Where Should I Eat When I'm in Chicago?

My answer on Facebook that was popular...

I grew up in Chicago, from a family that loved to eat out, and a lover of meats and fatty foods (not for the health conscious, but you're visiting Chicago, right?). First, if you're visiting Chicago, you have to eat steak. It was the historic hub of the cattle industry, Morton's Steakhouse was founded here, and where else are 48 oz portershouses standard?

The local favorites are The Chop House and Gibson's. You can't go wrong with either, but Chop House has been rated "best steakhouse" in America for several years by numerous publications so I would go here. After growing up on Chop House, Gibson's, and others, Peter Lugar in Brooklyn was weak. "Steak for three" at Lugar's is like a steak for one in most Chicago steakhouses.

For higher end restaurants, I would recommend Alinea, Charlie Trotters and MK Restaurant. Alinea and Moto started the micro-dish trend (20 course dinners) several years back and frequent experimentations with liquid nitrogen.

For mid-tier priced restaurants and street food, there are countless choices. If you can travel out to the burbs, I would recommend Bob Chinn's Crabhouse in Wheeling, IL. This is one of the best seafood places you'll ever eat at and has the best Alaskan King Crab (yes, in the burbs of Chicago). They have their own daily shipments of fresh seafood flow in and the largest volume of King Crab. This one restaurant generates over $30 million in revenue and typically ranks 4th in the nation. In Chicago, I would recommend going to Rick Bayless' Frontera Grill. Bayless was the winner of Top Chef Masters last year and is an excellent chef.

For fast food, I would recommend Portillo's (chain with many locations) or Al's Beef and get the Italian Beef sandwich. If you haven't tried Italian Beef, then you haven't been to Chicago. Get it "dipped" (in beef juice) with peppers. Then travel to Buffalo Joe's in Evanston, IL and go to Buffalo Joe's. Their buffalo wings have won two national recipes (for any food) and is the standard for many wing fanatics. Their consistency in quality and size of the wings have gone down over the past decade, but it's still tasty.

Then find a Pot Belly's for one of the best subs you'll have. This was a Chicago institution for years with only two locations until several years ago Starbuck's Howard Schultz invested into it and expanded it throughout the Midwest and D.C.

For pizza, Giordano's is my favorite. It's stuffed pizza, not pan so it's even thicker and heavier with meats and cheese. Voted "Best Pizza in America" by NBC and others. I would also check out Spacca Napoli if you love Neapolitan style. And a local favorite in the burbs is Burt's Place, which has a pretty good fan following.

Update 1/9/2011: Recent TIME magazine article on Grant Achatz and Alinea, a three star Michelin restaurant

The hottest restaurant in Chicago right now is Girl & the Goat, which was started by Top Chef winner, Stephanie Izard

Korean Seaweed at Google HQ

One of the common snacks at Google HQ... Korean seaweed. I can't remember when they started having it there, but it's been at least a year. Reverse cultural imperialism at its best: micropayments in online gaming, bottle service at clubs, and dried, salty seaweed.

Privy 5 Los Angeles Guide Launched! Featuring Asian Cuisine Picks from Kelly Hu, Lisa Ling, John Cho

Kelly Hu

I'm an advisor to Privy.net and excited for the launch of their "Privy 5 Los Angeles Guide". If you are looking for Asian cuisine restaurant recommendations in Los Angeles, visit the site here. More from their official press release:

Privy.net Highlights 250 Must-Visit Places to Eat, Drink, Stay, Play, Shop, and Relax in Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES, November 16, 2010 -- Private travelers’ network Privy.net has launched the “Privy 5 Los Angeles Guide” to help visitors and locals discover the best LA has to offer, particularly in the realm of authentic Asian cuisines such as the very top restaurants that serve Korean Barbeque, Shanghainese, Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup, Dim Sum, Japanese Sushi, Hotpot and Vietnamese Pho.

