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Thursday, June 27, 2002
Note to selves: Do not mock the king of Thailand.
posted by Luke at 8:29 AM | 2 comments
Tuesday, June 25, 2002
Earlier I commented on how we were watching the World Cup at Fado. Here's a picture of Oliver and Sandy from the USA-Mexico game. Check out the ceiling, where the plaster is peeling away as though this were a centuries-old Irish pub. Fado, however, is just a few years old. The ceiling, in fact, is wallpaper. Somewhere, somehow, some evil mind has come up with a "distressed plaster" pattern of wallpaper, to give any new restaurant that patina of age and imperfection.
Ptooey.
In our restaurant, we will never, ever fake or contrive imperfection. Our flaws will be real, honest -- and probably great in number
posted by Luke at 11:37 AM | 2 comments
Wednesday, June 19, 2002
Anything Britney can do, we can do better.
But you knew that already.
posted by Luke at 8:25 AM | 3 comments
Tuesday, June 18, 2002
Knowing how goofy people get over the World Cup, we ought to make watching it one of the special events we host, especially with how hard it is to find a good place to watch soccer in Chicago. (We went to an alleged soccer bar for the exciting Sweden-Senegal match this weekend. It didn't even turn the sound on. We had to endure two hours of blaring Dave Matthews, an experience even worse than listening to Tommy Smyth. Boo, Sedgwick's!) Although I always hate to see a television in a restaurant, I'm sure we can make an exception once every four years.
In 2006 the tournament is in Germany, which means most games will air in the morning Chicago time. Our breakfast menu will have to include World Cups of coffee and of course French toast.
posted by Luke at 4:02 PM | 3 comments
Friday, June 14, 2002
On a Google search for "clever restaurant names," this site holds an impressive second place. Number one belongs to a paper, titled "Onomastic Sobriquets in the Food and Beverage Industry," that was presented to both the Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities and the Canadian Society for the Study of Names last year.
The paper doesn't reveal anything astonishing -- "The decision of what to name a restaurant can be as critical as what is on the menu because it is one of the first and lasting impressions customers receive." No kidding? -- but it's worth a read for its extensive collection of clever restaurant names. My favorite is Shang Chai, a triply punny name for a Kosher Chinese restaurant. That, and a lawyer/gay bar called Hung Jury.
We're both fans of the pun, so we'll be tempted to employ one when picking a name. A clever one will stick in the head of those who appreciate that kind of thing, though I have a suspicion that's a smaller crwod than we'd like to admit. Then again, a name should evoke the mood of the restaurant, and a pun can betray that responsibility.
Or, we could always go the self-reflexive route. YANI: The Onomastic Sobriquet.
posted by Sandor Weisz at 10:08 AM | 6 comments
Thursday, June 13, 2002
Why we should keep our waiters away from the funny pages, third in a series:
posted by Sandor Weisz at 8:56 AM | Comment?
Wednesday, June 12, 2002
From the "it's funny because it's true, probably" department:
Line Cook Learns Leaving Restaurant Industry Not That Easy
SAN MARCOS, TX -- Eric Weaver, a recently hired line cook at Cactus Jack's, is finding it extremely difficult to extricate himself from the restaurant industry, the 24-year-old aspiring musician said Monday. "Just when I think I've made a clean break, they pull me back in," said Weaver, who in April vowed never to work another restaurant position after quitting his dishwashing job at a local Denny's. "When the manager said, 'Welcome to the Cactus Jack's family,' it gave me icy chills."
posted by Sandor Weisz at 7:59 PM | Comment?
Tuesday, June 11, 2002
The New York Times Magazine this Sunday listed the start-up costs for a handful of businesses, including a Park Slope restaurant, Luce.
We've known all along that start-up costs for a restaurant are immense (I guesstimated $150,000 when I created our tip jar). Luce's came to $232,000, and this doesn't include a single item of food. Some of the more expensive things were construction ($42,000), electrical/plumbing/exhaust work ($36,500), insurance ($10,000) and legal fees ($3,000).
I've already noted the need to befriend the rich (friends and family funded more than half of Luce). Perhaps it would pay off if we started making friends with construction workers, plumbers and lawyers, too.
posted by Luke at 5:33 AM | 2 comments
Monday, June 10, 2002
We are still learning.
We are still learning, for example, how to bake potatoes. Baking potatoes is not hard. The process can be reduced to two simple steps: 1. Put potatoes in oven. 2. Make sure you do this a long, long time before you are ready to eat.
That second step always eludes us. This weekend Sandy included some spuds in his barbeque menu, and even though putting them in the oven was the first thing he did, they were far from ready by the time the asparagus and steaks were screaming to be eaten.
We waited a few more minutes, but eventually the battle between hunger and patience was won by the former. We dug in.
One traditional method of eating a baked potato is to use a fork to mash and fluff it into a sort of potato pillow. Our potatoes this night, however, were still much too hard for that. I had to use a knife to chop mine into small wedges, ending up with a mountain range of potato.
