midwest

week 35: girl & the goat

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the best thing about having a sister that works at the most happening new restaurant in town is that, 
girrrrrrrl, we be hooked up!
the worst thing is how mortified sister would be if i dare bring the picture taker into her workspace.
but the best thing abut that is i get to practice my drawring skillz!!
and look at how great i look in drawring world!
hehe.
so a few days ago the whole family piled into the buggy and went on the expressway and went to the downtown chicago and ate at
brought to you by top chef winner extraordinaire stephanie izard!
mum and i prepped ourselves emotionally about eating goat because i don't know about you, but eating goats just doesn't seem like the ideal sunday evening activity and it reminded me about my old friend pepper who is a goat.
but really, a lot of the dishes were non-goat! yay, non-goat! there were a lot of piggies and fishies... 
and here are a few of my faves:
from top to bottom:
chickpea fritters
with tomaters + fresh mozzarella 
pork liver mousse 
with pickles, apple mustarda {apples with mustard seeds! dainty}, and hot and buttery crumpets! 
oh nothing tickles me more than a good crumpet.
pig face!
with eggies and potato stix and a sweet syrupy sauce. 
it wasn't actually in the shape of a face {so you couldn't, like, make it's acquaintance or anything} so this picture is less accurate than the others.... it was basically a brown patty of what tasted like a lighter and airier bacon. 
and all of the components together worked it breakfast-style.
the only goat meat i ate was on the smoked goat pizza.
and it's a good thing, because it was hiding under all of the other toppings {ricotta and apples and stuff}
so i didn't have a chance to get scared and i just put it in my mouth like it ain't no thang. 
my fammy got all four of the desserts...
they weren't as photo-er-picturegenic:
 from top to bottom:
tater donuts with eggplant
#donutsarethenewcupcakes
fudgesicles with olive oil gelato in a swimmy pool of beer!!!
olive oil gelato tasty pants hallelujah 
nougat with corn and bacon
ahhhhhh charleston chew took a poo!!!!!!!!
berry cake with goat cheese frosting
"hey you know that disgusting animal you'd never eat? check out what we did with some of its breast milk!"
not that this says anything about the cake, because i'm not offended by goat cheese, but jim gaffigan tweeted that just days before i came here and it made me giggle. 
this is stephanie and a goat or a unicorn and the sun!
you might not be able to get a reservation here for like years but you should try anyways.
they even have their own special wine... and a stoopie!

mmmmaaaaaa said the goat: 17 restaurants left!


xoxo


yeh


girl & the goat is on randolph street in chicago

week 34: los huaraches

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i'm proud. so proud of my little neighborhood.
all of the dry-cleaners and the gas stations and the juicy couture are officially worth enduring for this itsy-bitsy place i stumbled upon a few days ago:
i don't know a thing about it.
i don't know when it opened...
it's sort of dumpy,
but  if there's anything new york has taught me besides how to sweet talk my corner pastry stand guy into giving me a free donut,
it's to embrace the little dumpy places!
so mum and i did just that and gorged on tortas that picked us up right where xoco's left off last week.
we got a 
hawaiian torta
pineapples, ham, cheese, avocados, mayo{?}, jalapenos, tomaters, and onions
and a
chickens torta
chickens {cluck cluck}, avocado, tomaters, onions, jalapenos, beans {?}, mayo {?}, and no cheese {sad pandas sad pandas}
and girls, this is what a torta should be.
i apologize for not confirming the localness of the chickens,
but how can you say no to pillow soft, buttery, almost focaccia-y bread?
and omg. hawaiian torta. it really is as good as it sounds. for a fruit that sort of freaked the begeezies out of me until a few months ago, pineapple is kind of winning.
maybe the taco truck outside of my apartment will let me pitch this idea to them.
and
of course:
horchata
horchata!
my fave! with overtones of bubblicious that almost had the marshmallow peep effect, but a horchata nonethefewer.
...
well by gum. this place. it's oggle-worthy. who knew a torta of this caliber could be found out here in the stix?
it's like glenda the good witch's magical bubble just appeared out of nowhere and then burst open with magic and pink and beans. and everyone is gleeful. 
and lunch is fun again.

