Life without LTH Forum

It's Google's 10th birthday. In honor of this event, they are offering the ability to search Google with data from January 2001 (the oldest index they could find). This was before the existence of LTH Forum. Try a search for a restaurant from that time and see what a gaping hole there is in the info. A hole that was eventually filled by LTH Forum (try the same search with today's data and you'll see the difference).

Congratulations to Google and to LTH Forum. Both have made a huge difference in our lives.

You know, it's amazing the impact those two things have had on my life - I found LTH through Google. I wasn't a part of Chowhound, and came to LTH somewhat late in the game, but I am very, very grateful for this community. I was thinking the other day - as far as personalities go, I suppose I'm kind of an acquired taste. Where better, then, to find solace than LTHForum, home to virtual restaurants like Guts-n-such and the Foie Gras Hut?

I have to agree, LTH has given me so much, I hate to think what it would be like without it.

they have made a huge difference in my life by adding 15 pounds of padding

As happy as I am to partake of internet triumphalism, before LTHForum there were these things called books and newspapers, which were often quite helpful in leading you to interesting places.

One of my favorites to this day was a Chicago magazine guide to the city, bought when I first arrived in 1988; what I didn't realize is that it was about to be replaced by a new edition, and so it already described a city circa 1982 which had been half-obliterated by the boom of the 80s. Today it's a great guide to what used to be somewhere just before I knew about it.

Cheap Chow Chicago was another excellent book-- especially the earlier editions by Amy Laban, who also wrote for New City (wonder whatever happened to her?). If anything came closest to the LTH spirit, albeit in a more often vegetarian form, it was this book.

Cheap Eats and World Beat in the Tribune were always essential reading-- well, three weeks out of four; once a month Cheap Eats was compelled to cover some bar in Elmhurst or Naperville which had invented a blue cheese cheeseburger or salad in a tortilla bowl-- and Monica Eng was the original adventurer who uncovered such exotic parts of the city as north Kedzie, home to, I do believe, middle eastern restaurants.

Without LTH, my wallet would be fatter, & my truck would have less miles on it...

However my stomach wouldnt be as happy, and I would never have discovered many places & neighborhoods I would have passed on by.

Mike G wrote:As happy as I am to partake of internet triumphalism, before LTHForum there were these things called books and newspapers, which were often quite helpful in leading you to interesting places.

One of my favorites to this day was a Chicago magazine guide to the city, bought when I first arrived in 1988; what I didn't realize is that it was about to be replaced by a new edition, and so it already described a city circa 1982 which had been half-obliterated by the boom of the 80s. Today it's a great guide to what used to be somewhere just before I knew about it.

Cheap Chow Chicago was another excellent book-- especially the earlier editions by Amy Laban, who also wrote for New City (wonder whatever happened to her?). If anything came closest to the LTH spirit, albeit in a more often vegetarian form, it was this book.

Cheap Eats and World Beat in the Tribune were always essential reading-- well, three weeks out of four; once a month Cheap Eats was compelled to cover some bar in Elmhurst or Naperville which had invented a blue cheese cheeseburger or salad in a tortilla bowl-- and Monica Eng was the original adventurer who uncovered such exotic parts of the city as north Kedzie, home to, I do believe, middle eastern restaurants.

I'll give you that there was good stuff to read, and good stuff to eat...but not people to do it with.

thats right i forgot that my wallet would be fatter... the one thing i would have probably missed out on is BBQ, before LTH i didn't really know what it was

Mhays wrote:

Mike G wrote:As happy as I am to partake of internet triumphalism, before LTHForum there were these things called books and newspapers, which were often quite helpful in leading you to interesting places.

One of my favorites to this day was a Chicago magazine guide to the city, bought when I first arrived in 1988; what I didn't realize is that it was about to be replaced by a new edition, and so it already described a city circa 1982 which had been half-obliterated by the boom of the 80s. Today it's a great guide to what used to be somewhere just before I knew about it.

Cheap Chow Chicago was another excellent book-- especially the earlier editions by Amy Laban, who also wrote for New City (wonder whatever happened to her?). If anything came closest to the LTH spirit, albeit in a more often vegetarian form, it was this book.

Cheap Eats and World Beat in the Tribune were always essential reading-- well, three weeks out of four; once a month Cheap Eats was compelled to cover some bar in Elmhurst or Naperville which had invented a blue cheese cheeseburger or salad in a tortilla bowl-- and Monica Eng was the original adventurer who uncovered such exotic parts of the city as north Kedzie, home to, I do believe, middle eastern restaurants.

I'll give you that there was good stuff to read, and good stuff to eat...but not people to do it with.

Well, now you've hit the nail on the head.

Hi,

When I travelled, Jane and Michael Stern's books were always in the car. Now I have print-outs from here and other sources for restaurants to try at my destination and along the way.

I have often commented LTH and our former internet home was where all the needles in the haystack congregated. I am convinced we likely rubbed elbows and probably exchanged glances at least at each other's food orders, though it took this format to be friends.

Regards,

Mike G wrote:Cheap Eats and World Beat in the Tribune were always essential reading--

Monica Eng's Dumpling Zone, World Eats then Cheap Eats were always high points of the week, I religiously cut them out of the Trib and typically tried the place before the next published. Dumpling Zone was about the same time, roughly 1998, I came across chi.eats, a Chicago centric culinary newsgroup, which, with a stop at C-H, led to LTHForum, a daily obsession love affair which has expanded my belly and enhanced my life in ways I never could have imagined.

Thanks for the reminder Steve, oh, and Google ain't bad either.

Enjoy,
Gary

G Wiv wrote:I came across chi.eats, a Chicago centric culinary newsgroup

I was just about to mention that myself, as the place I first encountered you, Rene G and others who are now posting here.

And indeed there were newspapers that concentrated on neighborhood joints, including some now vanished weeklies.