Brunch in North Shore: Walker Brothers Pancake House

Cuisine: American/ Brunch
Location: 153 Green Bay Rd., Wilmette, IL
Price: $$
Food: ****
Service: ****
Overall: ****
 
There’s something just so comforting about brunch – it starts with basic staples, like French toast or pancakes if you’ve got a sweet tooth, or eggs and potatoes if you’re more of a savory type. Add in proteins like bacon and sausage, throw in a slice of toast, some OJ and coffee (or Bloody Marys and Mimosas, if you’re in the drinking mood), and you’ve got a meal that is almost impossible to mess up. It’s so easy to you can whip up all of the basics in your own kitchen, yet the communal nature of fighting off a killer hangover to drown the poor decisions of last night in greasy food like syrup on a stack of pancakes never fails to bring people out for the tried and true tradition of Sunday brunch.

In the immediate Northwestern area alone, both Clark’s and Le Peep serve brunch food within walking distance of campus – yet that doesn’t stop hordes of college kids and Evanston residents alike from flocking to Walker Brothers Pancake House on Sunday morning.

XLB in Taipei: Din Tai Fung/ 鼎泰豐

Cuisine: Chinese/ Dim Sum
Location: No. 194, Sec. 2, Xin Yi Rd., Taipei, Taiwan
Price: $$
Food: *****
Service: ****
Overall: *****


Every time I have a friend soliciting food suggestions in Taipei, the very first place I point them to is always one and the same – Din Tai Fung, so they have a chance to experience the world famous Xiao Long Baos (XLBs).

Just how good is this place? The Hong Kong branch received a Michelin star in 2009, and the original Taipei store was named one of the ten best gourmet restaurants in the world by NY Times in 1993. All this, for making the most amazing XLBs known to mankind.

Grilled Meat in Taipei: Ying Bao/ 鷹堡

Cuisine: Meat
Location: No. 5, Lane 160 Sung Chiang Rd., Taipei, Taiwan
Price: $$$$
Food: 3.5*
Service: ****
Overall: 3.5*


Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a carnivore? To look at the lush green foliage around and think, well that looks absolutely disgusting, if it’s not the flesh of an animal I have no intention of putting it in my mouth? That, apparently, is the basis on which Ying Bao operates.

I first heard about this place over the summer, but ran out of time to make it to the restaurant. When asked what kind of food Ying Bao served, my dad’s response was simply, “meat.” So when the opportunity struck to dine here for dinner with some family friends, I eagerly anticipated the experience.

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.