Ann Fisher wrote:The corned beef, on the other hand . Why, oh why, do people not only serve lean corned beef but actually brag about it? I suppose the ladies who lunch after shopping at Nordstroms and Bloomingdales favor the lean, but it sure left me yearning for
Jake's. What a waste.

This is one of the reasons I always order pastrami. You don't always get good pastrami, but nobody ever brags about lean pastrami. The Bagel serves decent pastrami, not remarkable, but much better than the corned beef.

I also really like their Rumanian eggplant.

The Bagel Restaurant & Deli
www.bagelrestaurant.com
3107 N. Broadway St., Chicago, 773/528-7990
50 Old Orchard Shopping Center, Golf Road & Skokie Blvd., Skokie, 847/677-0100

Conflicted as to where to have something to eat late-afteroon today, I opted for What's Cooking!, which is located about 1.5 miles from where I live. I hopped aboard a #11 bus and off I went. What's Cooking! has become the comfortable standby when I can't make up my mind where to go, or when I don't want to venture far from home. After 3-years of regular visits, I'm on a first-name basis with Gus the owner, his sisters and some of the waitstaff - and comfort does count for something. I've also found that the restaurant gives good value for what it charges.

I wasn't too hungry, so I opted for the small bowl of soup and a 1/2 sandwich. I've come to very much like the chicken soup with kreplah, so that was my soup choice, and I went for the lean corned beef 1/2 sandwich to accompany it.

The kreplah's are large, and well-filled with minced/finely-ground brisket. Though I love the taste of the meat filling, the kreplah itself is typically a bit doughy - but today's were about right. The 1/2 sandwich is large - Jewish deli-style classic - and I like to remove the meat from the bread and eat it by itself - with a large side of horseradish. What's Cooking!'s "lean" corned beef is the best I've eaten in Chicago; the large helping was flavorful.

On weekend late-afternoons and evenings, orders at the restaurant are accompanied by a complimentary plate of small scoops of egg salad and chopped chicken livers. Add to the salad/livers the large basket of breads and the "small" soup and 1/2 sandwich menu item is quite a handful (for me).

The price of the meal was $7.95 + tax and tip. I like the fresh-brewed iced tea at What's Cooking!, and bottomless glasses of it cost $1.85. My check for the meal came to just under $10, plus tip.

After the meal I walked home, through the Sculpture Park that runs parallel to McCormick Boulevard and the North Branch sanitary canal - the venture out made for a nice couple-hour journey.

Below are several photos. The restaurant photos appear dark because I didn't use the flash, but, rather, opted for the natural light provided by "spots" from the ceiling.

Chicken Soup With Kreplah and "Sides"



Corned Beef Sandwich - a "1/2"



Sculpture Park




What's Cooking!
6181 North Lincoln Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60659
(773) 583-3050

I was in the neighborhood of What's Cooking yesterday around lunchtime, so stopped in to try the kreplach soup. I liked it, and was impressed with one aspect of it in particular. It would seem to me that from a civil engineering viewpoint, a kreplach that large, holding that much meat inside, would have to be pretty "sturdy" to be up to the task. The kreplachs at The Bagel (a place I love) are this way--somewhat thick-walled and slightly resistant to the spoon. But at What's Cooking, the dough, while doing a superb job of holding in a generous amount of ground meat, had a tenderness and delicacy that seemed at odds with the mission. I was impressed.