KajmacJohnson wrote:

Pie Lady wrote:Leine's Summer Shandy. Mmm! Beer and Pledge!

I like Summer Shandy. I don't see the Pledge comparison at all. But to each her own I guess. But this comment made me think of going out last weekend.

I missed this the first time around, but I totally understand Pie Lady's comparison. I can't stand Summer Shandy. "Pledge" is about right to me. To be honest, I don't like (hardly) any of Leinenkugel's beers. I want to. My wife's mother is from Chippewa Falls, we had Leinie's at our wedding, I've visited the brewery, but I still don't like the stuff. None of it. Well, there is the Big Ed series of beers. Those were some freaking good beers, so they are capable of making beers I like, but every single one of their regular label brews are forgettable.

the snapper from Las Palmas off North. Read some good reviews of the place, so I was pretty surprised. Probably one of the worst meals Ive had in a year. Was completly bland, the air in my mouth had more taste. 120 bucks for 2 people to dine, I was pretty ticked.

mikelon wrote:the snapper from Las Palmas off North. Read some good reviews of the place, so I was pretty surprised. Probably one of the worst meals Ive had in a year. Was completly bland, the air in my mouth had more taste. 120 bucks for 2 people to dine, I was pretty ticked.

I used a Groupon at the Glenview location, and it was my worst meal of the year. Everything was bad. A few years ago I could get an okay meal there.

We hadn't been to Semiramis in two or so years and I had a hankering for falafel a week ago Sunday. It was a toss up between Dawali and Semiramis and Semiramis won due to snagging a parking place right in front. I was excited to be there with memories of many very nice meals.

Falafel were extremely dark in color, and very burnt tasting. They seemed to have a thicker than usual layer of "crispy texture" on the outside. I can only guess that they've learned how to fry the falafel in advance like Salaam does, and then re-drop in the oil when an order comes in.

I asked the waitress if we could return the "burnt" ones and get some that were more lightly cooked. She returned in a few minutes with more of the exact same shade of color. I think she knew that these weren't going to please us and she said "I hope these are ok." I believe she knew that these were unacceptable.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this at Semiramis?

And oh yeah...the 75 cent charge for harissa kind of irked me, not to mention $5.00 for a small hummus. Same sized hummus at Naf Naf is $2.50 and that tasty green hot sauce is gratis.

Worst thing I've had recently from a restaurant:

A Number Four: Yellowfin Tuna, Butter Lettuce, Crispy fried onions, spicy Aioli from 25 degrees. I've been there before but had a burger, while good, it wasn't kumas. I figured that the number four would be a yellowfin tuna STEAK. In reality it was basically a tuna salad, breaded then deep fried. I got about 3 bites in before I was done. Luckly it was taken off the bill. otherwise I probably wouldn't of gone back (even the onion rings (which were to die for the last time I was there) weren't as good.

Most disappointing thing I've gone out and ate:

Kuma's: I've been there at least a dozen times in the last year because I think their really tasty (better than the stuff I used to get in the suburbs *cough* Fridays, Applebees, Chili's *cough* Last time I went I went right after they opened (trying to avoid the line and get home early). Ordered a Led Zepplin, rare with fries. Burger arrived cooked perfectly, but everything lacked flavor. the burger was effectively unseasoned, the pulled pork was tasteless, and the fries. well They've always sucked. Plus the ketchup was regular, it didn't have the usual green things (I'm assuming jalapenos or something) in it. However the cherry cola was still delicious as always (too bad it's $4 a bottle).

Most disappointing thing I've ate in house:

My leftover vegetable fajitas. I cooked these yesterday, they were amazing (other than being breathe fire hot by accident. Something tells me a crap ton of chili powder, 3 jalapenos, 3 mystery peppers (cayenne I think) and a bunch of chili flakes was a BIT overkill). Hot they taste amazing, are healthy, and vegetarian. I ate the last little bit I had left. cold. let me just say this EEW. cold mushrooms are gross after being cooked in oil. The burritos I put in them earlier today were still really good though. still super hot, even with the addition of refried beans.


Worst thing I've ate in house:

Light Life Smart Sausage: Sausage style. Imagine a mushy skinless hotdog with no meat flavor. *gags* I'm amazed I managed to eat two. Morningstar Farms' products on the other hand (at least the Chick'n and mini corn dogs are amazing.) I actually prefer them over their actual counterpart!

oh well. Newly vegetarian, gotta start somewhere.

