That might have been the unhealthiest salad in my life. Though it was called a salad, it involved few vegetables: a handful of endive and a few strings of haricots verts (green beans). More prominently featured were a nice, runny poached egg and bits of lardon, the fattiest part of pork bacon. And to complete the cholesterol-laden scheme, it was on a bed of French fries, for god's sake. But was it tasty? Hey, do you even have to ask?
The Salad Lyonnaise at La Tache was, as I said, an antisalad. There's no illusion that it's going to be good for your health: unlike the chicken fingers on a bed of nutrientless iceberg lettuce drenched with fatty ranch dressing (that some restaurants try to push into the "healthy eating" category), it doesn't even pretend to be healthy. If you weigh the thing, it'll run something like this: 80 grams of endive and green beans; 250 grams of fries and bacon. But that doesn't matter, really, because you don't go out to eat healthy. You go out to eat tasty.
This salad was probably one of the best salads I've ever had, and it also might have been one of the best fries. (This is kind of a fun thing to say, actually.) I don't know what they fry their potatoes in, but they were packed with flavor. The greasy fries were balanced by the slight bitterness of the endive and the refreshing acidity of the "truffle vinaigrette," creating such a full combination of flavors. Bits of lardon added smoky and salty punch, and the runny egg yolk held everything together. It was a fantastic salad--if I dare to call it one. The other dish I had at La Tache--a crab cake appetizer--was way too oily and salty for my taste, but if only for the Lyonnaise salad, I'd go back to the Andersonville bistro. (Patrick's quail was quite nice as well, with its wild flavor largely intact but well complemented by the fresh and dried figs.)
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La Tache
1475 W. Balmoral, Chicago, IL
773.334.7168
Our waitress informed me (after I excitedly told her how good the salad was) that it's on the Sunday brunch menu as well--that sounds like a divine idea, to start a Sunday with that satisfying salad!
It's probably been close to two weeks since we went to the crane-in-a-dumpster Greek restaurant out in Niles, for it was way before our move to the new apartment. ("Crane in a dumpster" is a Japanese expression meaning a gem in an unexpected place; "crane" here is that elegant, migratory bird, not the construction equipment that might be more closely associated with a dumpster.) Anyway, Mykonos on Golf Rd. is one of my favorite Greek restaurant in the area. Serving up consistently fresh seafood and good broiled meats at reasonable prices, Mykonos could very well be better than at least some of the mainstays in Greek Town.
Our visit on that day, though, was somewhat troubled: Mr. Waiter was a bit short on his English ability, and brought me a huge plate of fried calamari, instead of the baby squids grilled with a dash of lemon. The mustached guy, probably in his late forties or early fifties, looked more fitting to be fishing out in the blue Aegean Sea on his impeccable white boat--or maybe contemplating the next move on the chess board while sipping ouzo at a shady sidewalk table of a café--than waiting tables at a restaurant in the ocean-less Midwestern suburb. Since he was obviously doing his best, I didn't feel like sending the plate back to the kitchen. So I took the huge heap of fried calamari, which I was sure I wouldn't be able to finish in one sitting. Munching my way through the crunchy and tender, I was already starting to think what I would do with the leftover.
Somehow, by the end of the meal, my mind was set on transforming the Greek calamari into something Thai. (Don't ask me why.) The next day, I heated up the now-soggy calamari in the oven toaster till crisp again, and made some dressing by mixing equal parts of sweet chili sauce and lime juice. To accompany the fried calamari, I roasted a summer squash, sliced into medium-sized discs. With a handful of sliced red onion and a bunch of cilantro (both of which were added to the dressing, after being finely chopped) and another handful of Vietnamese pink mint, the Greek calamari successfully morphed into a refreshing Thai dish. (I have to admit, I felt a funny pride in this transformation.)
And even better yet, I finally got to use the antique (?) Japanese (?) tea cup we picked up at the Volo Antique Mall. Its orange trim looked quite nice against the otherwise ordinary, greenish glass plate!
We spent much of the weekend packing our infinite belongings and moving them to our new apartment. We're taking it slowly, using three weekends to complete our move, but with close to 30 boxes of books and other heavy stuff, the first weekend was tiring enough. I'm having that weird sensation that I (wow!) have arms and legs--these are the body parts I'm not usually aware of, unless they feel heavy with some dull pain at the core, like they do now. Given the physical work, I didn't do much of interesting cooking; I stuck to the easy, reliable food like scrambled eggs with sausage (Saturday breakfast) and plain old French toast (Sunday breakfast). Saturday night, though, I was in a rare mood for sashimi and Japanese sake, and wanted to go to Kuni's, a good, cozy Evanston sushi place.
Somehow, we ended up at Trattoria D. O. C., on the same street but millions of light years apart in terms of cuisine. Well, not "somehow." It was the outdoor seating that did it. When we parked on Main Street, just west of the D.O.C., the golden combination of sashimi and chilled Japanese sake was still the winner in my head. But the Japanese combo's throne was short-lived: as soon as I saw the white-clothed outdoor tables basking in the warm, late-afternoon sun, I couldn't say no to the al fresco dining at the D.O.C. It was too good of a weather to waste indoors--temperatures probably in the 70s, with slight lake breeze to freshen things up. And of course, I knew the D.O.C.'s excellence in pizza making. Adieu, sashimi; adieu, sake--I'll have a clandestine rendezvouz with Italian goodness.
