Mike Sula

3 days ago | chicagoreader.com | Mike Sula

Cesar Ordaz saw some crazy shit go down at the late Noble Square Italian restaurant Corosh. For about a decade in the early oughts, his dad worked as a chef there, and that’s where wee Ordaz frequently hung out waiting for him. “I’d be at the edge of the bar, a little kid—seven, eight years old,” he says. “Just sitting down waiting for my dad’s shift to end at three o’clock in the morning. Every New Year’s Eve, they would have a ticketed event with DJs on every floor and unlimited drinks.

3 days ago | chicagoreader.com | Mike Sula

Ahhhhh. . . . four year olds . . .  Known for exuberant energy, raging ids, insatiable thirsts for novelty, and pushing the button-down, plastic fantastic boundaries of polite company. Mostly toilet-trained. Ravenous appetites too. But still a little messy. That pretty much crystalizes the state of Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up at Frank and Mary’s Tavern—which celebrates its fourth birthday this summer.

1 week ago | chicagoreader.com | Mike Sula

You never forget your first hamachi kama. Me? It was a dozen years ago at the late, great Yusho in Avondale. I was sitting at the bar minding my own uni egg rolls when chef Matthias Merges turned from the expo and summarily deposited a plate in front of me. “Trust me,” he said, and walked off. It was a gnarly, hatchet-shaped chunk of fish with a blackened fin still attached, its silver skin sizzling and burnished by the glowing binchōtan.

2 weeks ago | chicagoreader.com | Mike Sula

Mai suya mostly come out at night. They light the charcoal, thread the spicy peanut-dusted beef onto the skewers, and get grilling. “It’s the most consumed street food in Nigeria and throughout West Africa,” says Dozzy Ibekwe. “At nighttime, pretty much in every metropolis street corner, there is someone selling suya.”But Ibekwe, the city’s preeminent ambassador for West African food, is a rule-breaker who likes to meet Americans halfway. “We’ve been around since the beginning of time,” he says.

2 weeks ago | chicagoreader.com | Mike Sula

Pizza and bagels have some history together in Chicago. Think about Piece and its satellite Bro Bagel in Wicker Park. Then there’s Reno in Logan Square, where they’ve been slinging wood-fired pies and Montreal-style bagels since 2012. And demand at the Saturday morning Beachwater Bagels pop-up at Bungalow by Middlebrow rivals that of the extraordinary thin crust reserved for the pizzeria’s Tavern Tuesday. But you should’ve seen the lines after sundown this past Ramadan at Al Manakeesh.