Green City Market seems to be hitting the peak of the harvesting season lately. What started out as a bunch of strawberries and asparagus is now a huge array of squashes, zucchini, daikon radishes, carrots, broccoli, onions, cherries and all kinds of beautiful berries. From the gorgeous offerings, we picked up (among other things) a bunch of small red carrots yesterday. Their dark, ruby-red skin hid a firm, orange flesh, and the green leaves were still perfectly perky when we stashed them in our increasingly veggie-filled refrigerator. It was a thing of beauty.
This morning, I felt compelled to use at least some of the farmers market bounty from yesterday. (I'd used the beautiful, dark-purple Japanese eggplant for dinner, but there were a lot more to enjoy.) Eying the bag of red carrots and a few remaining Jewel yams from this dessert, I got an idea. I had a potato, a purple onion and a bunch of green onions, so I should be able to make root veggie hash. What I had in mind was the spicy and savory breakfast potatoes from Lucky Platter in Evanston. (And maybe also the similarly appetizing one from m. henry in Andersonville.
I cut the carrots, potato and yams in medium-sized chunks, and diced the onion and green onions. In a pan, I slowly sautéed some minced garlic and onions, then added all the root vegetables. From there, all I need to do was to be patient; I'd discovered that the key to making good chunky hash is not to stir the potatoes. Rather, I'd need to let them become brown and crispy, slowly on lower-than-medium heat. So, this freed me up to make some scrambled eggs with oyster mushrooms (another prize from yesterday's Green City Market stroll). Toward the end, I added the green onions and let all the veggies slightly charred, just the way they are in Lucky Platter and m. henry. I love the concentrated veggie sweetness in charred onions and green onions, so I made sure they get the right treatment. A bit of salt and a few generous shakes of hot chili powder from the Spice House was enough for seasoning. (This hot chili powder was already in Patrick's cupboard when I met him three years ago. God knows how long it'd been sitting there before that, but it still has enough kick to spice up most everything!)
Out of curiosity, I'd sampled a small piece of the red carrot when I was cutting the veggies. That tiny piece was more than enough to fill my mouth with the almost pungent, green flavor of carrots. So, I was surprised, when I tasted the carrots in the hash--there was no hint of that pungent carrot flavor left in them. Instead, the red carrots had become as sweet as the jewel yams. I would have believed it if someone had told me that there's a ton of sugar added to the dish. Thanks to the slow cooking, all the root veggies had turned extra sweet and flavorful, without the least trace of the flavors they have when they're raw. Not that I hate the raw carrot flavor to the guts (I have to admit I'm not a huge fun of it, though...), but it was a pleasant reminder of the botanical basics, which I tend to forget, when seeing them as merely an "ingredient," that carrots are roots, a part of the plant that is a reservoir of sugary energy for the leaner days.
Apparently I was too excited to make this dish. Three little yams, one potato and three small carrots didn't seem like much when I cut them, but I'm completely stuffed two hours after our sumptuous breakfast of root veggies and eggs. Do I regret all those calories, though? No way! Coming from a country (or is it just my family?) that doesn't feast on hearty weekend breakfast, I'm utterly in love with this very American (it seems) luxury.
On Saturday, we went out to Southport for brunch. The destination was the Southport Grocery, whose menu we'd had a glimpse of during our previous visit. I remembered mouthwatering pancakes and omelettes with creative twists, so I was quite excited.
After missing the turn onto Addison and the resultant confusion in the not-so-familiar neighborhood, we arrived at the gourmet grocery-café at around 10. The outside tables had just opened up, but we took a table inside, just by the large front window to avoid the already rising heat while securing enough light for the photographs. The dark brown walls (which is echoed by the same-colored tee shirts that servers wear), aluminum shelves and white tables and chairs insisted that it's a coooool place (which it is).
We sipped their wonderfully punchy coffee while waiting for our brunch. Judging from the fact that the Southport Grocery sells coffee from the two top coffee roasters in the town (Intelligentsia and Metropolis), the coffee probably came from either of the two. It was a bit on the acid side, something I don't like, but otherwise it was a nice coffee, with enough strength for any incurable caffeine addict.
