Spanish/New Jersey Style in Chicago?

Chicago is of course chock full of Tapas places (a few more than we need perhaps, but many quite good)....but does anyone know of places similar to those found in Newark, NJ's famed Ironbound District (as well as all over NJ)....If you've been, you know what I'm talking about. Far from "small plates", these restaurants serve gargantuan portions of simple, but very tasty, heavy food (huge plates of garlic shrimp, spanish sausage, T-bone steaks, veal chops, lobster, etc..)

The cloesest one I've found is in, of all places, Columbus Ohio (simply called "Spain")..and the owners are, of course, from New Jersey...

II know this style of cooking has a name, but I can't recall...anyone have any insight for something similar around here?

ParkLaBrea wrote:...but does anyone know of places similar to those found in Newark, NJ's famed Ironbound District (as well as all over NJ)....If you've been, you know what I'm talking about. Far from "small plates", these restaurants serve gargantuan portions of simple, but very tasty, heavy food (huge plates of garlic shrimp, spanish sausage, T-bone steaks, veal chops, lobster, etc..)
...anyone have any insight for something similar around here?

Being a Jerseyman, I know exactly what you're talking about and have so far come across nothing of that ilk here in Chicago... Your observation regarding portion sizes at some of these places is indeed true... I remember when my cousins from Italy were over for a visit, they were absolutely shocked/amused/appalled at the amounts of food served up in a (now defunct) Spanish place in southern Bergen County...

Antonius

Like Taylor Ham and Texas Weiners, you're not going to find anything like the Newark Spanish restaurants in Chicago.

The absence of old-fashioned Spanish and Portuguese places here (and indeed, everywhere outside the Northeast and South Florida) has been discussed.

I too would like to sit in a dark room that looks like the cabin of an idealized pirate's ship with heraldry, armor and lanterns, dining on chops, bad paella and seafood covered in cheese sauce, smoking a cigar, sipping amontillado and watching a flamenco show. And, I'm not kidding.

If you ever get down to Tampa, try the fabled Columbia (note the "u"), Tio Pepe or even Bern's, which is not Spanish but looks it.

While I have not been, the ads for Don Quixote in Indiana make it look like such a place...

JeffB wrote:While I have not been, the ads for Don Quixote in Indiana make it look like such a place...

At first, I thought so too . . . but the owners are from Spain, not Jersey, and it appears that their focus is on the new "food sensation," tapas. Oh well, thought we had a lead . . .

http://www.donquijoterestaurant-in.com/

JeffB wrote:I too would like to sit in a dark room that looks like the cabin of an idealized pirate's ship with heraldry, armor and lanterns, dining on chops, bad paella and seafood covered in cheese sauce, smoking a cigar, sipping amontillado and watching a flamenco show. And, I'm not kidding.

Wow.

I better understand your affection for Hourglass.

E.M.