Bandera

Quite possibly the best chicken sandwich in Chicago just got a little better. Now, this pronouncement, typed as it was with premeditated gravitas and the tawdry use of a teasing near-superlative, may do little to capture anyone's attention. After all, we're talking about the Brendan Fraser of the lunchtime menu: bland, mediocre among its peers, and seemingly everywhere you look. But yes, the sun occasionally shines on a dog's ass, and even Brendan occasionally has his Gods and Monsters. So too does Bandera move heaven and earth to reach beyond quotidian and elevate this mutt to something approaching respectability. Anyone unfortunate enough to suffer through my rants against sandwich mediocrity understands my frustration with an inability of food "professionals" to get even the basics right.

Bandera gets it right. Just-melted Monterrey Jack slice on a chicken breast half, possibly brined, but certainly rotisseried on the bone to something more akin to the richness and juiciness of dark meat (bone subsequently removed); placed on a sturdy but tender French roll, cut sides butter-grilled to a light brown crust and slathered thinly with good mayonnaise; topped with a generous mound of arugula, impossibly-ripe-for-winter tomato slices and crunchy red onion rings. Simplicity itself, and near perfect. How did it get better? Some line cook punk, perhaps trying to make his bones in the Bandera corporate kitchen got the bright idea to roast some chicken bones and make a deep brown chicken stock, put it in a stainless ramekin on the plate and call it au jus. Call it a Chicken French Dip. This one goes to eleven.

It's also ten bucks, but to paraphrase Lance in Pulp Fiction while comparing the relative worth of his heroin stashes, when you eat it, you'll know where that extra money went. It also comes with a side--mine is peanut cole slaw containing obscene amounts of cilantro. Not everyone's cup of tea, but it has its cultists, me being one of them. I'm not sure what else the place serves--lots of meat on a spit--but then I really don't care. This place is my chicken sandwich place. It's just a bonus that it resides smack dab in the middle of the Mag Mile suck zone.

Have a great weekend.

quite possibly the best write-up i've read in a long time. perfect reading for the Blizzard of '05. the lamb sandwich there is equally good. and how many restaurants in the city are offering up a lamb sammy at lunch?

Paul,

My favorite Coolebythelake post remains TBS African Lunch Truck Sighting

Enjoy,
Gary

Nice to see Bandera getting a bit of acknowledgement. I think for it's location and price point, it's a very strong recommendation to out of towners, shoppers, the not-too-adventurous who still appreciate real flavor and good execution of a totally mainstream menu. I used to recommend it whenever people were asking for something to fit those situtations. But it was never, as far as I can recall, discussed on the board. I think their whole broiler operation is dependably worthy. Not a trifling distinction when mediocrity (and worse) is so common.

I ordered the chicken sandwich last night at Bandera based on CoolerbytheLake's wonderful post and it is indeed the best chicken sandwich I have ever had ANYWHERE. It wasn't on the dinner menu but they happily obliged when I asked if they would make one for me. The chicken jus is wonderful. And the red onion slices added a nice crunch. It was prepared as described in this post to the letter except it came with fries instead of coleslaw (but the waiter said I could have either). The fries were delicious--somewhere between shoestring and pomme frites in thickness and they brought ketchup and mayonnaise for dipping. Thank you CoolerbytheLake!

Does Bandera still offer the lamb sandwich at lunch? If so, I might just have to venture downtown one of these days.

and for those of us who don't know the Loop:
Bandera
535 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago
(312) 644-3524

I also must recommend the French Dip and the Macho Chicken Salad. When the Houston's on Rush closed, I was very glad that the French Dip made the two block trip to the menu at Bandera.

One time, I was at the now defunct Houston's late and they ran out of Prime Rib for the sandwich. They sent someone over to Bandera to pick up more meat so that we could order it.

Yo wrote:I also must recommend the French Dip and the Macho Chicken Salad. When the Houston's on Rush closed, I was very glad that the French Dip made the two block trip to the menu at Bandera.