Privy’s over 50 “top five” lists reflect the discerning tastes of its influential Asia-focused membership base--an eclectic group which includes entrepreneurs, senior corporate executives, community leaders, socialites, and acclaimed artists. The public will also be able to discover the top five restaurant picks of LA-based celebrities like Kelly Hu (“X2”, “The Scorpion King), Lisa Ling (“The View,“ “Oprah”), John Cho (“Harold and Kumar,” “Star Trek”), Justin Chon (“Twilight”), Liza Lapira ("Fast and the Furious," "21"), Russell Wong (“Romeo Must Die,” “The Mummy 3”), Archie Kao (“CSI”), Aaron Yoo (“21, Disturbia) and Robin Shou (“Mortal Kombat”).

The guide features everything from the top boutique hotels, spas, and steakhouses to most romantic restaurants, top lounges and dance clubs.

Privy 5 LA is the latest in a series of Privy 5 Guides which will cover Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, New York, San Francisco, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei and Tokyo. The guide can be viewed in multiple languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Filipino, and Indonesian.

"What Should I Eat?: The Bacon Flowchart"

Common flowchart in my life :)

The Bacon Flowchart

New Red Mango Opening in Santa Clara... Free Yogurt All Day Saturday

A new Red Mango store in Westfield Valley Fair Mall is opening tomorrow, January 24th. Free yogurt all day! It also serves a good cause. More from Yul Kwon:

"We're also trying to use the occasion to help families in need, so we've also partnered with three local nonprofits to run a food, toy, and bone marrow drive (Second Harvest, Toys for Tots, and the Asian American Donor Program). The yogurt's free to anyone on Saturday, and to anyone who donates to the charity drive on Sunday."

Order Subway Through SMS!

Subway in NYC is implementing SMS ordering. Pretty Awesome. Great move for Subway to do this. Island Burgers in NYC should implement SMS ordering too along with a walkup pickup window.

On the West Coast, I hope In-N-Out Burger allows for SMS ordering. Buffalo Joe's in Chicago, Portillo's in Chicago, Potbelly's in Chicago, Fat Burger in LA,... Heck, why not every fast food joint?

New Year's resolution to drop 30 lbs? Forget it, I'm gaining 30 lbs. after this news :)

Anyway, more from Springwise on this new service:

"We've already written on two separate occasions about GoMobo and its service enabling food ordering via text message. Always happy to see a good idea spread, we were recently pleased to note that the company has signed on sandwich chain Subway for text ordering in New York City.

Users of Subway Now begin by entering their address online to find the Subway shop nearest them. They then create and save their favourite orders, each of which is assigned a number. To order by text message, they simply text the word "menu" to Subway's shortcode, and the service sends back a list of their favourites. They reply with the number they want, and Subway Now responds with a text confirmation and pickup time. All orders are paid via credit card information saved on the Subway Now site, so customers can skip the line entirely when they pick up their food, and the service itself is free..."

Foodea.com... Food Social Network

Foodea.com is a social network that is trying to serve as a one-stop shop for recipes, restaurants and food ideas. Decent number of recipes but the restaurants are limited to Toronto, Canada. The graphics are a bit too simple for my taste. Seems like a newly graduated graphic artist did the site, so hopefully they will go through an upgrade later on.

"Men's brains fight food urges better"

Obviously I wasn't a part of this experiment since it might have been skewed the other way. Many men who grew up in Chicago might have difficult fighting a food urge if a sausage or steak was placed in front of them.

Study: Men's brains fight food urges better

"When presented with a juicy cheeseburger, cinnamon bun, or other tempting treat, women may have a tougher time reining in their desire to eat when they are on a diet than their equally hungry male counterparts.

In a new brain-scan study, researchers flashed tasty food in front of men and women who hadn't eaten anything in at least 17 hours. Both were told to fight their hunger, but only men showed a drop in activity in brain regions involved in emotion and motivation.

Men may have better tools for appetite control, which may help explain why women are more likely to be obese than men and have a tougher time dieting, according to the study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Something happens in the brains of men which does not happen in the brains of women. It's quite amazing," said Paul A. M. Smeets, of the Image Sciences Institute at the University Medical Center Utrecht, in the Netherlands..."

Tastes of Chicago... Definitely Miss Chicago Food

I really don't know why some people in San Francisco say this is an eating town. Some of the high-end restaurants are good, but the overall restaurant scene is mediocre. Nothing like NYC or Chicago, which is why I loved getting a mailing from Lou Malnati's Pizzeria of Chicago a few days ago.

