There’s something special about a place where the owner has his phone number printed on every receipt. Most times I’ve eaten here, I’ve seen the owner, Glenn, chatting up customers or seeing about the restaurant. It’s his place, his name on the door, and his phone number on the receipt. Continue reading “Eat Here: Glenn’s Diner, 1820 W. Montrose, Chicago”
Hypothetical situation: You’re a Filipino American, in your 20s or 30s, and you live on your own. You are sick, can’t seem to keep anything down other than Saltines and need some comfort food. You are hankering for your mom’s cooking, naturally. You’re probably wishing she were there to take care of you, poor baby, but she’s a few states away. It’s likely you haven’t gone to the grocery store recently, between your gallivanting and getting sick, so you have to rely on pantry items or what is still stomach-viable in your refrigerator to conjure up something that resembles nutritious food. Besides that, you don’t have a lot of energy so whatever you cook needs to be relatively easy. Put that package of ramen down – we’re not desperate.
I present: Lugaw. Continue reading “How to Make Lugaw, a Filipino Rice Porridge”
I got three meal invitations for this past weekend that I could not refuse. I don’t mean that in a Godfather way.
Restaurant Week in Chicago was in full effect and I wasn’t intending on joining the Open Table RSVP scuttle, but a girlfriend with whom I hadn’t seen in too long texted, so I accompanied her to Boka. Another girlfriend invited me to be the fourth on a reservation for Girl and the Goat, a place I’d been jonesing to return to enjoy a full meal. And finally, I took up a suggestion for Sunday post-church brunch at a new-to-me Ethiopian place, Ras Dashen. Interestingly, of these three, the humble, least-hyped, least expensive restaurant is the joint whose food most impressed me. Continue reading “Chicagoings-on, Food: For He Who is the Least Among You”
