starving in Old Irving!

Technically, we're just a bit northwest in Mayfair. After two years in the area -- having moved from Wicker Park -- we're hungry. Very, very hungry. Seriously, I don't get it. So many houses, so few restaurants! We don't mind driving elsewhere, and we usually do. But we're woeful over not having any close, dependable favorites for Chinese, Thai, pizza, burritos, burgers, etc.

I should add, we're not horribly adventurous, but we're always game for a good recommendation.

We've already tried:
Sabatino's
Taqueria El Gallo
Gale Street (for the ribs and the ribs only)
Chief O'Neill's
McNamara's
La Finca (ew)
Las Cazuelas (disappointing)

Should try, but haven't for some reason:
Mayan Sol
Noon-O-Kabab
Tre Kronor

What am I missing? Anything? Really, at this point, I'll settle for decent bar food.

Now, this recommendation comes heavily caveated, but let me suggest you try Manzo's Ristorante. Back around '91, I and many others had a thing for Manzo's pizza, as well as the unrepentant gangster chic atmosphere (I recall spending one entire dinner eavedsdropping on a neighboring table's earnest discussion of the realism in various "Italian" movies ... they seemed to really like Harvey Keitel). Anyway, I hope you'll try Manzo's and report back so I won't have to

Just a couple of miles to the north is Elephant Thai and The Chocolate Shoppe, both places I heartily recommend. Also, The Edgebrook dineris just around the corner from Elephant Thai on Central.

Alas, one of the favorite beefs of people who live in these parts is that the restaurants haven't caught up to the demographics. However, there are plenty of places that you can try.

McNamara's on Irving Park/Lowell--the bar food you seek
Porretta's--Central & Waveland; very serviceable Italian + good pizza
Las Tablas--on Irving Park, just west of Cicero; good Columbian, great sangria; an outpost of the Lincoln Ave. location
La Pena--Milwaukee, between Irving Park & Montrose; Ecuadoran
new place, corner of Milwaukee/Montrose--Hops & Barley
Thai Aree--Addison & Milwaukee
Manee Thai--Addison & Pulaski
La Humita, Pulaski south of Addison--Ecuadoran
the Oaxacan (sp?) place everyone raves about near Milwaukee/Keeler
multiple Polish restaurants--look up previous threads for Halina's, Zascianek, Smak Tak, etc.
multiple Korean, Columbian and other places along Lawrence, east of Pulaski, adjacent to Mayfair (look up previous posts)
Marie's on Lawrence for pizza; some hate it, some love it

Basically, there are lots of neighborhood joints here of various nationalities. Give them a spin. I remember Wicker Park 15--20 years ago, when I lived in Ukrainian Village. Not a trendy restaurant in site. Not safe, either. I am constantly amazed by the cycles of neighborhood decline and upswing. Looking at all the new places and hipsters frequenting them on North, Divison & Chicago Avenue in West Town, I'm blown away. Who knew? Now, instead of telling my potential fresh-from-the-cornfields 20-something tenants about the realities of living in the big bad city, I point them to Metromix for close by bars, clubs and restaurants in Ukie Village. They're not falling asleep to the sound of gunshots either, like I was in the mid and late '80's. Hope you find some reliable food places close to home--Anna

I second the recommendation for Las Tablas and La Peña. Some other suggestions:

Lomas Verdes
4059 N Milwaukee (north of Irving)
773-282-5606
Pretty good Mexican food - not fancy, but you do order at the table

Taxco
4393 North Elston Avenue
773-283-2559
same as above

Fishguy Market
4423 North Elston Avenue
773-283-8400
They have a takeout menu - the fried shrimp is really good .
Open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday - Saturday

Hong Kong
3904 N. Cicero
773-777-6612
We have dined in here. Pretty good.

Leung's
5713 W Irving Park
773-545-4188
We get our Chinese food deliveries from here.

We get our pizza (thin crust) from:
Suparossa
4256 North Central Avenue
773-736-5828

-Pam

If you like German try Mirabells, West of the kennedy on the North side of Addison just across from the K-Mart.

I haven't eaten there in a while but I remember it as being fairly good.

Regina

Taxco's smoking section is off Elston while the nonsmoking room is off Montrose. Kitchen and restrooms are in between, so great separation. Food has been reliable but not outstanding.

Manzo's changed hands in the last year or so. Does anybody have current experience? The former owners have been advertising a suburban restaurant with the same name in the Sun Times some Fridays.

Don't overlook the range of options on Kedzie from 4600 to 4900 north. There is a lot more than Noon O Kabob: varied Middle Eastern, Thai, Korean. This stretch also has a range of ethnic grocers. The Cermak Produce store in the 4200 block of Kedzie beats most others of its type (including some other Cermak Produce stores) between there and A&G on Belmont just west of Central.

Hops & Barleys mentioned below is quite good--better than McNamara's--for bar food. Also, just south of there on the same side of the street is LaPalapita, which, while a bit frightening to look at on the outside, is also really good. Burritos, Tacos, etc.