Veggie burrito from Taco Burrito King on Touhy.

Just moved to the neighborhood, had the 3yo and the 18mo in the car, also pregnant and desperately craving a burrito. TBK has a drive-thru. Done. I wasn't expecting a revelation, my standards in this case were pretty low- I wanted beans and cheese and hot sauce wrapped in a tortilla, and I wanted someone else to make it for me. Additional ingredients welcome but not required. So, I mean, yes, I should have known it was not going to be amazing, but like I said: I had pretty low standards and would've been happy with anything.

What I got was enormous, overfilled, gloppy, slimy, and entirely tasteless. Largely fajita vegetables with a heaping glob of brown, runny guacamole. I think maybe I had one bite of beans in the whole enormous thing? No discernable cheese. Hot sauce was mild-medium, darnit.

Totally gross. Total fail. Especially since the girls barely touched the tacos I got them- something they normally devour as if they've never been fed. The worst indictment of all may be the fact that younger daughter spilled half of hers on the floor, and the dog didn't even go for it.

and now? I want a burrito even more.

sweetsalty wrote:Veggie burrito from Taco Burrito King on Touhy.

Oh yeah. Ate here once (right after we moved our office nearby) but never again.

=R=

sweetsalty wrote:and now? I want a burrito even more.

Erase your memories of Taco Burrito King at Pollo Vagabundo. Burritos are particularly good here, with great made-in-house flour tortillas, generally excellent fillings (they'll often offer a taste of each of their guisados), and a quite amazing salsa bar (you can see about a dozen varieties on our table).



Pollo Vagabundo is an underappreciated treasure.

Pollo Vagabundo
101 W Grand Av (1 mile south of O'Hare)
Northlake IL
847-288-0713

I went to Burrito King once in the loop to try their Al Pastor. Never again.

We went to that very location of TBKing mentioned above and we thought the sopes were tasty. This was a long time though, so I guess they've gone downhill?

EVERYthing from Ing's China King (6249 N Milwaukee Ave.) It was so awful they ought to be ashamed to call themselves Chinese. Even the white rice sprinkled with soy sauce was inedible. The fried rice was so dried out that the corn kernels resembled feed and the peas looked like toes after a long bath. The broccoli (in a sticky, clear sauce) was the only thing I had seconds of, because it tasted like a vegetable and wasn't overcooked. The egg rolls were stuffed with some sort of pig paste. The chicken (I can't remember what kind...little white nuggets deep fried and slathered in sweet sauce?) was not inedible, but I'd never eat it again. Mr. Pie suggested I try the beef (in brown sauce with bell peppers) because it was pretty good, but I thought it was like sponges dipped in gravy. At least I got a good fortune in my cookie.

It was lateish (9 on a Saturday), but I forgive nothing. If you're about to close, take the scouring-pad-dry watermelon wedges off the buffet and leave people with the brown bananas instead.

Around 1am, we went to the IHOP (4210 N. Cicero Ave.) for dessert and coffee. I was still hungry, naturally, so I ordered the children's fish and broccoli and a side salad. The side salad was typically white, but the fish and broccoli was incredible next to the dinner I had earlier. You know you're in trouble when IHOP looks like gourmet cookin'.

The Meatloaf (some kind of sausage meatloaf, cannot remember the description) from Glen Prairie in Glen Ellyn. It was so salty that only after a couple of bites about two hours later my lips felt like they were cracking and I could not get enough water.

On top of that, the fire alarm went off in the middle of our meal and the waitstaff and management (if they were even there) acted like nothing was happening. After a few minutes we got up and left.

For some reason, we came back later and tried to pay for what we did eat, while complaining about the meatloaf. The waitress said that she had not authority to comp anything and management was not there and it took her about 15 minutes to ring up the check, which it turned out was wrong. No apologies about the alarm or offers of a free dessert or anything - a token even.

Called later and management gave us a gift certificate instead of comping our meal. Not sure I want to go back.

I have always tried to support them, because their menu tries hard and they can be very good on occasion, but they have serious waitstaff and management issues (see Yelp).

(this was about a week ago)

Green beans at Homestyle Taste.

