Chuck's Thread Gone due to Glitch

LTH,

There were a couple of technical problems with LTHForum last evening, which have since been corrected, though, during the course of troubleshooting I inadvertently deleted the entire Chuck's thread.

One of the glitches, which I did not discover until too late, was deleting the last post in a thread deleted the entire thread. There were a number of posts in the thread, mine, Cathy2, JLawrence and others. LTHForum has, in the form of Seth Z and EatChicago, top notch tech gurus and the problems were quickly fixed.

If you would be so kind as to repost, with a minimum of finger pointing and head shaking, I'd be most grateful.

Enjoy,
Gary

I think I may have been the last poster. Hopefully I didn't cause the glitch the required the last post and therefore the entire thread to be deleted.

My post was just letting everyone know that Chucks has a special Cinco de Mayo menu that sounds quite tasty and I wanted everyone to know.

Chucks Cinco de Mayo Menu

I went to Chuck's Southern Cooking on 23 December last year. It was a place that I wanted to try as I am rarely in the area as I live close to the Wisconsin border and the menu sounded interesting. And I had a flight out of the Gary airport later that evening.

To say the least, I was surprised by the quality of the food and the specials that I had.

I tried the turkey enchiladas in a mole sauce. The mole sauce was very nice and flavorful.

The gumbo was as good as some of the gumbo that I had down in Lafayette, LA. It was soupy with a rich flavor and totally loaded with fresh seafood.

I had a salad that was very good although I cannot remember all the particulars.

The pulled pork was not bad. It was a nice portion served with french fires. To me, it was acceptable but it lacked the smokiness that most people around here insist on.

Despite the quality of the food, the prices were not bad. It was $25 for more food that the two of us could eat.

Highly recommended.

Sorry folks, that is all that I can remember after 3-4 months.

I had the pleasure of eating at Chuck’s for the first time last Friday, and was quite pleasantly surprised. The tagline “Southern Comforts Café” is accurate only if you define “Southern” as the area between Texas and Guatemala. Chuck’s passion seems centered on Mexican food, and we had several items that were quite exceptional. For instance:

• Flight of three soups: I was delighted to see this come out as a starter: a gumbo, a chowder, and a tortilla soup (I think I got that right) that looked great on the plate and complemented one another quite nicely. A fine way to stimulate the buds for further food.

• Chiles en Nogada: these were two gorgeous looking poblano peppers, not breaded as is so usual, but still bright green, stuffed with tasty meat, daubed with walnut sauce and sprinkled with seedless grapes. I thought this one a little heavy on the walnut sauce, but the flavor was very good.

Those are two of the dishes I liked. The dish that was probably least satisfying was the ribs – not a bad taste at all, but as Pigmon mentioned to me at the end, way too much sauce. I have to agree; even if the sauce is good, I’d rather taste the meat than the condiment.

Chuck, incidentally, is a very gracious and gregarious host; he gave us a kitchen tour, sat with us throughout most of the meal and regaled us with stories of travels with Bayless, the travails of procuring good huitlacoche in Chicago, several good reasons for opening a carwash, and why his hometown of Burbank is so sucky.

Chuck’s
5557 W. 79th St.
Burbank, IL
708-229-8700

timmx wrote:Hopefully I didn't cause the glitch the required the last post and therefore the entire thread to be deleted.

Timmx,

Nope, it was entirely my fault, thanks for asking.

Enjoy,
Gary

David Hammond wrote:• Chiles en Nogada: these were two gorgeous looking poblano peppers, not breaded as is so usual, but still bright green, stuffed with tasty meat, daubed with walnut sauce and sprinkled with seedless grapes. I thought this one a little heavy on the walnut sauce, but the flavor was very good.

I have been searching for a place in Chicago that serves Chiles en Nogada for over two years, ever since Bayless waxed so poetic about this dish on his "Mexico: One Plate at a Time" TV Series. I'll have to make it to Chuck's soon.

SteveZ,

There is yet another place which serves Chiles en Nogada. ReneG, RST and I dined there for lunch maybe 2 years ago and got the real thing down to the pomegranate seeds. Chuck's used chopped grapes instead of pomegranates because they are out of season.

The challenge at this restaurant is conversing with the proprietors, who speak very limited English.

Restaurant Oaxaca
4612 South Ashland Avenue
Chicago, IL 60609
773-843-1958

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:SteveZ,

There is yet another place which serves Chiles en Nogada. ReneG, RST and I dined there for lunch maybe 2 years ago and got the real thing down to the pomegranate seeds. Chuck's used chopped grapes instead of pomegranates because they are out of season.

The challenge at this restaurant is conversing with the proprietors, who speak very limited English.

Restaurant Oaxaca
4612 South Ashland Avenue
Chicago, IL 60609
773-843-1958

Regards,

I'd be willing to put up with the grapes at this time of year, but come Las Posadas time, I'd be very dissapointed if I didn't see pomegranate seeds on top.