You guys are the greatest... thank you so much. We've seen a lot of the places you mentioned, but we just needed a little nudge to try 'em. We'll be eating like kings (or, um, close enough) for weeks.

Don't forget the Latin Sandwich Cafe on Elston (just north of Irving Park Rd., east side of the street). It's been reveiwed in a few previous postings. Being a long-time lurker, I'm not sure if I can give you a link to one, but I'll give it a try. Whether I'm successful or not, a Search will pull up the appropriate listings.

http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=2874

There will also be a one-shot Farmer's Market at Independence Park (on Irving Park, a block east of Pulaski) on July 9th, from 7-3.

Ken

Okay, so we went to Hops & Barley tonight with three other couples. My husband loved his sandwich, and I devoured my burger. BUT, the service was downright awful. Yes, it's a bar, so I wasn't expecting much, but c'mon!

The service started out promising. We showed up, and the place was really busy. The host asked if we'd mind sitting outside, rather than having to wait for a table inside. We were all for it, so they quickly wiped down the wet tables and sat us. From there? Ugh. It began with one waitress coming over to take our drink order, only to have another waitress interrupt her. They proceeded to fight over our table, like we weren't even there. Kind of weird.

The waitress who lost out kept coming up to our server and whispering something in her ear, taking checks from her book, telling her that table 72 wanted water, that kind of thing. Typically, it was in the middle of taking an order from us, so she kept getting confused, and we had to keep starting over.

More than an hour later, the meals came out. Or should I say "meal." I got my meal first. Over the next 20 minutes, the rest of our meals were served... one by one. And still, one meal was missing. Many minutes went by, and no one came out to update us. At this point, we'd all started eating, and my friend went inside to check on his girlfriend's chicken wings. A long time later, the owner (?) finally brought them out, joking that someone had stolen the chicken wings. WTF? By that point, we were all finished, so we basically watched her eat.

Oh, and we asked for water. Right away, someone brought out two carafes... without any glasses. We waited and waited, thinking they must be on their way. Finally, we asked the waitress for some... prompting her to sigh and roll her eyes at us. At this point, we were just laughing about it all.

How new is this place? Like I said, the food was good. I'm wondering if we oughta give them the just-opened goodwill.

Hops and Barley is very new. We haven't been yet. Thanks for the report.

In a vain attempt to avoid ridiculous inbound Kennedy traffic this morning, I skirted over to Elston and found myself doing a slow burn in selfsame Mayfair/Old Irving neighborhood. Aware of previous reports of the area’s dearth of interesting spots, I was surprised by a few intriguing storefronts along the way that, with very few exceptions, haven’t been mentioned much here. Somewhere between Café Fez (as reported by Mike G and others) and Latin Sandwich Café, I saw a place called Picante that billed itself as Peruvian, and another place at the corner of Montrose and Elston called Red Sea Restaurant featuring Moroccan food (not to be confused with the Ethiopian of the same name listed on Clark).

Of particular interest further down was an old-timey looking tavern called Nelly’s Saloon advertising “Romanian cuisine.” The cognitive disconnect had me doubting what I’d seen by the time I (finally) made it to my office, so I looked up the place and decided to call. Turns out it was and is an old-timey tavern owned for over twenty years by Romanians that have decided in the last couple of years to add a menu of items from the mother country. These include the Romanian sausage variously called matiti or mititei, as well as tripe, bean and “meatball” soups and, evidently, limitless variations on a cabbage theme. As the pleasant woman proprietor spoke to me with a very distinct Romanian accent, I kept thinking of the Robert Rodriguez film “From Dusk ‘Til Dawn” that featured a Texas border town roadhouse infested by evil bloodsucking banditos. Romania’s own rich “vein” of vampire lore, coupled with this woman’s gravelly yet oddly seductive Romanian lilt, prompted in my mind a grim little scenario in which matiti would be the last taste on my tongue before being drained of life force by suddenly fanged bar patrons sporting Streets and Sanitation polo shirts. Kinda puts Lao Sze Chuan’s minor run-in with the Health Department in proper perspective…

…but I digest. Any feedback on any of these? I don’t anticipate taking Desperation Drive as a regular detour, but I’d be more than happy to get off the highway if any of these places have been deemed worth the effort. In any event, I’ve got to try Nelly’s and will report back on it if…you guessed it…I make it out alive.

Nelly’s Saloon
3256 N. Elston
773-588-4494

No listings found for Picante or Red Sea

Along the lines of potentially interesting unreported places, I've noticed fairly recently a Restaurant "019" on Montrose, maybe around Central Park. I stopped in and picked up a menu--it's some sort of Balkan, I believe--Serbian, perhaps. The place has been open for a couple months, it looked comfortable inside with newly printed menus and a decent card stock, which is to say it looks like they're trying to be more restaurant than social club with food, as many of these places seem to be. I seem to recall much of the menu not being in English, though I can check when I get home.

