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nsxtasy

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  1. Popular surveys like that are not a measure of the sophistication of the populace. Remember, in a survey like that, the places that get the most votes are the ones that have multiple locations (chains) and do a lot of business at each of them (chains). Whereas small independent establishments have a tough time getting a whole lot of votes for any single place. Furthermore, even in the most sophisticated cities, the people who are interested in, and can afford, the very best, most creative restaurants are probably still a small fraction of the population.
  2. I agree. It's not that you have to have a "big name" pastry chef; I don't think people come to a place just because of the name. But what you need is the expertise to turn out desserts that are "to die for", and that expertise often means being a pastry chef in a highly-regarded restaurant. But I don't think the big name is essential; having wonderful desserts, OTOH, is. Going back to the earlier part of this same thoughtful post, I agree that these other activities are other areas of opportunity for the same dessert bar. And these other activities are all daytime-oriented, rather than nighttime-oriented the way a "bar" connotes. Keep in mind, every major city has some pastry shops selling wonderful desserts, usually during the day, closed in the evening. Some of them even have some limited seating; others are full blown restaurants. Chicago's Lutz, which is currently remodeling, is a great example of what JWest is talking about, as they do everything JWest mentions except the "lots of alcohol" part. It's well known here (it's been there for years), both for people buying pastries to go during the day, and for people coming to the cafe to consume coffee and cake on the premises at any time of day or evening. I don't think they sell alcohol at all - I could be wrong about that - but their "bread and butter" business (sorry for the baking pun) is pastries, both to go and to eat there. Think "cafe", not "bar", and you've got their concept. The Chocolate Bar at the Lobby restaurant at the Pen, and the dessert tasting menu at Tru, are different concepts, because those are full-service restaurants where most of their business is in full meals, and the desserts are really an adjunct. The one at the Pen is interesting to me because it's so over-the-top. It's an all-you-can-eat buffet of 30-40 different chocolate desserts, with smallish portion sizes so that you can try a lot of them. They start it at 8:30 pm on Friday and Saturday nights, so it's designed for late-night splurges, and they have a built-in market among their hotel guests. I suspect it also brings in additional dinner business for the Lobby on those evenings. Oh, and BTW, I think it's up to around $34 or so, which is an awful lot for people to spend on desserts. If you don't concentrate on the alcohol aspect of the concept, then Lutz is a good example of a dessert bar in Chicago, a place that specializes in serving people who want to go out in the evening for coffee and cake.
  3. I'm not an expert in restaurant economics either. But my impression is that the number of people who drink dessert wine and/or brandy/cognac is quite small. And this is especially noteworthy considering the overhead associated with serving any type of alcohol (license fees, inspections, additional regulations, etc). FWIW, Hot Chocolate is a fairly recently-opened restaurant in Chicago, owned/run by Mindy Segal, a well-known local pastry chef. But Hot Chocolate offers savory dishes as well as the desserts for which they are best known, and they serve wine and beer - key differentiators from the concept being discussed here for KC, and ones which may broaden its appeal beyond the relatively narrow niche of desserts.
  4. I think that's the key question. Why will people come to a dessert bar? Will this be their destination for the evening (eat dinner at home, go out for dessert)? Will this be a place that they go after having dinner out (and, if so, why go to a second place after having dinner at a place that already offers dessert)? Personally, I'm a "foodie". I enjoy delicious food, and I particularly enjoy delicious desserts. I could see myself going to a place like this, but the desserts better be absolutely superb. If they're just going to be the same selection of cheesecake or turtle pie or key lime pie you can find almost anywhere, or if they're going to be something different and creative but not incredibly delicious, it wouldn't attract me. OTOH if they are as good as (or better than) the very best desserts in the entire city (including restaurants as well as pastry shops), I'm there in a heartbeat. Having it as an ultra-trendy "club" with mediocre desserts, like the above description of the now-closed Sugar in Chicago would be a big turn-off for me. (And I suspect that people looking for the ultra-trendy are more interested in drinking alcohol than in eating desserts anyway.) Good luck!
  5. Yes, it's at 401 East Illinois Street at McClurg Court, one block south of Grand. My bad!
  6. Yes.
  7. Either way is "the right decision". Both are excellent. As for the search, if you search ONLY the Heartland forum for topics with Spring in the TITLE, you will get six topics in the results. I believe the one you're looking for is this one (although it's not that recent, with the most recent post from three years ago).
  8. For your Monday dinner, I agree. I ate there on a Monday a few months ago and there were maybe three other parties the entire time we were there. I don't know if the above statement would be universally true (e.g. on a Saturday).