I thought that the Italian goodness was going to be pizza. Granted, pizza was a part of it, but the meal convinced me about something else: Trattoria D.O.C. is one of the best places in town to get fried food. Let me explain.
There was a good number of people crowding the bar area of the restaurant, but we were seated right away; not too many customers wanted the outdoor tables, apparently. From the specials, we ordered tuna tartar and fiori di zuccca, and decided to share a potato rosemary pizza. It turned out that they were out of tuna tartar, which we substituted with beef tartar. I had a glass of soave--a drinkable yet flavorful white wine on the dry side, with a strong muscaty taste and slightly spicy finish. Patrick had a red. (I don't remember what that was.)
I'm split between the fiori di zucca and the potato rosemary pizza in terms to the best item of the meal. (The beef carpaccio was good and came with fantastic parmesano shreds, but the lemon juice completely overpowered the flavor of the beef, thus leaving some room for improvement.) The zucchini flowers were stuffed with mozzarella and anchovies, dressed with light batter and deep-fried. It was my first time to eat zucchini flowers although I've been curious about them for a while. D.O.C. version was decidedly more exciting than the traditional recipe of ricotta and egg for stuffing. And it worked fantastic: the batter was light and fluffy but a little resilient; the mozzarella was rich and supple; and the oceanic, salty flavor of the anchovies was a wonderful accent to it all. The refreshing vinaigrette on the greens which the zucchini flowers were served on balanced out the oil. So, my first experience with deep-fried zucchini flowers was awesome. We shared four flowers between the two of us, but I could have finished the whole plate with a glass of white wine and be merry.)
On the other hand, the rosemary potato pizza was nothing to be slighted. On a crispy yet stretchy (i.e., not a cardboard pizza) and flavorful crust, thin slices of golden-yellow potatoes were gleaming with olive oil. The crust bubbled and charred beautifully in parts, and some of the potato slices were starting to crispify, just like very good kettle-cooked chips. There was just enough rosemary to complement the earthy sweetness of the potatoes. Mozzarella was so buttery that I suspected the pizza baker used the ancient cook's trick of adding a dollop of butter to everything. (Then again, maybe he did.) It was a sauceless pizza, but also a sublime one.
Had I not been to Spacca Napoli, I would give the D.O.C. the title of Chicago's Number One Pizzeria, but unfortunately I'd been to Spacca, so that title isn't available to the D.O.C. Yet, it is definitely one of the best in town. (I tend to think that pizzerias that bake a few sauceless pizzas might be decent ones--I don't think a pizzeria without an absolute confidence in its crust would want to serve it without the palate-drenching marinara slathered on it.)
So, the pizza was excellent. But the fiori di zucca might have been even better. I was amazed by the batter that was light and fluffy but never mushy, flimsy or fragile. It was spirited, if I may put it that way. Combined with a large platter of light, crispy and awesomely oceanic fried calamari (that didn't require marinara) that we'd had there before, the fiori di zucca totally convinced me that Trattoria D.O.C. knows their fried stuff. I'm not a fried food enthusiast, but within my limited experience, I dare say the D.O.C. is probably the best place to get fried food. And instead of the staple sodas of the fast food joints, I can get good wine at this restaurant. What not to love, right?
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Trattoria D.O.C.
706 Main Street, Evanston, IL
847.475.1111
One of my favorite fast food chains is the Culver's. Predictably, Patrick was the one who introduced me to this Wisconsin-based chain. I don't remember exactly when, but ever since I've been a big fun of Culver's, especially when I'm on a road trip in areas with questionable meal choices. Granted, it's always an extra fun to accidentally find a good local restaurant when in an unfamiliar place, but it's also true that a failure could be quite miserable when you're tired of driving, hungry, grumpy with your companion, or all of the above. Then, the blue metal roof of Culver's comes in sight, and you (and your similarly hungry companion) are saved. I don't know if I would eat there more often if there were Culver's closer to home, but our trip north often involves one meal at one of their restaurants.
We (Patrick, my mom and I) ended up in one of the many Culver's after our antique hunt in Volo Antique Mall. To be precise, we didn't go there right after the Mall--we stopped at the nearby Moraine Hills State Park and took a leisurely bird walk along one of their awesome trails. The "Yellow Trail" was fantastic. The first part of the 2-mile loop meanders through a marshland, which offers plenty of wildlife sitings. Despite the fact that we were there around 2 pm (which isn't the ideal birding time), we saw close to twenty different species. About half of them we didn't recognize. Among the ones we did know, the highlight of the first few was a pair of red headed woodpeckers. Unlike other woodpeckers with a black-and-white speckled back and a poorly defined red patch on the head, red headed woodpeckers are Mondorian-like in their boldly defined color sections. Just below the dead tree where the two flew around, a smallish beaver made an awesome racket, going after his potential lunch in muddy water. Beside him was an inscrutable-looking green frog, seemingly oblivious of the commotion just three feet from him. Though the evidence of drought was visible in the marshland (dried-up canals, dead fish floating belly-up in shallow water, etc.), it still seemed to sustain an amazing number and diversity of wildlife. We even saw a school of tiny catfish--black and jelly-like, but shaped just like their grown-ups, complete with the whiskers and all!