A sign of a good eating town in my mind is when you get great eats even with low-end and mid-tier restaurants. Also how I define "great" is not just a taste that satisfies you, but a taste that makes you crave for more. I crave Buffalo Joe's chicken wings, Pot Belly's subs, Chop House's 48 oz. Porterhouse, Ditka's fried ice cream...

Anyway, so I'm looking through the mailing that reveals Lou Malnati's is now sending food from other Chicagoland restaurants to anywhere in the U.S. For years, if not decades, Lou Malnati's has been mailing their famous pizzas frozen across the U.S. Now they are sending the goods from Carson's (excellent ribs), Portillo's (incredible Italian beef), Vienna Beef (the original Chicago dog), and a few others. This is AWESOME.

I'm going order some ribs and a few pounds of Italian beef! If you want to check out some nasty, fatty Chicago food go to Lou Malnati's Tastes of Chicago.

(I do not get paid for this or any plug on this blog. Nor do I know anyone at Lou Malnati's, but I wish I did)

NYTimes Review of Chicago Hotspots

Hot Doug's, Jim's, Fluky's... At Least They Get Food Right

My favorite hot dog place, Hot Doug's, was reviewed in the NY Times. After living, visiting, and eating in various cities, I still believe Chicago has the best tasting food. I loved NYC for the diversity and high-end food... love its delis, pizza joints, Chinese fast food, Japanese cuisine, various fusion restaurants, etc. Japanese and Korean restaurants in Los Angeles are unmatched in the U.S. Of course, I'm biased because I love meat and Chicago is a city of high-fat, high cholesterol foods, especially steaks, ribs, burgers, and by-products. Anyway, here's the article:

Stand-Up Food in a City of Big Appetites

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By R. W. APPLE Jr.
April 14, 2004

CHICAGO
WHEN Doug Sohn finished his culinary studies at Kendall College in suburban Evanston a few years ago, he decided to get into regional food. He might have opened a steakhouse — Chicago is one of the world's great beef towns — or a nostalgic meatloaf-and-mashed-potatoes palace, for that matter.

But instead he took a road much less traveled. He opened a hot-dog stand and called it Hot Doug's.

Mr. Sohn's place of business is more than it seems at first. In his irreverent moments, of which he has many, Mr. Sohn describes it as an encased-meats emporium. Rightly so. It serves a fine Chicago red hot, about which more in due course, but also what you might describe as canine nouvelle cuisine. At Doug's you can order a veggie dog or a kangaroo sausage if you like.

What, you might well ask if you don't know Chicago, is so regional about hot dogs? Pink's on La Brea in Los Angeles does a great dog, and people in Detroit swear by the chili dogs at the Lafayette. The corn dogs at the Texas State Fair are good, too, though not as good as Texans claim, naturally. Katz's and Gray's Papaya in New York serve classic kosher dogs, and a place in Mamaroneck called Walter's, which I used to frequent years ago while unsuccessfully courting one of the fairest damsels in nearby Larchmont, may top the whole list.

But no place else this side of Frankfurt has a frankfurter stand every three or four blocks, as Chicago does. And no other place anywhere has a catechism of condiments as rigorously defined as Chicago's. A proper Chicago hot dog must be served on a warmed poppy-seed bun (preferably from Rosen's bakery). It must be dressed with a crisp pickle spear, a sweetish fluorescent green relish, a slice or wedge of raw tomato, some chopped onions (or very occasionally grilled onions), a dab or two of yellow mustard, a dusting of celery salt and two or three hot little green chilies, which Chicagoans for some reason always call sport peppers.

All of the above. Absolutely no substitutions. And no ketchup, please. Ever. Your true Chicagoan recoils from a ketchup-smeared hot dog the way your true New Yorker loathes melted Swiss cheese on a pastrami or corned beef sandwich. There are at least 1,800 hot-dog stands in Chicago, according to the people at Vienna Beef, which supplies most of them.