Among four interesting omelette combinations, Patrick's chose one with sausage, mozzarella cheese, tomatoes and pesto. It was very good, if not outstanding (although the herb-sprinkled Tater Tots were quite addictive). The true winner was my Sweet and Savory French Toast, a dish that satisfied both my sweet tooth and savory palate. I often feel tragically conflicted between sugary breakfast and savory breakfast, so this dish was a savior. Three slices of French toast were layered with herbed ham and Gruyére cheese, and were accompanied by a little cup of warm maple syrup. The interior of the French toast was amazing: infused with milk and eggs, it literally melted in my mouth, almost like a very light, fluffy custard pudding.
The fun thing about the Southport Grocery is, as we found out on their menu, that many of the items feature one or more of the specialty goods they sell in the grocery department. So, for example, Patrick's omelette used white balsamic vinegar from the grocery shelf, while the maple syrup on my French toast was an organic variety also from the shelf. The owner Lisa Santos says that she wants to combine two of her biggest passions: dining out and digging around in fine grocery store. Judging from the menu, the Grocery seems to do this quite well. Another fun fact about the store on this "About" page is that it focuses on domestic fine food--something rare in the predominantly Europhobe (but not without a good reason) gourmet grocery industry.
Bottom line: if you're allergic to pretentiousness, don't go there. (A guy in his 30's with designer glasses expressed his love of the store because "their menu is very intelligent". If you think you might start screaming gibberish--I almost did--when you hear this sort of comment at the table next to yours, don't go.) But if you can take some level of hipness and all the emotional baggage that comes with it, give it a try. The space is beautiful, the food is inventive and high-quality.
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Southport Grocery
3552 N. Southport Ave., Chicago, IL
773.665.0100
I'm rather conflicted about this. On one hand, this unusual bed & breakfast more than deserves a mention. On the other, I want to keep the awesome place to myself. Assuming that this site won't get too much traffic in the future (which it doesn't as of now), I'll share the information.
Due to a small number of inns and motels, it can be difficult to find a place to stay on Washington's verdant Olympic Peninsula. The Hoh Humm Ranch, the place that has won my profound affection, is just a wonderful option in such a case. Perhaps due to its low profile as a ranch house that rents out rooms and feeds you in the morning, the Hoh Humm tends to have an opening when other places are completely booked. (This was the case during our trip.) But the ease of reservation isn't really the charm of the Hoh Humm Ranch, which is located on 101 between the Ruby Beach and the Hoh Rain Forest.
The true charm is the fact that it's a real, working ranch house, run by an elderly couple of a former zoologist and former engineer. Before going to the ranch, Patrick warned me that it'd feel like we're invading someone's private place, like we're staying in a room that used to belong to one of the old couple's grown children (which probably is the case). And it did.
A ridge-backed black dog greeted us as we got out of our car. Upon opening the front door, I stumbled upon an old woman on a recliner in front of a TV (who turned out to be one of the two owners, Mary). There were animals everywhere in the large, open space that included the spacious kitchen, communal dining table with a dozen chairs, two sitting areas and a computer desk. Two cats slept on the couches, while a large, spotted dog raised its head to examine the new visitors (us). A wood stove emitted welcoming heat in the middle of the room. Mary's husband, Bob, in the traditional ranch outfit of a denim overall and a checkered shirt, took us up the stairs to our room.
The room was nothing to write home about, but it opened to a porch that stretched to the full length of the house. From the porch, the view was stunning. The ranch house stood on a cliff, and below, their 200-acre pasture extended to the west, surrounded by hills of various green hues. Cows strolled in a distant field. Barn swallows crisscrossed the sky and delved into their muddy nests on the wall of our room.
One possible drawback of the Hoh Humm is that it's not in a town, and thus lacks restaurants nearby. This wasn't a problem for us, for we swiftly fell asleep after taking a shower at around 6:30. It wouldn't, however, have been too big of a problem even if we hadn't: the Hoh Humm is about 20 miles from the town of Forks, which has a few decent places to eat.
The true fun of staying in a ranch house began the next morning. After a full twelve hours of sleep, we felt reinvigorated enough to explore the pasture, which the owners had welcome us to do so when we arrived. The grass was pretty dewy, so we put on our hiking boots. The ex-zoologist Mary was cooking our breakfast when we came down the stairs. We stole a cup of coffee from the coffee maker, chatted with her a little (while inhaling the stomach-squeezing aroma of sausages), and got out. The black ridge back from the previous day followed us.
