HarvesTime Foods on Lawrence

Just thought I'd post a quickie about HarvesTime. Ever since their expansion they've had some great hot food for take out.

On Fridays during Lent they've been featuring fried fish, Caldo de Camarron (Shrimp Soup) and one of my favs, Tortas de Camarron. The tortas are not the traditional sandwich using the bolillo bread. These tortas are egg batter mixed with ground shrimp powder and deep fried. They are about the size of a hamburger patty and served in a red chile broth with nopales (cactus). I've never seen these on a menu in Chicago nor in Mexico. I thought I'd never see these again after Pops passed.

Last week the girlfriend bought me Chicharron en Chile Verde con Nopales (pork skin simmered in green sauce with nopales). This was outstanding! I've posted a picture of this dish. The chile verde was a tasty blend of tomatillo sauce with a hint of jalapeno to just give a wee bit of tang. As Pops used to say you can always add heat, you can't take it out. This should appeal to those that don't care for extra spicy.

I'm not sure if HarvesTime follows a menu of serving the same dishes on the same day each week. I think the g.f. purchased the chicharron on a Thursday.

The chicharron sells for $4.99/pound as does the tortas de camarron.

Daily you can get a roast chicken leg and thigh for $1.25; $2.50 if you want garlic potatoes with it.

One word of warning - if you go after 5pm don't expect to find food, they seem to sell out early.

Buen Provecho!

Dear Orgullo de Mexico,

Condolences on your father's passing. I remember your previous posts about his health problems, and I know this hasn't been an easy time for you.

But thank you for the post about the prepared foods available at HarvesTime. It sounds like they are doing more than just the usual kind of grocery store offerings! The chicharron sounds great.

I've only had tortas de camaron once, and I'll mention the restaurant here since you haven't seen them on restaurant menus. El Tecolote on 26th Street in La Villita had (this was 2 years ago) a Friday Lenten special of a cup of fava bean soup, two tortas de camaron in the salsa you describe, with nopales and rice, and a big serving of capirotada (bread pudding) for dessert, all for $6.50.

It'd be interesting to know about other dishes that are prepared especially during cuaresma/Lent.

Thanks again for the information about HarvesTime.

Best,
Amata

El Tecolote
3519 W 26th St
Chicago, IL 60623
(773) 277-1490

I LOVE Harvestime. I live in the neighborhood and we shop for most of our produce there. There are some things they don't stock (shallots, for example) but the prices are great and it's a much easier place to shop than your regular Jewel, Wholefoods, etc. and they have some very interesting products and prepared foods.

Don't miss:
The bulgarian feta cheese.
The fresh mozzerella
The skirt steak (aracherra?). They'll trim and press it for you so that it marinates and grills up nicely.

Tortitas de camaron show up regularly during Lent, and may be found in various taquerias as a taco filling or a stand-alone item. Thanks for mentioning them, Orgullo, as I'd forgotten to look out for them this Cuaresma...

HarvesTime Foods
2632 W. Lawrence
(between Talman and Washtenaw)
773-989-4400

-ramon

count me as another big HarvesTime fan! I'm happy to see it mentioned on LTH.

I particularly enjoy the lovely creamy French feta, which is also fairly inexpensive (along with everything else there)

to jakekate: I once purchased a big styrofoam tray of shallots there - probably almost a pound. Very cheap of course. It's the only time I ever saw shallots there, though I always look for them.

I'm in HarvesTime at least two or three times a week, picking up produce and meat. They usually have milk on sale as well, and I make it a point to pick up a can of an imported soda I've never had before - I'm working through my last grab of pineapple soda right now. It's a fantastic place to have in the neighborhood, and I do a lot more cooking since I have the variety of their stock.

Daily you can get a roast chicken leg and thigh for $1.25; $2.50 if you want garlic potatoes with it.

They always look great but I still haven't pulled the trigger on picking one up, sometimes because I've already stopped at Nhu Lan or I've already had lunch, but perhaps tomorrow would be a good test run. I can pick up some more feta and olives (in the freakin' huge jars!) at the same time.

oh this is so exciting to me as i will be moving into a new place right around the corner from there in about a month. good to know they have hot food in addition to a good selection of groceries!

