Horse

Are there any restaurants in chicago that serve horse meat?

As of the writing of this article last year:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011 ... tcher-shop

No. But eating it is apparently not illegal; just not in our ability to slaughter locally, or in our tastes. Horse carpaccio abroad has been very good, mineraly and grassy as promised. I was just having this discussion with someone about guinea pig as well: as far as we know, not on the menu anywhere, but poke your head into enough grocers and you never know.

This is also a lovely opportunity to plug our annual picnic, where I've enjoyed lion, camel, and kangaroo, thanks to nr706. Who knows what mammal might appear this year.

Fingers crossed on whale.

Santander wrote:This is also a lovely opportunity to plug our annual picnic, where I've enjoyed lion, camel, and kangaroo, thanks to nr706. Who knows what mammal might appear this year.

Don't forget the black bear back in 2010....

hoping for some manatee or bald eagle.

I am sooooo going to disappoint ...

I'm not coming till Panda is on the menu!

Komodo Dragon anyone?

Squirrel?

Let's all just stop worrying about the dolphins and give 'em a munch already. They're in the tuna...why fight it?

mhill95149 wrote:I'm not coming till Panda is on the menu!

Bart Simpson wrote:It's Finger Ling-Ling Good!

This seems relevant: http://petsorfood.com/

Evil but funny!

How about a nice Jerry Taft short rib?

2 fat iguanas free to a good cook.

'Twas llama, by the way.

That was really llama? Delicious! Mr. Pie agrees.

I thought it was made by Llama. I misread the sign, I guess.

I don't think llama (the LTH poster) was even there. The loin of llama was from Czimer's, in Homer Glen.

If you are willing to travel:

Philadelphia chef plans to introduce HORSE MEAT to menu at popular Sicilian restaurant

Philadelphia restaurateur Peter McAndrews is planning to add horse meat to his menu amid a controversy in Europe over the equine fare being sold as beef.

McAndrews, who specializes in Italian cuisine, owns more than a half dozen restaurants in the Philadelphia area including Monsu, Modo Mio, Popolino, La Porta and Paesano's sandwich shops.

He told restaurant blogger Victor Fiorella that he plans to 'embrace horse meat wholeheartedly' at his popular Sicilian spot, Monsu, in the spring.

Or you could just buy a hamburger in Europe:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/feb/15/horsemeat-scandal-the-essential-guide

Going back many years (late 60's, early 70's) there was a Chicago place the Dad used to take me to.
I remember eating lion, bear, whale, buffalo, elk, etc.

Does anyone remember a possible name?
BTW, the whale was awful as I remember.

HI,

Just curious, were you eating whale meat or fat? I have always wanted to try blubber from seeing happy children eating it raw in school movies.

Regards,

As I remember, it was a whale steak. Having just been moved from Cambridge, MA to Chicago (broke my mother's heart to be moved to the Midwest) I was used to decent seafood. The piece I remember (it was very bad, why I remember it) was a steak that took up most of the plate. Very oily. Not tasty. The texture was "thick" and chewy. My parents both tried it and agreed with me. Compare this to the old and departed Jimmy's in Boston where my first 7 birthdays were spent and fresh local fish were on the menu. My only other memories of the place were very nice dark wood everywhere, and one waiter who brought a bread basket to our table with a half eaten roll in it that caused my mother to blow up.
(Nothing close to her tirade that shut down a place by Woodfield where they served her Mahattan style clam chowder claiming it was New England style, and it was done with chicken rather than clams. She was well known in that era as a chef/critic, the police were called, the chain issued an apology, etc.)

There was a report last year about how even Japanese school children dislike the whale meals served to them.

exvaxman wrote:(Nothing close to her tirade that shut down a place by Woodfield where they served her Mahattan style clam chowder claiming it was New England style, and it was done with chicken rather than clams. She was well known in that era as a chef/critic, the police were called, the chain issued an apology, etc.)

But perhaps New England Chicken Chowder has tomatoes and no clams.

Going back many years (late 60's, early 70's) there was a Chicago place the Dad used to take me to.
I remember eating lion, bear, whale, buffalo, elk, etc.

Does anyone remember a possible name?
BTW, the whale was awful as I remember.