This is a blue-collar city — "city of the big shoulders," as Carl Sandburg called it — and it loves its proletarian food: high-fat breakfasts, deep-dish pizzas, pork barbecue, Italian beef sandwiches and fried fresh-water fish. Hot dogs come first, however, partly for historical reasons, although price and portability are also factors.

My wife, Betsey, and I started a recent round of dog tasting at the Vienna Beef Factory Store on Damen Avenue. The company's principal product was introduced at the Columbian Exposition in 1893 by its founders, a pair of brothers newly arrived from Vienna, then the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. That accounts for the hint of paprika that flavors Vienna Beef dogs, along with more than a hint of garlic. It also makes them wieners, strictly speaking, not frankfurters — a wiener being a sausage, or anything else, from Wien, or Vienna.

As she tonged a few prime specimens from a water-filled well, the server told Betsey, "Boil your water, turn it off, drop in the hot dogs and let them cook." That way, she explained, you will avoid the dreaded problem of burst casings.

To tell the truth, we had trouble finding a bad dog — there were none at Wiener's Circle, where rowdy late-night weekend crowds gather to soak up the beer consumed earlier; or at Fluky's, which claims to have invented the salad-laden dog on Maxwell Street in Depression-ridden 1929, when it sold for a nickel; or at Poochie's char-dog haven in Skokie, or at Doug's either.

The only real disappointment came at O'Hare Airport as we headed home. Betsey could not resist trying just one more dog (for breakfast). For her three bucks, she got a soggy, tasteless mess and heaved it into the garbage.

In the traditional category — poached sausage with the works — we gave the prize to the Factory Store, which served us a perfect self-basting sandwich, whose hot dog delivered a meaty burst of juice as its taut casing burst. The flavors of each condiment, and the red hot itself, danced in our mouths. Our friend Bill Rice, the esteemed Chicago food writer, who came along to navigate, announced after a bite or two, "It's like tasting Guinness in Dublin."

Doug's, of course, was hors classe. A converted storefront in Roscoe Village, a middle-class residential area on the North Side, it was jam-packed at 3 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, with a line out the door. Mr. Sohn, manning a counter at the back, scribbled order after order, calling them out to cooks staffing the stoves in a minuscule kitchen behind him. More than 250 people ate lunch that day before Mr. Sohn, who likes to spend the evenings with his family, closed down his shop at 4 p.m.

When I asked him how old he was, the slight, owlish proprietor replied, "I'm 42, but my knees are 60."

Betsey quickly decided on a Chicago classic, then busied herself with her duties as supply sergeant — collecting paper napkins for everyone, wiping the table clean, and rounding up salt and pepper shakers. Ever the Francophile, I went for a Calvados-infused smoked duck sausage with citrus-mustard cream (I'm not kidding here, folks). Mr. Rice couldn't decide between a roasted red pepper chicken sausage and a mint-garlic lamb dog adorned with tapenade and feta.

So he sought the expert counsel of Mr. Sohn, who answered, like a bistro-keeper pushing the gigot: "Hey, it's spring. Why not take the lamb?"

Delicious and instantly consumed as they all were, they were not quite as ravishing as the hand-cut French fries cooked in duck fat. Old gold in color, each fry was a different shape and a different texture. The little ones were crisp and chewy; the big ones were fleecy inside, almost soufflé-like.

The last stop on the sausage tour was a concrete-block building surrounded by rubble-filled lots, just yards from the roaring traffic on the Dan Ryan Expressway. This melancholy establishment, where the cooks inside pass the food out to customers through slit windows, is all that remains of Maxwell Street's once-thriving restaurant culture and of Jim's, where the famous Chicago Polish sausage was invented decades ago. The rest was bulldozed over the objections of neighbors to make way for University of Illinois-Chicago dorms and parking lots.

Happily, the Polish is as good as ever — a smoky, slightly leathery sausage, grilled to reddish-brown glory, topped with mustard and a jungle of ivory-colored onions, also grilled, on an oversize bun. A bit greasy, I will admit, but still incomparable. They stuff the thing into a paper sack, along with a small bag of fresh, exemplary fries and a well-iced can of soda.

