Road Tips

Nobori Sushi - Glenview, IL

Whenever I get into a "food funk" on the road, I've found that sushi usually pulls me out of it.  One evening in the northern Chicago suburbs, I wasn't certain what I wanted for dinner.  I didn't want pizza since I knew I was going to go out for pizza the next evening.  A burger was out of the question.  I thought about Thai food or a steak, but those ideas just didn't trip my trigger.  I did a quick Urbanspoon search to see what was in the area and found a place called Nobori Sushi on Waukegan Ave. in Glenview.  (see map)  I set my GPS and took off for Nobori Sushi.

Noburu Nakamura is the man behind Nobori Sushi.  He grew up in the Kanto region of Japan and immigrated to the U.S. over 30 years ago to work in a sushi restaurant in New York City.  There are dozens of sushi restaurants in Greenwich Village and Noburu found work at one such restaurant.  About 25 years ago, he moved to Chicago and began to work in a number of sushi places around the area.  

In 2010, Noburu decided to open his own sushi restaurant suburban Glenview in a strip mall along busy Waukegan Ave.  The name "Nobori" means "sun rising in the morning" and Nakamura believed the restaurant would also rise to greatness.  

It was around 7:30 when I entered Nobori Sushi.  The place was half full of patrons, so seating was no problem.  I looked to sit at the sushi bar as I'm want to do when I eat sushi by myself, but there were curiously no chairs in front of the small sushi case.  I was ushered toward the back of the restaurant and given a menu by, I believe, Mr. Noburu Nakamura himself. 

The restaurant is not large and has your typical contemporary Japanese restaurant decor.  A number of tables and chairs hug the wall and it has a number of can lights that helped keep the ambiance to the restaurant warm and inviting.  

I was there for the sushi even though Nobori Sushi has a number of teriyaki entrees including chicken teriyaki, beef and asparagus teriyaki, and tuna or salmon teriyaki.  They also had a number of noodle-based dishes to choose from on the menu including ramen noodles and yakisoba with chicken, vegetables and noodles.  

When Noburu came back to ask me what I wanted to drink I asked for an Asahi beer, then told him that I was ready to order up some sushi.   I ordered a spicy tuna roll, some smoked salmon sushi, as well as tuna, yellowtail and shrimp sushi.  He said he'd have it right out.  

And less than 10 minutes later he came over with the sushi platter.  The spicy tuna rolls were wrapped with seaweed and weren't exactly the largest spicy tuna rolls I've ever had.  But they were very good and had a nice kick to the flavor.  The smoked salmon sushi was also very good with a nice forward smoke flavor to the bite.  I liked the shrimp sushi, as well.  It had a nice sweet taste and the shrimp meat was firm, not soggy.  While the tuna was also pretty good, I'll have to say the yellowtail was a little mushy and had a hint of a fishy taste to it.  It was probably at the end of its cycle in the sushi case, but it was far from bad.  

Noburu came over after I finished and asked if I wanted another Asahi or more sushi.  I contemplated getting a couple more pieces of either the tuna or the smoked salmon, but decided I'd had enough.  I was full enough from what I had just eaten.

 

Nobori Sushi was fine - a pleasant find of a good sushi meal.  The service was fine, the food was above average and the place was comfortable.  Not being able to sit at the sushi bar to watch the chefs prepare the meal was a little disheartening, but I was comfortable at the table.   There's a number of good to great sushi places in the Glenview/Northbrook area and Nobori Sushi can be added to that list.  

Woolley's Steakhouse - Bloomington, MN

Eating alone on the road is sometimes a lonely challenge.  Eating alone on the road on Valentine's Day is almost downright pitiful.  Even though my wife and I don't celebrate Valentine's Day (why should you show your love on only one day to your spouse or loved one?) there's a number of people that do.  And that usually means dinner for those people at a nice restaurant.  On a trip to Minneapolis recently, I was staying at the Embassy Suites Minneapolis Airport in Bloomington (see map) on Valentine's Day night.   I was told the hotel had a pretty damned good restaurant - Woolley's Steakhouse.  It was cold out, I didn't feel like venturing out and I decided to just go downstairs and have dinner in Woolley's. 

