Bobaloo

Regarding the Tribune list, Select Cut Steakhouse served a very poor burger (overcooked, meat not the highest quality) compounded by rushed, manic and un-smiling staff... but the fries were excellent. Their meat (steak included) has a nice aged tart taste, but they start out with choice, so there is a lack of fat and tenderness to balance it. Two trips, and we're done. Our go-to's for beautifully charred burgers, alway cooked properly are Jake Melnick's ( excellent crisp fries, and possibly the best, smokiest juicy spare ribs on the North Side) and Pete Miller's, same as the prior with the addition of wonderful horseradishy slaw, and the superb Callebaut dark chocolate sticks brought with the check. Erwin's burger is always dreamy, but I feel stupid ordering burger there. I am going to try to talk my wife into outside burgers at Gibson's today or tomorrow.

Re: Gibson's. The only steak to order is the NY Strip Bone-In. Make sure you ask for center cut, and make sure the waitroid understands that you want it medium-rare, exactly. The Saturday night dessert special is called "The Meaning of Life". It sells out early, so you may want to reserve a hunk. Imagine a five-layer cake wedge, 7" radius, nine inches high.

I must echo the recs on the de Bortoli Noble One. Had it this past Thanksgiving, the other winos and I could hardly believe it could have grapes as its source., Also, the next day in Napa, we went nuts for the Merryvale Antigua, a Muscat de Frontignan fortified with brandy. A meal in itself.

Kunde Magnolia Lane Sauvignon Blanc has been a delight to anyone I've served it to. It's wonderful scent of peaches is a treat with spicy seafood dishes.

From Jan 10 Wine Spectator, James Laube writing.... "Once upon a time, there was a Charles F. Shaw -- a person and a winery. Shaw was an investment banker who fell in love with Beaujolais and came to Napa Valley in the early 1980s with the belief that Americans might cotton to a Beaujolais-style wine. We didn't, Shaw struggled. He tried to rescue his winery by introducing other wines, but things never panned out. In 1991, Shaw sold his winery and left the wine business. His 15 minutes of fame came 13 years too late. While Shaw moved on, the brand name lived on and was later purchased by Fred Franzia, owner of Bronco Wine Co., who collects wine labels the way some people collect board games. Franzia owns a couple of large wineries in Napa and the Central Valley, and specializes in buying mostly cheap bulk wines that many other wineries don't want, blending them and selling them under multiple labels, including Forest Glen, Napa Ridge and Rutherford Vintners. What made Two-Buck Chuck click is the huge wine glut in California. There was so much unsold bulk wine this past year that producers were almost giving it away. When the numbers are right -- enough volume at the right price (about $1 a gallon) -- Franzia is one of the key buyers, known in the business as bottom fishers. Franzia also has a distribution company, which gives him added clout; he can ship directly to retailers in California, which he did, setting the $1.99 a bottle price. (It's closer to $3 outside California, due to higher distribution costs.) No one knows how much Two-Buck Chuck will eventually pass through Trader Joe's, because there's still a sizable surplus of California wine, which could last several more years. A Bronco spokesman said they estimated that 1 million cases were sold in December, and the bottling line ran three shifts on New Year's Day to meet demand. It's entirely possible Two-Buck could eventually hit 3 million cases. The Shaw frenzy adds a new twist to the old wine joke, "How do you make a small fortune in the wine business? You start with a large one." Now there's another rejoinder: You sell a million cases of $2 wine a month. " I just opened the CS Merlot; woulda guessed mediocre Beaujolais.

As an ex–deli pro with nine year's experience in the Chicago area, I must chime in on this topic. For me, a visit to a new deli requires ordering pastrami. It is the substance that defines the place. Unfortunately, there is only one place in our metro area that serves good pastrami, Max & Benny's in Northbrook, which fortunately is a 25 mile schlep for me. My wife is from New York, so we get to visit pretty often. Here is my take on the question. NY (and Montreal) pastrami is made from brisket. It usually is made without the "point" or "deckel", the fatty tissue that sits on top of the brisket flat. Chicago pastrami is usually made from the plate, the area on the front of the abdomen, which is fattier. Nobody in Chicago cures their own meats anymore; they all use vacuum-packed stuff from Vienna, Hebrew National (not plate), Best's Kosher, etc. At one point in 1976, we actually tried using Schneider's from Canada, which didn't go over very well with anybody. I think that the extra fat in the Chicago version enables a more consistent product, even though always machine sliced thin. I think that New York pastrami, when fatty/juicy enough, will outshine anything in the world. But after dozens of meals at Carnegie, 2nd Avenue, Stage, Ben's, Katz's and others, way too often (even when asking for "not lean"), the tendency (with the exception of Carnegie, which was dripping with fat...eeecchhh) is for NY product to be too lean/dry, but still tasty. My wife's grandmother, from Romania, always ordered her pastrami "cold and fat". She made it to 90 before she developed a blockage!