The marshland is taken over by a forest, then runs through a large prairie. The prairie was literally run over by busy American gold finches. A few Indigo buntings perched on the top ends of bushes. The summer wildflowers were everywhere, with gorgeous butterflies sucking their nectar here and there. Butterflies were an annoyance for me (I'm terrified of them), but Patrick was visibly delighted. Then, we were in the forest again, this time infested with mosquitoes--and dozens of birds as well. A scarlet tanager boasted its beautiful scarlet, while tiny, hummingbird-sized gnatcatches jumped from one branch to the other, like busy bees. Had it not been for the mosquitoes, we could have stayed there all day long, staring at the tree tops, open-mouthed and sore-necked.
The last attraction just before the trail came to a complete loop was a common yellow throat, a kind of yellow warbler with a black bandit mask. The sinister mask seemed utterly and amusingly unfit for a tiny bird (about 5 inches at the most) with a slim, smart shape and a beautiful song. As we approached the parking lot by the McHenry Dam, an appetizing smell of riverside BBQ wafted through the pine forest, and we realized that we were starving. Our pace naturally picked up, and within a few minutes, we were back in the car and headed north to 120, where we'd seen a Culver's on the way.
From their wide selection of menu items, my mom chose an Atlantic cod dinner, Patrick got a pulled BBQ pork sandwich, and I settled on their signature Butter Burger. The BBQ pork was surprisingly good for a non-BBQ joint, and my mom's battered cod was excellent: firm and flavorful, it might be comparable to the fish and chips at (dearly missed) Marshall Field's. And just for the record, the cod dinner came with an extraordinary amount of food: two 6-7 inch-sized pieces of fried cod, a mountain of French fries (that covered more than half the 10-inch plate), a decent-sized cole slow and a large cup of green beans. (I think the server made a mistake; the dinner was supposed to come with either the green beans or the slow, not both.) That was a lot of food. My Butter Burger was okay--for some reason, I always end up getting the Butter Burger even though every time I do so I realize that other items taste better.
After all that grease-packed meal, a nutritionist-approved decision would be to leave the premises immediately (and never come back again). But who would leave a Culver's without getting the frozen custard? Not us. I didn't want a ton of it, but I did want a few spoonfuls of the creamy, sweet dessert. We decided to share a small (what good boys we were!) caramel cashew sundae. The cold custard and the hot, gooey caramel; the sweetness of the caramel and the salt on the nutty cashew; it was a divine concoction of matching and fighting opposites. "Didn't we get the same thing when we went to Culver's in Port Washington?" asked my mom, and she was right. I'm hooked to that one. Now finally satiated, we left the premise--but, to the dismay of our imaginary nutritionist, only to come back again sometime later during one of our next trips up North.
This is the second half of my two-part review/applause of Le Lan, a French-Asian restaurant in River North. The first half is here.
For entrée, Patrick's blue nosed grouper wrapped in banana leaf was the winner. To begin with, it was an eye candy: the deep green of the fresh banana leaf, vermilion of the Thai red curry sauce and creamy yellow of the fingerling potatoes danced in a large, simple, white bowl. Yet the flavors were sweeter (figuratively, that is) than the look. The grouper was firm and supple, the fingerling potatoes earthy and sweet. The Thai red curry might have been the best I've ever had. And I spent about one fifth of my life in Bangkok. (Well, that was when I was a skinny little kid, but still.)
My choice from the day's specials was an interesting one: grilled scallops in smoked tomato sauce, served with coarsely minced pork belly. The scallops, though fresh and naturally sweet, were far too salty for my taste. The absolute redemption was the pork belly and the smoked tomato sauce. Combined together, the paté like pork belly and the smoky tomato sauce tasted like a very good barbecue; only that the pork had never been on a Weber grill. "It's a deconstructed BBQ," we laughed, while admiring the almost magical non-BBQ BBQ on our tongue. Despite the excess salt in the scallops, the dish was delicious, and made me want some freshly steamed white rice (which is a compliment in a Japanese context).
The dessert was a feast in itself. Our Tuesday prix-fixe included dessert, so we ordered one each; pineapple napoleon for Patrick, Vietnamese coffee cake for me. And on top of these, the restaurant gave us an off-the-menu crème brûlée with a nice message scribbled across the plate with chocolate. The three previous courses weren't humongous, so we had enough room for our own desserts, but the complimentary dessert was a bit much (although the gift made me very grateful). Of course we finished it all--it was one of the best crème brûlées in my life; rich but light, sweet but refreshing.
Patrick's pineapple napoleon was actually made with layers of wanton with very fine custard cream. The caramelized pineapple bits were very good, and the sweet-tartness went wonderfully with the suggested port (I forgot the name), but what totally made this playful dessert was the aromatic sage sorbet. My Vietnamese coffee cake was more substantial than Patrick's dessert. Three small squares of coffee cake (baked with Chinese five spice mix) were accompanied by thick zig-zag of chocolate mousse, which was fantastic. As a chocolate mousse addict, I had to restrain myself hard so that I won't start doing my happy dance, right there in front of everyone (though our server witnessed a bit of that earlier). Here and there in the chocolate mousse track was bits of caramelized hazelnuts and pecans--I could eat those crunchy, nutty, bitter little things all day long!
