Hi,

Here is a recent thread on Georgian restaurants.

Have you been to Argo, the Georgian Bakery on Devon Avenue just west of California? There is a Georgian restaurant further west of there. I went once maybe 5-6 years ago, it may be discussed in the thread above.

Argo Inc
2812 West Devon Avenue
Chicago, IL 60659
773-764-6322

This cheese sounds like dry cottage cheese. This was used to make the filling in cheese bilintzes when I was a kid. My family has Russian and Polish roots. I have not seen this lately in the grocery stores although to be honest I have not looked for it.
Paulette

Went to Zascianek last night. Tried the borscht with the "eggroll". Borscht came in a large coffee mug and the eggroll in a separate small sqaure bowl. The borscht was, well, perfectly seasoned; the salt / sugar balance right on target.

I wasn't sure if I was supposed to pour the broth over the eggroll and opted not to as I thought it would render the lovely crispy eggroll mushy. The eggroll was also teriffic, crispy crunchy on the exterior with an interesting ground pork and aromatics mixture inside. My lovely wife had the soup of the day - Mushroom. It was good, with bits of carrot, mushroom and celery with pasta. Our two-year old devoured quite a bit.

I opted for Placek Po Wegiersku - Potato Pancake Hungarian Style and quite enjoyed the half that I could eat at one sitting. The remainder is in the fridge and will be today's lunch. My lovely wife had Przysmak Kontraktora (even though she's not a contractor) and to our surprise devoured nearly everything.

The total for all of this was $19.05!

BTW they don't take credit cards (there's an ABN-Amro ATM two doors down, however. Also no problem with BYOB (but bring it from home, there aren't any stores selling wine anywhere really close).

A real find and as we're doing our kitchen over starting next month, a place we're sure to frequent.

paulette wrote:This cheese sounds like dry cottage cheese. This was used to make the filling in cheese bilintzes when I was a kid. My family has Russian and Polish roots. I have not seen this lately in the grocery stores although to be honest I have not looked for it.
Paulette

Yes, this is essentially the cheese.

I read this thread (linked from the Polish Restaurants thread) and decided to try it out last night witha friend of mine. It was closed! But, I'm guessing that was due to it being Easter weekend, not any concerns about going out of business (the tables were all set and ready for diners).

We'll have to try again another weekend!

Sharpie66 wrote:I read this thread (linked from the Polish Restaurants thread) and decided to try it out last night witha friend of mine. It was closed! But, I'm guessing that was due to it being Easter weekend, not any concerns about going out of business (the tables were all set and ready for diners).

We'll have to try again another weekend!

Open and thriving, if a lunch crowd of burly contractors eating burly piles of contractor's delight is any measure of success!

As I paid the bill today, the kitchen proprietress, who I believe is also the owner, said she had not seen me in a while. I said, honestly, that summer is not quite the time for Polish food. With the slight cool down, we ended up there for lunch.

Of course I had the contractor's, the 10,000 calorie heart attack on a plate dish of potato pancake, pork cutlet and cheese, but I only ate half. Yes, it was strategy to get another meal, but how I was really able to do, not starve (!) was by stealing wily-nily from younger daughter's plate of cheese pancakes or sernicki. In fact if this thread did not need a well deserved bump, I'd throw this one in the best thing eaten thread. Boy were these things good.

Like about everything here, there's some frying involved. The pancakes are not really griddled, not quite deep fried, but there's frying involved, don't get me wrong. The skins of the pancakes crisp up well, while the inside stays fluffy, thick and moist, a texture drier than a pancake. The cheese seemed a wisp, a beard for my daugther to say she had protein with lunch. The pancakes were not particularly swee by themselves either. Powedered sugar and stawberry jam did change that.

A real Chicago treasure, and if you can pry yourself away from the potato pancakes, you might find something else good too.

We stopped in here yesterday. I had veal tongue which was pretty good...kind of a pot roast preparation which is a shame for such a succulant piece of meat...came with a white horseradishy gravy. Great mashed taters and slaw and cold beet salad. I'm sure there are better things on the menu and we will find out for sure. Wife had pierogis which were probably the best I've ever had. Ordered jam blintzes for our little girl. She wouldn't try them so my wife and I got to split them. They were fantastic. The filling was some kind of polish strawberry jam that wasn't too sweet. The crepes were thicker than traditional french ones. You could tell that they were made to order. Best blintzes I've ever had. Mushroom soup was ok, but for $1.50 how can you complain? The waitress spoke not a word of English so she brought out someone from in the kitchen to translate. Too bad they don't serve beer.

HI,

I just read in another thread that Zascianek closed. I verified by calling their phone to find it disconnected.

This was a favorite winter lunch destination for the Moms and I. Too bad.

Regards,

#@&!!!
I just read this entire thread and was thinking
I really need to check this place out.
I have to get into the habit of always
checking the most recent entry
for any notice of demise.

Fool me once, shame on —
shame on you. Fool me —
you can't get fooled again!

RIP