I can't believe I've been such a dope! I've lived just down the road from Harvestime for 2 years and had never been there until today! The produce was gorgeous and a fraction of the price of the big grocery stores! A beautiful container of grape tomatoes for $0.99! Kiwi's at 3 for $0.98. A large variety of shiny, pretty apples, pears, citrus fruits, onions, etc.

I can't believe I've been missing out for so long!

Don't forget about the Goya fruit purees in the frozen foods department -- mango, soursop, blackberry, mamey, and more. These are ideal for mixed drinks or batidas.

I love Harvest Time and shop there often. I would suggest walking if possible or taking a bus or using street parking, their parking lot is usually a nightmare.

chicagogrrl wrote:I would suggest walking if possible or taking a bus or using street parking, their parking lot is usually a nightmare.

I try to stay away from the lot at all costs... It seems to take forever to manipulate your way out of the parking lot when you actually find parking. I usually utilize street parking. In addition to the fresh produce and deli counters that have already been raved about, I enjoy the bulk candy, especially the chocolate dipped pretzels, and hugungous wafer selection. The one thing that I enjoy most about Harvestime is strolling the aisles and leaving with items that I had no intention of buying but looked just interesting enough that I needed to have.

I live around the corner from this place and the produce is always top notch and much cheaper that the competitors. I love that there is butcher!

Make sure not to miss:
Tortillas- always fresh
Pita- delivered fresh almost daily if not daily
Fresh baked bread (usually still hot around 7pm when I shop YUM)
Homemade ceviche
Feta
Dried fruit

Make sure not to miss:
Tortillas- always fresh

I cannot remember the brand name, but they sell one type of corn tortilla that comes wrapped in wax paper with red lettering. I have found that when I shop at Harvest Time in the morning, these tortillas are still warm. They are fantastic. I have been known to nibble on a tortilla or two in the car before I get home. Keep in mind that they are definitely a use-the-day-you-buy them product. They dry out quickly.

friendly foodie wrote:Make sure not to miss:

I just discovered the homemade chorizo and have been making chorizo omelets for the last three days. It's sweet, beautifully fragrant, and nowhere near as dry or greasy or spicy as the chorizo I usually get at most restaurants. I would love a little more kick to it, but it's really, really good.

Also, I sometimes go to the North Center Jewel for some of the things I can't get at HarvesTime and laugh hysterically at the produce there. How much for garlic? How much for limes and lemons? How much are onions and peppers? You've gotta be kidding me.

The inability to get everything I need is the only drawback to Harvest Time. It certainly is remarkable how much more expensive and generally lower in quality the produce at Jewel is in comparison. I also really like bread selection at HarvesTime. The ability to go next door and grab a banh mi to eat on the way home is also a major plus.

I believe they are essentially the same store that is called Edgewater Produce which is across the street from the Jewel Lot on Clark (about a block south of Bryn Mawr). I'm sure they are owned by the same people. About a third the size and almost all meat and produce at the same low prices. They stopped making bread but still a great place. The Jewel lot used to have an entrance opposite the store and the area around the entrance was always filled with cars. Jewel closed it but I'll bet Edgewater sells more produce than the Jewel. It's better and cheaper and they don't let old produce sit around - they're always refreshing the bins (both places).

Im a big fan of harvesTime. They have a great selection of hot sauces, all the ingredients you could need to make anything Mexican and the fresh prepared food always looks real good. I was in there yesterday browsing around and they had quarter cuts of baby lamb, leg all the way up to the ribs that looked really good. I think it was $5.49/lb. Produce is always on point there as well.

schenked wrote:

Make sure not to miss:
Tortillas- always fresh

I cannot remember the brand name, but they sell one type of corn tortilla that comes wrapped in wax paper with red lettering. I have found that when I shop at Harvest Time in the morning, these tortillas are still warm. They are fantastic. I have been known to nibble on a tortilla or two in the car before I get home. Keep in mind that they are definitely a use-the-day-you-buy them product. They dry out quickly.

Ah, but when they dry out is when you get to have chilaquiles for breakfast! (At least that's how it works in my house.)