  9. The best Greek places are all in Greek Town, up and down Halsted Street just west of the Loop: Artopolis Bakery Cafe & Agora 306 S. Halsted St. 312-559-9000 Athena Greek Restaurant 212 S. Halsted St. 312-655-0000 Costa's 340 S. Halsted St. 312-263-9700 Greek Islands 200 S. Halsted St. 312-782-9855 Nine Muses 315 S. Halsted St. 312-902-9922 Parthenon 314 S. Halsted St. 312-726-2407 Pegasus Restaurant and Taverna 130 S. Halsted St. 312-226-3377 Roditys 222 S. Halsted St. 312-454-0800 Santorini 800 W. Adams St. 312-829-8820 Venus 820 W Jackson Blvd Chicago, 60607 (312) 714-1001 All of these are good. Which is best? Everyone has his or her favorite, and there is no consensus. If I had to guess, I would say the most popular ones among foodies might be Santorini, the Parthenon, and Greek Islands. There are lots of great "contemporary American" restaurants in town. My favorites in and around downtown are: one sixtyblue Aigre Doux (see my report here) Blackbird Bistro 110 Kiki's Bistro You didn't mention Italian (I'm not talking about cheap Italian now - and there's always our wondeful pizza, don't forget - but rather, nicer Italian places) but we have a few of those that are worthwhile, and within your price range, notably Cafe Spiaggia, Coco Pazzo, and its slightly less expensive sibling, Coco Pazzo Cafe. Some of the places above are only slightly more, like around $30 for entrees, while others are in the low to mid twenties. Check out their websites; most of them have sample menus with prices. Frontera Grill doesn't take reservations in advance. They take a few reservations over the phone when they first open at 8:30 am for that day only. Otherwise, you take your chances on waiting. The obvious choice if you want to make a reservation is Topolobampo, its sister restaurant next door. Both of these are open for lunch, when they are less expensive than dinner, so that's worth considering if you're concerned about the cost. Other creative Mexican places in or near downtown include Salpicon and both locations of Adobo Grill.
  10. When researching late-night places, opentable can be extremely helpful. Many of Chicago's better restaurants accept reservations on this internet service. With a few clicks of your keyboard, it's easy to see what's open at any particular time of day. For example, I just checked to see which places would accept a 10:30 pm reservation for next Wednesday, and roughly 50 of the 191 restaurants in the city show availability. Okay, not all of them are necessarily great or eGullet-worthy, but some of them are, including (in addition to the previously-mentioned Quartino): Le Colonial (upscale Vietnamese) Fulton's on the River (seafood) The Gage (gastropub) Hugo's Frog Bar (seafood) The Lobby (new American) Morton's (steakhouse) Shanghai Terrace (upscale Chinese) Smith and Wollensky (steakhouse) Sullivan's (steakhouse) Gibson's (steakhouse) is open late, too, but just doesn't happen to have openings for next Wednesday, a day I chose at random. All of these are within a mile or so of your hotel.
  11. I just looked at those reviews of Revolver by "Josh Woodward" in the link above. Very impressive. I think I just decided on where I'm eating the next time I come through town. Incidentally, I don't think Revolver's basic information has been posted here, so here it is (including the website link): Revolver Restaurant 110 E Sandusky St Findlay, OH 45840 (419) 424-4020 Michael, one aspect I would be interested in knowing more about is how well you're doing in a small market like Findlay. Having grown up in a rural area, and since been back to visit, I agree I think people do want something better than the chains. I know there was a virtual celebration (revolution?) at the nearby university where my sister teaches when they discovered Revolver. I learned about your restaurant when I went inquiring about the locale for our annual birthday celebration. Anyway, it sounds like the folk in the area have really caught on: http://www.joshwoodward.com/mod/recs/viewi...d=1&item_id=310 It sounds as if cutting edge cuisine in northwestern Ohio is working, no? ← I don't know a lot about Findlay, and I would be interested in hearing more. I would think that a restauranteur would want to open a restaurant in an area that is relatively underserved in terms of his particular cuisine, but with a potential for success. Part of that potential relates to the overall economy. The track record of other, similar restaurants may be an indicator of the environment there - or, they may be an indicator of circumstances specific to those particular establishments that might not apply to the prospective restauranteur. I know that northwestern Ohio has not had the greatest economy in recent times, perhaps due to the general hard times in the domestic automotive industry, which is (I think) a good part of the economy there. My impression of Toledo, 50 miles to the north and a lot larger, is largely that of a blue-collar town. That's another frequent stop of mine in my travels. In terms of creative food, they have Diva, Erika Rapp's excellent contemporary American restaurant downtown, but not much more. They had another excellent place called Matthew's Creative Cuisine, but it closed a year or two ago - not a good sign. These are not the only places in town, but they are probably among the most