10 places to get Rosh Hashana dinner in Chicago

Plenty of Chicagoland restaurants are happy to help you greet Rosh Hashana 5771 on Wednesday and Thursday, Sept. 8–9.

Slurp your way through September wine tastings

Drink up, wine lovers! You can sip, slurp and sample your way through September with a wide variety of wines being poured at Chicago-area steakhouses.
From 5:30 to 7 p.m. every Thursday in September, Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse in River North and Lincolnshire will showcase its latest selection of 100 wines served by the glass. At [...]

Night out: Fantastical circus evenings at Excalibur

 
At 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through Aug. 28, BigTop JoJo, the fictitious ringmaster of the Towering Show of Wonder, turns Excalibur in River North into the “Phenomenal Phantasmagoria,” an innovative evening of storytelling, puppetry and original music, with a revolving roster of circus, burlesque, theater and musical acts, including the turtle boy, the mermaid, [...]

Chicago chefs tackle rare Arctic char

Cambridge Bay wild Arctic char is a rare fish with a short season. The fish, related to salmon and trout, spend most of the year under the ice caps of the Arctic Circle. In mid-August, they instinctively return to the waters of Cambridge Bay in Nunavut, Canada, for about two weeks, just before the bay [...]

Eat this! Popcorn shoots, the new mellow yellow

These buttery maize shoots arise from the “microgreens” trend that popped up in California in the mid-1990s.

Friday food porn: Loving Wollensky’s lobster

The lobster “cocktail” at Smith & Wollensky’s river-level Grill: a chilled whole Maine lobster served with house-made ginger dipping sauce and cocktail sauce made with freshly grated horseradish, $19.

Bring on the Chicago barbecue bonanza!

I can see that, when even Mr. Zee’s, a Greek snack shop in Morton Grove has rebranded itself as Mr. Gee’s B.B.Q. on Demand, the barbecue trend might be getting a little ridiculous. But I think it’s fantastic — bring it on! All styles, all flavors, the more the merrier. Let’s have Kansas City-style, St. Louis-style, Texas-style, South Carolina-style, you-name-it-style … heck, we can even encompass Western Kentucky barbecued mutton.

Eat this! Prime rib, big cuts of beautiful beef

“Prime rib” refers to thick cut of roast beef, usually from a bone-in, standing rib roast. It’s typically simply seasoned and slowly roasted, making it an easy and impressive company meal.

Chicago helps the Gulf

Help wildlife and families affected by the BP disaster and enjoy some of Chicago’s best eats. A $50 donation to Gulf Coast oil spill cleanup gets you into a benefit hosted by some of some of the city’s hottest eateries. The event takes place 5–7 p.m. Sunday, July 25, at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum [...]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité! Bastille Day Chicageaux-style

On July 14, 1789, revolutionary troops stormed the Bastille, a medieval fortress and prison in Paris, bringing down harsh rule of France’s Bourbon monarchy. The first Fete de la Federation, on July 14, 1790, celebrated the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in France. France — and Francophiles — have been toasting the day ever since. Here are a few events around Chicago.