Kimski

The Marszwewski clan have a wide ranging and expanding empire.  They started out with Maria's Packaged Liquors & Community Bar, a Slashie (bar/packaged liquor store) in Bridgeport.  They then went on to Marz Community Brewery, which was contract brewed and largely served and sold at Maria's (as well as other places around the city).  In the early days, they would have cookouts in the back patio featuring Korean and Polish (and Korean-Polish) fare.  This eventually became the Counter Service restaurant Kimski, a name referencing both their Korean and Polish heritages and Their mother's maiden name, Kim.  While I was interested to see what they might do, I have some friends of Korean and Polish descent who were also interested, so we decided to make it a group outing.  Maria's is an old-style storefront, Kimski is very modern with a patio in front under an angled overhang.  The ordering area is actually pretty small with the counter straight in as you enter and the kitchen window to the left.  There are event posters on the walls and Korean toys on the counters.  In order to get to the main seating area, you actually have to walk around the counter.  So we ordered our food and wandered back with a number to show where to deliver our food.  The interior dining area is largely black with high unfinished ceilings, has a large bar, and seems to be a joint space with Maria's, which is also black.  The back wall's are glass sliding doors that lead to an enclosed patio with high walls and generally has a tan color scheme.  There is one graffiti art painting in the corner with "No Smoking" written (painted) in many languages and styles.  There are booths and four tops in the interior dining room, but as it was a nice day, so we decided to sit on the back patio.  There are smaller Two Top and Four Top banquette picnic tables around the edge of the patio as well as a few large high top tables in the center, where we sat.  The bar is separate from the food area, so you have to get your beer after you order food and wait for it.  It is not delivered.  I like the tap list here because there is generally a wide variety of different beers from all over.  Before the Marz Brewery Tap Room opened, there used to be several Marz Beers on tap.  I was surprised not to see any on the tap list when we were there.  I like Marz beers and they were close, so we decided to visit Marz Brewery Taproom after.  Despite the fact that there were no Marz beers, I was easily able to find something that I would like.  I went with Odd Side Ales Shadynasty New England-Style IPA.  This had a nice hop flavor featuring pine and grapefruit flavors without exceptional bitterness.  It had a nice head that broke down quickly and left some lacing, and had a dry finish.  It was a good beer.

Our food started arriving when we were drinking our beer and everything was shared.  One of the first things that arrived was the Scallion Potato Pancake.  The pancake was made with Beer Batter, Scallions, Shredded Potatoes with Dill, and topped with Tamari Sour Cream Sauce and Scallions.  This was pretty good and very Polish.  I liked the dill flavor in the pancake, and the sour cream provided for a nice sour finish.

Banchan aren't exactly a dish, but are more various sides that are presented with your main meal.  They can be any number things, but are meant to enhance the main meal.  Banchan was on the menu and I like the idea, so I ordered a course.  The menu lists it as a serving of three Ko-Po vegetable sides.  I also like surprises, so ordering this was a given.  While I did know that I was going to be getting vegetables, I didn't know exactly what vegetables that I would be getting or how they would be prepared.  I was presented with a plate of Green Beans, Zucchini, and Broccoli served with Red Pepper.  I am going to guess that they had been canned (or Mason Jarred, as it were).  I was kind of mixed on this.  The beans were nice and crisp, but the zucchini was pretty limp and the broccoli was a bit dry.  The flavor for all of the vegetables was good, but the texture needed work.

There was a dish on the menu that was a combination of Korean, Polish, and Quebecois Bar Food, and a couple were ordered.  This was the Kimski Poutine.  A standard poutine will have cheese curds and brown gravy on french fries.  With this, there was the Fries, and the Wisconsin Cheese curds, but the gravy was Kimchi Gravy, and it was topped with Pickled Onions, Scallions, and Sesame Leaves.  It was nice and gooey with some spiciness, and a sesame finish.  While everyone had some and seemed to enjoy it, I am going to guess that I gave the impression that I liked it more than everyone else because it was given to me to finish, which I heartily enjoyed.

