Lunch in River North: M Burger

Cuisine: Fast-food/ Hamburgers

Location: 161 E Huron, Chicago, IL

Price: $

Food: ***

Service: Counter service

Overall: ***

Website: http://www.mburgerchicago.com

Last summer, while scouring the immediate vicinity of my workplace for feasible lunchtime options, I was pointed toward M Burger, Lettuce Entertain You’s answer to fast-food hamburgers. And I remembered it being glorious – thick, creamy milkshakes, delicious hamburgers (with a secret menu, to boot!), and crispy crunchy fries. However, because of M burger’s downtown location, I was left with nothing more than ethereal memories of lunchtime greasy fast food gluttony once my schooling days resumed at Northwestern.

Fast forward to me now, being all boss-like with a job and what not in the real world – as luck would have it, I work a five minute walk from where I did last summer, which, amazingly, places me within walking distance of not one but two M Burger locations! Oh, the options! I could go to one today and the other one tomorrow! I could go to one constantly and establish myself as a regular! I could work for a whole month and not go to either because I have no money and would prefer to bring lunches!¹ But on the last working day of the 2011 calendar year, with nothing better to do than sit in the office vegetating while staring blithely at a computer screen, I decided to further my state of extreme inactivity by going out to get some M Burger and stuffing my face for lunch.

Happy Thanksgiving! (Green Bean Casserole Recipe)

Due to my recent entry into the real world (read: employment! woohoo!) I've neglected updating this site for a couple of weeks. Between not having 18 hours of downtime each day and my addiction to video games when I get home from work, I've really slacked off on updating. Shenanigans! While I make no promises to the frequency of my updates coming up, I will do my best to add to this site whenever I can, either in recipe form (and now that I'm working, I cook a lot less too... sadly) or restaurant reviews (must have more willing dining partners willing to explore the city with me so I can create a crater sized dent in my bank account from eating good foodstuffs...). 

Portobello Mushroom Spinach Wrap w/ Home-made Chipotle Aioli

Title picture: recipe at bottom

Last Tuesday¹ marked the end of my self-imposed exile from meat – for lunch, I had stir-fry, and threw in some bacon just because I could – and it tasted awesome. There is something about the chewy, meaty, wholesome flavor of meat that simply cannot be replicated, no matter how intricate the synthetic substitute.

Hard-boiled quail eggs: like chicken eggs, but a miniature version that tastes way better

I made it through the week eating relatively well, compared to my prior forays into eating vegetarian – I deep-fried tofu (possibly removing all health benefits attached with said protein), made hard-boiled quail eggs to go with my stir-fry (a favorite of mine growing up), and had a lot of salads.

Quail egg stir-fry with deep fried tofu over rice

One of the biggest issues I have with eating vegetarian is how bland a lot of the food is – without that bite of meat to complement a meal, it often seems that my plate is missing something integral to a dining experience. 

Vegetarian for the week, and a recipe for scalloped potato gratin

Scalloped potato gratin - recipe at the end

Vegetarianism blows. There’s no two ways around it. I know more than my fair share of them, and to me they fall pretty neatly into two camps – sensible vegetarians who, for dietary, religious, or other reasons, don’t eat meat, and fucking crazy vegetarians (all vegans fall in this category), who, for mostly moral reasons, refuse to eat meat and take perverse pleasure in telling you that you’re ruining the world by consuming animal flesh.

The vegan argument: who the fuck is out there eating dogs, cats, and parrots, anyways? And that's not just any pig, it's Babe. A talking pig who herds sheep is in no way representative of the pigs that people eat.

It’s not that eating vegetarian has to be synonymous with eating shit – I enjoy having a salad for a meal, pasta with simple tomato sauce, stir-fried vegetables, breakfast for dinner (sans bacon). But it’s much harder to eat well when an integral part of your diet – protein – sees its options slashed by about 92%. You’re left with tofu and whatever disgusting synthetic meat-imitating garbage it is that Whole Foods sells, even though we both know you just eat grilled cheese and frozen French fries four days a week anyway.

This, incidentally, is what strikes me as most annoying about voluntary vegetarians – claims that they are living healthier or cutting the fat out of their lives are almost entirely false. They eat half-meals at 7 PM so that after going out they can come home at 1 AM and order a whole Papa John’s Cheese Pizza, and let’s throw some cheesy bread in there with that order, and hey while we’re waiting for the pizza why not pop some popcorn and make some mac n’ cheese to pass time?

