Ginza Japanese Restaurant: Neil Continues to Turn Japanese

Those of you who know Neil know that he has some unique interests and hobbies.  Of course he loves puttering around in his aquariums and jogging, and a podcast and food blog aren't uncommon at all these days, either.  But once you get into the tiki and Elvis, some people might start to wonder.  And that doesn't even touch on his fandom of pro wrestling, the greatest of sports, and how it has introduced him to his love of Japanese culture (now even Beth is starting to wonder).  Yes, Japanese wrestling is one of his favorites (and the root of his wish to visit Japan for his 40th birthday) and this love of the land of the rising sun extends to the food.  From eating udon at Tokyo Box Lunch to munching on delicious rice cake with bean paste candies, he has a definite fondness for Japan. So when Beth suggested some hole in the wall Japanese restaurant not far from the Magnificent Mile (aka Michigan Avenue), there wasn't much convincing required.  Ginza is a place you've probably walked by a bunch if you live in Chicago, and you might have even wandered by as a tourist due to the proximity to a number of tourist favorites and hotels.  From the outside, it and the attached Tokyo Hotel aren't much to look at.  The terms "hole in the wall" and "dive" may come to mind, as this place sticks out a bit amongst the shiny newness of much of the River North neighborhood.  However, once you get past the front door and pass through the curtains, you're transported to what I imagine (and many Yelp reviewers confirm) a small restaurant in Tokyo might look like.  Buy the ticket, take the ride, and off to Japan we go!

Jin: Chicago Thai That Escaped Argyle

Chicago is not short on places to find Thai cuisine, and our neighborhood is no exception, but we have the added cultural center of Argyle Street, a enclave of Vietnamese and Thai.  On Argyle, you'll find a dozen different restaurants from that corner of the world, offering a number of different variations.  We’ve enjoyed meals at Thai Pastry and many others on different occasions, but for the blog, we wanted to try something new.  Enter Jin, a new Thai place in Edgewater (livin' on the edge!) on Broadway.  It had been open for a few months, so this seemed like as good a time as any to try it, because it was a really hot day and we didn't have enough energy to venture very far from home.

Hing Kee: Not Your Average Ramen Noodles

While we are both big fans of the many delicacies that ballparks, stadiums and arenas have to offer, sometimes it's good to mix it up a little.  So, a couple of weekends ago we decided to get some lunch in Chinatown before heading to the Sox game.  We briefly discussed trying a new place, but quickly settled on Hing Kee, because it's hard to pass up a big bowl of soup with their homemade, hand-pulled noodles and a free floor show.  Chef Chang Ming Liu stands at a table in the front of the restaurant and makes the noodles while diners watch.  Best of all, he does it with the detached air of someone whose mastered this skill to the point where his hands just go through the motions while his brain is writing the next great American novel or unraveling the mysteries of black holes. As a side note, since this guy spends his days reducing enormous hunks of dough into miles of delicate noodles with nothing but his bare hands, his arms and upper body resemble Popeye's after he's had his can of spinach (tattoos included).  So, with visions of ramen noodles dancing in our heads (and hopes for a Sox win), we headed south on the Red Line.

La Fonda Latino Grill: Colombian for All You Can Eat

In the course of our culinary adventure, we've had lunch, dinner, and brunch, but this week we got to enjoy a first.  After returning from another culinary adventure in West Virginia (Neil got to eat all his favorites, pepperoni rolls, hot dogs, and Minards!), we had a rare chance for a week day lunch out.  Wanting to stay close to home, we picked a restaurant that is just a few blocks away from us, La Fonda Latino Grill.  We'd eaten here a time or two, but hadn't been in a while.   Knowing that it was Colombian, we decided to take a trip to South America and walked over on a beautiful afternoon.  We sat down and the waitress came over to greet us and ask if we were doing the buffet.  We didn't even know that they had a buffet!  After a brief description, we decided to give it a go and experience everything that a Colombian all you can eat lunch had to offer!