Now, how I ended up with green beans (which I hate) is a story in itself. I had been in to try this new addition to the neighborhood before, and liked it enough to bring my husband there for the lunch special during the week. I ordered an eggplant dish, while he played it safe with orange chicken, as he does. It took 45+ minutes to get the food, which wasn't pleasing, but hey, new place and they seemed very busy. But when it arrived, my order was wrong - I received green beans - ugh! - instead of the eggplant. When I finally succeeded in chasing down the waitress (who had been studiously ignoring us) and pointed out that I hadn't gotten what I ordered, she argued with me, saying I had in fact ordered the dish! Now why on earth would I lie about that?! She finally grudgingly offered to get what I had ordered, but given that we had already waited such a long time, and since there was attitude being thrown, I opted to just eat what I had gotten> Which were green beans, did I mention? I ate very little.

My husband was outraged that they had charged us for both dishes, and wanted to ask them to take the incorrect dish off the bill, but I persuaded him that it was pointless given the attitude of the waitress and just generally poor English comprehension.

Which really sucks, I thought their food was a good and interesting addition to the neighborhood, but after that I will never return.

I mean, really. Green beans. As if.

Homestyle Taste
3205 S. Halsted St.

Nothing much stood out at my first meal at Old Jerusalem, with the exception of the lentil soup, and that not in a good way. When i dropped my accompanying citrus slice into the soup (notice the verb: dropped, not squeezed), the citrus flavor was all that I tasted. 'Nuf said

Salt and pepper popchips. These are an abomination!

Worst dish of 2012: Tempura at Next Kaiseki. A mouthful of oil, with no taste of the food. First one served dead cold. Sent it back. Replacement was warm, but not better. Low point of a mediocre and disappointing meal.

Pretty much everything about Brasserie 54 tonight (from the LM folks, and in the old Premise/In Fine Spirits space) belongs in this thread. The evening started with some pretty good bread, but no plates or place mats.

Much worse, my love for Lyonnaise salads got the best of me tonight. This one featured a sunny side up egg rather than a poached egg. Worse yet, the whites were burnt from the exterior to nearly an inch in. The yolk was barely runny. And no thick lardons; instead, terribly overcooked, dry bacon crumbles. And I haven't even mentioned the mustard vinaigrette which seemed to be almost pure mustard and overpowered every bite. There were also fried potato chunks atop the salad, but alas, they seemed to have been cooked quite a while ago and had the texture of buffet potatoes. I'm pretty sure my 6-year old niece could do a better job.

Moules frites had a delicious broth and very reasonably priced at $10, but there were a couple of cracked shells in the broth, a couple of mussels that weren't even opened, and the thick-cut fries were terribly over-salted (I prefer thin frites with mussels, but this was the least of my problems.

Nice to meet you Brasserie 54 - I hope we don't meet again.

matada wrote:
Most disappointing thing I've gone out and ate:

Kuma's: I've been there at least a dozen times in the last year because I think their really tasty (better than the stuff I used to get in the suburbs *cough* Fridays, Applebees, Chili's *cough* Last time I went I went right after they opened (trying to avoid the line and get home early). Ordered a Led Zepplin, rare with fries. Burger arrived cooked perfectly, but everything lacked flavor. the burger was effectively unseasoned, the pulled pork was tasteless, and the fries. well They've always sucked. Plus the ketchup was regular, it didn't have the usual green things (I'm assuming jalapenos or something) in it. However the cherry cola was still delicious as always (too bad it's $4 a bottle).

Couldn't agree with you more here. I finally went to Kuma's a few months ago (a few failed attempts in the past..too long of a wait for me) with some friends. We were all really excited about this. I ordered the Slayer which was massive, and my friends ordered some of the other burgers along with the mac and cheese. The mac and cheese was actually really good, but we were all disappointed with our burgers. There was absolutely nothing special about the burgers except for what they were - big burgers of...whateverness. The meat wasn't even seasoned and completely relied on the the outside flavors to mask it. I'm sorry to say, but I can make a better burger at home than what I had. They really bail themselves out with the pretzel roll and the other stuff on top. All in all none of our stuff was anything remarkably special. I am a meat purist, and if the meat is bland and I can tell it, I'm not going to like this. Season the meat at least a LITTLE.

The funny thing is the next day, we each heated up our leftovers (separately) and when we met back up we all reported that the burgers actually tasted better the next day heated up in a microwave than at Kuma's. Still wasn't anything special. Not bad but worth a 1-2 hours wait for? Not in my lifetime.

I've had better burgers in a number of places in the states and even better in some countries where they just don't "do" burgers. My friend and I agreed that the burgers at Lockdown in Ukrainian Village/Humboldt Park are better without the wait.