One time, I was at the now defunct Houston's late and they ran out of Prime Rib for the sandwich. They sent someone over to Bandera to pick up more meat so that we could order it.

That begs the question as to whether or not that Houston's branch and Bandera had common ownership...not that it matters. In any event, I'm glad that Houston's is gone so that we can now enjoy David Burke's Primehouse.

stevez wrote:That begs the question as to whether or not that Houston's branch and Bandera had common ownership...not that it matters.

They did. I miss Houston's if only because it was the one restaurant in Chicago where I knew my parents would be happy (both with the menu choices and with the prices). And I got a few good meals out of the place as well.

Kristen

Bandera also has the absolute best veggie burger in the city. Even my die-hard omnivore parents, who don't consider it a meal without meat, will call and ask me if I want to join them at Bandera for the veggie burger. It is that good.

(it was written up as such in Chicago magazine a few months ago, but don't let that dissuade you. it really is good!)

i recently went back to bandera for dinner... had a mediocre experience, at best.

not that i'd cheat on LTH, but here's the bulk of what i wrote about bandera on another site:

We started with the giant artichoke for an appetizer. While it was very good, I was annoyed when the waitor came by 3 minutes after we received it to explain how to eat it, as if I had never eaten artichoke before. Its not like we were just staring blankly at it not sure what to do with it.

We were further annoyed when the expeditor came and dropped off our entrees 2 minutes later (so in total no more than 5 minutes after we got our appetizer). Hello, can't you tell we're not even half way done with our appetizer? This to me is absolutely unacceptable and probably one of the worst things a restaurant can do. 10 minutes later (eating a giant artichoke is fairly time consuming) we were ready to eat our barely warm entrees. Its not like we could even complain, because the server never came back to ask how everything was until we were clearly ready for more drinks and/or our check. When he did finally come back, we were finally able to ask for water in addition to our drinks.

Just about EVERY entree on the menu is loaded with sugar. The night I went all of the specials came with your choice of maple syrup glazed carrots OR braised cabbage. Thinking the braised cabbage was the smarter choice health-wise, my dining partner and I both picked it. The cabbage came and was more like caramelized cabbage than braised. It tasted like it was braised in corn syrup and vinegar, not just wine or whatever one might expect. My pork entree-which mentioned nothing of a glaze--but it came and was glazed in some sort of thick honey sauce.

Outside of the very simply prepared artichoke, the food itself wasn't anything spectacular. To me any restaurant that needs to drench everything in thick sauces (a la TGIFs) is trying to cover up poorly prepared dishes.

As soon as the check was about to be delivered, the waitor started being very attentive and tried to make us forget that everything up until then was pretty mediocre (even though we never actually told him, since by the time he really came back it was too late anyway).

This place has live jazz music every night. Just make sure that when getting a table, you aren't seated directly next to the quartet, or you'll be lucky to hear yourself cough. I'm not complaining about the live music--its great--but for dining its a little loud.

Honestly, I wouldn't expect service at TGIF's to be this lacking.

At over $100 for 2 entrees, one appetizer, and 2-3 drinks, the place isn't the cheapest place in the world for what it is, either. Go to Bandera if you go out every night of your life and haven't tried it, but certainly don't go there hoping to have a nice date or something.

Well, this is fortuitous. I'm meeting my daughter for dinner at Bandera tonight, though I'll be headed for more Mex-oriented items, and will post if anything radically wonderful or terrible hits my plate.

Really glad you posted, Rudy ...and brought this thread back up to the top of the board and my attention.

PS. Cooler, that Brendan Fraser analogy was hilarious (I liked Gods and Monsters a lot, though I also enjoyed Encino Man.)

