Evanston lunch group: July 30 at Pulpo Loco

The Evanston lunch group will try out the newly opened Mexican seafood restaurant, Pulpo Loco, 6619 N. Clark Street in Chicago, on July 30 at 12:30. Let me know who is coming.

Pulpo Loco
6619 N. Clark
Chicago

I plan to join you. Thanks, Robert!

I'm planning to be there.

Cabbagehead and I will be there.

I am scheduled to return to Chicago on July 29, driving from western North Carolina. If I make it (ask the rain gods), I will join you.

Is any more info about this place, such as a menu or website, available? I can't find it with Google or Yelp or by searching LTH.

I had a heart attack on Saturday and just got out of the hospital. I am afraid I will be in no shape to host at Pulpo Loco. I am afraid Catherine and I will be unable to attend.
Robert

Robert,

We hope that it is not something that you ate! We wish you (and Catherine) the very best. Let us know when you would like visitors, bearing encased meats and fried doughnuts.

Should we postpone or hold the event as a tribute to a true trencherman.

How kind of Robert to let the ELG know of his coming absence even as he is just out of the hospital and recuperating from a heart attack!

Pulpo Loco was his choice and he can speak Spanish well enough to communicate with them. Can anyone else do that so we can go ahead? Otherwise, I suggest we postpone.

We look forward to Robert (and Catherine's) rapid return!

EvA and Cabbagehead

By all means, go ahead if you like and report back. If not, we will do this when I am better.

Do we have a consensus on lunch Tuesday? I'm thinking maybe we postpone Pulpo Loco until Robert can join us, and try the brand new Farmhouse, in the Hotel Orrington, instead. Thoughts?

I think that this makes sense. It would be nice to have Robert (and Catherine) at a restaurant they selected. I say yes to Farmhouse. Perhaps the Orrington will have its first worthy restaurant. I am skeptical, but skeptical in an open-minded way.

One review here (from two weeks ago) suggests Farmhouse has potential, although it may have a few startup issues.

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=38113]

I went to the Farmhouse website and found the following:

We are currently open for dinner only beginning at 5pm nightly. In a couple of weeks we shall be opening for lunch and weekend brunch.

One can access the dinner menu, but not the lunch menu. Is Farmhouse open for lunch yet?

If not, perhaps we have a picnic lunch as we sometimes do in July, perhaps even with Robert and Catherine if he can get to a park.

I agree that Pulpo Loco should be postponed, and I guess we will need to wait to try Farmhouse until they are serving lunch. I like the idea of a picnic. Where should we get the food? I love Al's, but the ELG has been there in the last few years, and it is a slow process for them to turn out 5 or 6 sandwiches.

Another possibility, although not one Robert and Catherine could join us for, would be Red Hot Ranch at the Bunny Hutch (in Lincolnwood). Cabbagehead and I ate there the other day and can recommend it. It is discussed in this thread: http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=454957 . It isn't exactly a picnic, but they do have picnic tables outside, which I would recommend over the dull inside seating. Also the ice cream at Oberweis across the street makes for an excellent dessert to follow.

Here is the original LTH Bunny Hutch thread:

Original LTH Bunny Hutch Thread

It makes reference to a classic thread from the Chowhound days, available at Chowhound Bunny Hutch Thread

Harry V.'s post is as follows

Harry V. Aug 26, 2002 12:33 PM This place is called the Bunny Hutch. For reasons unknown, we stopped there a couple of weeks ago. They served the worst hot dog in my life. I'm talking about the sausage itself, which tasted exactly and solely like tepid water, in which it had presumably been sitting for countless hours. Despite the sogginess of the dog itself, the bun was paradoxically sere as the desert. When the bun offers more to the tooth than the sausage, you know you're in trouble. Service was amateurish and achingly slow. A high-school age girl and a grizzled gentleman in his 50s were the staff on hand when we visited, and there was a grand total of one other customer in the premises, another girl of high-school age. She had ordered a milkshake type of thing with other things mixed in, and it took the girl behind the counter at least five full minutes to create the milkshake. It was obvious that there was no place on Earth she less wanted to be (I agreed with her), and nothing on Earth she wanted less to be doing. At long last, the milkshake was brought into being, and the counter girl finally shifted her reluctant attention to the only other customer in the place. She took my order for one hot dog and silently passed it over to the Ernest Borgnine-esque counterman, who had previously been devoting himself entirely to ogling the previous customer and attempting to engage her with his sub-verbal, google-eyed flirtations. And he in fact continued with this pursuit for some time after being notified of my order, which he did not take under consideration until after the previous customer went out the door. The gentleman then proceeded to ignore the written order he had been given, and instead directly asked me what I wanted - as if I had just walked in the door that very moment, as opposed to ten minutes previously. Fans of the spartan Gene and Jude school of Dim Fluorescent Ambience will appreciate the Bunny Hutch's interior, but no one else will, I don't expect. The interior of the food area is ridiculously large, anticipating crowds that may have come once, a long time ago, but which are certain never to be seen again within those four walls. The Bunny Hutch assuredly makes most of its money off of the miniature golf course and batting cages with which its is associated, and clearly does not care at all about serving good food.

But perhaps after 11 years, there is a new GNR-worthy Bunny Hutch, but it is now an outpost of the Red Hot Ranch. And so a little bit of Old Chicago has bitten the dust, of which perhaps there was plenty at the old Bunny Hutch.

I would be happy to go to Bunny Hutch, which for many years was closed.

Forgive me for being old school, but I just actually used the telephone and called Farmhouse - they confirmed that they are open every weekday at 11 am. So that's my recommendation, but I'm willing to go to the Bunny Hutch if everyone else prefers that.

nr706 wrote:Forgive me for being old school, but I just actually used the telephone and called Farmhouse - they confirmed that they are open every weekday at 11 am. So that's my recommendation, but I'm willing to go to the Bunny Hutch if everyone else prefers that.

Glad you called! Farmhouse sounds good to me too.

Farmhouse sounds good to me. Let us think about Bunny Hutch for August, perhaps, if we don't choose Pulpo Loco.

On behalf of Tarte Tatin: She will join us at any locale. She would be happy with Farmhouse. (Her computer and the new site are not getting along.)

GAF wrote:
I would be happy to go to Bunny Hutch, which for many years was closed.

When was the Bunny Hutch closed? Pretty sure it's been open all of the times we've been by in the last 5 years at least.

I made a reservation for six for lunch at 12:30 Tuesday at Farmhouse. It's under the name "Tom."

EvA
Cabbagehead
Tarte Tatin
GAF
nr706
Moetchandon

nr706 wrote:I made a reservation for six for lunch at 12:30 Tuesday at Farmhouse. It's under the name "Tom."

EvA
Cabbagehead
Tarte Tatin
GAF
nr706
Moetchandon

Thanks, Tom! See you tomorrow.

Re Bunny Hutch: I don't know how long they were closed, but they seem to have been closed a) in 2006, and b) whenever I drove by.