Archive for the 'Got Food?' Category
Farmers market season is slow to return in the northwest suburbs but the Wilmette French Market is here. Since none of the other farmers markets we usually visit have resumed for the season and it’s a really nice day, we thought we’d give this one a try.
It’s a tiny little market but parking is plentiful, easy, and free. (Though not enough handicap spaces – actually, I didn’t see any handicap spaces.)
The prices seemed a wee bit higher than the markets we visited last year – is that normal or is it the increased price of everything this year?
Bleeding Heart
I don’t usually find many pieces of jewelry, at markets, that I consider buying but in this little market, I saw several pieces that I liked for various members of the family. Again, they were a wee bit higher in price than I’d like but… I think I’ll be back and I think I’ll buy.
I’ve been looking at the Full Moon Family Restaurant in The City of North Chicago Lake Bluff every week since we moved here.
Its parking lot is almost always full. It is often filled with bikers or truckers. It is so close to the Great Lakes Naval Base that I knew it would also be filled with military members, families and retirees.
Interesting people watching.
Diner-like.
But would the food be good?
We found out last weekend. Mixed reviews.
I ordered the sausage gravy and biscuits and thoroughly enjoyed my food.
TW ordered an egg & cheese sandwich and enjoyed it, particularly the Texas Toast style bread. She “complained” that there was too much egg because it was made with two eggs rather than the one she’s used to “Waffle House-style”.
TW’s mother ordered the strawberry pancakes with whipped cream. She did not enjoy them. For some reason she had it in her head that they would come with fresh strawberries. This made no sense based on the photo on the menu and the fact that we were in this particular type of restaurant. The pancakes were loaded with canned strawberry filling stuff and a ton of whipped cream. And, she says they were “dry”.
The price was right. The service was good (though it took me way too long to get my check) and I’d be happy to go back again. (We probably won’t take TW’s mom though.)
Our most recent breakfast discovery is Kaufman’s Bagel & Deli, on Dempster in Skokie.
I’ve read a lot about Kaufman’s and I know we’ve passed it a million times without it sinking in that this is the Kaufman’s. So last Friday morning, before we headed out for the school run, I looked it up to see exactly where it was. Good thing because I know I’d have passed it a million times without ever really seeing it.
It’s right close to the Skokie train station and smack dab in the middle of a pretty busy series of intersections. It’s also a non-descript, white painted building set just enough off the road that you don’t see the sign until you’ve driven past it.
Don’t drive past it. You should definitely stop.
We started in the bakery section where TW got a dozen bagels and a loaf of Challah to take home. Liz ordered a HUGE (she wants me to explain to you that this thing is so huge, she’s still eating it two days later) chocolate m&m cookie. TW and I both ordered a chocolate donut to go.
Then we wandered into the deli section.
Liz grabbed a bottle of milk to wash down her cookie, we got a pint of cream cheese for the bagels and we ordered a 1/2 lb of chicken salad. Liz wandered around looking at the meat case, wondering what in the heck people need tongue for.
The Challah was excellent, the best we’ve had since we’ve been here. The bagels were also excellent – the everything and the pumpernickel in particular have drawn rave reviews. The chocolate donuts were more like chocolate iced Challah, which is really interesting. Besides being huge, Liz reports the cookie is yummy.
Next time we go, I’m ordering the egg salad. And maybe we’ll get some tongue so Liz can give it a try.
The New York Bagel and Bialy Company in Skokie is one of those places we drive by when it’s not “bialy time”. On the way home from eating elsewhere. Late afternoon when we’re thinking dinner, not bialy. When we don’t really have time to stop. Or, sometimes the parking lot has just been jam packed full and I don’t want to deal with not having a parking place.
Yesterday, between dropping of the Prince and Liz, I decided we’d give it a try. Plenty of parking, yay! Liz said “what’s a bialy?” which scared me because her mother is nuts for bialys (and it’s darn difficult to find them in Florida.)
I zeroed in very quickly on the cheese stuffed bialy. TW ordered an onion bialy. Liz, ever cautious, ordered the traditional chocolate muffin.
Yum, yum, and also yum.
Actually, Liz said the muffin was much the same as the one at Breadsmith but this one was better because it was bigger. (I also think it may have been a wee bit cheaper.)
And now that I’ve typed this, I feel a craving for a cheese stuffed bialy coming on.
We finally managed to meet Lara for coffee, this time in her neck of the woods – Perfect Cup in Lincoln Square.
Cute little shop. IKEA decorated. Comfortable. Not super crowded but not empty at 9:30 on a Thursday morning. Lots of women – some doing business, some just socializing, a mom with a kid who eavesdropped on our conversation which is kind of freaky but also amusing.