The meadow was beautiful with the morning sun illuminating the wet grass from a low angle. And it was chock full of animals: a family of gray goose (with the father quacking proudly every once in a while, with his meaty tongue sticking out of his mouth in a slightly disturbing manner) marched by the fence, while a large herd of sheep intensely gazed at the suspicious intruders (us) from inside their pen nearby. A mallard duck couple took their downy goslings to a swim on a pond.
A little further afield, we could see the morning mist rising among the trees around the estate. Nearly black-and-white in silhouette, the trees looked as if they were in a Japanese sumie painting. The air was absolutely fresh after a midnight rain that had washed away what little contaminant in the air, and the slight chill was just delightful. Patrick kept an eye on his watch, lest we miss out on the communal, all-you-can-eat breakfast. We snapped a few shots of the cows in the farthest field, and made our way back.
The breakfast was on the table when we came back into the house. The twelve-seater table had literary no open space, cluttered with steaming-hot goodies like homemade hash browns, sausages, cornbread, homemade "freezer" jam and a large Dutch baby. (There was also a hot oat meal, but I ignored it.) We piled our plates with these, poured some orange juice in our glasses, sat down and ate. It was all very good in a very homey way, but the best thing was the fluffy Dutch baby with a spoonful of raspberry jam poured on top. The slight saltiness of the Dutch baby went great with the sweet-sour jam, which, the former zoologist wife told us, was made by freezing the fruits without ever cooking them. (I have to try this trick sometime--the jam had a freshness that's impossible to achieve with the traditional simmer-down method.) There was a large number of people, both guests and the owners' family, and the food quickly disappeared. Good thing we came back on time.
After breakfast, we went out again to see the Japanese "shika" deer that they keep in a pen. I have no idea where they got the idea of keeping a herd of exotic deer, but then again, Mary was a zoologist, so she should know. (She was the first female student of zoology in the university she attended--she had to fight her way for her dream job, for the then-male-dominated industry simply rejected female applicants.) Mary gave me two hot dog buns to feed the deer with. Bob said that the deer "will squeak at ya," which indeed they did. Remembering my school trip to deer-filled Nara Park fifteen years ago, I fed chunks of the bread to the two eager deer. Their warm, moist lips enveloping my fingers felt strangely relaxing. (And their gentle eyes! Oh, boy, they were very cute.)
A magnificently colorful chicken commanded a sweeping view of the meadow below, as we headed out for the third day of our trip. The Hoh Humm Ranch isn't an agriturismo inn, for they don't feed you with the produce and dairy grown on the premise, but it does have the wonderfully relaxing and refreshing feel of one. Everything is quite low-key, and you get to experience the fun side of the ranch life (animals, beautiful scenery, tasty home-cooked food) without the rough & tough part of it (cleaning the barn, stacking up the infinite 50-pound bundles of hay, having to tend the animals 365 days a year, etc.). For $45 a room, I think it's an awesome deal.
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Hoh Humm Ranch
171763 Highway 101, Forks, WA
360.374.5337
So, having refueled ourselves in Aberdeen, we started our overnight backpacking trip at the Graves Creek trailhead in the Olympic National Park. The Enchanted Valley (East Fork Quinault River) Trail followed an old road for the first few miles, and descended steeply into the bed of glacier-fed Quinault River. The trail was rated moderate, and true to the rating, it was mostly flat with a few ascents and descents. Until our pathetic backs got used to the load of the backpacks, though, even a slight ascent was a torture.
We moseyed on, stopping now and then for quick sips of water and photographs. The trail had been badly damaged from the severe winter storms that attacked the Olympic National Park. The first three miles were clear of downed trees and re-equipped with foot bridges, but beyond that point, we had to either clamber up the gigantic trees or squeeze underneath them. (In the former occasion, I loathed my shortness; in the latter, I delighted in the same physical feature.) One major creek (Fire Creek) in our itinerary had had its bridge washed out, so we had to tiptoe on the rocks and logs.
The rain forest was stunningly beautiful with golden moss gently covering the gigantic tree trunks and countless varieties of smaller plants on the ground (including dwarf dogwood and numerous fern species). Since we started relatively late around three, the sunlight was low enough to make everything glow with golden light. All along the way, we heard strange hootings--very low "woot, woot, woot" sounds that we heard more with our torso than with our ears, it seemed--from somewhere overhead, and wondered what they were. When we came out of a brush, we came across a big brown bird perched on one of the branches of the brush. It recognized us, but didn't make any attempt to fly away--the bird was truly wild, oblivious of the human presence. Similar indifference to human presence was still intact in the three magnificent Roosevelt elks we came across about half an hour later. The elks were munching on the undergrowth about fifty yard from the trail, and when we emerged, they glanced over at us and kept munching without changing their elegant poise. (The hooting bird turned out to be the blue grouse, which also was the big brown bird in the brush.)