Meat is an integral part of a balanced diet – though of course, a shocking number of Americans overindulge and ignore the “balanced” part of that statement, opting instead for three griddled patties at Edzo’s or two-dozen wings at Buffalo Wild Wings. So integral, in fact, that I don’t think I could live without meat for an extended period of time.

Ode to Rollin'

Worship-worthy homemade potato chips.

Cuisine: Italian/ Sandwiches

Location: 910 Noyes St., Evanston, IL

Price: $

Food: So amazing, you'll cry tears of joy.

Service: The guy behind the counter who always greets me as "bro" is positively awesome.

Overall: God, I really want to go and get a sandwich from there RIGHT NOW.

Website: http://rollin2go.com

It took me a whole year of being at Northwestern to make my way out to Noyes St. for food. Armed with a meal plan bequeathing me a never-ending supply of grilled chicken, sandwiches incorrectly made to order, and whatever the disgusting vegan option of the day was (Quinoa! Seitan! Tempeh!), I ate most of my meals in the dining hall¹. This was made easier by the fact that I lived in a dorm where the dining hall was in the basement, so dinner consisted of knocking on everyone’s door at 5:30² and traipsing down the one flight of stairs to the lovely Elder dining hall.

So, in retrospect, it was entirely reasonable that I would never bother to make the 10-minute walk west³ for an entire school year. Which is a shame, because on Noyes St., one can find the greatest sandwich establishment known to mankind – Rollin’ to Go.

I wouldn’t formulate that opinion until sometime during my junior year, when, finally weaned off of dining plans, I ate out significantly more often, and it was the closest option to where I lived. The very first time I went, it wasn’t exactly a memorable experience – at about 4 PM on Dillo Day, having eaten a few pancakes but having also drunk approximately my body weight in shitty tasteless rum or whatever the alcohol du jour was, I was not only completely inebriated but also so exhausted from waking up at 8 AM and going to three concerts in a row that I passed out at the table waiting for my sandwich.

A girl, a goat, an amazing meal.

Cuisine: Goat (for lack of a better descriptor)

Location: 809 W Randolph St., Chicago, IL

Price: $$$

Food: 4.5*

Service: ****

Overall: 4.5*

Website: http://www.girlandthegoat.com/

Three months. That’s how long the wait is for a reservation at Girl & The Goat. And that’s only if you’re dining at off hours (Sunday night, first and last seating, etc.). Otherwise the very instant seats are released on OpenTable, there’s a long list of people waiting to try the food at Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard’s restaurant who will snatch them up in a heartbeat.

In June, on an impulse, I decided the time was right to make a reservation at Girl & The Goat, for some far off date that might never come about, at least not before the Mayans predicted the end of the world or the rapture befell us yet again. For the duration of summer the thought of dining there was constantly in the back of my mind, a subtle reminder that the days were ticking off before I would be seated at one of the most talked-about, well-hyped, and adoringly-reviewed restaurants in all of Chicago.

Sustainable fine dining in Lakeview: Browntrout, Labor Day Weekend Part I

Cuisine: Contemporary American/ Seafood

Location: 4111 N Lincoln Ave., Chicago, IL

Price: $$ - $$$

Food: ****

Service: 3.5*

Overall: ****

Website: http://www.browntroutchicago.com

The father was in town recently to help me move into my new digs in Lakeview (conveniently located within walking distance of DMK Burger Bar!), and as per the norm I was given the task of planning all our meals for the weekend. The full weekend lineup was as follows:

Friday Dinner: Browntrout in Lakeview

Saturday Dinner: Fogo de Chao in River North (Brazilian steakhouse for my inner glutton)

Sunday Brunch: Publican in Fulton Market (Paul Kahan’s casual-dining locale known best for its pork, shellfish, and beer selection)

Sunday Dinner: Riccardo Trattoria in Lincoln Park (Italian, a must for my dad’s Chicago visits every time)

Let’s just say I finished the weekend very full and sated, with a promise to myself to eat a steady diet of greens for the next few weeks to compensate for the gastronomic whirlwind I had just been through.

Onwards to my review of Browntrout: