October 2012 Archives

Cafecito
26 East Congress Parkway, Chicago, IL 60605

Time: In at 12:18, seated with food in 22 minutes.
Meal: Cubano sandwich, Materva Yerba Mate Soda = $7.30

I owed a friend lunch and among the places she suggested was Cafecito and I leapt at it as a place I’d never been before. It turned out to be a fine choice, if nothing else because it’s pretty cheap. I’m glad I went with someone to talk to, though, because at 22 minutes this is now the Loop Lunching record holder for the longest wait.

I’m a sucker for a soda I’ve never tried before, and Cafecito has multiple sodas I’ve never even seen. Yerba Mate Soda tastes… kinda like a tea soda. And as their name implies, they also have coffee drinks and breakfast sandwiches, so I might go back to try those.

For this visit, though, I stuck with the obvious choice and got a cubano sandwich. I’ve had plenty of cuban sandwiches (two kinds of pig in one dish? I’m in!) but somehow eating this one made me realize that mustard and pickle are, while good condiments, kind of plain. My lunch companion got the chimichurri sandwich and said it was great.

Abou André
60 E Jackson, Chicago, IL

Time: In at 1:34pm, seated with food in 6 minutes
Meal: Baid Qawarma plate, fountain drink = $10.86

There are a lot of places open in the loop now that serve the food of various Mediterranean countries. I’ve heard them lumped together as “falafel joints”, though for most that’s just one of the foods they serve. I like the cuisine, whatever we call it, but it’s also true that a lot of the places all seem to have nearly identical menus. So that’s something I like about Abou André—there’s stuff on the menu I haven’t seen elsewhere. According to their web page, this is the sole American outpost of a Lebanese chain, so maybe that has something to do with it.

One of those unusual dishes is the Baid Qawarma: lamb and beef, eggs, and pine nuts all scrambled together. I like it with the hot sauce (not pictured, because I forgot to ask for it). I don’t know if was just because I was there after the lunch rush, but my two side falafels were patted and deep-fried to order, instead of coming out of a tub, and so were fluffy and delicious. I’m not sure why I got couscous as a side—it’s a pretty filling meal already and the couscous was a bit much. Usually I get the tabouleh.

Jimmy John’s
249 S State St, Chicago, IL 60604

Time: In at 2:10pm, leaving with food in 2 minutes, 15 seconds.
Meal: Ham sandwich (#1 Pepe), chips, and a drink = $8.33

As I said when I went to Chipotle, I’m going to try to avoid chains on this project. But it is my work day, and so there are going to be days when I just need to grab something fast. And Jimmy John’s does finish off my tour around the block* that my office is located on. And fast they are: the two minutes and fifteen seconds it took to get this sandwich and walk back out the door is the current Loop Lunching record.

And, you know, I like a Jimmy John’s sandwich. Again as I mentioned in the Chipotle review, I like places that do something simple and stick to it. I think Jimmy John’s has had the same basic menu for years. I remember it being a big deal when they added bacon to the possible ingredients, and that was like five years ago.

*Without crossing the street.

Fontera Fresco at Macy’s Seven on State
111 N State St, Chicago, IL 60602

Time: I arrived at mid-lunch rush, 12:30pm. I goofed up on my usual system for timing the line, but it was just over 10 minutes from the front door of Macy’s to sitting with food.
Meal: Grilled Steak Huarache, Classic Lime Aqua Fresca, Caramel Nut Bar for afternoon snack = $14.62

I broke out of my immediate neighborhood (by a whole 3 blocks) to meet an old work colleague for lunch. We met up on the seventh floor of Macy’s (nee Marshall Field’s) where there’s the Seven on State high-concept food court. The concept is celebrity-chef-designed food courts stands, so there’s Rick Bayless’ Frontera Fresca, Marc Samuelsson’s Marc Burger, and Takashi Yagihashi’s Noodles. There’s also a salad and soup place that is just… salads and soup. There are two other Frontera Frescas in other Macy’s—one in Skokie and one in San Francisco.

I’m not ashamed to be a Rick Bayless fan. I’ve eaten at Xoco quite a bit, and Frontera Grill whenever I can. The Frontera Fresca was closed for renovations the last time I was here, but is open again. I’m not sure the renovations made any huge difference to the decor, but they seem to have made some changes to the kitchen flow, as there was quite a line, but once I had ordered, I had my food in minutes. It felt faster than the wait from order to food had been in the past.

I’d recently had huaraches from a place near my home and so I decided to try Bayless’ take on the food. Delish. Just great.

My lunch companion had a salad from the salad place. I don’t believe he starved to death.

Chipotle Mexican Grill
10 E Jackson, Chicago, IL 60604

Time: In the door at 12:40pm, walking out the door with food in 2.5 minutes.
Meal: Carnitas bowl, Fountain drink = $9.03

Chipolte is a small local chain… ha ha! I crack myself up.

So here’s the deal. There were only two restaurants left to complete a full circuit of the block my office is on, but both are national chains and so I was going to skip them in favor of branching out for more local, and interesting, fare. But then it was pretty rainy at lunchtime and work was busy enough that I just wanted to grab something quick and come back, so I popped into the Chipolte that’s right next door (don’t be creepy).

There’s a divide in chain lunch places that I see in places like Quiznos and Subway vs Potbelly and Jimmy Johns. It’s about either doing, like the latter, a few ingredients and doing them well and sticking with it, or like the former, constantly coming up with changes to your menu to entice customers in. Chipotle in definitely in the latter camp. They do four meats, a couple of salsas, two kinds of beans and rice, and however you can combine those things in tortillas, tacos, or bowls. I do have to say I’m a fan and I’ve got an order that I’ve got down, which is part of that very impressive 2.5 minute service time. (Bowl, brown rice, pinto beans, carnitas, some tomato salsa, some corn salsa, cheese. Clear!) They have Coke products on the fountain, but they have pretty good iced tea and non-diet lemonade on the fountain, so I usually make an Arnold Palmer.

I’m a fan of local, interesting, and different. But if it’s a rainy day, Chipotle is just fine by me.

America’s Dog
21 E Adams, Chicago, IL 60603

Time: In the door at 12:43pm, food in 12 minutes
Meal: Chicken sandwich combo (includes curly fries and soda) = $9.96

America’s Dog is another small local chain (4 locations in the city, one at O’Hare*). Their schtick is that they have 21 hotdogs named after cities around the country and that each represents the cuisine of that area. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen “BBQ sauce, grilled onions and tomato” on a hot dog in New Orleans, but sure. They have a “road trip” card where if you eat 18 of the hot dogs you get a tshirt and your photo on their website. I’ve eaten at their other locations, but I left my card at home this time. They also have Belly, so I did check in on that.

America’s Dog, it’s obvious, has ambitions for expansion and the place is a half-step up from a usual Chicago hot dog place. If you want a Chicago-style hot dog in downtown Chicago, this will be the cleanest place you can get one.

But, I’m sure I’m going to be eating plenty of hot dogs on this journey around the Loop (and don’t get me wrong, I love a Chicago-style hot dog) so this visit I took advantage of the other selections on their menu and got a chicken sandwich. The cashier asked me what I kind of cheese I wanted on the sandwich and rattled off the choices, so I went with cheddar. It wasn’t until I was sitting down that I realized one thing and remembered another. When I looked at my receipt I realized that cheese was a $0.50 add-on and not standard on the chicken sandwich. And when I tasted my sandwich, I remembered that cheese on a chicken sandwich is gross.

Other than that, the sandwich was fine and the curly fries were great. The fountain selection was Pepsi, so I went for iced tea. There were two spigots on the ice tea dispenser, one un-labeled and the other labeled “unsweetened tea”. I assumed, therefore, that the unlabeled one would just be sweet tea. In fact, it was the syrup that you would use to make some sort of Raspberry iced tea, diluted just a bit from its raw, syrupy state. Nasty. I poured out 3/4 of the cup, filled it back up with unsweetened tea and it was still strong and sweet.

*Which is technically within city limits, but you’re not going to just stop in for lunch.

Taco Fresco
23 E Adams St, Chicago, IL 60603

Time: In at 12:43pm, food in 5 minutes.
Meal: Fish taco combo, Lime Jarritos soda = $9.68

Taco Fresco is a small chain (4 locations in the Loop, 2 in the suburbs) of Mexican food restaurants. I’d say the food is absolutely nothing special, but not too bad usually. I’ve had the fish tacos before at this location and another and been satisfied. They’re certainly fast: this visit it took just 5 minutes from walking in the door to getting my food. And there’s a nice selection of salsas: two kinds of green and 3 or 4 varieties of red.

I got the fish tacos again this time. Fish is a dollar extra over the regular taco combo, and I paid extra for a Jarritos instead of a can of soda. Their fish tacos are, as with the rest of their menu, no frills: no special slaw or sauce. Just two slabs of grilled tuna, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese. The “combo” gets you rice and beans. The beans today were extra soupy (I know it’s not the Chicago style, but I actually like a bit of discernible bean in my refried beans). And my fish taco seemed pretty bland, even slathered with the hot green salsa. A fumble for the usually reliable Taco Fresco.

Halo Asian Mix
29 East Adams Street, Chicago, IL 60603

Time: In at 1:01 pm, food in 10 minutes
Meal: Tocilog, can of coke = $9.98

North of the Exchequer there’s a 7-11, which I suppose is technically a lunch spot, but I’m not that obsessive (or masochistic). So we round the corner at Adams, skip the Dunkin’ Donuts/Baskin Robbins (same deal) and arrive at Halo Asian Mix. First off, this doesn’t matter a bit to the food, but it’s not hay-low, like an angel would have, but HA-low, which is Tagalog for “mix”.

Halo is the kind of lunch place that would probably drive a lot of people crazy, but that I just love. The ambiance is nil. Halo took over the space from a different pan-Asian place two years ago and there are still signs up that I’m sure are references to that previous place. The fountain soda machine has an “out of order” sign on it that looks months old. There’s a greasy smell in the air. And they’re slow—the 10 minutes it took for my food this time was actually the fastest I’ve ever gotten food here, and there have been times when I’ve walked in the door, waited for someone to take my order, and left when no one was at the counter for minutes. There’s a small sign at the cash register that suggests calling ahead with your order (312-360-1111). But the food, based on my two visits so far, seems worth it.

The food at Halo is pan-Asian, with the menu divided into sections called “Taste of Hawaii”, “Taste of Philippines”, etc. The kitchen looks tiny, but every meal seems to be made to order (hence the slowness). I had read on a Yelp review that the owners were Filipino, so for this visit I went with a Filipino dish and got the Tocilog (or “Tosilog”, as it was spelled on a different menu in the store): sweet glazed pork, rice, and a fried egg. The pork was delicious and the egg was a wonderful sunny-side up. My lunch companion got a Thai selection: Pad See Ew and also found it delicious.

This is the first place in this project that I’m already thinking about breaking my own rules and coming back for a repeat visit.

Exchequer Restaurant & Pub
226 South Wabash Avenue, Chicago, IL 60604

Time: In the door at 12:14 pm, food in 16 minutes; also needed to ask for check at end of the meal and wait for credit card slip to come back. Total: about 19 minutes waiting.
Meal: Hamburger, side of fruit, Coke = $12.74 + 2.50 tip = $15.24

There was no Loop Lunching yesterday because I made a really good pork roast over the weekend and had leftovers for lunch on Monday. It’s too bad, for this project, that I’m such a good cook.

Just north of Kramer’s, the health food store and vegetarian cafe, is the Exchequer Restaurant & Pub. As it’s just around the corner, my workplace has had pizza and wings catered from them, which were very serviceable examples of both of those foods, so I was expecting a good lunch. The Exchequer is a sit-down restaurant, which made me feel a little weird coming in alone. They have a pretty good draft beer selection, but I passed that up for both the aloneness-factor and the time of day.

Following the house-named rule, I got The Exchequer Burger from the section of the menu called Exchequer’s Famous Burgers, so it was double house-named. I was pleased to see that as a side I could skip the usual fries or potato salad and get fruit. I mean, I’m in training.

The fruit was good - ripe cantaloupe, nice strawberries, and… well, I guess you have to have grapes in a fruit cup. All of the toppings on the burger were nice, too: healthy-sized slices of tomato, crisp lettuce, a whole slice of raw onion (grilled was an option) so you can pick out however many rings you want. And the burger looked like it was nearly medium, like I ordered. It just… wasn’t very good. The meat was a little grainy or something. It wasn’t exactly dry, but it definitely wasn’t a juicy burger. I left feeling a bit disappointed, especially since the cost was higher than any other lunch place so far, and the wait time longer.

Kramer’s Healthy Cafe & Juice Bar
230 S Wabash, 60604

Time: Walked in the door at 12:45pm, seated with food in 8 minutes.
Meal: Lunch combo: salad, soup, juice = $7.63

Heading North from Al’s Beef, we skip a convenience store and Central Camera and we’re at Kramer’s Health Food Store. Kramer’s is a fairly large health food grocery store and at the back on a second floor overlooking the rest of the store is a vegetarian cafe.

I went for a lunch combo, which gets you a salad or entree, a soup, and a small juice. For 50¢ more you can get a panini instead of the entree. I’m a sucker for the “house”-named anything, so I got the Kramer’s salad. The salad had a nice dressing and was pretty tasty, in a salad-y sort of way. The soup of the day was carrot-ginger, which I like, and this was a good one. I was rather hungry, but it was almost too much food—I had to work to finish my soup. I’m not 100% sure whether the juice was straight carrot or was their mixed vegetable, but it was also refreshing. Good thing I like carrots.

There’s a good amount of seating, but the place was pretty crowded at the tail end of the lunch rush and so I had to ask someone to share a table. Max was kind enough to share with me and we ended up having a nice conversation. And then after lunch I interviewed one of the employees for ChicagoFlagTattoos.com, so it was quite a social workout.

Al’s Beef
28 E Jackson, 60604

Time: In the door at 12:07, eating in 11 minutes
Meal: Regular (6”) Italian beef, small fries, fountain drink = $11.50

Heading East from Fontano’s, we pass the lamentably closed Fast Foo’s and come to Al’s Beef on the corner of Jackson and Wabash. Al’s is another small local chain (7 locations in the city, 5 in the suburbs, and one each in Arizona and Georgia).

The menu at Al’s is pretty standard Chicago fare: hot dogs, hamburgers, Italian beef. There’s a “tamale boat” that looks interesting, in a gut-buster way, but I decided to get the Italian beef since it’s in the name, and there are posters up proclaiming that they won best Italian beef in NBC Chicago’s Golden Local awards. I don’t actually get an Italian beef all that often, partly because I don’t really like messy foods, but when I do it’s dipped with sweet peppers.

Even arriving right after noon, I still managed to beat the lunch rush—the order line was three times as long while I was waiting for my food. And that makes me wonder how long those people had to wait for their food, since mine took seven or eight minutes to be ready.

The space has an oddly-low ceiling, but there are plenty of places to eat downstairs—all standing at stainless steel counters, perfect for the Chicago Lean. There’s more seating on a second floor that I didn’t visit. The last time I was in the place they were having a problem with their exhaust fans and the whole place was shrouded in greasy smoke. That wasn’t happening this time, but by the end of my lunch, the place was starting to smell pretty meaty just from all the orders being cooked up.

The sandwich was good. The dip was very tasty, with a little bit of a bite. The beef and peppers were so stewed that they just about fell apart, and with the bread mushy from the dip, the whole thing was as messy as I thought it would be. The fries were the kind I like—hand cut style with the skin still on. But they were a little mushy.

I’ve been working downtown-ish in Chicago for the last 12 years: the Streeterville neighborhood is certainly an urban area and there are plenty of lunch options. But now I’m working right in the Chicago Loop and I’m sure this area has the highest concentration of restaurants in the city. I’m going to explore the variety and try to eat at every single one of them. I’ve got my work cut out for me: the Loop Lunch site lists 388 restaurants, I can tell at a glance that their list is out of date.

I’ll report on the food, but I’ll also try to cover things important to Loop lunchers, like how long it takes to get your food if you show up right at noon. My office is located in the south-east corner of the Loop (don’t be creepy) so I’m going to start by just going once around the block:

Fontano’s Subs
20 E Jackson, 60604

Time: In the door at 12:05pm, 5 minutes until seated with food
Meal: 6” sub, can of Coke, fancy chips = $8.18

Fontano’s is part of a small local chain (3 stores in the city, 3 in the suburbs) and the walls are covered with newspaper and magazine articles mentioning the shop in lists of “best sandwiches in the city” and so on. The sandwiches are very competent, boring cold-cut subs. I got one of the subs recommended on a big sign beside the menu: the Block Buster (or, “Blockbuster”, it’s spelled both ways on different signs) — ham, salami, capocollo, provolone, and swiss. Good bread, nice tomatoes, good italian dressing. They make their own Giardiniera, which I’ve had on a previous visit and it’s pretty good. Fountain Pepsi products, Coke by the can, nice selection of both plain and ‘fancy’ chips (I got Rosemary and Olive Oil).

The space is small and crowded. I got to spend my lunch listening to two guys at a table behind me pontificating on the sad state of lunch meats at Subway. At the front window and along one wall, there’s a very narrow counter with short stools in a row. There’s just something odd about sitting down on a short stool—I’ve been trained by bars and diners that a stool is going to be 4’ off the ground, and sitting down at a chair-height stool, and then facing a wall 6” away feels a little weird.