New City Best of Chicago 2006

Not that LTH has been quiet of late, but nothing spurs heated (and often overheated) discussion like an arbitrary list of "bests". New City has published their 2006 edition.

For your amusement, here are the categories:

New City Best of Chicago/Food and Drink wrote:Best "green" chef
Best alternative to subway in the loop
Best apple fritter
Best bloody mary bar
Best coffeehouse
Best culinary use of watermelon
Best cupcakes
Best eats for new orleans refugees
Best eggs benedict
Best epitaph for charlie trotter`s tombstone
Best falafel sandwich in little italy
Best fast-food fried chicken
Best french fries
Best fruity mojito
Best garden-fresh cocktails
Best greek restaurant
Best gyro
Best hotel restaurant
Best ice-cream parlor
Best italian beef sandwich
Best kung pao chicken
Best late-night casual dining
Best late-night fine dining
Best latte
Best lobster roll
Best mad-scientist chef
Best margarita
Best mexican restaurant
Best mexican seafood
Best milkshakes
Best new alternative to foie gras
Best new restaurant (opened in the last year or so)
Best new wine bar
Best organic bakery
Best pho
Best pizza
Best place to eat and smoke despite the smoking ban while watching "american idol" where you wouldn`t expect anyone to be watching it
Best place to score foie gras
Best place to score organ meats now that foie is out
Best re-imagination of an old restaurant space
Best red beans and rice
Best restaurant gimmick
Best restaurant service of gelato
Best restaurant side orders
Best resurgence from a kitchen fire
Best rib joint on western avenue
Best salt-and-pepper shrimp
Best sandwich store
Best small plates place no one knows about
Best substitute for tabasco on scrambled eggs
Best suburban restaurant worth leaving the city for
Best sushi chef
Best thai restaurant
Best use of bone marrow as appetizer
Best vegan brunch
Best vegetarian restaurant

I checked out their call on Best Mexican Restaurant. They chose Maxwell Street Market. No argument with that.

David Hammond wrote:I checked out their call on Best Mexican Restaurant. They chose Maxwell Street Market. No argument with that.

Hammond,

No argument on best Salt and Pepper Shrimp, Apple Fritter, Bone Marrow App, Rib Joint, Hotel Restaurant, Kung Pao Chicken, Restaurant Gimmick, Best resurgence from a kitchen fire, Thai or Soda Pop Shop,

Little or no argument on Late Night Casual Dining, Italian Beef, New Restaurant, Pizza, Eat and Smoke or Organ Meats.

A pretty good list overall.

Enjoy,
Gary

Good list, relatively consistent with common wisdom here, props to Erik, plus several good calls that are not much discussed here.

All in all a pretty solid list. But, Charlie Trotter as the "father of molecular gastronomy"? I hope they were trying to be ironic because that's not even close to correct.

Here's my favorite category (and a pretty good summery of the restaurant):

Best place to eat and smoke despite the smoking ban while watching "American Idol" where you wouldn`t expect anyone to be watching it

Vito and Nick’s

Ditka-loving, Old Style-swilling men grasp tiny pilsner glasses with their meaty fingers and chain-smoking, scratchy-throated women park their ample backsides in turquoise vinyl stools, enraptured with the two twenty-inch tube-style televisions (no plasma here) showing “American Idol.” Everytime some hapless contestant warbles, or Simon Cowell unleashes his British fury, these folks roar with laughter. Also, because there is no division between the long bar and the rest of the restaurant, it seems you can still smoke over a crunchy slice of the South Side’s best thin-crust pizza.

8433 S. Pulaski
(773)735-2050

Agreed entirely, Steve.

Big props to MJN for his work on the list, and to the rest of the New City team. It's much better than last year's, which had some inexplicable choices (especially by the readers).

Hi,

I especially like that they chose my favorite ice cream parlor: Zephyr's. While they focussed on the ice cream, they forgot the other fine feature: whipping cream that is really, really good and way up there in fat!

People's choice is Margies whose whip cream is a crime!

Regards,

It's nice to see someone giving proper credit to Popeyes for the truly very best red beans and rice in this city. People always seem to think I'm nuts, or possibly joking when I insist this is the case.

So much for "heated discussion"...

germuska wrote:So much for "heated discussion"...

Yeah, it's tough to be controversial when we're cut from the same cloth.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

I especially like that they chose my favorite ice cream parlor: Zephyr's. While they focussed on the ice cream, they forgot the other fine feature: whipping cream that is really, really good and way up there in fat!

Cathy, if you ever get to Cincinnati, be sure to stop in at any one of the numerous Graeter's Ice Cream locations. The whipped cream that tops their sundaes and other creations is about as thick and rich and high in butterfat as most other place's ice cream! They don't spray it on or glop it on with a spoon. They actually scoop it up with an ice cream scoop and gently place it on top of the sundae where it firmly holds the shape of the scoop. It is so rich, as I watched the fountain man place that whipped cream on top of my sundae, I thought he was putting an extra scoop of ice cream on top!

Oh yeah, the ice cream is pretty good too! Try the chocolate chip; unlike any c.c. ice cream you've ever had. As the ice cream is being made, they drop warm chocolate into the cooling ice cream as it freezes and whirls about. Instead of hard, chalky Tollhouse chips or any other kind of manufactured chocolate chunks, you get these lovely, free form, soft and melty chcoclate ribbons of various sizes and shapes, about the consistency of a very rich butter cream cake frosting, suspended in fantastically rich vanilla ice cream. Remarkable stuff. Almost worth a trip to Cincy in and of itself.

Buddy

Hi,

I have been to Graeter's and left with a very favorable impression.

Graeter's and Jungle Jim's were the highlights of my trip to Cincinnati several years ago.

Regards,

JeffB wrote:Good list, relatively consistent with common wisdom here, props to Erik, plus several good calls that are not much discussed here.

Pshaw! I will only accept props (if and) when there is greater congruity between the staff's choice and the readers' choice.



E.M.

jesteinf wrote:All in all a pretty solid list. But, Charlie Trotter as the "father of molecular gastronomy"? I hope they were trying to be ironic because that's not even close to correct.

They meant that the chefs doing molecular gastronomy in Chicago worked for him once. Yes, irony. They were calling him a has-been.

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

I have been to Graeter's and left with a very favorable impression.

Cathy, based on the decription of the raspberry construct in your post, it must have been the same item I ordered, a "WGUC sundae"; named after a local radio station. I tried to get more explanation as to the relevance of the station's call letters as they apply to the sundae, but the young man behind the counter, although able to make a damn fine ice cream creation, was unable to elucidate.

Happy memories of Graeter's,

Buddy

P.S. A knowledgeable Cincinnati poster over at Roadfood.com informs me that there is an even better ice cream joint in the Queen City; Aglamesis Brothers. I'll need to check them out next time we down that way.

B.

LAZ, glad you caught that...exactly...though I will say I don't consider Charlie a has been...just that ultimately it's a reflection of current popular opinion... bottom line is that Graham, Homaro, and Grant all did work for him (though also in all fairness to those guys too, they all do their own thing despite what some would have you believe), so there's gotta be some connect, probably the extreme rigor of that experience and needing to break out.

Charlie is still doing amazing things in terms of his commitment to raw foods, and no one gilds the lilly with single ingredient repetition and variation in a single dish...it really is like watching Coltrane run around a progression...I mean the guy is still making eel terrines and using black cardamom moles...not your average fare...

Cincy ice cream: proof that no city is charmless. (And yes,I know about the chili and goetta.)