My main course was kind of a spin on Bibimbop, a Korean dish that I really like.  Called Be Bim Noods, it was made with Cold Cooked Wheat Noodles instead of the standard rice.  It was also served cold.  The Noodles were topped with Kimchi and Cucumbers, and served with a Sliced Hard Boiled Egg.  This was a favorite.  It was good and I liked it, but it was also pretty spicy.  This was a dish that should have been fairly easy to eat with chop sticks.  I can use chopsticks, though not well, but I did eat much of it, slowly, with chopsticks.

While the food was fairly simple and their were a few slips, I did enjoy things here.  It's very casual and friendly, the food is easy to share, and the dishes that were wins were very good.          

Small Cheval

While I typically go for a full meal when I go out (appetizer, entree, dessert), when I go out for a burger, I am almost always just going out for a burger.  There was no question about this when I went to Small Cheval.  Located in the former Roxie's By the Slice space and owned by the same group, there were no gross changes in the space between concepts.  It did change the seating layout, putting a counter along the outside walls with bar stool seating and adding a communal table in the center, also with bar stool seating.  Ordering is done at a counter at one corner of the dining room and a paging device is given to you which buzzes when your order is ready.  Small Cheval has, if not the simplest, then one of the simplest menus around.  It consists of two items, a hamburger and a cheeseburger (American Cheese).  The one side is Golden Fries.  The burgers come with Lettuce, Tomato, Grilled Onions, and Dijonnaise.  Bacon can be added for an additional charge.  The burger is based on the very popular burger served at Au Cheval.  There are slight difference between the two, but they are essentially the same.  For drinks, they have an 8 head tap serving beers ranging from the very cheap (Miller High Life and Schlitz) to selections from local breweries like Half Acre and Local Option, to some national craft brews like Ommegang and Founders.  They also serve a small number of cocktails and sell shots.  For my burger, I went with the Cheeseburger with Bacon with a side of Golden Fries and a Half Acre beer.  The Au Cheval burger has been listed as one of the best burgers in America.  The original restaurant, Au Cheval, will frequently have waits of several hours for their burgers and Small Cheval will have a line during hot times.  I will say that while they make a good burger, it isn't worth a several hour wait.  I would argue that a lot of the line is caused by hype.  While I would certainly have and enjoy their burger again, I wouldn't wait several hours for it and would quickly go elsewhere if that was the case.    

BopnGrill

Sometimes you just want a burger.  If it's a good and unusual burger, all the better.  I had heard of BopnGrill a few years ago when it opened and it sounded pretty interesting, a burger place run by a Korean family featuring Korean flavors.  I didn't remember having anything planned for the weekend, so I decided that one of the things that I was going to do was to make a point to get to BopnGrill.  It's located in Rogers Park which is in the Northeast corner of Chicago, so while it isn't phenomenally far, it's more than just biking to the corner so it takes a little planning.  I realized later that I actually had some theater tickets at the time that I was planning to go to to Bopngrill so I wrote off that trip and started looking around the theater to see where I might be able to grab some food before the show.  I was happy and surprised to discover that BopnGrill had recently opened a new shop close to the theater that I was going to, so the trip to BopnGrill was back on.  The space itself doesn't really look like much more than any other hot dog/burger/taco/gyro joint around town.  It's a small counter service place with a grill in back, a tile floor, cheap dining furniture, and a counter facing the window.  It's only when you look at the menu that you get an idea that it might be something other than your standard burger joint.  Other than their Signature Burgers, they also feature Bop Plates that have Rice, a Side Salad, and Kimchi with a variety of proteins including Bulkogi (Korean BBQ Beef, BBQ Chicken, Tofu) or even Bi Bim Bop which includes Vegetables, Chili Sauce, and a Fried Egg.  While several of the Bop Plates sounded good, I decided to go with their namesake burger.  BopnGrill has been widely recognized as having some of the best burgers in Chicago, so I figured, if I was going to go, I should try one of these great burgers.  The bNg Burger came with Lettuce and Tomato, like every other burger in the city, Thousand Island Dressing, which wanders into Big Mac territory, and Jalapeno, American Cheese, Caramelized Onions, Bacon, and a Fried Egg, which brought the burger into solidly interesting territory.  The beef used was very good and the flavors used with it made it very good.  The egg was sunnyside up, so it was good to break the yolk before trying to eat it, unless you weren't bothered about wearing egg yolk.  It had some sweetness, savory flavors, some tartness, and just enough spiciness.  There were bottles of Sriracha available for those people that didn't think it was spicy enough.  I did add some Sriracha to part of my burger and while it did make it spicier, and was still good, I will not necessarily say that it improved it much.