Since the Embassy Suites in Bloomington opened in 1986, Woolley's Steakhouse has served thousands of travelers and locals the finest in steaks and seafood.  Unlike most hotel restaurants that are nothing more than glorified coffee shops, Woolley's is an award winning steakhouse that serves 28-day aged, certified Black Angus beef and has also been given the "Award of Excellence" by Wine Spectator magazine.  Chef Peter Christenson oversees the kitchen at Woolley's Steakhouse.  Christenson is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in New York and is currently on the advisory board for Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Arts Institute.  

It was around 6:30 when I went down to Woolley's to see if I could get a table for dinner. I walked up to the hostess stand and scanned the already packed restaurant.   One of the two young ladies looked up and asked if she could help me.  I said, "Ah, yes.  Valentine's Day.  I probably can't get a seat in here right away."

She gave me a forlorned look and said, "Do you have a reservation?"

I sort of chuckled, leaned in closely and said, "Now, how big of a loser do you think I am to make a reservation for one on Valentine's Day?"

Both of the girls laughed at that comment.  I turned toward the bar area and said, "Can I eat in the bar?"

The young lady said, "Sure!"  She grabbed a menu and we walked over toward The Corner Bar.  Actually the bar was quite full, as well, and I was able to find a single seat at the bar.  The menu at the Corner Bar is quite different from the Woolley's Steakhouse menu, but they allowed me to order off the Woolley's menu in the bar that evening since the restaurant was full.  She asked me if I wanted the wine list and I told her that I'd just get one from the bartender if I wanted to look through it.    

Sitting alone at the bar also brings its own set of challenges.   On my left was a couple - I'm guessing they were in their 40's - and quite possibly on a first date.  They were waiting for a table to open in the restaurant and were talking about their life experiences.  The lady didn't sound very smart and the guy was heaping loads of praise on her for some of her very menial accomplishments in her life.  This guy was putting the hammer down on love that night.  It was actually pretty sickening and funny at the same time.  

The guy to my immediate right was a nice guy from North Carolina by the name of Pat.  He and I watched a basketball game on a television behind the bar.  As time went on that evening, I found out that he grew up in the Twin Cities, but had moved to North Carolina for school 30 years before.  He had owned a couple companies, but ended up selling one and going bankrupt with the other due to the economic slowdown in 2008/09.  Pat was looking to move back to the Twin Cities to be closer to his daughter who had moved back to Minnesota with her mother a few years prior.  

The very busy bartender - Chad - finally came over to great me and asked what I wanted to drink.  I didn't recognize any of the beers on tap, so I just asked for a pale ale.  He said he had an India Pale Ale on tap and I signed up for one of those.  It was all right - not the best I.P.A. I've had, but drinkable.   

Looking through Woolley's menu was quite daunting.  In addition to the number of steaks and chops they had to offer, they also walleye, grilled salmon, shrimp and scallops.  Their Valentine's Day special that evening was a petite cut (6 oz.) beef filet with a lobster tail.  Along with steak and seafood, they also had pasta dishes, and "comfort food" such as Swedish meatballs, chicken marsala, short ribs with a ginger/carrot puree, and their Woolley's Burger Deluxe - a half-pound burger made with mixed cuts of meat ground in-house.  (I want to go back sometime for just the burger - it sounded great.)  

The socially awkward couple to the next of me had ordered the calimari appetizer.  The lady had never had calimari before, but the guy kept telling her it would taste like fried shrimp.  She was a little hesitant when it was brought out to them.  To me - it looked damn good.  If she wasn't going to eat any, I was going to volunteer to eat what was left over.   

I wanted steak that evening, but I was getting tempted from a number of different areas.  They had prime rib on the menu, and it had been a long time since I had prime rib.  The "Red-Eye Ribeye" featured an ancho chili and coffee rub.  The "Martini Steak" was a seasoned flat-iron steak served with blue cheese crumbles and chopped green olives.   

But the filet was looking good for me that evening.  The Kings cut is a 10 oz. filet and for an additional $4.95 you can get it "classic style" with mushrooms, bacon, onions and blue cheese; or "gratinee style" with croutons, caramelized onions and gruyere cheese.  For an additional $6.95, you can order it "oscar style" with a bearnaise sauce and crab meat.  I got just a regular old beef tenderloin filet - rare.  For my side, I ordered the scalopped potatoes, although the grilled asparagus sounded good for an additional $4.95.  The bartender, Chad, understood my dilemma and he said, "I'll have the chef throw a couple asparagus spears on the plate for you." 