interesting and creative. They also have long-time favorites like Mancy's, a reasonably good steakhouse with several offshoots, and a hot dog stand called Tony Packo's, but every town has a steak place and a hot dog place. Findlay has about 40,000 people, and about 70,000 in Hancock County overall. I ate at a restaurant there called Diamond River a couple of years ago. It wasn't overly creative, but the food (American) seemed pretty good. I believe it was a single, standalone restaurant, not a chain. When I was traveling through earlier this year, it had closed, and morphed into a barbecue restaurant, the Red Pig Inn (one of two locations). I'm not sure what that says about the restaurant business in Findlay; as I noted above, sometimes restaurants close or change because of unique circumstances, rather than the overall environment. I'm a bit more familiar with Mansfield, which is where I am usually headed and which (at 50,000) is only slightly larger than Findlay. Mansfield has a fairly impressive restaurant business for its size (and blue-collar demographics), with one pretty darn good contemporary American place in town (Brant's Bistro), and another outstanding one just east of town (the Cabin, technically in Ashland). And, of course, the usual steakhouses, hot dog places, chains, etc. The fact that there is sufficient demand in Mansfield to keep those places in business would lead me to conclude that Findlay ought to be able to support a nicer restaurant that's doing things a bit more creatively, etc. Again, these are only impressions of an out-of-town visitor and I would be interested in hearing more about the community and its restaurant business (even if they contradict these impressions).
  12. Michael, please keep us posted on your restaurant. I travel through Findlay 3-4 times a year, and I'm always looking for new places to try. Wow! Talk about arrogant condescension! You seem to forget that restaurants are a service business. If this is how you feel about customers, you really shouldn't be in the business at all - in Chicago, or Bloomington, or anywhere else. (FWIW, I also visit Bloomington/Indy a couple times a year.)
  13. I can't speak for his particular meal, but I ate at Avenues a few months ago, and our group of four ordered the ten-course tasting menu. For some courses, all four of us were served the same item. But for other courses, two of us were served one item, and the other two were served a different item. It appears from the captions above that the same thing happened; you'll notice that many of the numbered courses have photos showing two different dishes for each. So even though there may appear to be up to twenty different courses shown here, each individual may only have been served ten of them. We shared at our dinner, but of course that means eating only half the portion shown in the photo. Hope that helps explain. It's also worth noting that our dinner took almost four hours, so there was ample time to rest and regain appetite.
  14. I was indeed referring to Fox and Obel's cafe as a suggestion for casual, moderately priced dining, in response to the OP's original question. However, I have found that most of the offerings at Fox and Obel are consistently outstanding, including their meats, prepared foods, baked goods, etc.
  15. Since you're going to be pressed for time - the joys of practicing medicine - I honestly don't think it makes sense to spend a lot of your limited time taking the el for cheap eats in other neighborhoods where you're going to kill 30-45 minutes each way in travel time (between the train ride, the waiting time, and walking at either end). Maybe on your day off, if you feel like it, but not most of the time, which is what you're asking about. Especially since there are so many food places within a 5 minute walk of where you're staying and working. There are some places around the hotel and the Northwestern Medical Center for less expensive eats (and lots and lots of places for more expensive eats). Pizza is your friend; Uno's and Due are near the hotel, and Giordano's and Gino's East are near the medical center. Call ahead with your order to avoid having to wait 30-45 minutes for the pizza to bake. Fox and Obel is a gourmet grocery store a few blocks east on Grand from the hotel (and south of the med center), and in the rear they have a cafe serving darn good food all day long; you'll find their cafe menu on their website. There's a food court in Water Tower Place near the med center where there are various food places to get something quick (foodlife, etc). Coco Pazzo Cafe isn't cheap eats, but it's moderately priced, and good Italian, near the hotel; similarly, Bistro 110 is moderately-priced, excellent for French bistro near the med center. I'm sure the folks at the hotel (and the hospital) can make lots more recommendations of what else is close by.
  16. I eat solo at a lot of places when I'm out of town, and occasionally around here. Anyplace (any good place) is likely to be just fine for a solo diner, whether you prefer to eat at the bar, or at a table for one (which I generally prefer, but that's up to you). I've never been made to feel uncomfortable or out of place in any way when doing so. So I would suggest not worrying about looking for places for solo dining. Go anywhere you want and it should be fine.
