Around the Coyote recs

From a MikeG post elsewhere:

I'm just waiting for a restaurant to finally go all the way and have black walls and Suicide Girls for waitstaff, etc.

Speaking of which . . .

I'll be haunting the Around the Coyote Fest in Wicker Park next weekend. Any recs for cutting-edge, starving-artist restaurant venues appropriate to the occasion (altho preferably w/o any techno-rattle on the speakers above the table)?

Do you mean "starving artist" = affordable and hipsterish?

I don't thing there is anything in that general vicinity that fits that profile, unless you count Earwax. Not cutting edge, but it's affordable and artsy types hang out there, and it's been around since Wicker Park was genuinely "artsy". I think most of the artsy hipsters I know hit places farther west, like Lula and Bite, and maybe that new chicken place, Feed. The only other starving artist standby I can think of in the area is Leo's Lunchroom on Division.

I forgot about Rodan. But you would have to deal with that "annoying techno" thing. Rodan is the "fancy" place the artsy hipsters I know go when they have money. It's mostly a bar with asianish fancy bar food. It's across from the Flat Iron building on Milwaukee where most of the ATC happens. One of the owners is the brother of a gallerist who used to have a Chicago gallery, but now is in NY.

I'm mulling over your original question and trying to think of why the words "cutting edge restaurants" and "starving artist" don't work well together. I guess it's because most of the "starving artist" types I know don't regularly eat at "cutting edge" places unless they work there as waitstaff or bartenders.

Thanks for the recs.

I admit I was floundering around a bit searching for the right phrase to describe what I was looking for. In retrospect, neither "cutting-edge' (does he mean Moto?) nor "starving artist" (does he mean White Palace?) is quite right. "Appropriate for the occasion" is probably the operative phrase, with the understanding that I'm looking for cheap to mid-range options.

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emdub wrote:I forgot about Rodan. But you would have to deal with that "annoying techno" thing. Rodan is the "fancy" place the artsy hipsters I know go when they have money. It's mostly a bar with asianish fancy bar food. It's across from the Flat Iron building on Milwaukee where most of the ATC happens. One of the owners is the brother of a gallerist who used to have a Chicago gallery, but now is in NY.

I was at Rodan last night for the first time (we had a wedding cake consultation nearby and were looking for a cheap-ish place to eat). I've always written it off as an annoying hipster hangout (as I know many annoying hipsters - some of them dear friends - who practically live there) but was actually pleasantly surprised. I won't be rushing back any time soon, but it might be the kind of place you are looking for. The music (at around 8 pm last night, at least) was not techno at all, but a nice eclectic mix of different stuff from the 60's and 70's. The menu is an mix of Asian and Latin American stuff. We had the empanadas (which were pretty good and came with a nice roasted tomatillo and habanero sauce), the wasabi tempera fries (which were not very wasabi-ish, but were good quality fries and came with a nice peanut dipping sauce) and the Poke maki, which had far too much rice and not enough poke in there, but was still OK. As you can tell, the food was good bar food but not mind-blowing, but there was plenty of other stuff on the menu that looked interesting and it was pretty cheap ($35 for 3 good-sized dishes and a couple of drinks - I had a house cocktail which was basically lychee juice and vodka and my significant other had a Japanese beer). Nothing on their menu went above $15.

I probably wouldn't be crazy for it on a Saturday night, but it was a very nice, calm place to be on a Tuesday evening. The bathroom mirrors are really cool too.