Woolley's Steakhouse also has a pretty impressive salad bar and he asked me if I wanted to go through the salad bar for an additional $4.95.  (Lots of upcharges at Woolley's, have you noticed?)  I saw that they had a half wedge salad for the same amount and I just ordered that.

Quite actually, I should have gone through the salad bar because the wedge salad was pretty pedestrian.  It featured a few leaves of lettuce, some runny blue cheese dressing with some bacon bits.  It was all right, but it wasn't the best I've had.  

As I was waiting for my steak, I had finished my India pale ale.  Chad asked me if I wanted another and I asked him for the wine list to see what they had for "by-the-glass" wine selections.  The wine list was pretty impressive - it was no wonder why both Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast have given Woolley's awards.  I found a Rodney Strong cabernet to have with my dinner.   

I was hoping that the average salad wouldn't be an indicator of the rest of the meal, but that pretty much went out the window when I had the first bite of my steak.  It was actually cooked more medium-rare than rare, but that was fine.  The steak was juicy and flavorful.  It had a great taste to it and I was very happy with it.  

True to his word, the bartender saw to it that I did get some asparagus spears along with the scalloped potatoes.  I only took a couple bites of each as I was focusing on the steak.  But the couple three bites I had of each were good, as well.  

But the steak was outstanding.  I was quite surprised that a steakhouse of this quality was inside an Embassy Suites.  I've stayed at a few Embassy Suites in my day (I got a great price for the room at this one - less than $100 a night - and I was surprised at how nice it was), but none of them had a restaurant even on the level of Woolley's Steakhouse.  

Sometimes I get surprised by some of the restaurants where I eat.  Woolley's Steakhouse was a pleasant surprise, even though I had to eat at the bar and endure the insipid conversation from two socially challenged people to my left.  (They never did get seated at a table for dinner.  But I don't think the guy cared - he was trying his best to get her out of there and into a bedroom.  And she was too stupid or naive to notice.)  The steak I had at Woolley's was excellent.  Chad - although very busy - did a good job of taking care of me.  I was more than happy that I made the choice to stay in and eat at the hotel restaurant that night.  I normally don't do that, but I'd go back to Woolley's even if I were staying at another hotel in the area.  It was that good.    

Urbanspoon Recognizes Road Tips As Most Traveled Blog

Yesterday, I got an e-mail from someone who said, "Hey, did you see you had a mention on Urbanspoon's blog last month?"  Actually, I didn't know Urbanspoon HAD a blog!  I followed the link and it was an entry from Ken Goldstein, one of the administrators of the Urbanspoon web site, on the occasion of the 10,000th blogger to join Urbanspoon.  I scrolled down through the entry and saw the familiar Road Tips heading with this beside it -

Urbanspoon's Most Traveled Blogger

The hometown of Road Tips is listed as Davenport, Iowa. But how meaningful is a hometown for the blog of a traveling sales guy who has managed to post reviews in 65 different metro areas from Seattle to Savannah (including our only post to date in Minot, North Dakota)? We'll also give a nod to Suits in Strange Places, a group blog which has posted reviews in 69 different metro areas, but falls a bit short of the lone-wolf achievement of Road Tips.  

(Click here to see the whole blog entry.)

That was a nice thing for the people at Urbanspoon to do for Road Tips.  This blog joined Urbanspoon in February of last year after getting a request from a restaurant to link a review that we did on the place directly to Urbanspoon.  I began to link other blog reviews to other restaurants and after awhile I got a communication from Ken at Urbanspoon who wrote, "You know, you're becoming one of the more prolific bloggers on our site.  Instead of us adding the information, here's how you can publish your own entries on Urbanspoon."  So, now I'm my own editor on Urbanspoon.

In just a little less than 15 months on Urbanspoon, Road Tips has had over 100,000 hits from Urbanspoon users and is hovering around the Top 100 of worldwide Urbanspoon blogs in terms of total hits.   It's a rather confusing situation - Road Tips has been as high as 69th worldwide, and just last week we were in the upper 80's.  For some reason I'm sitting at 110th on the Urbanspoon list of blog hits as of right now.  I don't understand how I can go from 115,000 total hits down to 110,000 hits.  I just let Urbanspoon worry about that.  But, hey!  110th out of 10,000 blogs still isn't too shabby!

