will do..I reccomend that one as it has quite few teams present as well as many big names on the bbq circuit

List those international dishes you want offered in metropolitan Chicago, but which aren't.

My top three are from:

Malaysia, laksa (coconut curry soup)
Portugal, bacalhau (salt cod)
South Africa, piri-piri chicken (peppered rotisserie akin to Peruvian-style chicken)

I would love to see somewhere offering rijsttafel...I came back from a trip to the Netherlands all excited to find a Chicago restaurant serving this....and 4 years later I am still looking!

The closest place for rijsttafel is in Madison, WI - Bandung. Give them a call for their scheduled dinners. Make a weekend of it, and go to Lao Laan-Xang for Laotian food, and the Dane Co. farmers market, too.

You can eat yourself absolutely bowlegged up there. . .

Suburbian wrote:List those international dishes you want offered in metropolitan Chicago, but which aren't.

My top three are from:

Malaysia, laksa (coconut curry soup)
Portugal, bacalhau (salt cod)
South Africa, piri-piri chicken (peppered rotisserie akin to Peruvian-style chicken)

Not exactly a go-any-time-and-just-order option, but I had the latter two items on your list at an X-marx junket last summer. X-marx, in general, does a nice job putting together "global" dishes that aren't readily available here.

Suburbian wrote:Portugal, bacalhau (salt cod)

Are you referring to the ingredient, salt cod, or to one of the many recipes that use it? If the ingredient, there are a number of places to get it here.

itsybitsy wrote:I would love to see somewhere offering rijsttafel...I came back from a trip to the Netherlands all excited to find a Chicago restaurant serving this....and 4 years later I am still looking!

Not necessarily rijsttafel as you likely had it in the Netherlands, but these guys do regulary scheduled dinners in Chicago
http://www.thericetable.com/

Agreed that you can't get a decent bacalhau dish around Chicago (we desperately need a good Portuguese restaurant, or a good ex-Portuguese-colony one, for that matter).

Don't know if it's what you're looking for, but Chef Luciano's on Cermak has a "chicken piri-piri" - can't remember if it's rotisserie...

Suburbian wrote:List those international dishes you want offered in metropolitan Chicago, but which aren't.

My top three are from:

Malaysia, laksa (coconut curry soup)
Portugal, bacalhau (salt cod)
South Africa, piri-piri chicken (peppered rotisserie akin to Peruvian-style chicken)

Bun Cha Hanoi and Northern Vietnamese-style Pho

Goetta (German origin that is popular in the greater Cincinnati area)

Suburbian wrote:List those international dishes you want offered in metropolitan Chicago, but which aren't.

South Africa, piri-piri chicken (peppered rotisserie akin to Peruvian-style chicken)

HI,

Once upon a time, Piri-piri and other South African foods were offered at the food court at the Thompson Center. I remember going there following a Monca Eng Foods of the World column. I still have the punch card, buy 6 get 1 free with only one punch.

Regards,

Kennyz wrote:

Suburbian wrote:Portugal, bacalhau (salt cod)

Are you referring to the ingredient, salt cod, or to one of the many recipes that use it? If the ingredient, there are a number of places to get it here.

If you are looking for brandade (the whipped puree of bacalhau), Avec does a good version (though I haven't been to Portugal and so don't know how similar Avec's version is to what you might find there).

Darren72 wrote:

Kennyz wrote:

Suburbian wrote:Portugal, bacalhau (salt cod)

Are you referring to the ingredient, salt cod, or to one of the many recipes that use it? If the ingredient, there are a number of places to get it here.

If you are looking for brandade (the whipped puree of bacalhau), Avec does a good version (though I haven't been to Portugal and so don't know how similar Avec's version is to what you might find there).

Yeah, you can get the ingredient and various dishes made with salt cod all over Chicago, and in Portugal there have to be literally hundreds of preparations that use it. Not sure what Suburbian or foolosopher are referring too - perhaps they'll clarify.

Difficult to find bacalao away from the coast. Up in Boston, this seafood delicacy is everywhere, fresh from the wooden box.

But seriously, salt cod is a staple in many cuisines. It's particularly typical in the northen Spanish provinces, whose culinary traditions greatly influenced much of the Spanish Caribbean's cuisine. As a result, very many Puerto Rican and Cuban places feature bacalao dishes that can be quite similar to the Portuguese preps.

For such food-specific searches, Menupages.com's find-a-food feature is fun and often works well. In addition to Mercat a la Planxa, the search for bacalao yields many Purto Rican and Cuban spots. You'll see it most often served in a sofrito-based creole sauce in these places. It's also a very common item in Greek restaurants (though it tends to be fried and can denote fresh, as opposed to rehydrated salted cod). And while a staple item of many Italian kitchens, it's rarer on Chicago Italian restaurant menus (as baccala). Tufano's has a good version on Fridays. And you can always make your own. Caputo's carries especially good whole and half dried cod from the North Atlantic. Don't know, but would expect Graziano's to carry a very good example. NB: a lot of what is sold in Latino markets now as bacalao is not cod.

http://chicago.menupages.com/restaurant ... -cuisines/

PS, this reminded me of Xoco's friday special bacalao torta, which sounds great.