Adriatic Cafe Restaurant: A Nice Place for a Leisurely Meal

Adriatic Cafe is a place in our neighborhood that immediately was on our radar when we came up with this idea.  How many Croatian restaurants do you know about within walking distance of your house?  This place has a few things going for it.  The food has been pretty consistently good.  The wine list is exotic with lots of Balkan wines.  The patio is great on a nice day.  The issues?  Well, don't come on a day when you're in a hurry.  Service has certainly never been a strong point, so patience is necessary as we set out on another Balkan adventure, this time to Croatia!

Baghdad Kabab: Your 24 Hour a Day Iraqi Food Solution

Have you ever had a late night hankering for a kabab and/or perhaps some quality time with a cab driver or two?  Well, we've found the place for you, Baghdad Kabab!  We spotted this place from the Lawrence bus several months ago when we were on our way to check out Saravejo Restaurant and had been looking forward to coming back to try it since.  We hopped on the Lawrence bus and headed west to get our Middle Eastern fix!

Drinks

Baghdad Kabab is BYO and offers the usual coffee, soft drinks, and tea (free!), which Beth went with on a rainy Saturday.

Food

When you're judging the authenticity of a place, it's always a good sign when there is a page of the menu that isn't even in English, or an alphabet that we have any familiarity with!

Oh, they have cherry pie!

We were surprised to see that they had multiple soups on the menu.  That isn't something that we've run into before at Middle Eastern restaurants, so we gave it a shot.  Neil went with the white bean soup.  It had a tomato based broth and terrific flavor with nice spices.  You know it's good, when Neil uses the pita to clean the bowl up!

White Bean Soup

Beth went with the okra soup.  It had big chunks of okra along with big chunks of garlic.  No worries about vampires here, and the soup was great--flavorful and creamy.

Okra Soup

We ordered a side of dill Royale rice.  Good to know that they don't skimp on the portions!

Dill Royale Rice

Neil's entree was kallaya lamb, a finely diced lamb sauteed with onion, tomatoes, and green pepper.  The flavors mixed together well and the sauce went great over the rice.  This was a tasty dish!

Kallaya Lamb

Beth originally ordered a dish with potato dough filled with meat, but they were out of this.  She settled for schwarma chicken with rice.  The tender, boneless chicken seemed to be thigh meat and was seasoned with a mix of spices.  Behind the counter along the side of the restaurant were two giant, slowly spinning cones of meat. We think that one of those was this chicken.

Schwarma Chicken with Rice

Overall
Baghdad Kabab is a comfortable and welcoming space.  Since it was Saturday, I'm pretty sure our waitress was the high school age daughter of the proprietor.  The menu is fairly extensive and offers some things that we hadn't run across before in Middle Eastern restaurants, such as the soups and the fancy potato thingy that they were out of.  The food was all really good and well seasoned and the portions guaranteed that we would get multiple meals out of this lunch!

Foreign Factor
8 out of 10  One thing we've learned when exploring ethnic restaurants is that a place with a TV showing programming in the native language is a good sign--and often entertaining.  Since we were there in the middle of the afternoon, the place wasn't busy but the other folks there appeared to be native speakers.  The menu features a page in the native language, so this place gets the foreign seal of approval.

What We Learned
Iraqi food isn't the same stuff you run across at every Middle Eastern restaurant.  With the mix of herbs and spices, the food is really flavorful and satisfying.  The soups were something we didn't expect but turned out to be a real highlight of our trip.

More

They deliver, which is always a plus!
While it's not a surprise when you think about, the Iraqi culinary tradition goes back a ways!

Mt. Everest Restaurant: An Exotic Excursion to Evanston

When we decided to start this blog, we set out to keep our restaurants limited to the Chicago area.  But the question remained, were we just going to be in the city limit?  The limit of the CTA?  Cook County? We've decided to throw together some mix of the three, so Evanston definitely counts!  A simple ride up the red line to the purple line delivered us to the relative quiet and calm of Evanston.  What's exotic in Evanston?  Mt. Everest is a restaurant that we'd walked by lots of times but never stopped in.  The menu is dominated by Indian food, but they also feature Nepalese cuisine and you don't find that every day!  After a trip to our favorite movie theater in Evanston, we walked over to Mt. Everest to give the food of the Himalayas a try!