Good Diners around Old Town and Evanston?

I drive back and forth to Old Town (my home) andto Evanston (my bf's place) every weekend. We are both new to these areas of Chicagoland and would like to know if anyone can recommend a good diner in either areas? We've already tried several around Evanston (Le Peep, Clarke's, Golden Olympic, Lucky Platter) and we tend to go for places like Golden Olympic but prefer a better quality of food. Lucky Platter was pretty good but the menu seemed somewhat limited. We just went to Zephyr's the other night and we like the quality of the food, the only problem is the distance. I'm sure there may be some diners that we haven't discovered yet, can anyone recommend a few places to try?

Thanks!

Guylian

Lucky Platter is one of those places people seem to love but darn if I can see why. Maybe it wins on a total funky atmosphere thing, and I can accept that, but I've never had a meal that went above B- there.

Probably the best nearby strip for Greek coffeeshop type places-- which is what you tend to have instead of diners in areas built after the 60s or so-- is in Skokie (I think) along Touhy, west of the Edens. Jack's and other places along there all do a pretty decent job with the usual stuff.

In the city, you're not exactly close to, but not insanely far from either, Pauline's at 1754 W. Balmoral, which has a Lucky Platter like ambience and pretty good breakfast-- like LP, perhaps overrated, but in Pauline's case I'd consider the truth and the reputation to be more than distant relations.

I was not impressed by breakfast at the Lucky Platter, though I thought lunches and dinners were somewhat better.

If you like a Golden Olympic type of place, give the nearby Sherman Restaurant a try. It's not great, but overall I prefer it to the Golden Olympic. (Breakfast at the Golden Olympic gave me indigestion more than once.)

Sherman Restaurant
1740 Sherman Avenue
Evanston, IL 60201
847-328-2050

In Old Town have you tried any of the Nookie's incarnations? They serve a pretty solid breakfast as well as lunch.

I'm not a big fan of Sherman restuarant, a little bit more of Lucky Platter, i like their thick cut bacon, and really like their apricot pasties.

A little bit further afield from evanston bbut both pretty good breeakfast options are

A&T Grill
7036 N. Clark
Chicago (Rogers Park)
(773) 274-0036

Pretty standard breakfast house, but done well with a couple nods to mexican neighborhood (chorizo is available for example)

or a little west in skokie

Sparky's Snack Stop
3624 Oakton
Skokie
(847) 673-1002

I don't think this is affiliated with the sparky's in the city, kind of your basic almost classic grill catering to the folks who work in the mini industrial area nearby as well as a couple of folks who are going early to the driving range across the street.