When we stepped out into the evening, the gray sky harbored some threats of impending storm. We strolled up Clark Street for a couple of blocks, waited for a bus for a while, and decided that the occasion was special enough to justify a taxi splurge. From the Lake Shore Drive, we could see a huge number of white boats--some tiny, others sizable--heading toward the Navy Pier area, where pre-July-4th fireworks were in preparation. The beaches were similarly jam-packed with people waiting for the fireworks. The taxi driver and Patrick discussed the congregation of the boats for a while. I went through our fantastic dinner in my head, and hoped that Le Lan would be around years to come, so we'd be able to make the yearly visit our gluttonous romantic ritual.
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Le Lan
749 N. Clark St., Chicago, IL
312.280.9100
Le Lan's Tuesday prix-fixe is such a deal. At $38, you get a soup or salad (which are as inspired as any entrée--no standard-issue "house salad" here), an entrée and a dessert. A simple addition of these three courses could cost more than $45 off the normal menu. We added an appetizer (Wagyu carpaccio), two glasses of wine, a glass of port to the prix-fixe, and came out with a tab of around $125 before tip. Tuesday is the day at this superb French-Asian restaurant.
With something to celebrate, Patrick and I made a hasty reservation (about three hours before the actual dinner time) at Le Lan, a French-Asian fusion restaurant in River North, a day before the Independence Day. The restlessness for the beer-and-grilling celebration ahead was already in the air when I rode the Red Line to downtown. I waited for Patrick for a while in front of a hot dog shop next door, feeling somewhat like a prosxxtute in my Chinese dress--just because I'm not used to wearing a dress, I think. When he showed up, we walked into the narrow yet airy dining room.
Our dinner in the green-themed stylish restaurant was beyond great; many of the dishes were epitomes of sophisticated mingling of different cuisines, executed with incredible expertise. Especially before the dinner rush hit, the service was extremely friendly and nearly impeccable. I didn't bring my camera so I can purely enjoy the meal, so there won't be any photographs, but I'll try to describe the dishes as best I could.
For our occasion, the restaurant gave us free glasses of champaign (I forgot what brand) to start us up. The champaign was dry yet flavorful, more to my taste than my wine of choice, Kung Fu Girl Riesling, which was a bit on the sweet side. (Yes, I admit I fell for the funny name.) Champaign was followed by a small, rectangular dish with two tiny steamed buns. The buns were shaped like cinnamon rolls, with what I believe to be Sichuan peppercorns sprinkled on top. A sweet, flavorful dipping sauce accompanied the buns. I tasted ten men djan (Chinese sweet miso), a bit of vinegar, soy sauce and maybe sugar. The steamed buns were absolutely adorable: white, smooth skin, fluffy inside and such a tiny size.
Though we went for the $38 Tuesday prix-fixe menu, which includes a soup or salad, an entrée and a dessert, we were too curious to skip the renowned Wagyu Beef Carpaccio. The award-winning carpaccio was a neatly arranged, paper-thin cuts of wagyu, with microscopic pieces of jicama, courtons, chives (a hair-thin kind we call "asatsuki" in Japan, I think), trout roe and red peppercorn sprinkled on top. Next to the beef slices were three triangles of scallion pancakes and a splash of balsamic vinegar. Although the sweet-and-nutty scallion-and-dried-shrimp pancakes might have overwhelmed the wagyu at times, balsamic vinegar worked wonderfully with the beef. We mainly ate the scallion pancakes alone, occasionally wiping the sweet-and-tart balsamic vinegar with them. With the sesame-oil flavored pancakes, the balsamic vinegar behaved like aromatic vinegar (香醋, aged and fermented vinegar with dark amber color, often used as dipping sauce for steamed buns). I loved the addition of asatsuki as well, for it reminded me of flavors I used to in Japan. Also the occasional trout roes changed the melt-in-your-mouth beef flavor into something more oceanic--a fun twist.
Patrick ordered seared tuna salad with pickled daikon vinaigrette. The tuna on a glass plate was very fresh, firm and flavorful--nothing like the nightmarish tuna from a few weeks ago elsewhere. The marinated Japanese cucumbers and wakame (seaweed) was a nice touch, but what impressed me the most was the vinaigrette. Though the use of pickled daikon in vinaigrette was a novel idea, the stock base they used in the vinaigrette tasted just like the bonito and kombu stock the respected Japanese restaurants make every day. Called dashi, this stock can be extremely satisfying even with a smallest amount of added condiments, if done right. And Le Lan did it right. Clean, subtle yet flavorful, his might have been the best dashi I've tasted outside of Japan.
I picked an heirloom tomato salad, which may have been my favorite of all the courses, though the competition was tough. Three slices of different tomatoes were topped with sautéed pea pod (which I think was 十六ササゲ, a type of cowpea in edible pod), poached shrimps, eggplants, and sprigs of mint and other herbs. What blew me away was the eggplant. Infused with nam pla (Thai fish sauce) and sugar (maybe palm sugar?), the creamy eggplant pieces melted in my mouth, accentuating the delightful acidity of the tomatoes. I could eat a bowl of rice with just three pieces of this eggplant--which is a great compliment if you're a Japanese cook. With colorful tomatoes (each with distinct flavor), eggplant and peas, this was a wonderful salad at the height of the summer harvest season. (And again, I was pleasantly surprised to see how Le Lan's cooks could combine so many different Asian ingredients cooked so many different ways in a single dish and still hold everything together!)
