Leon I.'s Profile

The pizza at Exchequer is not so much a food product as a food experience. I suspect the attempt here is to render lake Michigan in cheese form. What you get is basically a big deep crust-lined pan of molten curd with some ingredients swimming around in it like fish in an aquarium. It is perhaps a good example of the Chicago style deep dish pizza but that's a bit like saying that Menudo is a good example of a boy-band; It leaves the question open as to whether the category itself is perhaps a problem.
I imagine the fabled inventor of the form surveying the finally perfected pie and whispering "I am become death. The destroyer of worlds,"

Exchequer is one of those places that seem to represent the model that chains like TGIF and Applebees are trying to emulate. The walls are covered with movie memorabilia (some which are genuine, signed pics of celebs etc.), and there are screens everywhere, catering to those for whom the term "sports bar" is a good thing.
The food is not outstanding. I go there because its near Millennium Park and the Art Institute and because they make deep dish pizza.
And when you just gotta have a lake of gooey cheese, you just gotta have a lake of gooey cheese.

Good ol' American excess! A European friend who I took to Exchequer for the object lesson of it all, said, upon seeing the thing that arrived at our table after we ordered what she thought was going to be a pizza: "America is like a naughty child. This is the kind of thing a child would come up with." She didn't mean that this was all bad. But she also didn't mean that it was all good...

The dangerous combination of the two phrases "All you can eat." and "Deep-fried food" makes Wendsdays and Fridays at Duke of Perth something to avoid. And I avoid it by showing up and making a food baby. The Fish 'n' Chips at Duke of Perth are not the best Fish 'n' Chips I've had. But because like most Americans I easily confuse quality with quantity, I'm happy to squelch any complaints I might have with a second helping.

Now to be fair, the quality of the F'n'Cs at D.O.P. is not abysmal. It's actually quite good for a North American chipper. The fish is always served hot and not too greasy, but it really needs to be salted, vinegared and tarter saused to get at much flavor. The chips are... ok.

I don't remember ever going to a chipper in Scotland (Which is presumably the standard at Duke Of Perth), but I lived around the corner from the legendary Burdick's in Dublin at one time. So that becomes my standard, and D.O.P. is no Burdick's. But where Burdick's has the quality in terms of the food, Duke Of Perth is a pub with some excellent beer, and flights of single malt Scotch. There's nothing like a buzz to season almost any food, and that goes doubly for unlimited amounts of a fried food.

I do have to also laud Duke Of Perth for a convivial atmosphere. Every time I've been there I've enjoyed the room, and been able to enjoy my companions without a lot of the loud obnoxious down-sides of places that use the term 'Pub."

This is a good Pub!
Not a great chipper!
I think that's fair and as advertised...

I'll be back.

For pita's sake, this place is fantastic. I mean middle eastern cuisine sometimes makes me falafel, but this place makes me feel great!

With one possible exception, everything I've had on this menu is bracketted by the construction "the best ___ I've ever had!"
This food is "good" in the Biblical sense.

The one possible exception in the above is the falafel, which is certainly very good, but not the best I've had. This is ridiculous quibbling, and me trying to find something to complain about to lend some credibility to the hyperbolic praise.

The grape-leaves, tabouleh, labna, humus and foul are out of this world, but the pita... Oh the pita. The pita is simply the best pita I can possibly imagine.
Imagine pita.
Then imagine the best pita you can imagine.
This pita is better.
Hot. Light. Flavorful.
It's better pita than you can imagine.

The service is at Black Iris is also outstanding. In very simple ways, one is made to feel very welcome and comfortable. I was there recently and needed to hang out for over an hour after I had finished my meal, and paid my check. In addition to serving me complimentary tea and treats, when I left, the manager made me feel like I had done him a favor by sitting there and reading my book. I have a pretty sensitive sarcasm detector. This was pretty real.

I guess I need more than word of mouth to satisfy my actual mouth.
I sought out Harold's because people had told me I should try it, given my penchant for tasty chicken from skanky sources. And although Harold's gets full points for being low-brow (I rather enjoyed the thoroughly surly service), the chicken itself, where the rubber meets the road, just doesn't do it for me.
Why didn't the rubber chicken cross the road when it met it? Cause it came from Harold's,,,,

Here's the thing, and I may be misunderstanding this; Under the fries there are a couple slices of bread. This is ostensibly to soak up the nice grease and juices from the chicken and fries. But there were only a couple of tiny, lonely stains of funk. Nothing to make the bread feel necessary or as delightfully wrong as they should be.

I like fried chicken, and although I can certainly eat this fried chicken, I won't be going out of my way for it again.

Sorry.

What Lupe's lacks in stand-out quality it makes up for in simplicity. That may sound harsh, but it's not a bad thing. This is straight forward food. Nothing really stands out about it, but the lack of pretension is attractive.

The Chicken Mole is nice and moist. The guacamole is actually very nice. I've had better margaritas. Need to try the Mojito. The standard, stuffed wrapped in tortillas and smothered in cheese, mexican fare is, well, acceptable. Nothing I would avoid, but nothing I would go out of my way for.

I wish they took credit cards.

A couple times that I've been there, the service (which is always quite friendly) has been slow. Which is pretty damn understandable when you consider the fact that the dining room at Lupe's is located in Soho, NYC and the Kitchen is in East LA. I have no idea how they're making this work at all!