A standard side with a burger would be fries, so of course, I had to have some fries.  In addition to the standard fries, they also had Cheddar Fries and Bacon Cheddar Fries, which are also fairly standard, but they also had Kimchi Fries.  This was a pretty different idea, so I had to try them.  The first thing that I will say is that the fries themselves were very good.  They were very crisp on the outside and soft on the inside like Belgian Frites and were well salted.  They were topped with Kimchi which was sour and spicy, and also with Scallions, Bacon, and Cheddar Cheese Sauce.  It had a variety of flavors including spicy, sour, and salty, and while you could pick at the outside of it with your fingers, a fork was helpful to finish it.

I really enjoyed what I had here.  It was good and interesting and would definitely keep me coming back, but there are several other things on the menu that I have not yet tried that I will definitely have to return for.  

Belly Shack, Belly Taqueria, Half Acre Beer Dinner

I really like to go to special dinners hosted by various restaurants, not only because it let's the restaurant's kitchens the chance to explore and try different things which allows the diners to get to try things that may not be on the regular menu.  At these dinners diners also frequently get to try new beers and wines that may not yet be available to the public.  The thing I like about these special dinners though, is that frequently, industry people come to them, and it gives me the chance to meet some of the people that work behind the scenes and learn about things that might be in the works elsewhere.  I attended a beer dinner at Belly Shack for Half Acre Brewery recently called Belly Taqueria, which allowed the restaurant, which serves a fast food fusion of Latin and Asian cuisine, a chance to explore more of their Mexican side.  I really like Belly Shack and have been there many times.  I have even been filmed there (a quick shot of me eating showing the atmosphere of the place) when Chicago's Best was filming there for there Best Balls episode.  I am not sure how it has managed to be written up by me in normal circumstances.  The place is kind of small and has an Urban/Industrial Cool kind of look to it.  The place has cement floors and steel furniture with fake graffiti on the interior walls.  The front of the space is glass and the windows extend about halfway along the two adjoining sides.  There are four tops tables on either side of the room and a large communal table that will seat about 12 in the center of the room.  The counter for ordering is at the back of the room.  Under normal circumstances, people will place their orders at the counter, be given a numbered piece of angleiron, and find a place to sit.  The food is brought out as it's made.   For this visit, as there was a set menu, I didn't have to worry about ordering and I was seated at the communal table.  The beers we would be drinking were displayed at the front of the communal table actually next to where I was sitting.  We started things off with Half Acre's Pony Lager which was pretty good.  I am generally not a fan of lagers, because many have too little flavor for me. The Pony is modeled after a German Pilsener (as opposed to an American Pilsener like Miller high Life, PBR, or Budweiser) and was pretty flavorful.  After enjoying our first beer for a few minutes, our first course arrived.  It was a Beef Tendon Pozole with Pho Broth, Hominy, and Pork.  Neither Pho or Pozole are things that are served at Belly Shack, but it the combination falls right in line with what they normally serve.  The soup was warm, spicy, and very flavorful with a lot of meat and hominy to chew on.  It was very good and a nice start to the dinner. 

While the first course was served individually, the next several courses were served family style.  They were serving a lot of food, so I imagine that it made it easier for service.  The next course was the salad, which was actually sort of two salads in one. On one side was Chayote which is like a Mexican Summer Squash, and on the other side was Arugula.  A Poblano Peanut Dressing was served over both sides, although only the arugula seemed to have sliced peanuts.  Crispy Rice Noodles topped everything and provided a nice crunch.  It was fresh and flavorful with a little spice and lots of textures.

