Get ready boys and girls

I just blogged for five hours, covering all 29 dishes that I recently enjoyed at Alinea over seven hours. I'm surprised that blogging time nearly matches dining time. And I'm even more surprised that I haven't eaten for the day yet. Sweet lord this girl is ready to chow down after thinking about some mad delicious food and writing about it all morning.

I'm letting the posts show up over the course of the month, so get ready for a fabulous March!

Map Apologies

I don't know if you've noticed, but the map hasn't been updated in ages. My apologies. Is the map even helpful? Does it make the page load slowly? Should I figure out how to throw it onto a separate tab? How does one even make a separate tab on Blogger?

Can I have a map intern? Can someone who is cash flow negative even get an intern?

These are the questions that assail my life.

Urban Belly

Urban Belly is a little restaurant tucked into the Avondale neighborhood of Chicago, serving Asian inspired meals.

This was my first meal in Chicago with a foodie I could trust, and indeed, it makes a difference who one hangs out with.

Which isn't to say that everything was a hit however. The Urban Belly Ramen was heavy on the star anise flavors of pho, which resulted in a broth that tasted too savory and not the appropriate base for the ramen-style noodles. Maybe I'm an unyielding conservative at heart, but I automatically associate thin rice noodles with the aromas of a good strong Vietnamese pho-style soup. The sweetbreads, which were a special, also failed to be a complete success, but that didn't stop me from finishing them off. The sweetbreads were fried and coated in a thick sweet and spicy sauce, that made the whole dish reminiscent of Sweet & Sour Pork common on many Chinese restaurant set menus. The strong flavors overwhelmed the delicate sweetbreads, and frankly it wouldn't have made much difference if the restaurant substituted pork for sweetbreads.

Our other two items were fantastic. A pork belly fried rice topped with fried shallots was good and greasy and salty.

The best item was this Asian Squash and Bacon dumplings. The citrus sauce was a nice light accompaniment to the sweet squash and salty bacon.

Urban Belly, 3053 N. California Ave., Chicago, IL

Twin Anchors

Two separate people have told me that Twin Anchors has pretty good ribs, and I went with one of them. Okay, New York might not know much about true BBQ, but I'm not convinced Twin Anchors does either. What makes a good rib? Is it the smokiness?

For me, falling off the bone, good fatty ribs, and then, finally, smokiness or the key prerequisites. Sauce options are also preferable, as I like to be my own mad scientist, mixing and matching my exact preference of sauce - which can change over the course of a meal.

I did however, wig out with the combination of whipped butter on slices of soft rye bed. I must have gone through at least five little tubs of butter. Yes, five. And sadly, that was probably the favorite part of my meal.

Twin Anchors, 1655 North Sedgwick St., Chicago, IL

Cafe Iberico

My second trip to Cafe Iberico was decidedly better than the first. These sweet breads on the special menu were a surprise. Slightly charred on the outside and tender on the inside, they were a good compliment to the accompanying potatoes.

Raxo Adobado (marinated pork loin with homemade fries).

A pork tenderloin dish on the special that was not so good. Too dry.

Spicy potatoes with chorizo.

Patatas Bravas. aka more spicy potatoes. It was not a light dinner to say the least.

Cafe Iberico, 739 N. LaSalle Dr., Chicago, IL

Simply It

Sometimes a lady just needs her estrogen fix. Having gone to an all-women's college, I find I miss it more than most.

And before you gag, all I mean is that sometimes one just desires the exclusive company of women. It's always such a comfort to be in the presence of intelligent, personable, accomplished ladies.

A bunch of us met up at Simply It for a dinner with lots of wine. It reminded me that one of the main reasons why I was looking forward to school was to meet all of my peers.

As far as the food itself, solid. I wouldn't go rushing back to fill a Thai craving, but the hosts were very generous, and the company quite fine.

Simply It, 2269 North Lincoln Ave., Chicago, IL

Kalbi

The Epicurean Club at school held a cooking demonstration event, where students volunteered to teach their peers how to cook a meal.

I lucked out and got Korean food. Whoo hoo!

I need to find a Korean market that is accessible by the el train because these images of kim chee seriously have me craving a good shopping excursion.

I stuffed myself silly that night. No surprise there.

We all huddled around the makeshift dinner table and ate and ate and ate. I like that our hosts were gracious enough to get a good char on the kalbi, smoking up the whole house, so that we got a veritable smoke sauna. It was totally worth it though.

This is Why You're Fat

I got this in my inbox last night. From my dumb kid brother's roommate. Who may have to be anointed dumb kid roommate.

It's a bacon wrapped hot dog covered in chili and topped with cocktail shrimp. I thought my friend was sending me a picture from This is Why You're Fat.

Then I said: "I can't decide whether this is creative. Or stupid."

Then I found out dumb kid roommate made it for din din last night.

He considers my misappropriation of authorship for this hot dog mutation: one of the best cooking compliments of his life.

Vosges Chocolate

Vosges is a Chicago chocolate company, and when my friend crashed with me the other night (med school interviews, M.D./PhD, talk about a lot of school!) she gave me a set of their flavored chocolate bars.

I was of course most intrigued by the bacon chocolate, and it was funny seeing the reactions of people to the idea: revulsion to curiosity to excitement. The chocolate itself reminded me of bacon bits, and it's not something I'd likely pick up again. It was more salty and had that smoky meaty flavor, but for me, bacon-ey fat is what I love most.

Instead, I preferred the Indian green cardamom, the Goji (for the Himalayan pink salt), and the Matcha (for the green tea) more.

If you were someone who could distinguish between Himalayan pink salt, Maldon sea salt, Kosher salt, and Fleur de sel, would you consider yourself to have accomplished something meaning with your life? Or would you be appalled at yourself? I'm at the stage where I can easily distinguish Maldon, Kosher, iodized, and rock. But the finer differences between a fleur de sel and other sea salts are still beyond me. Does that mean I'm redeemable, or that I've already gone too far over into the world of eccentric obsession?

Rockit

Seeing as how it's February, I really do need to get going with things and start talking about the New Year's spread. And speaking of general inadequacy, do good writers roll their eyes every single time they see poor hack authors such as myself write phrases such as "get going with things," indicating such a dearth of imaginative reserves that the best noun the loser can come up with, is "things"?

Well, one thing I know I'm good at is the run-on sentence.

Moving on. The Chicago winter is some other level of demoralizing. Or maybe it's the combination of Chicago winter and lack of fun, warming food parties. Though I was invited to another Abby & Sam dinner, and true to form, it brightened my evening immeasurably.

The other day I did manage to make it to Rockit for a quick bite with friends. We didn't really strain ourselves on the trip over, transforming what would have been a 20 min. walk into a 3 min. cab ride. (I'm actually, being geographically challenged, not quite sure where Rockit is in relation to my home, and rather uncertain on the number of minutes it would take one to get there walking.)

Rockit is civilized bar food. Chicago seems to abound in establishments serving civilized bar food. My burger was satisfactory, but based on that limited interaction, Rockit has not reached a level that would induce cravings and compel me to go far outside my comfort zone in order to get a Rockit-specific meal.

Our dinner did serve its purpose, however, which was to fuel a meal of general absurdity, as I watched one of my compatriots dig verbal graves with his exuberant, unedited, and never ending stream of dialogue. You have to love people who aren't afraid to be themselves.

Rockit, 22 West Hubbard St., Chicago, IL