Jeff -- Graziano's often does have it and at a very good price for this part of the country. Conte di Savoia on Taylor often has it and always during Lent and for Christmas Eve... And as you mentioned, I saw Caputo's had it of late but I'm not sure if they have it all year round or just for Lent and Christmas...

Prices are generally several dollars higher here than in Jersey...

A

Haven't checked lately, but it's almost almost in a large box in front of the deli counter in back at Lincolnwood Produce as well.

This thread caused me to look up a fact which surprised me. I was going to say that Jewish cuisine (for lack of a precise definition, the cuisine available at places like The Bagel, Manny's, and Eleven City Diner) is underrepresented in Chicago. Not unrepresented, but underrepresented. Since the demise of so many places on Dempster decades ago, this has seemed especially true.

My feeling was predicated on the size of Chicago's Jewish population being large in proportion to the number of Jewish-cuisine restaurants. But I just looked it up, and the Chicago Metro Jewish population is not that large! Around 300,000, or just 3% of the total. I come from Baltimore, where Jews make up around 10% of the population, and have always just assumed since moving here in 1971 that the percentage in Chicago was at least that if not more. But it isn't.

Happy as I am with the Jewish-food restaurants that we do have, I'd still like there to be more of them and it seems weird to me that there aren't. But based on the facts, we probably have about as many of them as the population merits!

I would love to find a Kurdish restaurant in the Chicagoland area.

Years ago I went to a place in St. Paul, MN (Babani's) - and really enjoyed it. Haven't found anything like it since.

Does anyone know of another place?

South Indian cuisine. Most restaurants feature north indian style cooking.

I think there are alot of underrepresented cuisines and dishes in Chicago. There still is more room I think for the growth of food in this city, even good cheap food. If food trucks get approved that could open up a lot of interesting things.

I see a lot of food on the TV channels we don't have here or have in limited quantity.

I think there is more room for growth in these economic times for cheaper places or medium priced food.

I was under the impression that we were OK, relative to other US cities, in terms of South Indian spots. Not so?

I'm waiting for a place that specializes in indigenous Antarctic cuisine.

duppie wrote:

itsybitsy wrote:I would love to see somewhere offering rijsttafel...I came back from a trip to the Netherlands all excited to find a Chicago restaurant serving this....and 4 years later I am still looking!

Not necessarily rijsttafel as you likely had it in the Netherlands, but these guys do regulary scheduled dinners in Chicago
http://www.thericetable.com/

I just noticed that The Map Room is having a beer/food pairing tonight with Metropolitan beers and The Rice Table's Indonesian fare. I live right nearby and will likely swing by to check it out.

-Dan

riddlemay wrote:Happy as I am with the Jewish-food restaurants that we do have, I'd still like there to be more of them and it seems weird to me that there aren't. But based on the facts, we probably have about as many of them as the population merits!

I agree with this sentiment, and particularly lament the even more limited number of places to get Jewish food beyond deli fare (by which I mean dishes like schav, cholent, helzel, kugels, gefullte kalbsbrust and other Ashkenazi dishes).

I suspect that the paucity of Jewish restaurants has less to do with the level of the Jewish population -- than with the fact that Jews tend to urge their children to take up professional careers rather than go into restaurant work. Not that you have to be Jewish to either cook or appreciate Jewish food, but except for bagels, deli fare and matzo-ball soup, you just don't see Ashkenazi cuisine presented to mainstream diners. Although Chicago boasts a number of chefs who are Jewish, few of them promote their Jewish heritage in their cooking. Nobody is taking his bubbe's dishes and reinventing them the way many Italian and Mexican chefs have done. (Chicago's most publicized "Jewish chef" has no personal Jewish "heritage," being a convert, and her specialty is more in making mainstream contemporary fare kosher.)

While it opened to mixed LTH reviews and isn't in my rotation, Brad Rubin at 11 City bucks this trend, no? I was impressed by a bit on the place that's in rotation on one of the food channels now. Good attitude, house cured and steamed corned beef, and mom makes the motzoh balls every morning. I also see the place is amazingly well reviewed by travellers and the local student population. Not Katz's or even Manny's but it's a safe bet and appears to work hard at the deli/diner hybrid (recognize this qualification takes it out of LAZ's point).

Re South Indian:

There's Udupi Palace and Mysore Woodlands (and to some extent Arya Bhavan and Uru Swati) in Chicago, plus a couple of others in the burbs. Not exactly a glut, but not unrepresented either.

The South Indian restaurants are very few and far between and do not serve a wide variety that is representative of the cuisine. I think Udapi Palace serves only vegetarian cuisine. There's a lot more to South Indian food than that.

Ah, I got you. As far as I know, the only place for Keralan food (aside from some dishes at the above places) is Malabar Catering and Sizzle India is Andhra, I believe. (Do both of these places even still exist?)

Okay, that merits the official "Underrepresented" stamp.

I haven't been. I've heard of a Kerala caterer somewhere up north but its not a restaurant.

It would be nice if someone from Anyetsang's Little Tibet could send an exploratory party up 65 from Bloomington to scout out a location here. (I know a nice spot on Broadway where a fine representative of Laotian cuisine used to be).