The next course was brought out on a large platter, but could actually be eaten easily without dividing anything up.  It was a sope, kind of like a thick tortilla with a rim.  It was topped with Braised Pork, Pineapple, Pea Shoots, and Kimchi.  Everything about this was good and it was one of my favorite dishes.  The sope was crispy and flavorful, the pork was tender, and the pineapple provided some sweetness.  The kimchi was both sour and spicy and the pea shoots provided a fresh vegetal flavor.

For our next course, we were served tacos that we had to build ourselves.  We were given fresh soft, corn tortillas, and on two separate plates we were given Nopales and Bean Curd on one plate and Oranges and Blood Oranges on another with Queso Fresco.  I built my tacos with everything, and while I don't regularly eat vegetarian tacos, I am not averse to having vegetarian food (especially since there was already a lot of meat with the meal), and the tacos were very fresh, and flavorful.

After all of this, we still hadn't gotten to the main course, this came next with a main course and two sides.  We were served some Roasted Chicken in Green Curry Mole Sauce with Dirty Rice, and Refried Lentils for sides.  This felt very Mexican to me despite the curry and the refried lentils instead of pinto beans.  The Asian ingredients added to the flavor of the dish(es), but it was so close to something that you would find in a Mexican household that I totally would have built this into a taco if there had been any tortillas left.

At this point, I was pretty full and I would have been happy ending things here, but the only thing left was dessert, and dessert was a must have.  We started out with Horchata, the sweetened rice milk flavored with cinnamon that is a favorite of mine.  I would have been fine with this, but it was paired with Churros with Soft-Serve Vanilla Ice Cream and Horchata Caramel.  They both went together very well and it was a great way to finish dinner.

I like both Belly Shack and Half Acre Brewery and will continue partaking in both.  The dinner was great and the food and drink were paired well, but the service and the company I had at the table was very good as well, and I predict that this will go down as one of my favorite dinners of the year.  

Honey Butter Fried Chicken

There has been a trend in restaurants in recent years that has been tending away from fine dining.  It can be fairly easy to scale down a restaurant's cuisine by making their food less complex and using lower quality ingredients.  If this is done though, the restaurant is likely to be pretty mediocre and runs the risk of closing quickly.  It is possible to maintain the quality of the food without aiming for fine dining but it is more difficult.  Honey Butter Fried Chicken uses high quality ingredients to make fast food.  While the food at Honey Butter Fried Chicken is essentially fast food, the hours that the restaurant keeps are essentially restaurant hours, 5-10 PM, and they also have a bar.  I arrived a little early on a week night to get my meal to go and there were already people waiting at the door.  When the door opened, we waited in line to place hour orders from a counter with the menu behind them like a fast food restaurant. (We were also handed menus at the door).  I was behind a person who seemed to be absolutely miserable and wanted to complain about everything but I didn't let the person get me down.  The dining area is fairly simple with many 2-tops for seating and a waiting counter where a person who is getting a take-out order could stand and wait with a drink.  The people that took my orders and presented my food and drink were very friendly and accommodating although I didn't order anything special.  The specialty of Honey Butter Fried Chicken is the chicken and of course I ordered the chicken, but the sides are nothing to sneeze at either.  I ordered a Kale and Cabbage Slaw with Dried Pomegranate and Yogurt Cumin Dressing.  The slaw was crisp and fresh and had a nice vegetal flavor.  There was a lot of pomegranate in the slaw which added a bittersweet fruity flavor.  The fact that the cells were dried enhanced the pomegranate flavor, and the yogurt cumin dressing was sour and spicy.  The dressing was added lightly so it didn't overwhelm the other flavors.  It was a very good combination and a pretty good salad.

