Monday, February 7, 2011

Petterino's, For date night. Maybe Valentines Day? Wink, wink fellas.








Petterino's at 150 N. Dearborn in Chicago's Loop neighborhood is a great place to get a skirt steak dinner. Usually I like to go to a mexican spot for skirt steak, it is usually gonna be a decent price, and you'll get a lot. But every now and again my wife and I like dress up, well I just wear a black shirt and khakis, and then we go some where a little nicer than we usually go to.

Petterino's is one of those spots. They do a great job with the skirt steak, it is grilled to perfection, then placed on top a ton of crispy frites (french fries), and the steak itself gets topped off with a little butter, spices, and chopped parsley? Maybe. something green, tasty. Probably not parsley. And it is drizzled with a ton of fried onions. So Monte-licious! It is not inexpensive here, but the skirt steak dinner is comparable to most places.

the wedge salad, and dessert were Monte-riffic! That vinaigrette is some of my all time favorite. And the chocolate, pecan pie, a 10!

Petterino's is named after the guy who ran Chicago's ever popular Pump Room.

Monday, January 31, 2011

Burrrr - Ger!




This is the burger from Reel club in Oak Brook at 272 Oakbrook Center
Oak Brook, IL And it is ridiculous. This Burger is so freakin Monte-licious you will wanna hug me. It is juicy, meaty, covered in bacon, and sweet grilled onions, with a soft bun.... what more could ask for? Maybe the ability to make love to one of the cute waitresses? If I were single!

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

The Bongo Room for breakfast. Remember Congo Bongo on Atari 5200?







The Bongo Room in Wicker Park at 1740 N. Milwaukee Ave. Serves up a Monte-licious breakfast, and on of my recent faves.... The BLT Benedict with a pesto hollandaise sauce is delicious. They use spinach, and bacon, topped by a wonderfully monte-riffic poached egg, and that pesto hollandaise sauce... it makes the meal. It comes served with triangled , seasoned red potatoes, get em well done, which are very tasty, and the english muffin is good.

One of my favorite things about the meal was, I took half home, and reheated it the next day in my counter top convection oven... it was so goooood! Even the next day. Keep in mind I said convection oven, and not microwave. Microwaves ruin everything, don't use em.

The place is definitely expensive, they charge over $3 for a small OJ that is no more than maybe 3 shot glasses worth of product. And the meals themselves are pricey, but, and this is important, for the meal, it's totally worth it. Completely. Skip the drinks. The service is good, and there are a lot of cute girls there. And the ladies will probably like the boys there.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Shizzity Shaw's Crab House.














when yer ready to splurge, go to Shaw's, it is definitely Monte-licious!
Shaw's in Chicago is at 21 E. Hubbard in the Near North Side. We had the wedge salad, which they have one of my all time favorite house salad dressings there. We also had the King Salmon, Grouper and Raspberry pie. And by we, I mean me and my wife, Meatball Head.

Monday, January 17, 2011

My favorite breakfast spot closed. Sad face.





















My favorite spot for breakfast was a place called Patty's Diner which was at 3358 Main St. in Skokie, Il. It is gone/closed/finito. It closed Dec. 31st. 2010. This place was absolutely the best place I have ever been to for Ham Hash, a hamburger, and biscuits & gravy. It was owned and run by Patty and her sisters, and a few friends for 20 years! I am still saddened by it's absence, so here are a few pics. to remember it by.

Monday, January 10, 2011

New York Deli in Chicago?! What? Yes, it's true. And it's good!





This is not me in the photo, it is Kevin Hogan, they guy I photographed.

So I do head shots for people from time to time. I am a great photographer, and I give a great deal. $50, you get great head shots and you buy me a lunch/meal/sandwich. It's a great deal for everyone involved, and it brings me to new places to eat I am not yet familiar with.

Last week I shot a man named Kevin Hogan, he was down for the deal, and excited to bring me to a place he knew of that I have never been to before. Exciting for me!

We ended up a place called New York Deli at 2921 N. Clark St. in Lakeview. The sandwich was Monte-licious!! I got a sandwich called the RJ that had pastrami, and turkey on it. It comes with a little olive oil and herbs on top the bun that has been lightly toasted, I loved the bread!

The place was great, and I learned some neat suff about Kevin. I learned that Kevin had owned a few hot dog carts in St. Louis, which has been a dream of mine since I was a child. But I wanna own em in Chicago. I also learned he went to Harvard on a full scholarship for one semester, it was what was free, and after that he returned to St. Louis and went somewhere local he could afford. Super cool!!

So to sum it up, the sandwich at New York Deli was great, and worth checkin out. My only gripe, the kid who took our order was kind of a dick, but Kevin said he wasn't familiar with that kid, and that the other guy who showed up later was cool, and made a bigger sandwich. So next time, I am expecting bigger and better, and will leave if I see the kid that was there my first time.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Sick Steak Tacos!! Sick!!








Sol De Mexico at 3018 N. Cicero Ave. in Chicago's Cragin neighborhood has some of the absolute tastiest, most Monte-licious steak tacos I have eatin in a loooong time!! Plus they come with this amazing sauce of sour cream and stewed/grilled onions. I had it on the side due to my freakin lactose intolerance, but I ate it all, and I paid for it later trust me.

They also make their own tortilla shells, this to me is top notch. So check it out, but be prepared for a more inflated tab vs. most other places. You are gonna pay for the quality here, believe me. Oh, don't keep anything visible in yer car that has any value. It's not the worst eighborhood, but I have my car broken into before in the area, but not at the restaurant itself. Just watch yer belongings over there is all I'm sayin.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Schlegl's Bakery, one of my faves.