Obviously I'm still halfway through the meal--but I think this is long enough, so I'll return tomorrow with the second half of the wonderful dinner.
Continued from this post about my recent "discovery" of Albany Park.
Our little Albany Park exploration (over one afternoon and one evening) was heavily Middle-Eastern. A day after the happy encounter with the Al-Khyam Bakery and Grocery, we went to the nearby Noon-o-Kabab for dinner. The recently renovated interior of the Persian restaurant featured Persian-themed tile work on the wall and a few colorful knickknacks like a hookah pipe and musical instruments on the display shelf above the bar counter. At around 7:30 on a Monday night, the dining room was pretty crowded. Quite a few Asian-looking diners (including me, I suppose), along with the usual suspects of European-looking and Middle-Eastern looking people, seemed to reflect the diversity of the neighborhood.
The thin, flavorful pita came with a small dish of onion, radish, parsley and feta. Patrick the cheese lover said the feta was great, but I liked the pita with onions. For the main, I tried Ghormeh Sabzi and Koubideh combo, while Patrick went for Koubideh and chicken combo. After reading Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors, which traces the myriad origins of what we now grossly simplify as "Indian cuisine," I'd been curious to try some of the Persian foods that had a huge influence on the "Indian cuisine*" through the conquest of northern India by the Islamic and Persian-influenced Mughal Empire. Early Mugahli emperors, used to Persian cooking, brought expert Persian cooks with them to India, where they taught Indian cooks how to cook Persian food, and modified staple dishes to incorporate Indian ingredients and cooking methods. One of such influential items was the ghormeh sabzi--spinach, red beans and some beef bits stewed slowly until absolutely tender. It was an interesting experience; if no one told me that it was a Persian dish, I would have believed that the stewed dish was Indian.
The rest of the meal was fantastic. The dill rice was so light and fluffy that I ate more than half of the huge heap though I usually give up at around 1/3. (Cooking the rice light and fluffy, by the way, is another Persian influence on the Indian cooking. For example, biryani, which most Americans equates with Indian rice, actually originated in Persia.) Koubideh, a skewer of ground beef broiled over charcoal fire, was incredibly juicy and beefy, with a strong hint of smokiness. Although the chicken may not have stood up to the Café Suron's divine chicken, Koubideh was pretty darn good.
After the meal, I was so stuffed that I had to take a walk around the neighborhood. The sun had set, and the western sky visible beyond the busy Lawrence avenue was a dreamy mixture of pink, mauve, orange and indigo. We wandered into the Lindo Michoacan, a Mexican supermarket, where I picked up a molinillo (a traditional stirring stick to make champurrado) for a whopping $3.50. (I've seen molinillos for around $25 in gourmet stores--though these are much more elaborately made.) Along Lawrence, there were Guatemalan bakery, Mexican restaurants, Chinese restaurants, Korean kitchen store, more Middle Eastern places, and lots and lots of people of all ages and ethnicities. Some young men boomed along the street in a pimped-up ghetto mobile, while elderly couples took a leisurely stroll and families in sedans and minivans crowded parking lots everywhere. It was quite chaotic, in a Devon-avenue sort of way, but the vibrancy felt good. After all, Rogers Park wasn't the only neighborhood that's really diverse and down-to-earth, without too much commercial flair of Lincoln Park and Lakeview, I thought. (I do enjoy cool new restaurants and oh-so-cute stores in more hip neighborhoods, but I'm always pestered by a slight sense of discomfort when I'm in these neighborhoods. I don't know why.)
When the evening light surrendered to the indigo darkness of the night, we turned around and headed back to the car. With the nightfall, the area around the Brown Line's Kimball station was starting to be a little bit more exciting than we'd want ourselves in, but in the daylight, we'd definitely come back for more exploration. (I'd spotted a few Korean stores that seemed to sell some Japanese ceramics, which I have a constant hankering for.)
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* Though I now understand, thanks to the book's author Lizzie Collingham, that there's no such thing as homogeneous "Indian cuisine" in the regionally diverse culinary universe of the Indian subcontinent, I still don't know how to bridge the gap between the widely acknowledged "Indian food" and the yet-obscure regional varieties of it. Saying "Indian food" seems too violent of a simplification, yet what else could I say? I definitely need to more about the food of the subcontinent to talk about it properly.
It seems positively unlikely (or negatively likely, am I supposed to say?) that there is an authentic home-style Italian restaurant just a few blocks from a gang-infested stretch of Howard, but there is. Tucked between a flat, nondescript bank building and Fish Keg, a fried fish take-out (whose fried fish are actually pretty tasty), Cucina di Donatella serves authentic cooking of your lost Italian mamma. It's classic, but not in the marinara-smothered-overcooked-pasta kind of way; it's classic in you-might-find-the-same-food-in-a-Roman-trattoria kind of way.
The open-kitchen restaurant is small with about 8 tables, but the menu is extensive. Not to be missed is the handmade pasta dishes that take up about half the menu, but there are also nightly specials that show up on the chalk board on the wall, as well as in the almost chant-like recitation by the waiters who seem to emphasize their staccato Italian accent. Though meat and fish entrées sound great, we usually succumb to the temptation of simply prepared pasta dishes.