CoolerbytheLake wrote:I saw a place called Picante

It's actually

Ay! Ay! Picante
773/427-0239
http://ayaypicante.com
4565 N. Elston Ave.
Chicago, IL 60630

Decorated in Mayan designs, this small storefront turns out homestyle Latin fare from an open kitchen. Our meal began with a basket of soft, white bread served with a deliciously spicy green spread. Of the rest of our dinner, we most enjoyed the large Peruvian tamales, wrapped in banana leaves and filled with chicken, ham, olives and peppers, served room temperature with zesty sarza criolla (sliced, pickled red onion) on the side.

Well, I suppose I should finally post on Ay Ay Picante, as I've been sitting on the idea of doing so for some months. Short version, I tried it when it first opened and so far as I could tell it was strictly a Mexican restaurant. Nothing particularly better than a Taco Burrito King. A year later, I noticed that suddenly the word Peruvian was on there. I went back and it clearly had a completely different menu. I've eaten the Peruvian food twice, I think a carne asada type steak one time and what they called arroz con pollo (it was rice with chicken, but not especially close to say Cuban arroz con pollo) and, well, it was well-prepared, it's probably a pretty good Peruvian restaurant, but the problem I've had both times was that everything was so buttery-- not drowning in butter, visibly, but permeated with butter, like movie popcorn-- that there came a certain point in each meal where I was buttered out and really didn't want to finish it all that much. It's not to knock it, it's probably true to the style of their homeland, but it just hasn't inspired me to want to go back or bring the family; it may just be that Peruvian and me, unlike Colombian or Ecuadoran and me, were just not particularly meant to be. Too bad, because it is a nice looking place, fairly upscale despite modest prices, and it would have been a good thing to have on my list of places the family would feel comfortable in.

Actually, the tamale LAZ describes was probably the most satisfying thing I've had there; I think I have a picture which I'll try to post tomorrow.

The best Peruvian I've had in the city was at Macchu Pichu, now long gone. At its best, Peruvian cuisine rivals French, with complex flavors from a variety of influences. Macchu Pichu, for example, did an amazing roast duck with an amaretto-based sauce.

I don't think any of the current representatives here really showcase the highest level of Peruvian cuisine. Ay! Ay! Picante struck me as workingclass fare, filling and good, but not very special.

Hello! My husband and I bought a house in North Mayfair about 2 1/2 years ago after renting in Andersonville at the corner of Foster & Glenwood for 8 years. We were definately spoiled restaurant and bar-wise (how I miss being able to walk up to Hopleaf!) However, our apartment went condo and west of Western Ave. was what we found we could afford and still stay City of Chicago residents. Marie's Pizza was the first place we tried on the second night of living in the neighborhood. I have mixed feelings about the place, finding the pizza and service both to be inconsistent. However, I work in the restaurant industry and my husband finds himself a solo diner 4-5 nights per week. The staff at Marie's has been very good to him and the regulars at the bar have provided both entertainment and companionship for him over the last 2 years. I can say the same for the staff at McNamera's, particularly 1 bartender, Dony, who always remembers and takes good care of us. Yes, McNamera's bar food is pretty mediocre, and I'm still upset about the removal of the jalapeno poppers from the menu (a very embarassing guilty pleasure of mine ,) but we find the place enjoyable even so.
Las Cazuelas is almost around the corner from our house and we have been there exactly 4 times. I don't know what it is about this place...the magaritas are pretty good, the specials menu usually has something interesting, but we rarely find ourselves craving Las Cazuelas. Maybe it's the fact that the room is usually 3/4's empty?
I would second the suggestion of Thai Aree (no delivery,) and add that we have found Thai Valley to be a good option for delivered Thai food.
Mayfair does have a lot going for it - the side streets are quiet, people are friendly, good schools, close to public transportation and the Kennedy, etc... I think in 5-8 years we will see more restaurants and bars come to the area. There have been rumors that a Trader Joe's may be part of the development of the shuttered Dominick's at Lawrence and Pulaski. If Trader Joe's comes, they will follow! - Lynn

I would strongly reccommend Colletti's, at Elston and Central Ave, about 5 blocks North of the Ill. Sec. of State Elston location, and same side of street... They have B to B+ Italian food, a good steak sandwich, and B+ thin crust pizza. Also, excellent Caesar Salad! We have been going there 20 odd years, and it is tres reliable and very reasonable. The service is prompt and cheerful..
We are there at least once a month, it is one of 4 - 5 places in the city that we are regulars at, I believe that it's much better than MacNamara's or Sabatino's, and I think you will concur!

max songin wrote:I would strongly reccommend Colletti's, at Elston and Central Ave, about 5 blocks North of the Ill. Sec. of State Elston location, and same side of street...

I'm not sure I concur. Please read my take on Colletti's. I've since been back to try the pizza once again just in case something has changed and I stand by my original opinion, except to say that I misspoke about them being too thick. They are actually quite thin. I observed the pizza guy rolling out the dough with one of thise big aluminum rolling pins and then DOCKING it (like a pie crust) to make sure is does not rise at all. This resulted in a crust that was flatter than a pancake, with the texture of very flat cardboard.