...18 to go, señor sillies!

xoxo


yeh


los huaraches is on milwaukee, a bit north of lake. in the north suburbs of chicago!

week 33: xoco

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at home
in the suburbs
there are not so many places to eat.
there's the steak n shake {which is really embarrassing to be seen in if you're older than 17}
and there's mum's kitchen {which is quite yummy... but has never seen pork}
and so on the occasion,
we make a voyage to the city to try out whatzbingoinon in the chicago foods scene.
an hour of traffic and minimal driving-induced panicking by mum got us to
the newish restaurant by chicago's greatest goateed celeb chef, rick bayless
home to a zillion kinds of local/organic/bougey tortas. 
hot out of a woodburning oven.

{hallelujah! tortas are my fave!!! but does this mean i'm cheating on my beloved taco truck??}

after a batman-ride-at-six-flags-sized line,
victory was had and guacamole was in our tummies 
it was maybe the best damned guacamole i ever had, but shh don't tell stoop... she's the family guacamole maker
and tortas were ready to be eaten! yay yipee!! 

stoopie got a piggy torta with beans, pink pickled onions, and habanero salsa {which came with a nice little lecture about how we should proceed with caution}
and mum got chickens with beans and avocados.
while they really didn't resemble their taco truck brethren, 
they were quite tasty!
everything was really fresh and seazonedgood and mum/stoop seemed to enjoy them lots and lots!
however the crustiness of it all made me miss the soft white bread that made me fall in love with tortas in the first place.
...which is why it was a good thing that i got a griddle torta instead of the wood-fired ones that mum and stoop got.
this was on a softer white bread and was filled with
 prosciutto, beans, avocado, 
and 
chipotle mustard <--- hell yeah that's what swayed me.

it was like a really really scrumptious* panini.
it wasn't anything at all like the tortas i've had.
but it was good...
even though half way through i had to extract some of the prosciutto because i was on salt overload. 
but do you know how good an avocado and chipotle mustard sandwich is?! 
really good, apparently. 

*what the thesaurus in my head recommended after "tasty" was overused


dessert was a churro + vanilla soft serve
the churros in my elementary school's cafeteria < this churro < county fair churros
closer in goodness to the county fair churros. 
but, i mean, you all know that i'm a doughy food kind of gal. 
these were light and airy... good if you like that kind of thing. 


but the bottom line is:

where's the horchata, mr. bayless?!
wtf?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i will wait on that line again if and only if that dude makes a horchata. and can it be boozey.

xoco is good. 
just bring snackees for the line, as to not cause a scene when you throw a hungry tantrum.

...19 restaurants to go. omg i'm in the teens!!



xoxo


yeh



xoco is in the chicago loop. 
and because chicago's streets aren't numbered, i have no idea how to direct you there.
UPDATE: the website says it's on north clark and illinois. but that don't mean nuthin to me.



the crack that is cookie in a bowl

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if ever there was a really good reason why my friends and i showed up to marching band practice on tuesday nights during the summer,
this was it:
d'agostino's cookie in a bowl
a just-outta-the-oven cookie that would crush levain in a smackdown
a few scoops of homer's ice cream
and drizzly stuff.
since we had just spent four hours in the sun marching our little buns off,
we figured we could take the fattyness.
{and be "we" i mean "they." i didn't actually ever march. i was in the pit. so what. i still wanted cookie in a bowl}
there was never any question. after practice, the first stop was d'ag's.

and since yesterday was tuesday {or because we just had cravings...}
we relived our sweet high school memories 
and gorged.
and gorged.
and gorged some more.

and then drove around listening to the backstreet boys.
viva boybands.



xoxo


yeh