Tagliatelle alla Boscaiola
Patrick's favorite is the spinach lasagna, which puzzles me as to how in the world Donatella, the owner chef you can often glimpse in the kitchen, makes this usually heavy-with-greasd dish so light. The strong, green flavor of the abundant spinach is definitely the most prominent feature of this dish. My favorite might be a medley of mushroom pasta with black truffle oil (this was one of the specials last year, during the mushroom season), but unfortunately, this might be harder to encounter. There are also pasta dishes that I've never seen anywhere else. One of them is the pasta al prosciutto con burro e salvia (wide, flat pasta rolled with prosciutto and sage in butter sauce). The butter did get a bit much for me toward the end of the meal, but the combination of the salty prosciutto and the fragrant sage was quite delightful.
Gnocchi Genovese
When we visited Donatella's kitchen a few weeks ago, Patrick had Gnocchi Genovese and I had Tagliatelle Boscaiola (fetuccini-like flat pasta with carrot-and-mushroom meat sauce sans tomatoes). Both were excellent in a simple and clean way. The Gnocchi was extremely tender yet still had just the right resilience against my teeth, and the basil-infused olive oil never got overwhelmingly oily. The parmesan cheese sprinkled over the white wine-based meat sauce on my dish was a pleasant (and salty) complement to the otherwise very subtle mix of flavors. But the true BANG! was the appetizer, bruschetta with chopped mussels (see the photo below). The crusty bread was literally piled high with mussels. I'm usually not a huge fun of mussels, but this one was fantastic. The oceanic kick of the mussels was perfectly balanced with the strong zest of freshly chopped garlic and the sharp, green flavor of the Italian parsley.
The service seems to fluctuate. When it's excellent, it's amazing; unintrusive, knowledgeable, friendly and swift. When it's slow, it can be reeeeeeeeeally slow (but never snooty). So, don't go there starving. Bring a bottle of wine (it's BYOB), sit back, enjoy the conversation with your party, and when they're ready, you'll be served an excellent, reasonably priced classic Italian. Many reviews (including this detailed one from Sun Times) rave about their desserts, too--I just have to try some soon!
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La Cucina di Donatella
2221 W. Howard St.
773.262.6533
Parking is available along the alleyway on the west side of the building.
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
We'd been to El Famous Burrito just down the street one too many times. Not that their food is bad (it's actually a pretty good bang for the buck), but we felt we should try some other Mexican joints that line the Clark Street between Pratt and Touhy. It's nice to have a favorite neighborhood eatery, but it's also fun to try new ones.
So, the other day for dinner, we went to Quesadillas y Mariscos Doña Lolis near Clark and Morse. A Reader article recommended something called champurrado, "a mixture of masa, chocolate or cocoa, cinnamon and other seasonings." Though we didn't have a faintest idea as to what that was from the description, we were game for it. (We thought it was a bread-like thing, mixed and then baked; in reality, according to this recipe, it's a warm, cocoa-flavored drink thickened with masa.)
The thing is, we didn't look up this info on champurrado before we headed out (too hungry). By the time we finished our seven-minutes walk to the restaurant, I had forgotten what their specialty was. The only thing I remembered was that it involved chocolate. Munching on the homemade tortilla chips loaded with frijoles, I looked for items with chocolate on the menu. None.
"Do you remember the name of their special thing?" I asked.
"Nah, I don't remember," said Patrick.
"I feel like it started with a P," I said (totally wrong).
We decided we were too hungry to remember, and went for the two dishes that sounded good: Patrick got a steak with freshly made guacamole, while I ordered meatballs in chipotle chili sauce. We devoured the thick tortilla chips as we waited for our food. The green sauce had a wonderful peppery flavor (I felt like I was cutting one up right that moment), but the fun part was the brown one. I tried to discern what it was made of, and had no clue. It was very smoky; almost exclusively so. We should have asked the waitress, but she seemed to be so engrossed with a horribly acted drama on one of the many manifestations of Fox Channel that I felt disinclined to interrupt. (Yes, it was something on Fox, not a telenovela on Telemundo. Was there any difference? Perhaps not.)
The food was very good in a rather homey way. My chipotle sauce had just a hint of heat, nothing to make you run for the second glass of cold water. Wrapped up in their homemade tortillas (served in lidded containers to keep them warm), the tender meatballs were quite comforting. Patrick's steak looked intimidating at first. It looked too much like the indestructible, flavorless beef I once had in Madrid, both in color and texture. But when I took a bite into the tortilla-wrapped, guacamole-slathered steak, the premonition immediately dispersed. The beef was on the tough side, that's for sure, but it had a ton of fbeefy flavor (i.e., that greasy goodness) that went fantastic with the onions in the guacamole. The two small quesadillas that came with the steak was a nice touch, too.
When we finished the hearty meal, we noticed a hand-written sign on the wall. "Champurrado," it said. Was that what the Reader article was talking about, I wondered for a moment, but I had absolutely no room for anything else. (We were so full we decided to take a neighborhood walk afterward, if you need an idea as to how large the portion is.) The bill came to just short of $20. You'd pay more here than at El Famous Burrito, but Doña Lolis has a better variety, and the quality of food seems better. So I'd say it's $20 well spent (except that we didn't get to try their specialty).
(Patrick took the steak photo.)
I'd definitely want to try the champurrado (which seems to have been ingrained in my brain by now) the next time we go there, but the meatballs and steak were very good in their own ways. So, hooray for the amnesia!