3915 Touhy Ave. Lincolnwood, Il. next to the Long John Silvers

I found a great butter cookie spot!! I love butter cookies, but I absolutely love the turtle butter cookies best. Only problem is, most places/bakeries I get em at, the cookies are usually a little hard, caramel is a bit chewy, and the chocolate is like the chocolate coating they use on ice cream cones. Hard. Which I like, but not on a cookie.
Anyway, I am in an air rifle club, and one of my fellow shooters, who are German, was tellin me one night, that in Germany, everyone learns a trade or skill in school starting when you are a child. So by the time yer an adult, on yer own, and in the real world, you are a master at what you do, and hopefully a professional. She said, this is the best way to teach/raise a child. And I agree, I think that is very smart, kinda wish I was raised in that fashion. But I am not German. She proceeded to tell me that her husband was a baker, trained since he was a child in Germany, and when he came to America he opened a bakery. It became the family business. She said everything that he made there was the best; he baked everyday with love, and years of experience. Experience that he passed down to his son. She said that fortunately her son had an interest/love for baking at an early age, so the father trained him, basically groomed him to take over the business one day, and he did. She said that her baked just as well as his father, and that the tradition and quality of the their product was incomparable; the best.

I know most parents are going to be on their child's side, that's just the way it is. I mean, you could show my mom video footage of me committing a crime, and she'd say it was either a look a like, that I was sleep walking, or that it was a computer generated image of me placed in that situation. But I was raised with these kids who had a straight up German mother from Germany, and I saw her humiliate my friends on multiple occasions when they made mistakes. It’s where I learned, humiliate, intimidate to motivate from. So I have an opinion, be it a blanket opinion, right or wrong, that German parents would not tolerate substandard achievements. So when all the conversation and family praising was done, I knew, I had to go to this bakery.
I now had a mission.

The directions were simple; it's on Touhy, east of Pulaski/Crawford next to the long Long John Silver. Ppppffff, it was exactly like she told me; on Touhy, just east of Pulaski/Crawford, and it was right next to the Long John Silver. But from the outside, it didn't look impressive. I don't mean it looked bad, it’s just with all this talk of history, and tradition, I was expectin an old school lookin bakery; all white, or yellow, with a big old cheesy sign from the 60's. And instead, it was all brown, pretty modern looking, and the name of the place; "Schlegls" was in a weird font on an ugly brown awning. So visually, I was kinda disappointed.

Well, I drove all the way out here, I am going to just go inside and check it out, I thought to myself. I walk inside, and immediately it smelled fantastic. It was small, and everything was tightly set up right in front for you to see immediately. Now it was becoming much more impressive. The baked items look amazing! It’s not a bunch of ridiculous cupcake flavors, or crazy lookin cakes & currie flavored cookies. It’s traditional, old school bakery goods I love; butter cookies, donuts, brownies, coffe cakes, some covered in chocolate. This is a throw back to the stuff I remember loving as a child, where most things are covered in chocolate frosting! And being a good German bakery, they even had plum cake. And then, there they were, my beloved; turtle cookies. Butter cookies topped with a splash of caramel, a sprinkle of pecans, and a dollop of chocolate. All of my favorites in one sweet treat!
There it is, waiting for me, I order two of em, and two butter cookies with chocolate kisses on em. The girl behind the counter puts em in a box and tapes it shut. Tapes it! I said, “Tape, a mild deterrent.” She looked at me and laughed, I wanted to have sex with her. I immediately ripped the tape of in an “I’m insulted” manner, and asked her if she could throw it away for me. She didn’t laugh. I still wanted to sex her.
I am in my car, right in front of the bakery; I cannot wait so I open the box. Right away I begin to get excited, when I remove the top layer of paper from the cookies, it is covered in chocolate. This is a good sign; it means the chocolate is not hard like on an ice cream cone. The chocolate is actually smooth & creamy chocolate frosting, and he pecans are fresh and soft. The caramel, some of the best, smoothest, creamiest, softest caramel I have ever bitten into. And the actually plate in which all of these wonderful treats were delivered on, or you can call it a Butter Cookie, was absolutely, perfectly yhe right texture; not to chewy, not to crunchy, but it had the perfect give, and feel on yer my teeth, and was it buttery. But not to buttery, like if you set in a cardboard box for a few and moved it, it wouldn’t look like you just moved a piece of pizza.
The perfect cookie!
And the butter cookie with chocolate kisses was excellent to, same plate/butter cookie, covered in tiny little chocolate kisses. And the chocolate was delicious/”Monte-licious!” they may be tiny kisses, but boy, that is some smooth, milky chocolate, they are one of a kind.
The German lady from my air rifle club, and her family’s tradition pulled through. The cookies were impressive, and made look inside, I wish I had some sorta family tradition like that, but I don’t. My dad did things I am not at liberty to speak of, and my mom worked in a factory. And I love em both more than anything for doing whatever it took to provide. I just wish we had some tradition is all. We all have stinky feet.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

"Makin a pizza with Monte." Complete.

http://vimeo.com/15615421

if this doesn't work go to the "makin a pizza with monte" just to the left here, in my links list. enjoy.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Breakfast at The Ravenswood Grill



The Ravenswood Grill is in Chicago at 1968 W. Lawrence Ave. just east of Damen on the north side of the street. They feature mostly organic, sustainable food. and they have one of our current favorite waiters there, Anthony.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

The Russian Bear Eats!!!!



Me n buddy Miro eating at Los Nopales, one of Chicago's finer Mexican Restaurants. It is located at 4544 N. Western Ave.

The video is under 4 minutes long, and I think it's worth stickin' with, it has a few dry moments but it's mostly pretty entertaining.