Ok let me say a thing or two about ramen:
Ramen is one of those things in the world... There is good ramen and there is bad ramen. Whereas one says of things like pizza, vodka and sex; when it's good its really good and when it's bad... it's still pretty good, ramen is more like gin and rock 'n roll; (to quote Bowie): When it's good, it's really good, and when it's bad I go to pieces.

If you have even a passing interest in ramen you owe it to yourself to see Itami Juzo's film "Tampopo." It's available on Netflix.

In Japan, ramen is as ubiquitous as coffee is in the States, with a similar range in quality  from "Did I just die and go to flavor heaven?", to clear violations of the Geneva convention. For many years the range of quality in New York ramen has regrettably been between "Wow! This almost tastes like ramen", and bowls of stuff that raise the philosophically tangled question of whether spaghetti in broth is Ramen just because you call it that. I was coming to the conclusion that just like you have to go to Dublin if you want an actual pint of Guinness, the first place you need to go to get a good bowl of ramen in New York City, was JFK.

I am happy to say that in recent years this has changed. And clearly Ippudo is a player in that change. Of particular note is that Ippudo is one of the places offering a credible tonkotsu ramen in New York! This is the cloudy, pork-bone soup ramen characteristic of Ramen from Kyushu. I've always been partial to this variety so this pleases me greatly.

Ippudo's noodles are of the thin and relatively firm variety. Smooth, but not quite silky. They hold up ok, but this is the hardest thing about ramen outside of Japan. The noodles are tricky and depend on many factors not necessarily under the control of a single establishment. That being said, these are certainly in the ball-park, and are well matched to the soups.
The soups are what is of most interest. I've tried two of them:
The more traditional Shiromaru (white-ball) is a pretty straight-forward tonkotsu with some really good balance and a rounded flavor. But the Akamaru (red-ball) is worthy of further study and investigation. Strong sesame and spice flavors. Very rounded but much bolder than the Shiromaru.
Neither of the ramens are overloaded with "stuff," allowing the soup and the noodles to do the heavy lifting.

Ippudo's Akamaru is a ramen that clearly says "Oh yeah! You're coming back for more of me!"

I will obey.

Six billion years ago, when I first moved to NYC, I lived in this hood, so I used to eat at Mill every once in awhile and I always enjoyed it. A friend of mine who is a Korean/Japanese theatre director and passionate about Korean culture loved the place when I took him there. The utter lack of pretension was one thing that impressed him, along with the rustic, rural nature of the food.

Visiting again recently after a long hiatus I found the fried dumplings quite tasty, if a bit bland, the bi bim bap quite satisfying and the constant supply of complimentary table-pickles almost suspiciously generous.
The service is as quick and attentive as it's always been.
The place is a bit run down, which you will either find charming or off-putting. I think there are things about it (like the animatronic bowing dolls by the door) that are vaguely funny, in a post-camp kind of way.

It's probably not a place I would ever go to if it was down in K-Town and it's certainly not a destination, but if you're in Morningside Heights and want a break from entitled-white-bullshit culture, it can certainly provide that.

Just go already! What are you doing reading this? Unless you're at Dino's and reading this on your iPhone, put down whatever you're doing and go!

Order the "Chicken Plate". You give them 5.50 and they hand you a Styrofoam box full of flavoricious ecstasy.

What's red and tastes like it should be illegal? Dino's chicken!!!
I don't know what they're doing to this chicken, but more than wanting to know, I just want them not to stop.

Oprah can keep her free KFC. I'll pay for Dino's over free crap any time.

I'm not a big fry eater, but I can't get enough of these spice-juice drenched, spud-slivers!

The place is skanky as all hell, but it's well worth the putting up with.

If you're in NYC go to Malecon. If you're in LA go to Dino's. It's not that hard to remember.

RAAAAAAA!!!!

Substandard food at best, and although the margaritas I had were good, I'm not nuts about the "scene". A bit to much of a frat party for my tastes. It's near where I'm staying so I may be back for the convenience but not for the quality.

The whole point of a good sushi chief is that, like a doctor or a masseuse, they are an expert and know what they're doing. You put yourself in their hands. They know more about fish in general and what is good today specifically. Also at the real high-end of sushi, the chief is an expert at reading people, and just by looking at you they deduce, Sherlock Holmes like, what it is you want. Taking the weather, time of day economy and everything else into account, they serve you what you wanted, without you ever having to think about what you wanted. At the end of the meal/evening, they charge you what they think you should pay.

The experience of sugarFISH is not this experience. You never see the chef, the Trust Me menu is not customizable to each customer, the price is set. But it is clearly sushi that comes from an understanding of what sushi SHOULD be.

However I found sugarFISH to be a really credible attempt to get at a higher quality sushi experience within the environment of psudo fast-food. On the level of quality of the actual sushi, I found it to be far above just about anything you can get outside of really high-end places in the States.

An important detail is that the rice (or Shari) was still warm as it reached the table. Also that the waiter told us to eat the rolls right away before the nori became soggy. These are obvious things in Japan which are often ignored in the States.

If you have any interest in Sushi beyond the casual, you should check this out. it is definitely worth it.