That's it. It's your job to find a place to consume this mini-banquet. I devoured my Polish — more accurately, perhaps, my Slavic, since the inventor was a Yugoslav immigrant, Jim Stefanovic — on a park bench on the nearby campus.

NOT all Chicago's beef goes for steaks and sausages. Some of it finds its way into sandwiches like the monsters served at Al's #1 Italian Beef, a strictly utilitarian operation in River North that consists of a grill, a counter, a drive-through and several tables.

Al's, which was started by the Ferreri and Pacelli families in 1938, bakes lean sirloin butts for four hours with water and "secret special spices" — among them garlic and mustard seed, in the view of Detective Apple. The meat is cut extra-thin on a rotary machine and piled onto a sliced baguette. If you ask for yours "sweet," they add strips of roasted green bell peppers; if you specify "hot," they ladle on an incendiary concoction of chopped chilies, olives, celery and other vegetables, called giardiniera. Either way, you are honor-bound to ask that your sandwich be dipped into the savory, garlicky pan juices.

The juices moisten the meat and soak right into the bread to make a heroic sandwich. Eating the thing is messy, extremely messy. I would not even try to improve Al's beef recipe or its gruff countermen, but I would add a stall shower if I could. (full article / free registration)

North Pole Diet

Hanging out with some friends I grew up with in Chicago today, and we were recalling last week during my brother's rehearsal dinner how my friend Hamon was making fun of our close friend's wife, Vicki, on her attempt at the South Beach Diet. Vicki was talking about how she "allows herself" to eat carbs on the weekends. My friend Hamon, who has a witty and sometimes off-the-wall sense of humor, found it amusing that she wasn't saying she was cheating, but that she "allowed herself" so he started to make fun of her.

"Vicki, that's not the South Beach Diet... it sounds more like the North of Miami diet... you're not following the elements of the South Beach Diet... sounds a little off geographically..."

He kept making jokes while Vicki and others were laughing at our table.

Along the same lines, today when we were discussing this I realized my diet was special too in relation to the South Beach Diet. I decided to call mine the North Pole Diet for those that want to get fat like Santa Claus. Instead of high protein, low carb or no carbs and then a "balanced" diet, my diet plan consists of high fat, high protein, and high carbs. Also feel free to add any other food groups to this diet. This is the most adaptable in the world and to any lifestyle. Guaranteed. For example, some of my daily meals over the past couple weeks include:

Breakfast... Egg McMuffin, two hash browns, steak & egg bagel, large orange juice. Another day I had a three-egg omelette with ham, cheese, onion, mushrooms, green peppers with a side of three sausages and ham. OJ and tomato, but then I felt like pancakes so I ordered them too.

Lunch... I went to El Taurino's in LA, which has some of the best mexican fast food I've ever had, and ordered a steak burrito and two tacos. Today I had a bacon cheeseburger with grilled onions and buffalo sauce (Buffalo Joe's), a order of buffalo wings, spicy cheedar chips, and a gut RC cola.

Dinner... a full slab of ribs (St. Louis style) and an order of beef brisket. Five cokes, bread, and other people's leftover ribs and cole slaw.

Anyway, eating like this will might not produce the same results as Atkin's or the South Beach Diet, but it will surely make you happier and feeling healthier for a short period of time... the North Pole Diet. Ho! Ho! Ho!

Ode To Bacon

Bacon, oh, bacon
You wonderful thing!
The tigers and lions
All rise and sing!

The grease that comes
From your rich loins
Are an unequal sum
To millions of coins.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner
Teatime, bartime, late night too!
Every meal is a winner
And more enjoyable with you!

Wrapped on scallops,
Or in Korean stew
Nothing makes me gallop
More than you!

Clogging my arteries and veins
With your beautiful juice!
You drive me insane
Like a bull cut loose!

No matter how filthy you originally are
No care to what Vincent Vega thinks
Bacon is the shining star
That kicks the ass of sausage links!!


(wrote this a few days ago when i felt inspired and hungry)

Wedding Weekend... Big Guys Eating Stories IV

I got into Chicago on Friday for my grade school friend's wedding. It was a great wedding and fun to see old and close friends I grew up with. I'll write more about this later since I don't have much time right now. I just wanted to mentioned some stories and talks I had with the Joe and Joong Bae. These guys are still hilarious. Joe came in from LA and Joong from Atlanta. We talk about life, food, philosophy, food, old stories, and food.