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Qusadillas y Mariscos Doña Lolis
6924 N. Clark St., Chicago, IL
773.761.5677
When we staggered out of the Quinault River Trail in the Olympic National Park after a 13-mile, overnight backpacking trip, we were dusty and hungry (and slightly on the grumpy side as a result). It was around 2, and we still had a few miles of drive to the B&B we were to stay for the night, so we decided to find something hot to eat in the little town of Quinault.
Across the street from a quaint-looking, shingle-covered inn on the South Shore Road, we found a promising neon sign for a snack bar. It was a little snack counter tacked in the back of a general store, and the owner had to go find the lady who runs the snack bar part of the business, but we were lucky enough to get our afternoon bite.
Patrick went for a cherry cream soda. Apprehensive, I settled for a boring glass of Diet Pepsi. On a whim, Patrick got small curly fries, on which he sustained himself in his poorer days in Florida, while I went extravagant with $2.95 onion rings (my recent addiction). We both got salmon burgers.
We took our seats in a closed-in porch and waited for the food, studying a world map with about a million pins sticking out to show where customers of the little establishment have come from. It was a pretty impressive array of places of origin: quite a few people had come from Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and of course Europe and the North America. There was a pin or two even on the Madagascar Island, and I was delighted to note some standing (rather crowdedly) on the tiny islands of my home country. Beside the map was an odd "recognition of support" from a troop stationed in Fort Lewis. The framed "recognition" sported two soldiers clad in Japanese samurai armor, with their swords up and ready for a quick attack. Why in the world did they use this image instead of that of an American military figure, I do not know.
The lady kindly brought our food to the table and said we'd be ready for the rest of the day. We nodded and digged into our baskets. The onion rings were on the greasy side, but the salmon burgers were surprisingly good, considering the location and the clientele. When the burgers were gone, we licked our fingers clean, took the last sips form the soda, and headed out. My calves complained when I stood up form the chair, quite understandable after a long hike and a short while of sitting, but my stomach was quite happy with the first "real" meal after more than 24 hours.
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
For Patrick's birthday, my parents had planned a Chinese lunch on Saturday. We dropped the stuff we got from the annual organic plant sale in my parents' backyard and drove off to the restaurant in Glenview.
"Their food is really authentic," my mom raved in the car. "It may not be as good as in Chinatown, but you wouldn't think it's a restaurant in a suburban mall." Even with her rave review, I was skeptical, and so was Patrick, who politely kept his mouth shut. But we were to be pleasantly surprised. The food at the restaurant owned by a Taiwanese family, misleadingly named Szechwan North, was fantastic.
It was before noon when we walked into the dimly lit, overly decorated restaurant (there was a giant jade sculpture of a dragon-shaped sailing ship, about three feet tall, in the entrance, to give you an idea). A middle-aged man with decidedly unfashionable glasses came out from the back, and greeted my father, who immediately struck up a conversation. They both spoke stuttering English, but seemed to be having fun. The man told us (via my father) that he was from Taiwan, but named the restaurant Szechwan North because of the name recognition. My father told him that he'd been to Taiwan several times on business, and mentioned the name of an entertainment district in Taipei, which cracked up the restaurant owner. After a bit more of lively conversation, my father got beer for all of us, and the owner disappeared to the kitchen, still smiling.
The disappearance of the owner was immediately followed by an appearance of a similarly middle-aged woman in a white shirt and black apron. Strikingly red lipsticks seemed a little out of place on her otherwise childlike face. She hastily gave us menus, placed plates and chopsticks on our table, promised us to come back with water and disappeared quickly. Then, another woman, this time in a loose, white, collarless shirt and with her long hair tied into a pony tail, approached our table.
To my surprise, she started to explain what she had at hand for the day. She could steam a fresh, two-pound water pike she just purchased this morning and dress it with her special sauce. We should add a plate of stir-fried pea sprouts, she said, which she also got this morning. We nodded our heads in agreement, half perplexed by the burst of attention we were unexpectedly receiving. To those main courses, we added a bunch of goodies and waited with excitement. The brisk recommendations by the staff made it feel like we came to our regular hangout, where chefs and staff knew what we liked and cooked to our taste. The only thing we ordered right off the menu was our appetizer.
My parents got hot and sour soup, and the younger generation (us) got chicken corn soup. Both were excellent. The hot and sour soup was hot and sour (duh), but it didn't have the nasty, stinging sourness that I'm not very fond of. Our chicken corn soup was a true comfort food, with the slight sweetness of the corn and the robust flavor of from the chicken. I loved the thick texture of the soup as well.
This is the only thing we ordered off the menu: scallion pancakes. The thin wheat pancakes had bits of scallions inside (could have been more), and were served with sweetened soy sauce and hot chili sauce. I think the pancakes were baked with sesame oil, and the combination of the sesame oil and the sweet soy sauce was fantastic in a junk-foodish way.
The female cook (or the woman we assumed to be one) seemed to know that Japanese people tend to order stir-fried noodles at Chinese restaurant. So she included a combo noodles in our main courses. The noodles was the least impressive of the dishes we had at Szechwan North, but that's not to discredit the noodles. They were decent noodles, but the competition was way too harsh for them.
