Franconello's, Beverly

I had always meant to visit this Beverly mainstay, but had my first real opportunity Friday when a karate match my son competed in at 88th and Ashland ran late and the other neighborhood places went dark on us (about nineish). We felt a bit scruffy entering this white-tablecloth establishment straight from the tournament. But the hostess and wait people treated us very well.

Is there a category of "American-Italian-American"? This place was a throwback to the kinds of places my folks would take us to as kids for "good food" dining experience. There was a wine list (I did not study it) and a stack of vinyl-padded menus at the table. The kids commented on the trompe l'oeil brick wall. The olive oil at the table was subpar (pure, perhaps).

The food: standard red sauce Italian, although my spouse ordered a broiled fish (tilapia) and braised spinach, which she liked. (Funny coincidence -- just yesterday we visited Hollywood Grill, one of kids' favorites, and they too had "tilapia" on the menu -- is there a surplus of this brand on the market? Is it a new name for some garbage fish?) My pasta dish was a bit dreary (overcooked vegetables and a surfeit of chopped-up garlic), but my sons liked their red sauce meals.

The price: $75 for three mains, three beverages and two appetizers. Seemed a bit steep for what we got, but appropriate for the atmosphere.

(Oh, don't forget if you, they have "complementary" valet parking in the lot, meaning you fork over a tip for the guy to drive your car twenty feet into an empty space. Plenty of no-tip street parking nearby, though.)

Franconello's Italian Restaurant
10222 S. Western Ave.
Chicago, IL
773-881-4100

Paul Mollica wrote:The food: standard red sauce Italian, although my spouse ordered a broiled fish (tilapia) and braised spinach, which she liked. (Funny coincidence -- just yesterday we visited Hollywood Grill, one of kids' favorites, and they too had "tilapia" on the menu -- is there a surplus of this brand on the market? Is it a new name for some garbage fish?)

Yeah, tilapia is a newly popular fish. It's also one of the more prominent aquacultured (farm raised) fish in the US, which may account for its newfound popularity (local farmers marketing it heavily to a formerly unsuspecting public).

They're native to africa but are caught all over the world, and most frozen tilapia in the US comes from taiwan, I think. Fresh tilapia usually comes either from farms or, more commonly, south and central america.

It's a very mild, cheap fish, perfect for medium or lower end restaurants. It's a river fish, and so can handle fairly polluted water without getting sick. Of course, that also means the fish you're eating likely came from fairly polluted water...

-ed

Hi,

When I was at Disney World a few years ago, they had a demonstration Tilapia Farm project I was able to tour.

Tilapia is aquacultured here in the United States, which this link from the University of Arizona demonstrates.

IMO tilapia is about as devoid of taste as any fish can be. Of course there seems to be a big market for fish that don't taste like fish. Tilapia are extremely prolific. The American Tilapia Association website has more information than you probably want to know. Cathy2's link is to a lower level of this site.

One interesting factor is that tilapia and hydroponics can be combined using waste water from the tilapia tanks to feed the other crops. This process is particularly attractive for organic hydroponic growers because they have a real problem getting acceptable fertilizers beyond compost tea and manure tea.

ekreider wrote:IMO tilapia is about as devoid of taste as any fish can be.

You wouldn't think so if you had ever tasted a wild-caught tilapia. They taste like what they eat, and what they eat in the wild is NASTY. I agree that the farm-raised fish are bland, but that's infinitely preferable.

Farm-raised catfish is also preferable to muddy-tasting wild catfish, but wild catfish isn't nearly as objectionable as wild tilapia can be.