Monica Eng

Forest Park Great food, NO ATTITUDE Dear readers, you have an important choice before you. Forest Park, Lincoln Square or Logan Square. Those last two neighborhoods are fine, fine places...

"The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939" by Antony Beevor As a Barcelona football fan, the history of the intense rivalry with Real Madrid (they were Francisco Franco's...

TRY IT Even though my colleagues scoffed and called it the "most useless thing" they'd ever seen, I was super-pleased to see Sunbeam's Hot Iron Storage Case in our office....

First bite: Spertus Cafe If there is a more tranquil spot in the Loop than the Spertus Cafe (610 S. Michigan Ave.; 312-322-1700), inside the spectacular new Spertus Institute of...

Tastiest brown stew chicken we tried all year: Why, the cleverly named brown stew chicken at Uncle Joe's Tropical Cuisine (8211 S. Cottage Grove Ave., plus two other locations; 773-962-9935,...

First impressions: The cavernous dining room at 1-year-old Restaurant Bulgaria seats about 190 people. With burnt orange walls, red and white cloth table coverings and black iron chairs, the Northwest...

Recently posted on The Stew, our food and dining blog at chicagotribune.com/stew: It's a heavenly day for local lovers of Iberian hams (also called Pata Negra). That's because about 250...

Ladies, how many times have you been out on the dance floor wishing that you were: A) not wearing those ridiculously painful shoes; B) free to bust out your craziest...

We here at At Play were raised right -- and that means we're not afraid to hand out a "Thank you" when it's due. From knockout dishes to clubs for...

In those wobbly first months of a restaurant's life, a solid service staff can do more for the place's rep -- especially in terms of smoothing out those newbie imperfections...