  17. There are a lot of places where you can look up listings of farmers markets. Government entities often list farmers markets in order to encourage their own agriculture. For example: The U. S. Department of Agriculture website has listings nationwide. (The ones for Illinois are fairly comprehensive, but some markets are listed under the wrong cities, e.g. suburbs listed under Chicago, city markets listed under suburban names, etc.) State departments of agricultures, such as Illinois's, often have website listings. Even individual cities may have listings, sometimes under their "special events" category, such as Chicago's. Also, of course, many newspapers have features listing local farmers markets from time to time, such as the recent one in the Chicago Tribune.
  18. Thanks for the explanation. I suppose, even with a pre-scheduled itinerary (presumably with reservations along the way), that still leaves open the possibility of multiple crawls going on in different neighborhoods simultaneously, if that's what folks want to do. Or, of doing one big crawl as a group of 40-80 (although then we would be limited to places that can handle groups that size). Lots of stuff to figure out, either way. (For example, would we have an all-day crawl like the pub crawl in that link ? If so, I could envision lots of folks dropping out after the first couple of hours, because they're stuffed to the gills.) At this point, I assume we've got the proverbial blank sheet of paper, and all ideas are welcome!
  19. Correct me if I'm wrong. My interpretation of a "crawl" is a somewhat unplanned stroll down a street or in a neighborhood, where you look at menus in the window and decide what sounds good, and that's where you go. With maybe the possibility of visiting several places in sequence, like a "progressive dinner" (even though it might be for lunch). If that's correct, if the numbers expected for the crawl are large, it might be best to break the overall group up into smaller ones (of maybe 10-15 people each), so that we don't end up with 40-80 people walking into one restaurant at the same time without any advance warning. We could even have different groups in different neighborhoods, so one group might do a "pizza crawl", another a "Vietnamese crawl" (Argyle), another a "Chinese crawl" (Chinatown), another a "Mexican crawl" (Pilsen), etc., all going on simultaneously. Each attendee could choose the crawl with the food that most appeals to him/her.
  20. You're right - I don't like burnt pizza with an otherwise tasteless crust. I tried it, and didn't like it. No, this is not one of those "if you don't like that kind of food" issues. They serve BAD FOOD. And BAD FOOD isn't worth it, even if it's inexpensive. My expectations for Dave's weren't that high, due to the low price; I expected the food to be edible, but that would be a highly generous and undeserved characterization of the food there. We had two dishes. One was veal in lemon sauce, which consisted of a few slices of veal with no breading and no taste, served over rotini in a liquid that I can only guess was the water in which the pasta was boiled. The dish had absolutely no lemon taste whatsoever. The other was a special, grilled chicken and provolone ravioli, in which the ravioli (including filling) had absolutely no taste, and were submerged in a tomato sauce that might have come from a jar at the supermarket (and from the cheap brand, too). Also, from the Department of Ewwww, I'd also like to know what the green-colored liquid in the olive oil dispensers on the tables is, because it sure doesn't taste like olive oil (although the serving of undistinguished bread without butter would lead one to expect it to be real olive oil). I don't eat at expensive restaurants every time I eat out, and I don't expect the same thing when I'm paying $10 or $14 for an entree (the veal at Dave's is $13.95) as when I'm paying $20-30 or more. But I expect it to be better than, say, what I find in the frozen food department of my local supermarket. At Dave's, it wasn't; it was worse. Which is pretty much the definition of BAD FOOD. If you want inexpensive but decent Italian food, there are places where you can get it, including some in and near Evanston. Based on my dreadful dinner there, Dave's isn't one of them. (And my dinner at Gio, a few doors down, was almost as bad.) Just to cite an example, Panino's in Evanston is exactly the same kind of place as Dave's, featuring a variety of food including pizza, pastas, sandwiches, and mostly-Italian entrees, in a casual setting, at similarly low prices. The difference is that at Panino's, the veal in lemon sauce actually tastes like veal and lemon, and there is a real lemon sauce instead of a thin, dishwatery liquid underneath. So if you do like that kind of food, you'll find that it's much better at Panino's than at Dave's, based on my meals at both places.