They don’t take credit cards/debit cards, which I always find frustrating. Metered parking pretty plentiful. Their coffee was fine, though TW said her mocha wasn’t all that great. I didn’t try the pastries, though I was tempted. TW seemed to enjoy the one she tried.
If I lived in the area, I’d stop in regularly. I don’t, and Lara is moving so unless I find myself on that end of Damen, in need of coffee… it could happen, but probably not.
A few weeks ago I used the iPhone app for Urban Spoon to find some new breakfast restaurants that would be near or along the way to the assisted living facility JR is in, in Des Plaines. The first one we visited from that spin of the app was Katie’s Kitchen. The second one we visited was listed as Mrs V’s Waffle House but when we arrived the sign on the building said Mrs V’s Restaurant. That made me a little nervous about what we were going to experience.
That and the hand written menu signs on the front with “FISH FRY” prominently displayed. I know it’s the season for fish fries but… I was worried. The only thing that kept me from really worrying was the very full parking lot. With all of the restaurants in the area to choose from, if this hole in the wall had a full parking lot… I thought we’d be ok.
And we were.
It’s a bigger restaurant than we first expected. We didn’t have to wait at all, not for one minute. And we weren’t crammed in too close to the next table (which often happens in full pancake houses particularly when one in your party has a wheelchair.)
The menu was HUGE. The waitress was incredibly nice and told us to take our time, she’d be there til 2pm and would stay later if that’s what it took. Hah, it was only 10am, lol.
We finally decided – TW’s mom took the Irish Man Skillet (or something like that), TW ordered a California omelet (with avocado) and I ordered the bleu cheese and artichoke omelet. We had barely placed our order when it appeared in front of us. I’m not kidding. When the waitress came to the table with the food I said “that can’t be ours, it was too quick!” But it was… sort of….
Turns out TW’s mother’s skillet was not the one she ordered and she offered to keep it but the waitress took it back and again, before she had taken 3 bites of her side order of pancakes (which are very good – a touch of vanilla is in them) the replacement skillet was in front of her.
The food was good. The prices average for the area. The service OUTSTANDING. If you have kids, this is the restaurant to take them to. The food arrives before the kids have a chance to get restless (I know this for a fact because while we didn’t take any children, the table next to us had three young boys and they had their food, 6-8 good sized pancakes each, before they had a chance to get bored with crayons and start harassing each other or their father.)
We will go back to Mrs V’s – the lunch menu looked just as extensive as the breakfast menu and I think I need to make the rounds and find the best restaurant grilled cheese in Chicagoland. Hmm, they also have a Mrs V’s Restaurant in Round Lake. I’m making a note of that, just in case.
One of the first bakeries we saw when we visited the Evanston area last April, while house hunting, was the Breadsmith in Skokie. Unfortunately, it was closed when we drove by because it is closed on Saturdays.
Every other time we’ve thought about going to it, it’s been closed. Saturday must be our normal day to explore food or something. 
Last Monday, we had some spare moments between dropping of Prince J and RJ at school so we headed to the Breadsmith. The first thing Liz said was “It really smells like bread in here.” And she was right, it did and it was a good smell. You know how some bakeries smell too much of sugar? Well this was pure bread smell. Awesome.
Liz got a chocolate chocolate muffin, I got a Challah knot, TW got a cinnamon roll and we got a loaf of Challah and a loaf of Orange Cranberry bread. Liz loved her muffin and happily took it into Books & Breakfast at school to eat. TW’s cinnamon roll was good but would have been better warmed up (which she ended up doing the next day.) My Challah knot was fine, not exceptional but not bad. The Challah loaf was the same. The orange cranberry bread was excellent.
Next time, we’re going to try the pizza bread.
I was trying to manage time effectively, reduce the amount of driving and possibly get home early from our weekly shopping trip and visit to the nursing home so I spent some time searching for breakfast restaurants in the Des Plaines area – or on a relatively direct route between Glenview and the Meijer in Arlington Heights. I found three that sounded good and picked Katie’s Kitchen because it seemed the one closest to a direct route and was the one closest to home. We were already running late, due to that whole daylight savings time thing – and it was pouring rain. Seemed like the smartest choice. Plus, the reviews I’d read were all really positive.
Katie’s Kitchen is a new restaurant, tucked away in a small strip mall and feels very much like the Breakfast Nook and Lunch Cafe in Glenview. When we arrived, the small waiting area was packed but we didn’t have to wait much more than five minutes – just long enough to review the menu and make our choices…
The menu was pretty extensive. There were a lot of things that sounded really interesting… some of the oatmeals, the portobello (except for that stuffed with shrimp part) and some of the crepes.