The chicken could be ordered in 2, 4, or 8 piece servings (as well as on a sammy or served with grits).  I ordered the 4 piece which was served with 2 corn muffins and a dollop of honey butter.  The butter is to be spread on the chicken and muffins both but I decided to try each first without the honey butter to get an idea of the base flavor.  The corn muffins were lightly sweet and had a coarse texture.  The chicken was brined and was very juicy.  It was also very flavorful chicken.  The breading was very good.  It was crispy, salty, and a little spicy.  The honey butter added a buttery sweetness to whatever it was on, but I think that I preferred the chicken with very little butter if any at all.  It was very good chicken and if I had not first had the chicken from Parson's, I might say that it was some of the best fried chicken that I have had.

The dessert list at Honey Butter Fried Chicken is pretty sparse, consisting of a cookie and a dump cake.  As I was traveling with it, I didn't think that a dump cake would travel well so I went with the cookie.  It was a Chocolate Toffee Cocoa Nib Cookie.  It was pretty large but it was also pretty thin so it was kind of crunchy around the edges.  It was kind of like a crunchy chocolate chip cookie and while chocolate chip cookies are a favorite of mine, I like my cookies a little less crisp.

The chicken here was good and the staff was friendly so I can understand the buzz about this place.  While I do like Parson's chicken better, I would recommend this place.

Parsons Chicken and Fish

For many years, there was a former hot dog stand type restaurant building, down the street from where I live that sat empty.  I was very excited to here that the owners of Longman & Eagle had bought the place and were going to turn it into a fried chicken and fish place.  Parson's Chicken & Fish opened at the beginning of June and has become a hipster mecca.  The small hot dog stand building is still there and will seat about 30 people between the booths and the bar but a large patio has been added in back that seats about another 180.  There is also a red 1970 El Camino with the Parson's logo (a circle with a crossed drumstick and fish skeleton) on both doors that sits off to the side by the large bike rack. While it was a nice day and it would have been nice to sit on the patio, the sitting is picnic tables which all seemed rather full so I sat inside at the bar.  The bar has a nice beer and liquor selection but what draws a lot of people is their Negroni Slushie Machine.  The room is small and painted white with red trim.  There are 4 booths along the front of the room and the bar seats another 6.  There are also a couple of Specials Chalkboards along one wall near the bar.  I had heard before I went that the chicken was something to be had but as the place also features fish on the menu, I wanted to figure out a way to do both (without ordering two entrees and feeling stuffed).  The menu was divided into Raw, Fresh, and Fried with a changing oyster special.  The raw featured sushi, the fresh was salads, grilled chicken, and ceviche, and fried featured fried chicken and fish with hush puppies and baccala fritters.  There were many things that sounded good but I decided to start with the Baccala Fritters.  These are a Portuguese street food favorite that consist of ground salt cod and potatoes made into balls with garlic confit, fried, and served with Lemon Aioli.  While it wasn't purely fried fish, it does have fish and it was like the best of fried fish and french fries.  It was crunchy and salty with a slightly fishy finish but it was fishy in a good way. and I really enjoyed it.

The Fried Chicken is Amish raised and comes in two pieces, a half chicken, a whole chicken, and a bucket which includes Texas Toast, and Cole Slaw.  As I was unsure of the size of the Baccala Fritters and I wanted Dessert, I decided to go small and ordered the Two Piece.  I was given a Drumstick and a Thigh.  Both pieces had a nice crunchy coating and the meat was very juicy (and hot!)  The Amish Chicken was very flavorful and surprisingly much less greasy than I would have expected.

For dessert, Parson's does sell Fry Cakes, which I am sure would be good, but they also recently started selling slices of pie from Bang Bang Pie Shop.  I have been to !Bang Bang! Pie Shop a few times and know that they make really good pie so I knew that it was going to be pie for dessert.  On the day that I went, the slice that they were selling was a Lemon Curd Pie with Whipped Cream and Fresh Blueberries.  The pie was like a less sour version of Key Lime Pie.  I like key lime pie but this was good as well.  The tartness of the blueberries went well with the pie and whipped cream goes with everything sweet.

I really enjoyed my dinner here and I will definitely be back.  The fried chicken is worth a trip but there are other things on the menu that demand investigation.  While the wait time at peak hours can be substantial, especially with a larger party, you can have a cocktail while waiting which certainly helps.  Parson's is certainly worth the wait.