TOC, Tribune, and CS Dining: Everybody Loves The Publican

Thanks to some now-it’s-up!-now-it’s-down! internet yesterday, you did not receive your regularly scheduled dose of media review roundups. How did you ever survive? So, kids, put on your Thursday hats (shh, we won’t tell anyone) and enjoy this double-scoop of TOC and Tribune recappery. Plus a bonus peek at CS magazine!

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, venerable newspaper
• The headlining review here is a bit of a doozy: Phil Vettel visits The Most Important Restaurant In The History Of Chicago, a.k.a. The Publican. Vettel’s review opens with an interesting phrase, which I will probably come back to in some screed or rant or whatever on the state of restaurant reviewing: “within the parameters of what it wants to be, it’s spectacular.” The summary judgment taken care of, the rest of the review is a nice rehash of information that those of us who live on the internet already know: oysters, pig products, blah blah blah deliciousness.

• Here’s something I love: Onomatopoeia. It’s used in Eric Gwinn’s boxing match (get it?) of cardboard-box-borne lunch meals from KFC and Taco Bell. He declares KFC the winner, though doesn’t give it too much explanation. Still, it is a newspaper article that is written like a blog post, and for that we can do nothing but hold it close and whisper in its ear how much we love it.

• Vettel again, pitching “Taste of the Aztec World,” the restaurant promotion that goes hand-in-hand with the Field Museum’s (super-awesome) exhibit “The Aztec World.” It runs this Sunday through the 17th, and participating restaurants will serve Aztec-inspired flavors and dishes.

TIME OUT CHICAGO, esteemed weekly magazine
• Mike! Gebert! Is! Everywhere! Here he’s mapping out the best Middle Eastern eats to be had in Bridgeview, the southwestern suburb that I always think is a neighborhood.

• David Tamarkin reviews Oak Park’s Briejo (211 Harrison St, Oak Park, 708 848 2743), where he finds the menu unadventurous (dated haute standbys — goat cheese, mango) but on the whole quite delicious. Also the cheesecake (pictured, above) looks to us like nothing so much as a chicken giving the stinkeye.

CS MAGAZINE, monthly publication with a weird website
• The ludicrously prolific Mike Nagrant gets his review on (warning: weird quasi-PDF page) with a take on The Publican, where he stumbles onto a dirty trick: the (deliciously) salty, fatty food simply demands copious beer. But is that necessarily a bad thing? Like Vettel (and, you know, the rest of the universe) he declares The Publican to be a hit.

[Photo: the cheesecake at Briejo, Kate Gross/TOC]

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TOC, Tribune, and CS Dining: Everybody Loves The Publican