When we were seated, we were given a printed list of the “St Patrick’s Day” specials and some of those were pretty tempting… so tempted that TW’s mother changed her mind and ended up with some sort of Irish Creme french toast. TW stuck with her original order of an oatmeal with peaches and I ordered the garden nest.
The coffee wasn’t great, but it wasn’t horrible. The waitstaff never did come and ask if we wanted a refill until we had already finished our meals, that’s always disappointing to me. It just shouldn’t be that hard to wander through and warm up coffee cups.
The food, however, was excellent. Really. I should have taken a photo of the garden nest – a veggie/cheese omelet with hash browns wrapped around it. Fabulous presentation, just the right amount of everything (sometimes a veggie omelet has too much spinach or not enough cheese – this one was perfect.)
Here are the photos of TW’s order and her mother’s. We’ll be back there again sometime, no doubt about it. (I do believe someone will want to try the crepes that come with fried ice cream….)
On the way home from the Flea Circus, we stopped at The Village Creamery on Waukegan & Oakton primarily because my cousin had recently blogged about visiting the Skokie store and we hadn’t gone yet…
We should have planned to eat dinner there and have dessert because there’s nothing better than a plate of Pancit but I had forgotten they had actual food and it didn’t hit me until we’d already started ordering our ice cream. Ah well, we’ll go back.
Anyway, about the ice cream… there were too many flavors I wanted to try and I was there with too many people who weren’t interested in trying unusual flavors so I couldn’t even bargain for a lick of theirs. I mean really, who goes to a cool ice cream shop with all of those interesting flavors and then orders… chocolate… banana… rocky road… java chip… seriously. I am not taking those people back to the Village Creamery until they agree to step outside the norm.
Thankfully I had TW and she ordered a scoop of Avocado. Awesome. I liked it quite a bit and would order it again. No problem.
I ordered a milkshake made from Maize… it was good but a little too vanilla-y and not quite maize-y enough.
I bought a pint of Queso (with pieces of Kraft American!) Ice Cream to take home…. I’m having a tiny bowl now. Mmmmm, cheese!
On Wednesday, TW was reading her feeds and stumbled across this post about Super H Mart who makes tofu in the store. Fascinating, right?
Even more fascinating is that the Super H Mart in Niles is very close to our house and we’d sort of wondered what was over there… I thought it was just a Home Depot. Boy was I wrong.
The Super H Mart is a heck of a lot more interesting than a Home Depot.
First, it’s huge. Second, it’s really HUGE.
The food court was really interesting and we bought a lot of cool Korean buns before we’d even walked 10 feet into the place. We totally missed the housewares because I assumed we could circle back round to it but I was wrong – we needed to hit it when we went in the door. And what were those big appliances in the bakery area? No idea but I would like to read Korean so I could figure it out.
The produce… wow, there were things we’d only read about and things we have rarely seen. In the freezer section – frozen Monkey Balls with the skin on (that’s what us dumb Americans living in Panama called the spikey purpley Rambutan) who knew you could freeze them in the skin????
There was so much stuff that we had never seen before and all sorts of things we knew about but don’t quite know what to do with. We’ll be figuring it out and buying lots of stuff to try.
In the meantime, we spent $60 on all sorts of interesting things including… Olive vinegar tea that smells like Easter. Its label says something about “for your happy time” and it certainly makes TW giggle (seriously, it does.) It’s a liquid and comes in individual little tubes like the powdered Crystal Light. We also bought some gelled looking citron honey tea that TW says tastes like marmalade… I don’t like marmalade but I will be trying this stuff, seriously. And then there’s the snack sized bag of Nong Shim Sweet Potato Flavored Snacks that I bought and promptly ate… can you say addiction in the making?
Oh and after you check out at the Super H Mart in Niles, there’s a little court of shops – Hello Kitty heaven and Fancy Pencil Land, a dance/exercise place full of tiny Korean women doing some sort of dancing, some “health food” shops that seem interested in aiding the sex life of heterosexuals, a shop that sells those wonderful bidet toilets that will resolve one of TW’s new problems and a shop that sells Korean platform beds… jade inset even (gorgeous, really gorgeous bed.)
Did I mention this place is really interesting? All of that and we didn’t even get to see the tofu making in action because we went late at night and they’d closed up shop in the tofu making area. No worries, we’ll be going back. A lot.
Updated: TW and Prince J went to HMart and enjoyed the food court:
yummy