By the time we set up our camp near O'Neil Creek, darkness was quickly descending, and by the time we had our trail dinner of apple sauce, smoked hot sausage and slightly stale bagel, we needed headlamps. (Thus no picture, again.) When we were done, we put all our food and trash in a plastic bag and hung it from a branch of a tree away from the camp, as the ranger told us, to deter the bears.
I poured some water on a towel and wiped off what little sweat and dirt I could, and inched into my sleeping bag, still feeling the grime on the back of my knees and around my face. I could do a two-day hike, but wasn't sure I'd survive the filth of a showerless trip any longer than that. I fell asleep in a while, but could hear some unidentified wild animal strolling around our camp site. As Bill Bryson convincingly documents in his hilarious book A Walk in the Woods, when you are pretty much alone in the dark woods, even a subtle rustle of fallen leaves can sound like a large bear sniffing around your tent. So I had no way of telling what was making the sound, and had to force myself to not mind it in order to fall asleep.
When I woke up around 5:30 (being still accustomed to the Chicago time), the sky was already white with morning sun, and the rain fly of the tent was moist with dew drops. I quickly went over to the bear rope setup, and was relieved to find the food bag intact. I took the bag down, and we sat down on a fallen log by the blue-hued Quinault River. Our breakfast was (slightly more) stale whole wheat bagels, a few pieces of grass-fed cheddar from Whole Foods (which survived the lack of refrigeration just fine), another smoked sausage, and a few dried prunes.
We also had a cup of cold coffee, made with a packet of Java Juice coffee extract and water. (We don't own a stove.) Considering the fact that it came out of a little plastic pouch and was diluted with plain cold water, the coffee tasted surprisingly good--just like coffee from yesterday, right out of the fridge. The stale bagels were a pain in the neck to swallow--we'll stay away from bagels for the next trip. The food may not have been that attractive had we not been in the beautiful wilderness (sky-high pine trees, beautiful blue water, birds chirping, silver-green moss hanging down from branches, absolutely clear and crisp air... the list goes on), but the environment more than complimented the lack of hot meals and coffee.
We cleared the camp and trekked back to the trail head, with our backpacks slightly lighter (with much of the food and water gone). As we ran out of energy, we snacked on Larabars and trail mix, and drank about 5 liters (1 1/4 gallons) of water between the two of us.
Some of the (obvious) surprises during the hike were as follows:
a. cheap crackers (that we got on our flight) taste much better than bagels
b. apple sauce is the best thing when you're too tired to move your jaws (I was)
c. mixing a few salty snacks among sweet ones is a good idea
d. electrolyte-conscious drink tablets (like the ones from Camelbak makes you less exhausted
One of our favorite breakfast (and late-night dessert) place is the Taste of Heaven in Andersonville. Patrick took me there early in our relationship, and there's a good chance that this place won me over for him. Joking aside, this is a great neighborhood bakery café to nurture your romantic relationship, to start the first chapter of that epic novel you've been planning to write for years, or to just have a chat with friends over a cup of coffee and tasty treats.
Between the two of us, we've tried pretty much everything on the menu, and we're deeply fond of most everything. One of our perennial favirutes us the Silverland Breakfast, a sort of a modern take of the classic biscuits and gravy. Biscuits and gravy is relatively new to me (a recent expat from Japan), and I still hesitate when faced with some of them, especially when the gravy looks mucousy and contains unidentifiable gray meat. But the Silverland Breakfast is now high on my list of Awesome American Food.
As you can tell from the photo, their gravy is thinner than most, and has a nice kick from a blend of spices. I seem to taste some tomatoes in it, but I'm not 100% certain on this. It's served over scrambled eggs and two corn biscuits, and the biscuits are truly a piece of art: they're flaky, slightly sweet, and absorb the gravy wonderfully.