David "Maybe Too Easy to Please" Hammond

When Mrs. Fujisan and I are shopping downtown, we do like to go to Bandera for the grilled artichoke and the corn bread baked in a mini cast-iron skillet. As previously mentioned, the macho chicken salad is great, but probably contains more calories and fat than the burgers do. Service can indeed be lacking, but it's still a great place if you can get a table by the window. Oh, one time our waitress accidently put $450 on my card instead of $45

Bandera in Los Angeles (home sweet home) is an amazing scene (Hi Larry David and wife every Tuesday without fail). MY non celebrity wife and I were regulars....to watch the intense deparate West Side singles scene...but mostly for the best ever.....EVER!..smoked salmon.....unfortunately, the Chicago location no longer serves this spectacular dish, as they apparently almost burnt the place down with the smoker. Too bad...

Nevertheless....still an underrated spot for Chicago...great view, tremendous French Dip...so definitely still well worth the effort to check out...

Good lord, the food here, as noted, is remarkably, unrelentingly, aggressively SWEET.

I'm not sure that I agree that the syrup is intended to mask low grade ingredients -- that's not an unfair suspicion, but I had a piece of bass that, thankfully, escaped the sugar-coater's hand and I found it quite excellent: soft, moist, flavorful, really good. This is apparently a California-based operation (?) -- though I doubt, as our hostess informed us in a whisper, that Antonio BanderaS is an investor -- and perhaps this is a style of contemporary west coast cooking of which I am unaware.

At any rate, this is a pleasant damn room: overlooking glittery Michigan Ave., a jazz band playing, clubby banquettes, and attentive servers. Still, I don't get the freaky sugariness...

David "And I like candy a lot" Hammond

David Hammond wrote:I'm not sure that I agree that the syrup is intended to mask low grade ingredients -- that's not an unfair suspicion, but I had a piece of bass that,

well, perhaps i was being unfair or poorly worded that... i think their ingredients are probably top notch and there's no lack of freshness to worry about.. but even if you can manage to perfectly grill a piece of fish or chicken or whatever to not-over-doneness, drenching it in sugary sauces kind of undoes that for me..

the jazz is good, i just happened to get the worst table in the house (though there are 3or 4 tables that are within 5 feet of the musicians)

the california connection does make sense... they seemed to be owned by Hillstone group (http://www.hillstone.com/) which says their exec office is in LA, but their web site is registered in Phoenix, and their site says training is in napa valley...

dddane wrote:well, perhaps i was being unfair or poorly worded that... i think their ingredients are probably top notch and there's no lack of freshness to worry about.. but even if you can manage to perfectly grill a piece of fish or chicken or whatever to not-over-doneness, drenching it in sugary sauces kind of undoes that for me..

Yes, we had to stop eating at some point, not because we were full, but because we felt ourselves drifting into a sugar coma. You have to hand it to the place though: they have a style of cooking. Not a style I like much, but a style, and in some ways it seems a definitely American-type style: fresh ingredients, capably prepared, a fusion of cultures, and tongue-numbingly sweet.

Hammond

David Hammond wrote:Yes, we had to stop eating at some point, not because we were full, but because we felt ourselves drifting into a sugar coma. You have to hand it to the place though: they have a style of cooking. Not a style I like much, but a style, and in some ways it seems a definitely American-type style: fresh ingredients, capably prepared, a fusion of cultures, and tongue-numbingly sweet.

I'm seeing (tasting) the trend to sweeten all the savory dishes in a lot of places, not just the TGI O'Bennigans type of place, either. Here's what I've found at the new, sorta trendy and (I think, one-off) restaurant at Harrah's Joliet, Mosaic. They have their own chef, etc., yet they crank out the sweet stuff in every course. They also have a feature Bandera should look into: a jaw-dropping faux-Chihuly style glass sculpture at the entrance laden with monster slices of Chocolate Insanity Cherry Chip Keylime and Walnut Butter Mousse Cake that the hostess highly encourages you to ogle on the way to your table. I think that's a psyops tool designed to set your sweet tooth to kill before you even sit down to review the menu. Anyway, there's a data point that may or may not establish or even represent a real trend. Thoughts?
*rummages through desk drawer for Zagnut bar*