Road Tips has also gotten recognition from Urbanspoon for being a popular blog with people looking for places to eat in the metro and statewide areas that the web site serves.  Right now, Road Tips is a Top Ten blog destination for Urbanspoon in Minneapolis, St. Louis, Milwaukee and Omaha, and we're hovering just outside the Top Ten for Chicago.  And as of today, Road Tips is the most popular Urbanspoon blog in the Quad Cties, Cedar Rapids/Iowa City, the state of Illinois and the state of Minnesota, and lately we've been trading the top spot in the state of Iowa on Urbanspoon with the fun Des Loines blog that searches out the best pork tenderloin sandwiches across the state.  I'm just thrilled that someone takes the time to click on the links to Road Tips.     

There are a number of travel and restaurant sites out there - most notably Yelp and Trip Advisor.  I have colleagues that contribute to Yelp, but it's not a "blog friendly" web site.  And that's OK with me.  For a blog that has taken on a life of its own over the past few years, I have limited hours during the week to devote to working on Road Tips. 

Right now, I've attached 679 blog entries to restaurants listed on Urbanspoon.  While it may seem that I'm one of the most prolific bloggers they have, I'm not even in the top 10.  There are some bloggers who have done well over twice the amount of blog entries I've contributed to the site.  I don't know how long Road Tips can last, but it will end when I cannot keep up with my work - which helps contribute to entries on the blog - and balancing home life.  Until then, I'll keep adding more unique and interesting places to eat that I've come across in my travels.  

Thanks for looking in!     

Jake's Burger - Brookfield, WI

I'm not a restaurateur - I only know how to eat in them.  So, it was interesting to me how a local Milwaukee area chef could take what was a popular casual Mexican restaurant featuring tacos filled with eclectic ingredients and turn it completely around into a gourmet burger joint after 4 years of being in business.  That's exactly how chef Jake Replogle, Jr. did in transforming the former Haute Taco eatery into Jake's Burger in suburban Brookfield.  A tip of the hat to Dawn for giving me the "heads up" on Jake's. On a recent visit to Milwaukee, I had lunch at Jake's Burger before leaving town. 

In 1960, Jake Replogle, Sr. bought a supper club called Wally Behl's in Wauwatosa and opened his eponymous steakhouse - Jake's Steakhouse.  Living above the restaurant, he and his first wife (it was said Jake Replogle, Sr. married 8 to 10 times) worked to make the restaurant a destination for steak lovers, as well as offering duck dinners and seafood.  In 1967, he bought another Wally Behl steakhouse/supper club in Pewaukee and named it Jake's, as well.  He closed down the Jake's in Wauwatosa and concentrated on the new location in Pewaukee.  As the area grew up around Jake's, it became a favorite of thousands of people for great steaks and good food.  (Replogle also owned the Ocean Grill in Vero Beach, FL, spending half his time in Wisconsin and the other half of the year in Florida.) Jake's son, Jake, Jr., helped his father in the restaurant business and he ended up buying the restaurant from his father in 2005.  (Jake Replogle, Sr. passed away in 2009.  His son, Charles, runs the Ocean Grill in Florida.)

The younger Jake Replogle - along with his wife, Karen - opened Haute Taco on the north side of the Sendik's Towne Centre in nearby Brookfield.  Sendik's Towne Centre is a small shopping complex that has a number of shops and restaurants and is anchored by a Sendik's supermarket (see map).  The shopping complex has had trouble attracting both merchants and patrons since it opened just before the economic downturn in 2008.  Proposed housing projects in the immediate area have not come to fruition as quickly as planners had hoped.   Today, the shopping complex still has a handful of empty spaces, but it's much better than the 18% occupancy rate the center had about four years ago.  

The younger Replogle had spent part of his youth growing up in Mexico and he remembered some of the casual foods that he had in Cuernavaca, Mexico.  He opened Haute Taco with the Milwaukee diner in mind.  Although beef tongue was one of the delicacies of the area he lived in Mexico, he knew it wouldn't go over well as a taco filling in suburban Milwaukee.  He developed tacos that had beef short ribs or duck as the main filling.  Haute Taco was in business for four years before the Replogle's decided to shift gears, close Haute Taco, completely remodel the space, and then reopen as Jake's Burger in the spring of 2012.  