The chiles referred to in this post are part of Chuck's special Cinco de Mayo special menu, which is running through May 6th. He said he hopes to put some of these items on his regular menu, but if you are serious about eating them, I would check his specials menu on his website, www.chuckscafe.com, and go in as soon as possible. They truly were delicious the other night.

I also enjoyed the hot links, which were just sage-y enough for my taste, although several people were not crazy about Chuck's barbeque sauce and thought it was too sweet for the links and the ribs. Being the sugar junkie that I am, I really liked the sauce. Another hit of the evening, at least for me, was the barbequed shrimp, which came swimming in a bowl of garlic and butter, with bread to sop up the sauce. You could smell the garlic the minute the waitstaff opened the door to bring it to us. Mmmmm. Garlic.

Chuck's desserts are also good. I've tried several versions of his bread pudding and enjoyed the chocolate flan the other night. The addition of the mexican chocolate gave it a different flavor than I expected, but it was very good.

My family will be going back a couple of times this month to try some other specials that caught our eye.

stevez wrote:I have been searching for a place in Chicago that serves Chiles en Nogada for over two years, ever since Bayless waxed so poetic about this dish on his "Mexico: One Plate at a Time" TV Series. I'll have to make it to Chuck's soon.

I've had chiles en nogada at Ixcapuzalco.

....speaking of Ixcapuzalco, have they reopened? Hope so. Sounded like the situation was pretty dire, from what was reported...

Here are some photos of the recent dinner at Chuck’s. Good stuff.

Trio of Soups


Ribs


Hot Links


Chiles en Nogada


Chiles Rellenos


Barbecued Shrimp


Crawfish Etouffeé


Dessert Plate


Banana Bread Pudding


Little did Mr Hammond know the jack didn’t work and the spare was flat too

ReneG,

Thanks for the memories...I actually thought C2 did the tire change entirely by herself.

Also, I should have mentioned in my post that the crawfish etoufee was the best I've ever had...but I've also rarely had any I liked at all. This one was very tasty, with deliciously moist crawdaddy clumps.

Hammond

PS. The shito samples are doing the job; the entire family avoids that area of the refrigerator.

I was fortunate enough to have joined the group last Friday at Chuck’s and just wanted to say thanks for a great time. It was a real pleasure having Chuck share his thoughts on food. There is no question in my mind that he truly has a sincere passion for his profession; lots of enthusiasm. As far as the food was concerned, I thought, overall, it was at a good level, with his Mexican dishes being the highlight. The soups too were quite good. However, I couldn’t get past the fact that their was no continuity in the restaurant’s philosophy. Serving BBQ, Cajun, AND Mexican cuisine is, in my opinion, tough to take seriously. Does anybody else have trouble with this sort of thing?

HI,

Last November, Tony Lomonaco, who was chef at the World Trade Tower's Windows on the World restaurant, promoted his book Nightly Specials. During his talk, it was clear the nightly specials was the stuff which energized the staff. Sure, they have mastered the preparation of your favorite dish to the same standards each time. Certainly, there is challenges to maintaining those standards daily.

The nightly specials not only is a creative outlet, it is also an avenue to test drive recipes for permanent status on the menu. It allows them to use new ingrediants and techniques, which is fun and stimulating to the cooks. When I observed Chuck's specials on his website the first time, I immediately recalled Tony Lomonaco's thoughts.

Chuck may have mastered BBQ to his satisfaction and the standards of his clientelle. However, you feel a creative vibe when you read his nightly specials; which you also feel in talking to Chuck himself. He's a restless spirit who is running a successful operation, yet is considering opening a car wash!? People like him need to be constantly challenged; which his specials allow.

If Chuck stuck to BBQ only, he would have flown the coop already. Cajun-BBQ-Mexican? Works for me! And a lot better than those huge please-everybody menus from Greek Family restaurants.

Regards,

PIGMON wrote:Serving BBQ, Cajun, AND Mexican cuisine is, in my opinion, tough to take seriously. Does anybody else have trouble with this sort of thing?

Rob,

I wonder if the reason you are thinking about the three under one roof is Chuck does all three surprisingly well. Multi-ethnic, multi-nationality multi-more and more is certainly not unusual these days. For example I had dinner in a place a few weeks ago where the menu read like the in-house cafeteria at the United Nations.

Of the three distinct components of our dinner the other evening I thought BBQ was the weakest link. Not that it was bad, it wasn't, but I really wish I would have thought to ask Chuck for sauce on the side, I am not a fan of sweet, thick BBQ sauce, and the ribs were a wee bit tender, not quite falloffthebone, but verging on, to be truly appealing.

Believe it or not Chuck is making a bold statement by not serving meat jello ribs at a BBQ place in Burbank. I am sure he often gets comments such as "your BBQ is great, but I like fall off the bone"

Actually, my favorite dish of the evening was the New England Clam Chowder, now what category does that fall in?

Enjoy,
Gary

Gwiv wrote:Actually, my favorite dish of the evening was the New England Clam Chowder

Ditto!