On Friday during the rehearsal dinner, Joe was full from eating but some people came late and asked for a plate of kung pao chicken in front of him. He took the plate, scooped some of the food onto his plate, and passed it on to them. He then replied, "I have fat man's disease. If food is in front of me I have to have at least some of it."

During the dinner, Joe stated some of his random comments:

"There were two times I know I was the heaviest person in the country. When I went to Kenya and Haiti. Kenya is uncertain since I know there are some fat warlords there."

"One time Joong and I had a four hour conversation on who would win in a fight. First it started as a joke and then it turned into a serious discussion. Joong would be like, 'Come on, Joe. Be serious, I would kill you...' We went back and forth on why one person would be able to beat up the other person."

Conversations eventually led to how much food Joong can eat. Joe said one time Joong came over and said he was hungry. He didn't have much food except corn, so Joong ate 8 stalks of corn. I really don't know how much that is, but Joe insists it's a lot of food. I thought about it and one stalk is probably about a can of corn. For me it would just be strange to just sit there and eat 8 cans of corn. Anyway, then Joong and Joe went to a hot dog stand and Joong ate two hot dogs and fries. Then they went to their friend's to eat duk man doo gook (dumpling & rice cake soup) and Joong ate two giant bowls of it (see EATING STORIES III). Joe said this was one of the most amounts of food he saw Joong eat.

Big Guys... Eating Stories III

Taken and edited from an email from one of my good friends and close friend of Joe and Joong:

"I remember one warm & muggy night back in Chicago when I was roaming the streets of the vicious north side with my good friend Joong... when Joong said, "I'M HUNGRY". Now people, there are very few things that strike fear in my heart (i.e. KKK rally, extreme heights, great white sharks, a stampede of buffalos). But when Joong says he's hungry, take cover. I literally trembled. From there he proceeded to go on a flurry of inhalation that still astounds me. First, we stopped at Arby's where Joong quickly downed 5 out of 5 roast beef sandwiches and a large order of curly fries. Then, we stopped at Taco Bell where Joong gulped down 2 burrito supremes, 4 hard tacos, and a nachos bellgrande. I think he might have even had a bag of cinnamon twists. I know. It's amazing isn't it? I mean only a Silverback Gorilla could eat that much right?

Well Joong ain't no ordinary Silverback, cause he wasn't done. From Taco Hell, we drove north to our compadre Jimmy's house (Lake Forest). There, Jimmy's mom proceeded to feed us duk-mandoo gook. I guess she aportioned the servings according to our size, because Joong's bowl was seriously the size of a toilet bowl. He ate every last drop. He likes to say that he was trying to be polite, but we all know that JoongBae eats what he wants to eat. At the end of it all, he wasn't even phased. I'm pretty sure he could've eaten Wisconsin that night if he wanted to. Let me recap. In the span of approximately 1 hour, Joong ate 5 roast beef sandwiches, a large order of curly fries, 2 burrito supremes, 4 hard tacos, nachos bell grande, and a giant (and I mean giant) bowl of duk-mandoo gook.

I kid you not. The legend is real. All that you have heard is true. Don't doubt anything anyone ever tells you. Because our dear friend can truly eat."

Big Guys... Eating Stories II

Joe and Joong had favorite buffets to go to while in Chicago. One place was this Chinese buffet in Glenview. It was this small, semi-rundown place with excellent food. We would go there and stuff ourselves. I would typically eat 4 or 5 plates stacked and Joe 5 or 6 plates. But Joong was on another level. One time he ate 7 plates, but also with 11 bowls of rice! He asked the waiter for one more, but the owner, this older Chinese woman, came out and started yelling at Joong.

"No more rice for you! Nor more rice for you!"

Joong got the message, so he just finished up and we left. I think he went for a Taco Bell run soon afterwards.

