worst savory this year: white fish (sea bass i believe) at Le Titi de Paris. it was grossly overcooked - so dry it was nearly inedible.

worst sweet this year: shiso sorbet at Charlie Trotter's. it was way too bland yet with an unpleasant after-taste. i'm all for using "trendy" ingredients; but this was simply poor execution.

Chitown B wrote:you post here, and had a jelly donut from Dunkin?

one of these things is not like the other....

It was free, and I actually do like their chocolate cake donut, pretty much the one item I always choose whenever someone in the office brings them in and I'm in the mood. Since there weren't any of those in the box, I thought I'd give this a try. My bad.

I'd never willingly spend money on anything at Dunkin, but certainly don't think less of anyone who does. We all have our guilty pleasures.

i didn't mean offense, hence the wink. I like some things from Dunkin. I wouldn't think their jelly would be any good though, just by deduction.

I miss Mister Donut.

Foie Gras / Sour Cherry from More Cupcakes. The cake itself was STALE STALE STALE, as if it had been baked the week before.

This is from Halloween, but I was completely aghast at the flavor of a Hershey Bar. I don't remember if I liked these when I was younger, but the aftertaste on this was awful.

Stephen wrote:This is from Halloween, but I was completely aghast at the flavor of a Hershey Bar. I don't remember if I liked these when I was younger, but the aftertaste on this was awful.

i'd never touch a hershey bar except for a s'more.

geno55 wrote:I'd never willingly spend money on anything at Dunkin, but certainly don't think less of anyone who does. We all have our guilty pleasures.

Hey now, Dunkin has better coffee than any other drive-thru that I'm aware of. And most of the options I could actually stop inside and order at before work, as well.

ucjames wrote:

geno55 wrote:I'd never willingly spend money on anything at Dunkin, but certainly don't think less of anyone who does. We all have our guilty pleasures.

Hey now, Dunkin has better coffee than any other drive-thru that I'm aware of. And most of the options I could actually stop inside and order at before work, as well.

Probably should have added that I'm not a regular coffee-drinker. I've heard that Dunkin's is very passable.

chicken salad sandwich from Corner Bakery. My wife grabbed it from a box kunch they had yesterday, so it was free thankfully.

The chicken salad portion had perhaps 1 - 1.5 oz of chicken in it, really heavy on the diced apples, almond slivers, raisins, etc. (not my kind of chicken salad at all, imho none of those ingredients belong in chicken salad(mine has minced onion, pickle relish, maybe some celery, garlic powder, salt, and black pepper). The bread at first looked like dark rye, however it had some nuts baked into it as well as more raisins. Not my cup of tea at all, the bag of chips, and cookie that came with it were ok.

beggars cant be choosers but next time I would choose to not eat chicken salad from Corner Bakery.

What was I thinking...
I forgot to bring my lunch today and ran across the street to get lunch from Oodles of Noodles on Clark near Wrightwood. Someone forgot to tell them that Tom kha soup has other ingredients besides coconut milk, chicken and canned mushrooms. The soup was better than the Vietnamese spring rolls. The shrimp were like rubber and I couldn't make myself eat them so I just munched on the iceburg lettuce inside. The mustard-based sauce that came with them was horrid. Why not just dump hoisin sauce out of a bottle? It would be an improvement.

But the portions...

Tofu Bulgogi from Mana Food bar. The description of the dish assured the patron of a seared tofu steak with ginger, miso, and garlic sauce/marinade. Whatever the concoction they used probably would have been fine as a marinade and not as marinade that was reduced into a gloppy, salty mess. This sludge had about the finesse of badger and assulted the pallete with and salt, asringency, and more salt. Oh, and the tofu had no sear or texture to speak of. Any tofu flavor was incessently drowned out by the overbearing brown goo.

Veggie sliders were pretty good, but were served on top of straight-from-Dominicks Hawaiian rolls.

jimswside wrote:chicken salad ...mine has minced onion, pickle relish, maybe some celery, garlic powder, salt, and black pepper.

So, basically, what you're looking for
is tuna salad.

SCUBAchef wrote:So, basically, what you're looking for
is tuna salad.

I dont want fruit & nuts in chicken salad, and perhaps they could actually have some chicken chunks in there. With that said, its a chain, I wasnt expecting much, & it was free. However it was really bad.

in my experience, tuna and chicken salad typically have pretty similar ingredients.

I'm from the Chicken Salad school that likes fruit and nuts in there. I hate boring shredded chicken and mayo chicken salad. So different strokes I guess...