The basic burger at Jake's Burger is the same one that is served at Jake's steakhouse - a blend of brisket, sirloin and short beef.  Extras include Nueske's bacon, port-caramelized onions, brie, Wisconsin aged-cheddar and blue cheese.  The "Haystack" onion straws at the burger place are also the same as the very popular onion rings served at the steakhouse.   Most of the burgers start at less than $10, but the extras can add up pretty quickly running the total cost of the burger to well over the $10 buck mark. 

It was right at the noon rush when I made it into Jake's Burger.  I was able to find a spot up front as there was an empty store space next to Jake's and a frozen yogurt shop on the other side of the empty space.  Not many people were hankering for frozen yogurt on a cold late winter day.  

As you walk into Jake's, there's a bar area up front with small bar and a number of top shelf and call liquor bottles on a glass shelf behind.  A couple three televisions are on the wall in the bar area.  Near the front door when you come in, there's an old Coca-Cola machine that stores vintage cans of beer.  During "Happy Hour" - which comes twice daily at Jake's Burger from 2 to 5:30 p.m. and once again from 8 p.m. to close Tuesday thru Friday - vintage can beers from the Coke machine are $2.00

 
I was seated in the dining room behind the bar area underneath a wall that had a potpourri of "Jake's Burger" logos stamped on the wall paper.  From what I understand, there used to be a colorful mural in its place when Haute Taco was in the space.

Looking through the menu, in addition to their sirloin/short beef/brisket mixed burger, they also feature turkey burgers and grass-fed beef burgers.  They also have something called "raft burgers" that are served open faced and meant to be eaten with a fork and knife.  They had an albacore tuna raft burger as well as the Cali raft burger with Nueske's bacon, butter lettuce, special burger sauce, and oven-roasted tomato with avocado.  There was a portobella mushroom burger on the menu, as well as a beer-battered cod burger.  Jake's Burger also had a handful of salads to choose from if you didn't want a burger.  

One other great thing about Jake's Burger is the beer menu.  I'm not big on Belgian beers, but they had a nice selection of those, as well as a number of lager, wheat and pale ale-style beers.  I noticed that they had the Bell's Two Hearted pale ale on the menu and I got one of those while I was looking through the menu.  

With the extras that you can order to put on a burger at Jake's, you can come up with some pretty interesting combinations.  Their signature burgers include the Truffle Burger that is topped with brie truffle cheese, white truffle oil and arugula, and the Wisconsin burger topped with beer-cheese sauce, their haystack onion straws and Nueske's bacon.  I was looking to do some additions to my burger so when my server came back to take my order I got the Classic burger - with the mixed beef - and it came with American cheese, lettuce, tomato, red onion and topped with a homemade pickle slice.  I added a fried egg for a buck more and for $2.50 more I got a couple of slices of Nueske's bacon.  Nueske's has been called "the caviar of bacon" by a food critic for the New York Times.  My server asked me if I wanted any fries or onion straws with my burger - also an extra charge.  Something told me to order up the onion straws.  Later on, I found that I was glad I did.  

It took about 15 minutes from the time I ordered my burger to when it was brought out to me.  It was topped with a large sesame seed bun and cut in half.  On the menu they said they cooked their burgers "medium +", but I asked for a more medium burger with some pink in the middle.  They couldn't have gotten it any closer to how I like my burgers.  

 
The cheese was draped over the top of the burger with the Nueske's bacon sitting on top.  The fried egg was underneath the burger patty resting on the veggies. It was a big damned burger to say the least.  

The first bite was wonderful.  The taste of the burger meat was flavorful and juicy.  Coupled with the cheese, fried egg and bacon (I ended up pulling off most of the veggies because they were falling off anyhow), it was an excellent tasting burger.  About the only quibble I would have with the burger at Jake's is that there was a little too much bun.  But it was tasty and chewy, and didn't overpower the overall taste of the burger.   

As good as the taste of the burger was, the highlight of the lunch were the onion straws.  I prefer onion straws over onion rings and these were just outstanding.  They had a little bit of a spicy taste to them in addition to the beer-batter flavor coating the rings.  Oh, man!  My stomach is doing jumping jacks just thinking about the onion straws!  I normally don't get fries or onion rings when I order a gourmet burger, but I'm telling you - I'm glad I decided to try the onion straws.  