  21. That's a good point. One of the difficulties in planning an event like this is guessing at attendance. It's probably safe to say that there will be more people at the gathering in Chicago than in Cleveland, just because there are more eGulleteers here (as Tammy points out), but how MANY more will attend, versus the thirty or so at this year's event in Cleveland? Will we have 40 people, or 80 (or more)? Nobody really knows. And there are venues suitable for 40 people that just won't work if you have 80. We could try to have things at places with the flexibility for a variety of attendance numbers, and/or we might have capacity constraints for certain venues. Lots of stuff to figure out how to handle.
  22. Funny, that's the one place I probably misclassified, in hindsight. If I could edit my post, I would bump it up one category, to "Just Okay (worth visiting if you're in the neighborhood)". I thought most of the dishes were exactly that - just okay. Only one or two things I tried were really impressive. The desserts, in particular, were a big disappointment (and that was the only thing "big" about them; I was disappointed in their portion size as well as taste). There are half a dozen places in Evanston with similar food items and prices where I've had substantially better meals. It's possible that they have improved since I went there in January, and I certainly hope so; if so, that's a good thing. But with all the restaurants to choose from here, I have a tough enough time returning to places I liked a lot, let alone places I didn't.
  23. Lola was absolutely wonderful, easily the top culinary highlight of the event for me. What I love in a meal are dishes where every bite just screams "WOW!" ("Delicious!") at the top of its lungs. Two of the dishes at Lola were that good and did that for me - the beef cheeks pierogie (gotta love that subtle touch with the added taste from the dab of horseradish-flavored creme fraiche) and the strawberry shortcake (the top almond layer was incredibly light, and they must have lightened up that layer of mascarpone, perhaps (?) by folding it with whipped cream). Outstanding! BTW, one thing you can just sort of see in Ronnie's photo of the kitchen is a counter area with 5-6 barstools where you can eat. Look closely and you may notice that the counter consists of alabaster, a translucent natural stone which they have backlit to wonderful, ethereal effect. They also had the backlit alabaster for the entire bar as well as the hostess stand at the entrance.
  24. A few more thoughts. First, we should define the time frame and meals involved. Do we follow the pattern used at this year's event? Thu eve - dinner (restaurant) Fri noon - lunch (restaurant) Fri eve - dinner (restaurant) Sat morn - food shopping Sat noon - lunch at a restaurant? (we may want to plan a lunch with a reservation, rather than hoping to get lucky as folks did with Phnom Penh this year) Sat aft - cooking the feast Sat dinner - Heartland feast Sun noon - lunch/brunch (restaurant) If we can agree on a schedule, that could help us figure out when different places would work best. For example, the "crawl" for cheap eats (pizza, Italian beef, etc) might be something to do for lunch on Friday. For another example, if we wanted to go to Vie, it might work best to go there for lunch on Sunday. (Yes, I know that Vie is normally closed on Sundays, but they might be willing to open for us; furthermore, it might be easiest for them to handle a group our size on that basis, rather than when they are open to the public.) As for specific suggestions on restaurants, there are so very many great places here that I would take a step back first, and talk about kinds of places to go. For example, would we want to go to three contemporary American type places for Thursday dinner, Friday dinner, and Sunday lunch? (There are certainly plenty of candidates; in the city, places like North Pond, Blackbird, Naha, Custom House, Sweets and Savories, Sola, and literally dozens if not hundreds of others; in the burbs, you've got Vie, Tallgrass, Chef's Station, Michael, and again, dozens more.) Or would we want to have one or two such places, and then choose one or two places from other categories such as steakhouses, seafood places, French, Italian, other ethnic (Mexican, Thai, or perhaps less common ethnicities not often found elsewhere)? Personally, I think that something Mexican and unusual (not your typical Mexican food) would be an awesome choice - such as Flamingo's - it's new, read more about it here - or one of Bayless's places. The other thing to consider is price range, since costs have already been mentioned. Most of the contemporary American places I mentioned above are typically in the $80-120 range per person including moderate alcohol, tax, and tip. This was about what we paid at Light Bistro (I paid $69 including tax/tip but no alcohol) and Lola ($89 tax/tip no alcohol). Maybe we would want one of the three meals to be somewhat less than that. It would be nice if we could work out an inexpensive bargain for someplace, maybe Sunday lunch, the way Carrie Cerino's turned out this year. We also might want to organize a smaller, and more expensive, dinner the night before the event (Wednesday night before the start? Sunday or Monday night after the end?) at one of our top tables, such as Avenues, or Alinea, or Schwa, for folks who choose to come in early for a splurge. Maybe we could get a special meal arranged at one of these places; for example, I know ChefGEB is a big participant here and maybe he could do something for us at Avenues.
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