Diannie wrote: I hate boring shredded chicken and mayo chicken salad.

who said anything about a version w/ shredded chicken & only mayo? at least they could have actually have some chicken in the mix. either way their version was inedible imho.

I had some really bad cupcakes, and a few other pastries from Sweet Mandy B's that had a really weird frosting to it, and had this strange taste as if it had some chemicals added to it. (sorry I'm not coming up with the right words on how to describe the taste of them, I'm sure there may be others here who have also disliked that place, and can do a better job of stating what I want to say)

Don't get all the hype for that place, it just seemed insanely overrated to me. Go to Southport Grocery and Cafe instead, or any other place they distribute their cupcakes on to later sell at(i.e. Book Cellar bookstore in Lincoln Square), if you want a place that serves some great cupcakes. (particularly the vanilla ones, mmmm!)

jimswside wrote:

Diannie wrote: I hate boring shredded chicken and mayo chicken salad.

who said anything about a version w/ shredded chicken & only mayo? at least they could have actually have some chicken in the mix. either way their version was inedible imho.

I had a chicken salad from Panera that was utterly disgusting. It was watery, soupy bleach white mayo with something like machine diced chicken floating in it, on bread. It was glowing white, whiter than a gangbangers t-shirt. The watery texture made it seem pre-chewed, possibly even pre-digested.

Tofu Bulgogi from Mana Food bar. The description of the dish assured the patron of a seared tofu steak with ginger, miso, and garlic sauce/marinade. Whatever the concoction they used probably would have been fine as a marinade and not as marinade that was reduced into a gloppy, salty mess. This sludge had about the finesse of badger and assulted the pallete with and salt, asringency, and more salt. Oh, and the tofu had no sear or texture to speak of. Any tofu flavor was incessently drowned out by the overbearing brown goo.

Veggie sliders were pretty good, but were served on top of straight-from-Dominicks Hawaiian rolls.

Too bad, might of been a bad night. I live around there and have a veggie friend, so I've been twice and both times had a great food experience. The bulgolgi I had was actually pretty damn good, the acidity was right on and I couldn't stop talking about the veggie sliders, I believe made out of brown rice, after I went. It was one of the best I've ever had. I actually always recommend this place to other veggie friends as I like their concept of tapas style vegetarian food.

Pumpkin bar from Bleeding Heart Bakery in Oak Park. It was probably a mistake ordering something like that made in a vegan manner - pumpkin bars, like pumpkin pie, cry out for a custard that just isn't achievable with vegan ingredients. Disappointing flavor, consistency, and a slightly unpleasant feel to my mouth after each bite sent most of this into the trash.

Vegan chocolate raspberry cupcake was a mixed bag - I enjoyed the chocolate cupcake itself quite a bit, but the raspberry frosting was a miss and I ended up discarding most of it and just eating the cake.

Falafel at the newly-reopened Salam. Blech.

-Dan

Well, that's too bad, after your and Antonius' reports. I dared imagine, when I got fresh falafel without the usual extensive negotiations, that they were now standard. Clearly not.

Mike G wrote:Well, that's too bad, after your and Antonius' reports. I dared imagine, when I got fresh falafel without the usual extensive negotiations, that they were now standard. Clearly not.

I thought they were well made falafels but they were not just out of the fryer and no longer at the pinnacle of falafelness/falafelhood... they had cooled off a good bit and, of course, the longer a falafel is out of the fryer, the less good it gets, but it seemed to me the seasoning was good and that the texture would have been fine if I had gotten them fresh out of the grease... I didn't see it (being in the dining room the whole time) but Amata mentioned to me that they had a very large stack of them sitting under a heat lamp...

Antonius

The waiter I had was one that I recognized from previous visits to the old Salam and I very explicitly asked for freshly fried, not ones from under the heat lamp. When he dropped them off, he made a point of saying "here are your freshly-fried falafel".

Habibi's description was dead on:

Habibi wrote:The falafel I remember from salam were fluffy (not mushy, not hard) inside with a thin, crisp shell. These falafel were chewy inside and had a really thick fry ring. Not good.

My dining companion, who had never been to Salam and was unaware of the mixed reports since its reopening, commented "did they just take these out from under the heat lamp and dunk them back in the fryer to warm them up?"

I also had the shawerma with hummus, which was almost as disappointing. The hummus itself was exactly as I remember from the old Salam and would have been great on its own, had it not been served with a plate of sad, dry, chewy shreds of beef. When I went to pay my bill, I saw the vertical spit and could see a mix of juicy rare bits (where they had just sliced off pieces) and glistening crusty bits spinning around, but what had been served to me appear to have been sliced off long ago and kept warm in a steam tray or something.

