Month: October 2010

AlbuquerqueIndianRated 23Vegetarian/Vegan

Annapurna Ayurvedic Cuisine – Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

“Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, and an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.” Anthony Bourdain’s dour diatribe on the “evils” of vegeterians and vegans is hardly unwonted.  The internet is rife with mean-spirited assailments against people who choose a plant-based diet that includes fruits, cereal grains, seeds, nuts and vegetables and may or may not exclude dairy products and eggs.  Reciprocation in kind is also well represented…

IowaSandwichUnited States

Maid Rite – Osceola, Iowa

Gil Garduno

Several years ago my friend and colleague Bill “Roastmaster” Resnik and I had the opportunity to do what most employees only dream of.  We got to insult a corporate vice president for half an hour in the presence of even higher ranking corporate officials.  The occasion was the vice president’s retirement and we got to roast him– figuratively, but from the blush on his cheeks you might have thought it was literally.  It was one of the easiest from among the twenty or so roasts we’ve done because we had so much fodder with which to work.  The vice president was retiring to Iowa, a move which provided a wealth of material with which we could insult him. The roast…

BarbecueIllinoisRated 23

Gale Street Inn – Mundelein, Illinois

Gil Garduno

It took 47 years and one visit to the Gale Street Inn to understand why sailing vessels are ascribed the feminine gender. According to a placard on a wall at the Gale Street Inn, a nautical themed restaurant in the Northwest Chicago suburb of Mundelein, a ship is called a she because “there’s always a great deal of bustle around her…because there’s usually a gang of men around…because she has waist and stays…because she takes a lot of paint to keep her looking good…because it’s not the initial expense that breaks you, it’s the upkeep…because she is all decked out…because it take a good man to handle her right…because she shows her topside, hides her bottom and, when coming into…

IllinoisRated 25Sandwich

Johnnie’s Beef – Arlington Heights, Illinois

Gil Garduno

If you think Chicagoland politics are a contentious topic, try debating which restaurant serves up the best Italian Beef Sandwich in the “City of Big Shoulders.” Opinions don’t necessarily vary that widely as there are just a handful of restaurants which have truly distinguished themselves in the preparation of this Chicago staple. It’s in the intensity of the debate with which you might be surprised. Each of the anointed restaurants has its vocal supporters and each has its detractors and some in either party won’t hesitate to explain (with fisticuffs if necessary) why their choice is the best and yours is not. In 2009, the Travel Channel’s “Food Wars” program pitted two of Chicago’s most famous culinary rivals against one…

Closed in 2012DonutsGone But Not ForgottenIllinoisSpecialty

Apple Haus – Long Grove, Illinois (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

In grade school back in the 1960s, such characters as Paul Bunyan and Johnny Appleseed filled my mind with wonder and awe as I learned to determine fact from fiction (a process I still employ when listening to  nauseating political commercials which pollute the airwaves).  My mind was a veritable tabula rasa (blank slate) upon which my teachers (and my incessant poring over the Encyclopedia) imprinted knowledge of legend, lore, myth and fact.  Learning was a much more innocent process, not yet clouded with the cynicism wrought by historical revisionism based mostly on political ideology. Johnny Appleseed, it turns out, was very much man, not myth.  Born John Chapman, he became an American legend in America’s frontier days with an…

ContinentalIllinois

Bacchus Nibbles – Kildeer, Illinois

Gil Garduno

In Roman mythology, Bacchus was known as the god of wine and ecstasy. A youthful and handsome god with flowing tresses usually depicted wearing wine leaves or ivy on his head, he represented both the intoxicating and the beneficial influences of wine. Bacchanalian festivals, typified by riotous drunken merrymaking and sometimes orgiastic festivity are still celebrated in institutions of higher learning throughout America (who can forget the hilarious movie Animal House and the antics of the Delta House fraternity?). At Bacchus Nibbles Restaurant & Wine Shop, in Kildeer, a northwest Chicago suburb, wine can be appreciated in a “wine cave-like” atmosphere of civility and quaint refinement that  an aspiring sommelier might welcome. An impressive assemblage of wine, along with sundry…

BarbecueMissouriRated 23

Gates Bar B. Q. – Independence, Missouri

Gil Garduno

The cognoscenti seem to agree that the American epicenters of barbecue excellence are Texas, Memphis, Kansas City and South Carolina. In Texas, barbeque briquettes are burnished with beef–lean beef brisket celebrating the best in king cattle. At Memphis, they go hog wild at the pits for pulled porcine perfection. In South Carolina, the self-professed “cradle of American barbecue,” swine dining means pork smothered in a mustard-based sauce. Kansas City claims to put it all together with more than 100 barbecue restaurants, several of which have earned worldwide acclaim and celebrity. Traditionally, Kansas City barbecue is dry-rubbed, slow roasted over hickory and slathered with rich, sweetly tangy, medium spicy, tomato-based sauces that stick to the meat. Gates Bar-B-Q is a “City…