Are You Being Manipulated By That Menu?
You might think you're going with your gut when you order, but it turns out menus do a whole lot more than just tell us what's available. Once a menu is in a diner's hands, "it can directly influence...
You might think you're going with your gut when you order, but it turns out menus do a whole lot more than just tell us what's available. Once a menu is in a diner's hands, "it can directly influence...
Jane and Michael Stern have achieved fame and status for their Roadfood brand: a dedicated rundown of America's best authentic, regional eats, the kind of foods worth planning an itinerary around. In promoting their new book 500 Things to Eat...
Get on your Food Is Scary hat: Scientific American posits that tapeworms are on the rise — using as anecdotal evidence the case of the be-tapewormed Anthony Franz who claims he swallowed his unfriendly parasite while eating at Shaw's Crab...
Sarah, Sarah, how does your garden grow? Chef Sarah Stegner of Northbrook's Prairie Grass Cafe has decided to show us exactly how, in intimate detail, with her new restaurant garden webcam. Refresh the image to see the wildly different...
It's "location, location, location" when it comes to running a successful in-hotel restaurant. Or so chef Phillip Foss tells Hotels magazine. Foss's resaurant, Lockwood, is in the lobby of the Palmer House Hilton, but he wishes he had direct street...
The New York Times is trying to find a dish containing sriracha — "pan-Asian hot sauce that everyone from recent immigrants to third-generation Midwesterners have come to love" — at restaurants in every state in our fair nation. The Illinois...
Right here, right now, we're calling it: the Middle East the next big culinary muse. In a quick-n-dirty roundup of what chefs are working on, we get Carrie Nahabedian of Naha planning a monthly Armenian feast, Tony Priolo of...
Talk about higher learning: University of Chicago professor Pamela Martin is teaching a yearlong class called “Feeding the City: The Urban Food Chain,” that attempts to quantify vague buzzwords like "sustainability" and "locavorism." Martin's course is based on the...
Every so often, Balut threatens to happen. Someone decides that, hey, this offal craze is carrying along its course, so obviously the next stop is a slow-cooked duck egg that's been fertilized and still has the duck fetus inside. "Mmm,"...
Restaurants & Institutions has announced the winners in their annual Top 100 Independent Restaurants roundup. Don't look for locally-sourced produce and charismatic backyard chefs here — to R&I, the deciding factor is the bottom line. They rank the top dollar...
The New York Times politics blog reports that the Obamas have brought chef Sam Kass with them to the White House to work with current White House chef Criseta Comerford. Kass worked privately for the Obamas in Chicago, and prior...
"Fans of foie say fie, foes of foie say fa-la-la!" So reads the mindblowingly brilliant subject line of an email I just got from a MenuPages tipster, passing along the news that foie gras juggernaut D'Artagnan has come under fire...
An acquaintance of mine threw a gigantic party recently in her home, with food from the catering arm of a fairly well-known Chicago restaurant. We were chattering about the menu a few weeks beforehand, debating the merits of shrimp-on-sticks versus...
It's been a year (okay, a year and five days) since Illinois bars and restaurants went completely smoke-free. And how do we feel? The Trib's Bonnie Miller Rubin has opinions on both sides of the fence — from a...
We've spilled a fair bit of virtual ink on this site poking fun at a particular Sun-Times reviewer in various ways. In particular, lately, we've taken some pleasure in calling out his (to our mind) irrational hatred of communal...
Apparently no one gave us the memo that today is Blog About Popcorn Day, but that is okay, because by writing this post we are participating it. We're also seriously considering firing up the ol' microwave in order to...
Goodness knows we are a huge fan of urban farming — we've been meaning to start a veggie patch on our terrace for literally about three years now, but the thought of hauling all that soil up three flights of...
Something has been nagging at our minds all day ever since we posted about Drew Zanella leaving 312 Chicago. When he's talking about the future of restaurants, he says "That’s the way it’s going if you look at the...
Tanking economy, blah blah blah. What's a helpless citizen to do? Food-related deals abound, and today saw the publication of two very different round-up lists. 312 Dining Diva gave us a selection of special deals offered by local restaurants....
For those of us out there who want to eat dinner at a hard-to-get table, there are a couple of options: Make endless phonecalls to a reservationista, or wish and pray that one of your friends lands a table....