A recent discovery is this homemade granola with greek yogurt. I'm not a granola person. I'm not a yogurt person, either. I'm not even a healthful woman when it comes to breakfasts. I'm more of a gluttonous eater who wants her breakfast nice and greasy (eggs, bacons, potatoes), or nice and sugary (pancakes, French toast, you name it). But one day, I was in a rare mood for something lighter and refreshing, so I settled for the homemade granola.
When the granola showed up in one of their signature blue cups (that are at least as big as ramen bowls), it looked so good I stared at it, saliva dribbling down my chin, before I started digging in. The golden-brown granolas were dotted with generous amount of dried cherries, juicy strawberries and plump blueberries. The combination of the striking blue cup, red strawberries and snow-white yogurt was beyond appetizing.
And when I started munching, it was even better. The granola's honey sweetness, tart cherries and refreshing strawberries--it was rather heavenly. The portion was a bit more than I'd wanted (they're notorious for their gigantic portions), but I finished it all. Ah, well.
Although we tend to go there for breakfast, Taste of Heaven is pretty versatile. For lunch, they have soups and creative sandwiches (though I wouldn't go for the meatloaf sandwich--I've had better ones elsewhere). For dinner, which they recently added to their operation, I love the old-fashioned beef stew served on potato pancakes, but there are other options in the comfort-food department (like sandwiches, super-popular spinach lasagna, etc.) as well. And it being a bakery, Taste of Heaven is good for light munchies as well. Though I'm always tormented when it comes to picking one from their wide array of baked goods, I'm particularly fond of their humongous slice of white cake with whipped cream cheese and lots of berries. Ahh, just writing this makes me drool all over my keyboard!
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A Taste of Heaven
5401 N. Clark St. Chicago, IL
773.989.0151
I know I've been writing about bakeries a lot, but I can't skip this one.
This morning, we went back to one of our recent finds--Tre Kronor ("three crowns" in Swedish). Chicago Reader's restaurant review summarizes Tre Kronor as an "Albany Park Swedish restaurant very popular for breakfast, and they're right. When we arrived there around 8:45, the restaurant wasn't open yet. One of the wait staffs poked her head through a crack of the door and told us that they'd be open in about ten minutes, so we killed the time peering into the windows of a Swedish shop across the street (little red rocking horse, plates and bowls with Moomin Troll illustrations, boldly patterned fabric from Marimekko, etc). Then Patrick noticed that there were at least four other groups milling around the restaurant. We quickly returned to claim our place in the semi-line.
The restaurant opened about five minutes before nine. By then, there were six parties waiting (including us). By 9:05, all but one table on the first floor were taken by happy patrons sipping coffee and chatting while waiting for their food. By 9:15, even the seating upstairs became full. Two guys who came in around that time decided to wait outside; there's a convenient bench on the tree-lined street next to the restaurant. So, the Reader review isn't lying. Tre Kronor is extremely popular for breakfast. I'd recommend being there before nine, or aim at the time when the first wave of diners has subsided.
Another good idea, when you're someone like me who gets grumpy when hungry, is to get one of their Swedish pastries to nibble on. We got a cinnamon roll, which kept Patrick and me gracious enough while waiting for the real meal (not that they were slow; we were VERY hungry this morning.) On a normal day, one of their cinnamon rolls and coffee would be a perfect breakfast. Tre Kronor's fluffy cinnamon roll has a refreshing twist. The warm glaze was scented with citrus--probably lemon. I'd much prefer this cinnamon roll over Ann Sather's hyper-sugary version.
For the main fair, I got a Belgian waffles with seasonal fruits and whipped cream. The fruits turned out to be about one whole pack of strawberries and one whole banana, and I can bet my best hat to the whipped cream being a whole carton of fatty goodness. Shouldn't have finished all of it, but I did, with a help from Patrick's cosmic stomach. Patrick had an omlette with spinach and blue cheese, served with breakfast potatoes. I refrained from most of it, due to my mild dislike of blue cheese, but Patrick said the melty blue cheese was awesomely aromatic. (Stinky, I'd say, but we all have different tastes, I suppose.) The spinach looked very fresh, and barely cooked.
