First of all, no KPang or MEng? Maybe they’re on vacation…oh, never mind, they’re busy Stew-ing. Anyway, the rest of the staff spent the week romping through Chicago’s various lounges, where the party atmosphere usually trumps the food, even if not by much.
Mr. Vettel checks in on Alhambra Palace and Room 21 finding the Prohibition-era kitsch emporium to be serving better food more competently than the Middle Eastern-themed kitsch emporium. Both, however, are worth at least a look. Terry Armour seems to like Martini Park, where people in their 30s and 40s don’t have to look totally lame pretending they’re cool at a North Side bar to enjoy a cocktail (and the noshing’s pretty decent, too).
Maintaing this edgy theme is Susan Taylor’s article on cooking with actual fire, like people apparently did before microwaves. Can you even imagine! But a live flame, and especially its embers, can do a wonder for steak, as the people at Wildfire attest.
And finally, Bill Daley touches on an issue that should have wine marketers everywhere on edge. Apparently, not only do men and women like different wines, each gender thinks they know what the other gender wants in terms of wine, and is wrong! All this according to a sample of six sommeliers, who all probably know each other. The men picked an ostensibly feminine wine and chose that as the likely favorite of the women, while the women picked an ostensibly masculine wine and chose that as the likely favorite of the men. Actually, we’re no longer sure what conclusion you could draw at all from this, except that the bottle that the women chose was three times more expensive than the bottle that the men chose. Good job, ladies!
p.s. This site redesign is all well and good, but it keeps crashing our Firefox, especially when we have multiple tabs open. Which is most of the time. Thank you.
Alhambra Palace [MenuPages]
Alhambra Palace [Official Site]
Room 21 [MenuPages]
Room 21 [Official Site]
Martini Park [MenuPages]
Martini Park [Official Site]
Wildfire [MenuPages]
Wildfire [Official Site]
Serving up eye candy [Tribune]
A happy hour with fellow grown-ups at Martini Park [Tribune]
Quest for fire in the kitchen can yield sweet results [Tribune]
The age-old battle between the sexes extends to wine, too [Tribune]