To accommodate Patrick's deep love of black bean sauce, the chef cooked up stir-fried beef with black bean sauce. A dish not on the menu, it had plenty of succulent beef pieces along with fresh onions and scallions. The pungent flavor of the black bean sauce was balanced out with the soy sauce, fresh garlic and ginger, and some sugar. It was one of the best black bean sauce beef in my life. (The dish in the back is the pea sprouts--lightly stir-fried with chicken broth, ginger and garlic. It is truly amazing what a satisfying dish this could be, considering how simple it is...)
Then came the main course--the steamed water pike.
The cook herself delivered the fish, cut the tender fish with a fork and a spoon, and distributed the pieces to our ready plates. When she said she was going to steam the pike, I was slightly apprehensive: I've had enough bland steamed fish in my life. But it turned out that the fish was deep-fried before it was steamed, just to give it the kick of oil (which we're all addicts of) and to coat it with a layer of flour. This extra layer of flour worked as a sort of sponge that picked up the sauce, which otherwise would slide right off the fish. The sauce contained large chunks of ginger, scallions and whole cloves of garlic, and the fish was covered with yellow chives, cilantro and green onions. These aromatic ingredients eliminated the fishy odor that the pike might have had once in his afterlife and worked well with the soy-sauce-based brown sauce.
Mr. Pike disappeared pretty quickly, leaving only his cheek-less head wondering where the rest of his body went. (He was cheek-less because cheeks are often the tastiest part of a fish's body. They tend to be much more succulent and firm than any other parts of the body.)
The tab came out to be about $100 for the four of us (including alcohol and tip). According to my parents, they don't always shower you with recommendations and other assistance. We might have bee just really lucky, coming to it when it was empty; people who came after us were given regular menus and were pretty much left to their own. So, the two recommendations when visiting Szechwan North are A) go there for lunch, and go there early to catch their "we're so bored, we want customers to chat with" mood, and B) if you're lucky enough to get this kind of attention, follow their advice, and don't hesitate to ask for stuff you like (like Patrick did).
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Szechwan North
2857 Pfingsten Rd., Glenview, IL
847.272.0007
When I came home around five, starving, I found two tamales in the fridge. Patrick got a six-pack yesterday for dinner, and left two for me. I boiled some water in a pot, placed a Chinese steamer (the bamboo-made ones you see in dim sum places) on it, and steamed the tamales in it. Kind of an odd way to steam Mexican food, but hey, it worked.
The place we get our tamales is on Clark Street. It's a mom-and-pop place (I suppose I should call it mama-y-papa place, though) called Tamales: Lo Mejor de Guerrero, and it only has tamales. Well, they do have some other stuff like horchata, and they do weekend breakfast (which we haven't tried), but their main thing is the tamales. When the orange-awninged place opened up last year, we were pretty excited--it's always reliable when a restaurant really specializes in something. This place isn't an exception. Their tamales are gigantic, cheap (six giant tamales for a mere $5.45), and yummy.
Their tamales are moist and the corn masa still bears some lingering sweet, nutty flavor of the corn. There are seven different varieties, costing only a dollar each: hot or mild chicken, hot or mild pork, cheese with beans, cheese with jalapeño and sweet with strawberries or pineapples. My favorite (by far) is the boring-sounding cheese with beans. I do like the meat versions, but the cheese with beans hits that soft spot for simple, comfort food. None of the three ingredients assert itself too loudly (unlike the pork and the hot green sauce, which sometimes obscure the subtle flavor of the corn dough), and the richness of the cheese blends wonderfully well with beans and corn masa.
While the tamales steamed in the Chinese steamer, I opened a bottle of Kirin Ichiban (a Japanese beer) and took swigs from it. The green leaves of the big tree outside of our kitchen window, I noticed, had turned to the real, summer green from their nascent light green. After all, it was approaching mid-May. Finally done with all the papers for the semester and indeed with my BA work, I waited for the heavy cast of stress melt in me. It felt good to be done. It felt good, although it was only a beginning of my life outside of school--a life that I may not enjoy as much as I did all the learning and thinking inside of the academia, but for now, it felt really good to have no paper to write, no required reading that I'd have to rush through.
When the tamales were heated through, I placed them in a plate, took a few pictures and wolfed them down. I probably shouldn't have eaten both--they were pretty sizable--but they were yummy, and with the help of the beer, the tamales finally managed to undo the knot of stress that I'd been feeling for last two weeks of my last semester in school. Perhaps it's not too surprising that these tamales did such a great job of soothing my papered-out brain. In the back of the restaurant, there are several Mexican grannies (presumably from Guerrero) cooking the meat in sauce and stuffing the corn husks with masa. It's the kind of place where you order a few tamales and the girl at the counter walks into the kitchen, asking her "tia (aunt)" if she still had the kind you asked for--all in Spanish, presumably with Guerrero accent. It's very homey, and that relaxing atmosphere of a family-run restaurant certainly translates into the tamales they create.
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Tamales Lo Mejor de Guerrero
7024 N. Clark St., Chicago, IL
773.338.6450
We were very glad that this restaurant managed to survive the recent neighborhood fire unscathed. The fire consumed a few stores right next to the Mejor de Guerrero, which included another of our neighborhood favorite, a Colombian rotisserie place called Pollo al Carbon.
For culinary tidbits about the Guerrero region of Mexico (and where to get their specialties in Chicago), see this fascinating Chicago Reader article.
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
© Copyright 2007 - All Rights Reserved. Don't even think about trying it!
