...a feeling like walking into someone's house...

This is an offshoot of the Skokie restaurant discussion; someone mentioned Charcoal Oven on Golf Rd., and I followed the link to a discussion about the place where a poster walked in there, and all eyes turned to look at them, almost like they were intruding.

Happens all the time in small bars & taverns around the city and suburbia, but in restaurants?

Only time that happened to me is a funny story: many years back, my brother and I wanted to watch a Mike Tyson fight and have Italian food, so we were driving around & came upon Sicily Restaurant on Harlem just south of Diversey if I recall. It was a Monday night and the place was empty, except for a table of older men eating, drinking and talking at a large round table in the corner of this not-so-big place. As we walked in the door, just like the movies, they stopped talking immediately and stared us down. We didn't know any better, and besides, we were hungry. So we went to the other corner, ordered and actually had a really fine meal of linguine with calamari & clams, with plenty of wine. We would look over to the men every so often, but they had forgotten about us.

A few years later, I was reading a book by the former FBI agent Bill Roemer, and one picture in the middle of the book showed a bunch of older Outfit guys eating dinner at a table, with a vaguely-familiar Italian mural in the background--Accardo, Lombardo, Pilotto, Cerone, a bunch more. Suddenly it hit me--I looked at the caption--sure enough, the Sicily Restaurant was where the pic was taken. No doubt my brother and I had walked in on a 'meeting' that night. But dang, the food was good!

Anybody else have similarly weird experiences (not necessarily Outfit) like that?

Yeah, that kind of experience is pretty much guaranteed in ANY Balkan restaurant. And those are the friendly ones!

Hi,

I was just reading this article about an American teen of Iraqi descent who ran away to Iraq for his Christmas vacation:

He says he only strayed far from that (Bagdad) hotel once, in search of food. He walked into a nearby shop and asked for a menu. When no menu appeared, he pulled out his Arabic phrase book, and after fumbling around found the word "menu." The stand didn't have one. Then a worker tried to read some of the English phrases.

"And I'm like, 'Well, I should probably be going.' It was not a safe place. The way they were looking at me kind of freaked me out," he said.

I wonder if he will get an 'A' in immersion journalism.

Regards,

That seems to call for a link to this.

A couple of references to food...

Mike,

Thanks for the very interesting article.

Back in the 1980's, a friend from Eastern Europe began making regular business trips to Libya. After his very first trip, he married his wife with whom he already had two children. We had assumed they were married all along and were quite surprised at this announcement. When I inquired why he decided now to marry. His job required return trips to Libya. He didn't like what he saw in Libya and was fearful he may not return alive. He wanted to be certain his wife and family received social benefits if he never returned.

Through this friend, we acquired our very own Khadaffi watch; which also doesn't work well.

Regards,