Mrs. Vinny tried to make queso fundido on Super Bowl Sunday in our little mini crock pot that is perfect for such things. Unfortunately, she bought queso fresco rather than queso asadero. She tried in vain for an hour to get it to melt and mix with the onions and green chiles she had added, but it wouldn't get past the consistency of watery cottage cheese (she added some milk at some point also). I tried a girl scout bite or two, and it was not good. We resorted to velveeta and rotel.

The funny thing is the next day, we each heated up our leftovers (separately) and when we met back up we all reported that the burgers actually tasted better the next day heated up in a microwave than at Kuma's. Still wasn't anything special

I could not agree more. Whenever I am dragged to Kumas, and yes I say dragged, I purposely don't eat half of my burger so I can have it for dinner the same night or lunch the next day. Not sure how it works, but It's mindblowing how much better it tastes heated up.

Fried calamari @ Trattoria Roma. Should have left when we were given menus that we couldn't read because the ink was so light from a bad print job. When we mentioned it to the host, he shrugged, said that's all we've got and walked away. We stayed because 7 yrs ago we had our first date there. For our sentiments we were rewarded with brown rubbery disks of over cooked, flavorless calamari that actually hurt my jaw to eat and a pizza with a crust so hard it would shatter if dropped.

Jazzfood wrote:For our sentiments we were rewarded with brown rubbery disks of over cooked, flavorless calamari that actually hurt my jaw to eat and a pizza with a crust so hard it would shatter if dropped.

I hope at least the portions were big.

I read this thread yesterday, grinned, and realized that I have not had any bad meals recently ...

And jinxed myself.


Breakfast at the Oak Brook Marriott was really bad. They put the food out about 30-40 prior to service. The scrambled eggs were cold, dried, and tasteless. It was served with a mushroom medley and turkey sausage which was equally funky.

My wife reminded me that every time we go to an event at one of the Marriott Hotel, the food is not great and suggested that we skip the meal and slip over to Greek Islands.

Connies Pizza at the Auto Show. Cold, greasy, unappetizing clump of bread with the rumor of a tomato smeared across it.

. . . My kids loved it.

Chicken Curry from Mong Lungh - can't even describe how bad this was...

Cheese pizza at Taqueria El Ranchito.

I used to naively believe "even when pizza is bad, it's still pretty good" was true.

Yes, I ordered a cheese pizza at a 24 hour Mexican joint. Why do I do this to myself? The crust tasted like cardboard. The sauce was was weak and runny. The cheese was like rubber. I had two bites and threw out my entire order.

I am a fool.


Taqueria El Ranchito
4651 N Clark St
(between Wilson Ave & Leland Ave)
Chicago, IL 60640
Neighborhood: Uptown
(773) 334-6441

PopcornMegaphone wrote:Cheese pizza at Taqueria El Ranchito.

I used to naively believe "even when pizza is bad, it's still pretty good" was true.

Yes, I ordered a cheese pizza at a 24 hour Mexican joint. Why do I do this to myself? The crust tasted like cardboard. The sauce was was weak and runny. The cheese was like rubber. I had two bites and threw out my entire order.

I am a fool.

My husband and I have a running joke about this place. We've never actually been there, but we got a takeout menu on our porch and were bowled over by the Mexi-Italo-steakhouse mish-mash they offer ... plus quail. Every time we pass by it now, we crack a joke about stopping in for quail. I always visualize a couple sad little freezer-burnt critters in a dark corner of the walk-in, just waiting to be plucked from obscurity. (According to the Yelp review I just saw from someone who did, in fact, have the huevos to order the quail, they definitely should have remained in obscurity.)

Eggs Benedict at Beat Kitchen. I think I am on the brink of being done ordering Eggs Benedict in non-fancy restaurants. I forgot to ask them to put the sauce on the side just in case. Thick eggy goo was, quite literally, draped over hard-cooked eggs. It was so thick it fell in ribbons down the side and completely obscured the dish, like a pair of drapes. There were two sides: black beans with Kraft Parmesan and fried potatoes with minced peppers and garlic and other stuff, and both were incredibly bland. I think they dumped the beans from a can into a little bowl, shook out the cheese from the canister, and said, ta da!

The Lobster Poutine from Boarding House at Poutine Fest

lodasi wrote:The Lobster Poutine from Boarding House at Poutine Fest

What was so bad about it?