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You get an update! and you get an update! and you get an update! Freshmann in THA KITCH-ANNN!!!! October 9, 2009

Oprah, when we return to the CHI, it will be to sit on your couch. Mark our blog post. We shall return to re-conquer the windy city at your side.We got as close to you as doing an event for Common Threads started by Chef Art Smith (O’s personal chef) and since we know you love his food…next time we hope you’ll fall in love with us. We’ll sit in those over sized chairs, awkwardly tilted towards you, with that huge TV screen behind our heads looping a photoshop montage of our baby pictures. We will spill our guts about our childhood, and unlike that James Frey fellow we’ll  keep our truthiness at an all time high. Max will get a haircut so your makeup artist doesn’t recoil in horror and I’ll even refrain from  dressing like a character from The Outsiders. We checked our calendars and are thinking right before the holidays would be a good time for us. 

So for this Chicago trip we came with goals and we actually accomplished all of them (we shocked ourselves with our efficiency).

Simple Goals: We wanted to eat our faces off (which we did), we wanted to do well on TV (accomplished) and we wanted people to learn and have fun at our two demos (Whole Foods- oh fa sho, Chopping Block – great success!). Below is a picture of the Whole Foods demo kitchen and the unreasonably sweet kitchen at The Chopping Block which made our knives gently weep.

But enough about us for a min. So you are wondering where o where did we get our eat on?? There were 4 highlights.

#1 Feed http://feedrestaurantchicago.com/ - We went in a group of 5 and ordered this spread: Pulled Pork Hash w/eggs and toast,4 huge crispy Biscuits and Sausage gravy,2 orders of Chicken Fried Steak with sawmill gravy potatoes and toast, a stack of flap jacks and an extra side of potatoes. Not only does this place look awesome inside but it had a great back patio where we feasted. Afterwards we were so grossly full I begged max to carry me back to where we were staying but he couldn’t so instead we bought a wheelbarrow and he rolled me home.

#2 Takashi. www.takashichicago.com/ Max’s boss Eve knows Takashi and respects his culinary talents immensely. Max had eaten here before and told me that we absolutely had to go back. We were not disappointed…in the 10 courses we ate. Takashi’s dishes are meticulously crafted with layered flavors and beautiful presentation. The plates were sometimes simple and sometimes ornate, but always delicious. It’s fun to go to a place where you are unsure of certain flavors because then we can guess. and then Eli is wrong. We went with our friend Yaniv who is a great cook and food appreciator in his own right and I think it’s safe to say that Takashi melted his face. We didn’t order dessert and received 3 full seperate desserts (friendly Max perk). An added bonus was when I turned on Top Chef this week and saw Takashi was a judge. Awesome! After the meal,  we walked the 2 miles home from Bucktown to Yaniv’s apt. because otherwise we surely would have exploded.

#3 The Publican -www.thepublicanrestaurant.com Styled after a German beer hall, Max and I were the weird dudes that showed up at 3.30pm as waiters were arriving, prep cooks were getting into the groove and bartenders were inventory’ing. They have a smaller menu before they really open at 5.30pm so Max and I ordered the oyster sampler, the Charcuterie plate – Pork Pie, duck terrine, head cheese, morteau sausage, pickles and mustards. While the flavors were all powerful and tasty (our favorite was the headcheese) the best thing on the plate was actually the mustard selection, which made me want to buy a jar and smear them on everything for the next week. We also ordered the pretzel, the lamb pastrami sandwich with spicy aioli, daikon radish, mint & cilantro. Holy Lambchops playalong. This sandwich was so ridiculous we actually cheers’ed each other with the sandwich. We actually were laughing with our mouths full at how good this sandwich was. I think our waiter said they sous vide the lamb for 24 hours. I don’t know if that’s excessive or necessary…but regardless…that’s super bad ass. We also had the opportunity to meet the chef de cuisine and take a tour of the kitchen and walk-in (the things that will excite chefs may not excite normal people). After seeing the space we still wonder how they do 1200 covers in that place. It’s something neither of our brains could compute. 

#4 Boka - www.bokachicago.com We went to Boka right after our demo at The Chopping Block. We arrived at about 9.15pm  where Chef Giuseppe Tentori  greeted us and welcomed us personally into his restaurant. Now my brother and I don’t usually freak out about anything, but at that point, we freaked out and graciously thanked him 15 times. We hung out at the bar and sampled nearly every cocktail from the expert mixologist’s personal menu of homemade spirits. Then we sat down and the ridiculousness began. Our plan was to order 3 small appetizers and head to another bar afterwards.Well Chef had other plans as the entire wait staff approached our table with hands full and desperately tried to cram every dish onto our table. They called it the Boka Bombardment and it was like winning a culinary lottery. Some of the highlights were the raw tasting of hamachi with coconut crusted tofu, oysters, seared big eye tuna with hearts of palm puree, marinated tai snapper with picked radish(all 4 items served in a bento-box), grilled ricotta salata with butternut squash, diver sea scallops with chinese black rice, fennel dusted sweatbreads, mac and cheese with edamame, black mole infused pork belly and grilled baby octopus with eel terrine. The Chef came out and thanked us for choosing to dine at his restaurant which was sort of an absurd exchange as our mouths were crammed full of his food and we tried to tell him how insanely good it was.  We amazingly refrained from dorkilly asking to take a picture with him and mostly just bowed our heads,nodded and while covering our mouths tried to politely say “afsome food..suhpr tasty. ahmzging. oh my god..seriously.jesus.so good.” A special thanks to our two other diners that evening for their warm hospitality and another thank you to all the Chefs we met who gave us some of their time while we were in Chicago. A perfect way to close out an amazing trip. 

Below are our two TV appearances.  ABC is right below and WGN you just have to scroll down the page a lil bit. If you think we would be a good fit on your local news station, call them up and tell them about us. We’d happily make a stop in your town.