Yolo: Worthwhile mole in Skokie
Before kids everywhere hijacked the word, Yolo was known around these parts as the off-the-main-drag Mexican eatery in Skokie. It's an outlier for Mexican restaurants — more cozy than festive,...
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Shaman: a cheeky, West Town outpost
On one side of Chicago Avenue in West Town is Mexique, a Michelin-starred restaurant that dares apply precise French techniques to Mexican cooking. Across the street from Mexique is Shaman,...
Review: Lay’s cappuccino potato chips
I regret devoting additional ink to Lay's because it only encourages bad ideas for publicity's sake. But I write this for the curious bypasser, who sees Lay's Cappuccino-flavored potato chips...
Tete Charcuterie: A new cuisine born of old ideas
Tete Charcuterie, as the name suggests, is the four-month-old West Loop restaurant that specializes in grinding meats and reassembling them into tubular/loaf form. From this kitchen comes two of my...
Eat This: Strings Ramen’s spicy crab and uni rice
While this rice bowl ($9.95) from Chinatown's Strings Ramen isn't the greatest thing since sliced Wagyu, it helps illustrate a point about Japanese food: It can be so delightfully weird....
At Epiphany Farms, owning both farm and table
Fame can be as alluring as lights for a moth. If you're an aspiring chef, the spotlight shines no brighter than in a big city like Las Vegas. Sin City...
2014’s top-performing chain restaurants revealed
Once a year, QSR magazine, the leading trade publication of the quick service restaurant industry, publishes its list of the country's top performing chain restaurants. The QSR 50 is a...
Xoco Wicker Park opens Aug. 12
Rick Bayless was in the middle of another 12-hour rehearsal for Cascabel Thursday, the remount of his Lookingglass Theatre show, when he finally got the text he's been waiting for:...
The Cheap Eater: Taco in a Bag
Scene: Monday afternoon, Spring Hill Mall in West Dundee. A girl at a kiosk sells smartphone cases to no one in particular. A man sells plush dolls at a free-standing...
Alpana Singh to open new restaurant
We check in with Alpana Singh, the bubbly master sommelier and former host of WTTW's "Check, Please!" and now equally bubbly-but-serious restaurateur of The Boarding House in River North. The...