-Dan

dansch wrote:The waiter I had was one that I recognized from previous visits to the old Salam and I very explicitly asked for freshly fried, not ones from under the heat lamp. When he dropped them off, he made a point of saying "here are your freshly-fried falafel".

Habibi's description was dead on:

Habibi wrote:The falafel I remember from salam were fluffy (not mushy, not hard) inside with a thin, crisp shell. These falafel were chewy inside and had a really thick fry ring. Not good.

My dining companion, who had never been to Salam and was unaware of the mixed reports since its reopening, commented "did they just take these out from under the heat lamp and dunk them back in the fryer to warm them up?"

I also had the shawerma with hummus, which was almost as disappointing. The hummus itself was exactly as I remember from the old Salam and would have been great on its own, had it not been served with a plate of sad, dry, chewy shreds of beef. When I went to pay my bill, I saw the vertical spit and could see a mix of juicy rare bits (where they had just sliced off pieces) and glistening crusty bits spinning around, but what had been served to me appear to have been sliced off long ago and kept warm in a steam tray or something.

-Dan

That all sounds (depressingly) consistent with my experience; the food is being murdered by shoddy -- or is it lazy -- handling. Refried falafel would, I'm quite sure, be warmer but the interior texture achieved after cooling down would not be improved and the outer shell would indeed get thicker.

So perhaps I should be thankful I didn't ask for my falafel to be served up hot the other day... faláfeles refritos no me gustan...

Antonius

Funny - - the falafel were the only good thing when we visited on re-opening day. Our first few were so good, in fact, that after tasting the rest of the food, we put in an order for a plate of falafel. That plate was great, too.

I gotta say, though, that the falafel at Salam have always been inconsistent. We'd have them be perfect for a visit or two, and then come out room temp or reheated. Several months ago, after a few not-so-great experiences and being told with a straight face that the falafel were fresh, we told them that we only wanted them if they're TRULY fresh. We were told that they'd have to turn the fryer back on and that it takes 15 minutes for the oil to heat up. We were happy to wait and the results were fantastic.

On re-opening day, what saddened me most was the shawarma. Ours was so dry that we didn't eat it. No more juicy meat flavoring the hummus.

I hope that they figure this all out, and soon. They've got to know that the food isn't the same, right?

Ronna

REB wrote:I hope that they figure this all out, and soon. They've got to know that the food isn't the same, right?

REB -- Again, it seems like they're still eminently capable of getting everything as it should be, so perhaps if loyal customers let them know, they'll correct the errors of their current ways...

For what it's worth, the shawarma in both versions of Lucantonius' sandwich (with and without tahini) seemed fresh and good from the sample I had. It ended up that we took home 90% of the corrected sans-tahini version and I put that left-over sandwich to good use... (I'll post on that in S&C)...

Antonius

REB wrote:They've got to know that the food isn't the same, right?

I saw my waiter out in the parking lot after we left (he had finished his shift during our meal) and we exchanged pleasantries. I was really tempted to walk over and say "what happened? You know you just served us crap, right?" Alas, I did not.

-Dan

dansch wrote:The waiter I had was one that I recognized from previous visits to the old Salam and I very explicitly asked for freshly fried, not ones from under the heat lamp. When he dropped them off, he made a point of saying "here are your freshly-fried falafel".
...
My dining companion, who had never been to Salam and was unaware of the mixed reports since its reopening, commented "did they just take these out from under the heat lamp and dunk them back in the fryer to warm them up?"

As REB alluded to, this has unfortunately been the rule, rather than the exception at both old and new Salam. That's exactly what they do. Unless they are crushed and barely keeping up with demand, you get refried falafel. That is, unless you very adamantly demand "brand new, freshly-fried, not reheated, please don't b#lls!t me 'cause I will send them back, falafel." We put up with this because when they are good, they belong in another thread.

--Rich

RAB wrote:... you get refried falafel. That is, unless you very adamantly demand "brand new, freshly-fried, not reheated, please don't b#lls!t me 'cause I will send them back, falafel." We put up with this because when they are good, they belong in another thread.

Don't get me wrong, I'll go back and do this (I thought I had said it firmly enough, but clearly I need to be more forceful), but it's really sad that a GNR who's award starts with "Perfect Falafel" is hocking refried falafel unless you accost them.

-Dan

Perhaps the parenthetical in the GNR should be updated from "(and make sure you ask for tahini sauce on the side)" to "(very adamantly demand 'brand new, freshly-fried, not reheated, please don't b#lls!t me 'cause I will send them back, falafel')"

-Dan