Yup. Cafe Bohemia, at Clinton & Adams. Subsequent to that, it was Red Kerr's, and than Ranalli's; the building was razed in 2004. There is now (surprise!) a Starbucks on the site.

There was a Hungarian(?) (possibly Slovakian) place next door to the (in)famous HO in Rogers Park, they often served carribou, bear boar and elk. I think it was the "Golden" something or other. Any recollections? As I recall, It was rather inexpensive for the giant platters of exotic meats.

Sundevilpeg;
Sounds like a decent description, and that may be it, but I remember it being closer to the freeway and very close to a large fishmonger that we could walk to from the place - about a block and a half. I seem to remember that it was just about a block from the freeway. There was a (? Polish) center nearby and it was just as the freeway turned.

Of course, I was very young at the time and I could be wrong.

Sounds like a decent description, and that may be it, but I remember it being closer to the freeway

I-94 is two-tenths of a mile from the Cafe Bohemia address (132 S. Clinton). I recall seeing the signage for it on birthday trips into the city as a child. Can't get much closer than that without being a Tollway Oasis.

sundevilpeg wrote:

Going back many years (late 60's, early 70's) there was a Chicago place the Dad used to take me to.
I remember eating lion, bear, whale, buffalo, elk, etc.
Does anyone remember a possible name?
BTW, the whale was awful as I remember.

Yup. Cafe Bohemia, at Clinton & Adams.

Café Bohemia certainly seems like the obvious answer. That Chicagoist piece linked to above has some interesting information but I'd like to correct and expand on some points.

Classic cocktails, waiters in tuxedos, cream sauces, lion steaks: the glamorous dining days of 1930s Chicago.

Lion was not on Café Bohemia's menu in the 1930s. Back then they served regional game in season; the "circus animal" menu came much later, in the late 1960s.

The original spot was opened by a hunter named Joe Basek, who was determined to introduce authentic game dishes to Chicago diners.

Joseph Basek had nothing to do with introducing game dishes to Chicago diners; he was merely following a long local tradition. Game dinners were an important part of the Chicago cold-weather dining scene in the 19th and early 20th centuries (the abundant supply of local game was already in decline well before the 1930s). I think the seasonal game tradition was particularly strong in Central European restaurants.

Café Bohemia was actually an offshoot of Little Bohemia, a popular Pilsen restaurant that opened around 1920. The cook there would later become Mrs Basek. Like many restaurants of the era, Little Bohemia served meats like bear and moose (in season, of course) in addition to more usual Central European fare. The building still stands in Pilsen and I suspect the façade is much as it was back in those days.

His successor, James Janek, ran the restaurant until it closed in 1986.

Actually Joe Basek's immediate successor was his son Jim, who ran Café Bohemia for a few years before Joe's death in 1952, when Janek took over. It was 15 years into the Janek era that Café Bohemia began serving lion and tiger.

Now, it's possible that all of this exotic fare wasn't actually palatable.

Probably a lot of the exotic meat wasn't very good but in Cafe Bohemia's (and Little Bohemia's) earlier days reviewers often commented favorably (and often with surprise) on the game dishes.

Here's an early matchbook, probably from the 1940s.



Café Bohemia (closed)
138 S Clinton St
Chicago
DEArborn 5117

Exvaxman: In Milwaukee, did you ever go to Frenchy's for sautéed reindeer steak, creamed raccoon or lion, "direct from the veldt," served four ways? No horse, although another copy of the menu features "robust young hippo."



Frenchy's (closed)
1827 E North Av
Milwaukee WI
BRoadway 1-1848

d4v3 wrote:There was a Hungarian(?) (possibly Slovakian) place next door to the (in)famous HO in Rogers Park, they often served carribou, bear boar and elk. I think it was the "Golden" something or other. Any recollections? As I recall, It was rather inexpensive for the giant platters of exotic meats.

That was the Golden Bull, the Hungarian place on Rogers just east of Damen. Wild boar with dumplings followed by strudel, anyone? They were carrying on the tradition into the 1980s, one that's pretty much extinct in Chicago now.

Golden Bull (closed)
7308 N Rogers Av
Chicago
764-1436