Another time soon after dinner, Joong wanted a snack so he called this place called Gumby's Pizza. He asked if some of us wanted to eat. We could snack a little, so the four of us got a medium pizza while Joong ordered an extra large 20 inch pizza. Gumby's wasn't pan, but it was pretty thick and doughy. Anyway, Joong finished his and starting to eat some of ours. We didn't care because we were still full from dinner.

An amusing but not amazing story was from their roommate, Harold, from their senior year in college. Harold was very thin, an excellent student, and other things that Joe and Joong were not. He was an intellectual powerhouse. I believe he got a 42 on his MCAT, one of the highest GPAs ever in his university, and numerous accolades. Joe and Joong would mock him sometimes and say, "Come on, Harold! Stop being selfish! Just find a cure for AIDS."

Anyway, Harold was wanted to snack and make a sandwich, so he went to the corner store and bought some cold cuts, a large Roman Meal loaf, mayo, and lettuce. He got home and put the stuff on the kitchen table. He went into his room for five minutes and came out. The loaf of bread was gone. Joong was in the living room watching TV and the only other person in the apartment, so he asked, "Joong, did you eat my loaf of bread?"

"Yeah."

"That was a large loaf! Were you that hungry?!"

"No."

"Then why did you eat it?"

"I was bored."

Poor Harold. Getting his food stolen on top of getting mocked by his two roommates. I also heard that they made him split the grocery bills equally.

Big Guys... Making Me Sick

Last week one of my close high school friends visited Seoul with his wife. Joe and Mary (names changed to protect the innocent) just came for vacation to tour Korea and eat. A few weeks before Joe was coming to Korea he told me, "Dude, you know I'm only coming to Korea to eat, so just take me to your favorite places because I trust your taste."

Joe and our other friend, Joong, were known throughout Chicago for their incredible stomach capacity. During high school, if I ate with them, it was mainly at buffets. Chinese buffet, KFC buffet, Old Country Buffet, Wendy's buffet, Korean BBQ buffet, and so on. I know other cities don't have as many buffets or even knew that KFC actually had a buffet restaurant, but this is the City of Big Shoulders... and Joe and Joong. Though I was use to their eating habits, on rare occasions I would watch them eat and it would make me sick. Especially Joong since he was a couple levels above Joe. Joe stated that Joong had the largest stomach capacity out of anyone he has ever met.

Some background info... Joe was 6'1" and 260 lbs. during their prime eating years in college (about ten years ago) and Joong was 6'3" 290 lbs. There was a rumor on their campus that they both ate a box of ramen each in one night... 24 packs. I was talking with one of their old roommates about this and we both agreed that it was impossible. I've watched Joong eat his ramen snacks after dinner where he would take 4 packs, 8 eggs, bowls of rice, and side dishes. If he ate ramen in his usual manner, it would have been impossible. So my friend asked him later on if this rumor was true.

He started to laughed. "People are SO STUPID! Who could eat a box in one night in a normal manner? Joe and I, we split the box."

Obviously I laughed when I heard this, but started to get those queasy feelings from back in high school just visualizing Joong slurpping down that ramen.

There was a chicken wing & burger place that I still consider the best in the world, Buffalo Joe's in Evanston, IL. We use to think that they drugged the sauce in high school because after a few weeks you started to crave it again. It wasn't your typical hot sauce place. Most chicken wing places have a Tabasco-y base and I think most of them taste the same. You can go to places with the various flunky sauces (e.g. Thai, pizza, taco, etc.) but it isn't the same. Buffalo Joe's was this rich, buttery, hot sauce that just melted in your mouth.

Anyway, they had these party pans (larger 10-15 years ago, got cheaper as they made more money) that served 7-10 people, which was a "single", and a "double" that served 15-20. Usually 4 or 5 of us would eat a single party pan when we were hungry. On one rare occasion my friend, Pete, and I had a single pan with some struggle. Before I gained 40 lbs. after college, I was one of those thin, voracious eaters. At other places, with 10 cent wings nights, I could typically eat 40-50 wings, but I was just an ant compared with the colossus Joong was. One time he ate a whole single by himself, which usually had 120-150 wings! Joong, Joe, and Joe's younger brother would typically have a double party pan that had twice as many.

More stories for a later time...