, fries, etc. from the same places.

That being said, certain places do stand out.  One in particular is Suzies at Montrose and Elston.  There a few things that make this place awesome:

  1. They are open 24 hours.
  2. The amount of options available.  They will pair anything up with anything.  Have you ever thought of having a gyro burger?  They have and put it on the menu.
  3. Milkshakes.  Susies has a shit load of milkshake flavors.  I have never tried any because I promised I would get to the milkshakes after I tried everything on the food portion.  I’ve been going there for years and have not reached that day.
  4.  Edible Cheese Fry Bowls.  You know that bowl that usually holds  a taco salad that you can eat when your done?  Imagine that filled with fries and cheese.  If that isn’t enough, you can add meat like gyro or philly cheese steak with sour cream.
  5. Corn-Pols.  Corndogs with polish sausage instead of hot dog. Once, they tried telling me they didn’t have any ready so I didn’t get one.  Then a friend told me that they were just being lazy and didn’t want to get more out of the freezer; is was supposed to say “I’ll wait for one to drop.”  Sure enough, next time they told me they didn’t have any, I said the magic words and abracadabra, Brian is eating a corn-pol.
  6. This can be good or bad.   I sometimes question how unhealthy the food from Wendys or Taco Bell that is already made by the time I get to the window. Don’t get me wrong, Susies is not healthy food despite the picture of their sign brags about “zero trans-fat oil served here.”  But you know they start making your food when you order it.  It can be frustrating when the drive-thru line is four cars deep yet still takes 30 minutes to get through, but you are hungry for the food when you get it.
  7. The portions.  Last time I ordered a phily cheese steak sandwich, they asked me if I wanted the regular or the baby size.  Not wanting the woman at the window to think I was a pussy, I of course ordered the regular size, which is about the size of 6 month old baby.

I think I know what I am doing for lunch.

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Meat is Murder. Tasty, tasty murder.

shhcago-meat.jpgDue to their name, I can’t imagine that Brazillian steakhouses are unique to Chicago.  I do know that they are popular in Chicago.  I’ve only been once, and it was somewhat of a religious experience at a place called Fogo de Chão.  Here is how it works: You start out with a salad bar stocked with everything you could possibly think of to eat on a salad bar.  Then they bring out a plate of potatoes, these fried bananas and your dinner plates.  Each person has a large coin on their table with red on one side and green on the other.  When the coin shows green, men come to you with huge skewers of meats.  Depending on if its dinner or lunch depends on how many different types of meat are circling the room at a time.  They come over and ask if you want their meat, how tender you want it, and how much.  The men do not stop coming till you turn over your coin.  The salad bar and the potatoes/bananas are always coming too, so you can get stuffed on that rather than the more expensive meat.  It’s pure magic really.

It is a flat price, so you can eat all the meat you want, but that flat price is pretty high.  Worth it though, if you like meat.  I hope all this didn’t make Kelly sick.

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Three Little Pigs Sandwich

shhcago.gifI couldn’t really find anything to post about today; I was going to put something up about this art history website or this cookie monster cupcake.  That is, until I stumbled upon Eat Me Daily dot com.  I read a lot of music blogs and hope that food blogs are not going to be a new obsession.  Tv and commercials decide what I eat:  I went to Chilli’s the other night cause I was hungry and their commercial came on.  I sometimes go to Taco Bell if they advertise about a new burrito.  I get excited about restaurants from Check, Please.  So I don’t need the internet to tell me what to hunger for also.

tlpb.jpgI don’t have cable here at the house, so Top Chef or Ace of Cakes or Anthony Bourdain can tell me what to eat either.  But Anthony did slip through the cracks through a post on EatMeDaily.com talking about a place in Chicago called The Silver Palm.  They eat a sandwich called the Three Little Pigs Sandwich, which is smoked ham, a breaded pork cutlet, two strips of bacon, and two fried eggs, blanketed in a thick coat of gruyere, all on a brioche bun. Try not to get excited about eating that (If you can get past Mancow being a tool in the video).

The Silver Palm reminds me of Kuma’s Corner, my favorite place to eat in Chicago.  It’s a heavy metal bar that serves awesome food like the pulled pork fries, like the make your own macoroni and cheese where you have the option to add Bacon, Prosciutto, Andouille, Chicken, Roasted Red Peppers, Caramelized Onions, Sun Dried Tomatoes, Broccoli, Peas, Mushrooms, Scallions, or Sweet Corn, and burgers like GOBLIN COCK that has Bacon, Cheddar Cheese, ¼lb. Vienna Hot Dog, Tomatoes, Onion, Neon Green Relish, Sport Peppers, Pickles, Celery Salt Mustard or the IRON MAIDEN that has Avocado, Cherry Peppers, Pepper Jack, Chipotle Mayo.   Sorry to have to list all that.  I don’t know how else to describe it’s awesomeness.  They have a burger of the month that last month featured the #!@%¿ Blagojevich Burger that comes with bologna on wonder bread.  Its $10.00, but the price is negoitable.

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Winning The Super Bowl

shhcago.gifReporters here are great at finding the “Chicago connection” to news stories.  The Super Bowl this weekend has an obvious one: the Arizona Cardinals used to be the Chicago Cardinals.  Here’s a story about a supposed curse of the team.  Great sports stories like that are just one reason why Chicago is such a cool place to be.  The Cardinals were in St. Louis for awhile too; which probably has a lot of sports history too, but not as much as Chicago.

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