One possible reason (beside the fresh ingredients, inventive creations and cute Swedish decor) for their popularity is the reasonable price. The Belgian waffle went for $6.95, while blue cheese omlette was only a dollar more. The last (and the first) time we were there, I got an orange-vanilla French toast (another recommendation), whose damage to our wallet was a mere $5.95. When we got out, the morning sun shined on the young green leaves of the trees in the nearby North Park University campus. Several people walked their dogs. A dog sniffed at a dandelion on the foot of a blooming cherry tree. Tre Kronor is a wonderful little breakfast place in a relaxing, green neighborhood, perfect for starting a lazy weekend. And of course, keeping up with their meaty tradition, they have things like potato sausages, veal sausages and cured salmon, so those of you carnivores, don't worry!
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Tre Kronor
3258 W. Foster Ave. Chicago, IL
773.267.9888
My parents live in Glenview, a north suburb of Chicago. It's a pretty boring suburban village with lots of chain stores in posh-looking malls. Not much tasty food when it comes to the bang for the buck, and no coffee house to speak of (well, that's not a surprise, I suppose).
The village has recently seen a sizable change, since the redevelopment of the huge Naval base now called "The Glen." Lots of expensive-looking stores and restaurants moved in, and the traditional downtown area is feared to be drained of its customers. Downtown Glenview is not that interesting, anyway (an old town feel without the old town charm, I should say), so I haven't been there for a long time.
In that context, you can imagine my surprise when we walked into the Sweet Dreams Organic Bakery & Café, just to see what it's like, well prepared to be disappointed. We'd noticed the bakery before and figured it'd be just another storefront bakery, but since I'd started this blog, I figured we should at least take a look. I pulled into the narrow parking lot behind the brick building, while a guy in a black Audi backed up to let me pass (with a pastry in his hand, I noticed). Squeezing between the car and a dumpster, we walked into the store through the back door; it was a whole another world.
The first thing that jumps to your eyes when you walk into the Sweet Dreams is its pink walls. Then you'll notice the carefully arranged, comfy-looking armchairs (some are woven wicker, others are leather) around a fireplace. Then comes the showcase. When we visited the bakery, the two showcases on both sides of the register were brimming with appetizing goodies like peanut butter cookies, flaky apple strudels, loaves of chocolate pound cakes, flourless espresso torte with its top cracking open, orange sponge cake with lots of berries and whipped cream, dense cheesecakes--the list goes on and on. Some of the cakes and cookies were vegan or gluten-free, and others were 100% organic. After drooling around for a while, we decided on a veggie strudel and a slice of chocolate & walnut torte with espresso butter cream.
Unfortunately, though, the food looked better than it tasted--at least that was the case for what we got. The organic veggie strudel had a nicely flaky, buttery shell. Inside was shredded carrots, zucchini and shiitake mushrooms with soy sauce-based seasoning. The strudel came with thick and rich peanut sauce. Each of the three component were all very good. The sad part is that the didn't work together too well. The stir-fried veggies were great by itself (I can imagine eating a ton of it with a bowl of steamed rice--yum!), but didn't go well with the buttery shell. The peanut sauce, on the other hand, had too much of a kick to complement the strudel. It probably needs something with a stronger flavor, like beef, to balance out the peanuts.
The torte, though beautifully presented with a geometric doodle of chocolate sauce on a white square plate, left a spacious room for flavor enhancement. The cake part--chocolate sponge and walnut sponge--tasted like normal sponge cake without chocolate or walnuts powder. Even more disappointing was the espresso butter cream, which, if they hadn't told me it was supposed to be espresso-flavored, I wouldn't have guessed it in a million years. I might be being a little bit mean--for a family-run bakery in the United States, their baked goods were pretty good. It's just that they look so good that the actual flavor and texture cannot live up to the expectation that their appearance creates.
Croatian-style pastries, which Mary Spocic, the owner of the bakery has been baking for most of her life, both in her native country by the Adriatic Sea and in the United States, might be a better choice. The grilled veggie sandwich that a guy was having when we walked in looked very tempting as well. Given the extremely cute and cozy interior (and don't forget the free wi-fi), I might go back there just to give it another try, maybe in the savory food department next time. It is just very nice to see an environmentally conscious café--and a very cute one at that--open in an otherwise bland suburbia where I frequent, and I do feel an urge to support its business. (Another bonus point is that they serve fair-traded coffee from Intelligentsia--an award-winning roaster in Chicago.)
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Sweet Dreams Organic Bakery & Café
1107 Waukegan Rd. Glenview, IL
847.657.1092
Every first Sunday of the month, from 2 pm to 4 pm, they have a free tasting event. Awesome!