"Well," Sandy asked, "is it edible?"
"With enough butter and salt," I said, crunching into one of my wedges and reaching for the shakers, "anything is edible."
Which I think would make a fine slogan for our restaurant.
posted by Luke at 9:11 AM | 7 comments
Thursday, June 06, 2002
Remember that YAPL on Lincoln that I posted about a while ago? The one with the exquisite interior? When I rode by it this morning, I noticed packing paper had been hung over most of the windows. Upon closer inspection, I found this sign taped up:
I'm torn. Obviously, if we moved in, we'd have to rip out all that beautiful (fake) carpentry, the most appealing feature of the property. Then again, I'm 99% sure that the movie in question is Road to Perdition, a depression-era film starring Tom Hanks and Paul Newman, due to be released sometime next month. They spent about five months last year filming the movie around Chicago and Kankakee, and I even remember driving down this stretch of Lincoln around that time and seeing a film crew in action.
If the movie's as much of a hit as people expect -- and how could it not be with such a good-looking group of extras? -- we could be operating our restaurant out of a piece of Hollywood history. People would flock from miles away to eat at the table that Tom ate on. We'd be the Tom's Restaurant of Chicago!
posted by Sandor Weisz at 11:44 AM | 2 comments
Wednesday, June 05, 2002
On her recipe site, Karen recommends a healthy habit of eating seasonally:
Consider ... local prawns, zucchini, fresh basil and eggplant in the summer. This is the time of year to cook lightly and simply, have barbecues and a multitude of salads. Corn, potatoes and apples in the fall. This is another transitional season, when you can begin to cook with a bolder stroke. Cabbage, oysters and beets in winter. Hot and steamy bowls of sausage with polenta, roast duck and mashed potatoes. Eating and cooking seasonally gives me a reason to celebrate each ingredient as it arrives fresh, full of flavour and potential.
Tom makes the same point on his Confessions of a Foodie blog, underscoring it with some social consciousness:
If you really want strawberries in December, buy in bulk in the summer and freeze them. Don't buy fresh or even frozen strawberries in December. Eating seasonally helps with crop rotation, irrigation, commerce, and citizenship. Perhaps we will see the resurgence of the family farm, and not only eating seasonally, but also locally.
We had blueberry bushes outside my house growing up, and I remember what it was like to pick the first berries of the season. Having fresh blueberries in the house meant summer was either in full swing, or was about to be. Nowadays, instead of picking blueberries, I celebrate the onset of summer with as many barbeques as possible. I enjoy associating food with seasons, and vice versa; meals have that much more meaning to them.
It wouldn't be hard for us to promote seasonal eating. Our menu could change every three months or so, shifting to meals that involve fresher ingredients. We could even put a note on the menu explaining why we do so. And if limiting a popular dish to just three or six months per year develops an anticipatory demand among our customers, all the better.
posted by Sandor Weisz at 3:02 PM | 1 comment
Tuesday, June 04, 2002
We were fully prepared to order an entree each at the Olive Mountain last night. The waitress noticed our eyeing of the dish being eaten at the table next to ours. She told us that it was fattah, a really heavy mishmash of a dish, and that even though it was priced at less than four dollars, it would be more than enough for both of us. This seemed preposterous to me, that such a cheap item could feed two people, even though I could very well see for myself how big the dish actually was. I must have made my suspician apparent, because our waitress reassured us: this would be plenty for both of you. Just to be sure, I tacked on an appetizer of stuffed grape leaves.
She was right, of course; we had half a dish left to take home with us. The bill, with drinks, came out to just under twelve bucks for two of us. It could have easily been twice that without our waitress's friendly insistance. I'm sure she realizes it's a short-term loss that will reap them long-term rewards. I admire that. I know I'll go back the next time I get the chance.
posted by Sandor Weisz at 11:44 AM | Comment?
Monday, June 03, 2002
A conversation with my sister last week:
She: "Oh my god. I have a new favorite restaurant in Chicago. You must visit it."
Me: "Yeah? What is it called?"
She: "La Cumbamba. It's on North, just east --"
Me (surprised): "Yeah, I know! I love that place! I've been waiting for it to re-open for five months. How'd you hear about it?"
She: "A friend took me there. Isn't it great? There weren't any menus. We just kept getting served food, and it was all delicious. And when it was done, our waiter didn't bring us a bill, he just looked over what we had ordered, and charged us $35. Which included a pitcher of sangria."
Me: "Was there a thin, gregarious Colombian man scurrying about? That's William; he owns the place. Or at least did last year."
She: "Hmmmm, no, don't think so."
Point #1: Looks like La Cumbamba is alive and back to its former lovable self, though whether William is there is still undetermined. I suddenly feel a hankering for Colombian food coming on.
Point #2: My sister tells me about La Cumbamba? Looks like someone doesn't read her brother's blog. Tsk tsk.
posted by Sandor Weisz at 1:29 PM | Comment?
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