CARRY ON CARY

Want to see what my dining experience was like on the Southwest Chief?  Well of course you do.  Best to start by saying it was nothing like this, much as I wanted it to be:

It was more like this, a breakfast bagel:

Or this microwaved cheeseburger, which was actually pretty decent:

Or cheese and crackers, that's two kinds of cracker, three kinds of cheese, Vermont Sharp White Cheddar, Mini Baby Bell and Tillamook Cheddar (which is hidden under the Vermont Sharp).  Mmmm:

Or how about the turkey and bacon club with creamy Swiss? This definitely tasted better than it looked, though admittedly that may not be saying much.

By the time you get to Chicago you’re ready for some real Chicago fare.  A Chicago Dog at Tiny Tap on the river:

The Dogzilla at Byron’s:

It was terrific, though it looked even better on the sign:

And this which was probably the most enjoyable thing I ate in the Windy City; whitefish and shrimp ceviche with potato cakes, at the Berghoff Bar:

And then back on the train, heading for Los Angeles, and more of the very similar:

"ANOTHER MARTINI FOR MOTHER CABRINI"

If you find yourself in Chicago you might very well see this fine mural of Muddy Waters, one of the godfathers of Chicago Blues:

I can’t remember who first said that the Blues is an empty, transparent vessel into which you pour yourself.  The rudiments are simple, can be quickly learned, and the moment you start playing you reveal yourself completely. If you have the soul of a suburbanite that will show.  If you’re touched by the Muses, that will immediately show too. 

And so it is with the martini glass, a transparent, empty vessel into which the bartender pours his or her soul.

Yes I have been in Chicago. I was alone and in the evenings I was enjoying some “melancholy man sits alone at the bar with a martini” moments. This one was at the Congress Hotel.  

It was so-so. As hotel martinis often are.  There may be a few guys working in hotel bars who pour their souls into their work, but they’re rare.

This next one was at Miller’s Pub, on Wabash Avenue, made by an old and caring Latino guy, and considerably better.

And the one below was consumed at the Exchequer, also on Warbash and made by an East European female bartender.  

I suppose the non-standard martini glass could be considered subversive, and the cocktail stick in the shape of a sword could be knowingly kitsch, though I’m not sure.

But then, and hold onto your cocktail napkins, I went to Rudy’s Bar and Grille on Madison Street – (also “Home of the famous Martini Milkshake” which I didn’t investigate).

And I was asked by the woman behind the bar who’s name was Ally (it was on the bill) whether I wanted my martini shaken or stirred!!  Holy Wabash! That’s an absolute first, a hit right out of the park before we’ve even started. I was also asked what kind of gin I wanted – Hendricks, and if I wanted my olives stuffed with blue cheese (I did not).  It looked like this:

It was so good, complete with the oh-so-necessary and oh-so-rare gin meniscus (which I know you can't really see in my picture). It was just wonderful, everything a man or woman might ever want in a martini.  I don’t know Ally and she doesn’t know me, but if her soul is as fine as the martini she made, then she is one of the Chosen.  The drink cost $14.50, and yes in other circumstances I might have said ouch to that.

And you know a part of me realized that it was folly to go back to Rudy’s the next night, I knew there’d be disappointment, but I did go back.  And when I sat down at the bar a fellow patron told me it was martini special night, but I didn’t know what that meant.  I wasn’t served by Ally, it was another woman, and I wasn’t offered a choice of shaken or stirred, or of gin or even of olive.  And it came with no meniscus.  It looked like this:

In most other circumstances it would have been considered a very superior martini.  And since it was martini special night, it only cost $7. Can you put a price on your soul? Yep about $7.50.

TWENTY FIVE OR SIX TO FOUR

I'm going to Chicago for a spree.  I think it'll be good, but I think it won't look like this, alas:

EATING IN POSTCARD WORLD

As a man with an interest in dying forms – the book, the printed map, the devilled egg – it probably won’t surprise anybody that I’m also interested in picture postcards. I suppose the impulse behind sending a postcard is no different from that behind sending an email or a tweet, but the physicality of the postcard, the small amount of trouble that’s involved in matching a card to its recipient, buying the stamp, going to the mail box, shows that the sender has made an effort in a way that, for instance, posting an image on Facebook just doesn’t.  When food is involved it’s better still. 

I got dragged along to a “paper show” at the weekend and came away with a few food-related postcard treasures.  I’m not a serious collector, certainly not an “archivist,” I just grab what appeals to me, and it turns out I’d grabbed several postcards showing Chicago restaurants, as you see, above and below.

Now, we all know that the past is another country, that they eat and drink things differently there, and we also know that postcard images rarely tell any version of the truth, but the fact is, the bars and restaurants depicted in these postcards are more elegant and stylish than any restaurant I’ve ever been in, or am ever likely to go, in my entire life. 

A little bit of research reveals that none of these restaurants is still in existence.

Hoi Sai Gai apparently means the Good Old World, so I suppose it may have been on its way out even at the time.  The back of the postcard claimed it was the world’s largest chop suey house.  Its menu looks way less stylish than the place itself.

Fritzel’s, which describes itself on the card as “Chicago’s Beauty Spot,” was included recently 
as one of the city’s all time 40 best restaurants by Chicago magazine, which described it as, “Home of the three-hour lunch for columnists, models, and moguls … Chicago’s version of Toots Shor’s."  Personally I liked it a lot better with the curved bar.

There’s less celebration online for Sheridan’s than for the other two, despite its selling line on the back of the card “Air Conditioned – Smartness – Choicest Foods – Moderate Prices for All.”  There’s now a liquor store and deli in its place.  This picture is from the flickr set of somebody named Cragin Spring.

Among my other scores, the card below for Tillamook cheese.  Interesting that they choose to show the place as a giant industrial facility with “storage plant of 3 million pounds capacity.” Today’s cheese makers would surely show a happy cow and a couple of “artisans.”

And finally this card from Arbogast and Bastian Inc, of Allentown, Pennsylvania for “Heat-n-eat sliced bacon, fully cooked.”  The card is aimed at restaurants that wanted to get their bacon cooking time down to three minutes or so.  There are 300 slices per case. 

“Ideal for all bacon uses,” they add helpfully.