We live within easy walking distance of HarvesTime and shop there on a frequent but limited basis. I find that the produce and meat selection and prices, except for some specials, are not great compared to the Cermak Produce store on Kedzie. HarvesTime is better for Greek and balkan foods. Recently we noticed that they have been stocking some Labriola breads in addition to the Victor D'Amato breads.

The selection of hot prepared foods has varied all over the place, particularly on weekends. Last Saturday they had both lamb and beef barbacoa. The cheese and spinach pies looked halfway decent in contrast to the usual gray-green limp appearance. However, Hellas Bakery, the Greek pastry bakery diagonally across the Talman-Lawrence intersection, has really good cheese and spinach pies albeit at a higher price.

I notice that several people posting in this thread took quite a while to discover HarvesTime while shopping at the pathetic Jewel on Lincoln. Maybe these same people should venture across the Chicago River to Kedzie with its great selection of stores and restaurants. So many people seem to move to Lincoln Square and keep looking back toward the lake when there are so many culinary delights west of Western Avenue.

Cermak Produce
4234 North Kedzie

A bit of a non-sequitur, but I must say, my limited experience with the Spinach Pies and CHeese Pies at the Hellas Bakery was enough to convince me that there is no reason to remove the limits from my experience of the Hellas Bakery. In other words... they were gross, soggy and tough, all at once. In fact, as the lovely Kerensa reminds me, everything we bought at that bakery in our one shot that day was sub-par, bland and sog-tastic. Was this a one-time lapse? Should I give Hellas another shot? Do tell!

I like the spinach pies from Al Khaimeh alot - a little funkier than from the Middle Easter Bakery - more zatar in the spinach, i think. For a cheese pie ... I dunno!

My one experience at Hellas convinced me to never go back again. I had a piece of baklava that was quite bad--dry and tasteless--and I got some sort of donut that was almost inedible. Worst of all, I was charged something like $5 for the privilege (there was no price tag on the donut, but I wasn't expecting it to be more than $1 or so, so I didn't ask).

Seth Zurer wrote:Was this a one-time lapse? Should I give Hellas another shot? Do tell!

nope. The spinach cheese pie I tried there was soggy, tough and flavorless. Truly gross. Sounds more like ekreider's experience was atypical.

I've got a question about Harvestime.

Before I get to it, though, let me just say at the outset that I love this place. The prices and selection of fresh produce are great. The diversity of ethnic products and good old American standards is amazing.

But I'd really like to know what the smell is that comes from the meat area. The smell isn't always there. But when it is, it can be incredibly strong and off-putting (though maybe it wouldn't be if I knew what it was). The smell vaguely reminds me of a smell from a meat market I visited once in Mexico, which leads me to think that perhaps it comes from a dish or food item that is prepared on site. I don't think the smell is from something that is rotting.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

I have a vague idea of what you're talking about - it's an odd scent, but nothing that ever made me worry. I always assumed it was just some sort of chemical cleanser / cleaning product.

Is that what you're talking about?

whiskeybent wrote:I have a vague idea of what you're talking about - it's an odd scent, but nothing that ever made me worry. I always assumed it was just some sort of chemical cleanser / cleaning product.

Is that what you're talking about?

Probably the same smell. A cleaning product seems like a good idea.

I've also smelled this smell at Andy's Fruit Rance AND Cermak Produce. It is always from the meat section and it has an almost musky/ acidic smell (which quite honestly reminds me of cat you know what). I can't handle them smell, and I've always wondered what it is.
For awhile, I stopped buying my cheese at these places, cause my cheese would smell like it. Now I just literally sniff around before I buy. What could it be?

FWIW, Harvestime is featuring whole piglets in their meat counter. I believe it's priced at $2.99 a pound. They usually have quartered baby lamb in the case but this is the first time I've seen a full animal, head and all. I'm imagining that sight is what prompted a small child to point at it while crying.

Hi,

I just called to learn these piglets are 20-25 pounds. The guy said they would fit into a home oven.

Thanks!

Regards,

I've noticed that Harvestime has started featuring meats from Niman Farms in their butcher counter, and labeling country of origin on some of their produce - I saw this morning that plum tomatoes and some greens are listed as having come from Mexico.

I don't know if they're being proactive or if someone got in their ear and made a request for some of these things, but either way, I like it. (Now if they would just get a liquor license...)