I've read some on-line reviews on Jake's Burger where a handful of people didn't like the place.  I thought my burger was excellent and the onion straws were out of this world.  Most of the time when people say they don't like the place, it usually comes down to price.  And I will say that Jake's Burger is not cheap.  If you want to stay basic and get one of their Classic burgers with no extras and a soft drink, then, yeah, you can stay under $10 bucks.  But to me, that's not too fun.  Yeah, the extras - especially the Nueske's bacon - really zip up the price of a burger.  Unless you live in the Brookfield area, Jake's is a little bit of a haul from anywhere in Milwaukee, but I think it's worth the trip to try it at least once.  I'd go out of my way a couple three miles when I'm out in Brookfield to try another burger at Jake's Burger.

Lagasse's Stadium - Las Vegas

I wish I could remember who told me that I had to go to Lagasse's Stadium at The Palazzo when I was out in Las Vegas for the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show (I think it was my late friend, Craig Evert, if I'm not mistaken), but I decided to find the place for a lunch during my time out there.  I had a meeting with one of my dealers in the middle part of the day during the show and he wanted to go get something to eat for lunch.  I said, "Let's go try this one place I've heard about."  

Lagasse's Stadium is one of the many restaurants under the umbrella of famed chef Emeril Lagasse.  It is the only sports-themed restaurant of the 14 Emeril-run restaurants.  Given the amount of sports restaurants or sports books in Las Vegas, Lagasse's Stadium had to make a big splash when it opened in the fall of 2009. Its main room features stadium seating with leather couches with betting windows up front. A large screen television flanked by 16 small large screen televisions are the main visual attractions in the room.    

After a winding journey through The Palazzo, going down a level and then back up some steps, we were able to find the inside entrance to Lagasse's Stadium.  We were met by a hostess who inquired if we were there for lunch.  She offered to have us sit in the dining area up front, but I took a quick look past the bar in the front dining area and saw the room with the stadium seating.  It was in that room that my dealer, one of his salesguys and myself set up for lunch just after 1 p.m.    Understandably, with no major sporting events going on at that time, the room was pretty much to ourselves.  We took a seat on one of the leather couches with sort of a small coffee table in front of us and our server came over with some menus. 

Most of the food on the menu is your typical sports bar fare - sandwiches, appetizers, burgers, wings, etc.  They also have entrees available such as fried chicken, ribs, steaks, and grilled salmon.  Pizza is also available at Emeril's.  There was a guy seated not far from us who was noshing on a pizza when we sat down.  It didn't look too bad.  

Because eating at the low coffee tables was going to be rather awkward, I decided on getting a sandwich.  They had a pastrami sandwich on the menu that looked appealing to me, as did the reuben.  I thought about the French dip for a moment, as well as the andouille sausage and peppers sandwich.  But I figured that they both would be pretty messy and I didn't want to get anything on my clothes as I still had a half day to go with the show.  

When our server came back, I inquired about the pastrami sandwich.  She said that it was cold pastrami and I sort of winced.  She said, "Yeah, I seem to get that quite a bit.  I like a warm pastrami sandwich better than a cold one, too."  She pointed out the reuben and said that the corned beef was hot with that.  I asked if I could get a pastrami reuben with the pastrami warmed up.  She sort of halted for a second and said, "Hmmm...  You know, I don't know.  I'll have to check with the chef."  I told her that if she could get the reuben with warm pastrami, then I'd go for that.  If not, I'd take the regular reuben.

My dealer got the Stadium Burger - plain.  And I mean plain.  He didn't want pickles or mustard, or any of the veggies.  He said, "I can't stand pickles or mustard."  I told him he probably didn't like the vinegar taste.  He said, "I don't know, man.  I've never been able to handle pickles or mustard."  He did get Swiss cheese on the burger, however.  

His salesguy ordered up the barbecue pork sandwich - slow-roasted pork, shredded and put on a bun and topped with a Creole mustard slaw, fried pickles and a tangy barbecue sauce.   Fries came with all of our sandwiches.

Not long after we ordered, our food showed up.  My reuben was made with corned beef, not pastrami.  It wasn't a problem with me, but I just thought it was a little weird that they didn't have a hot pastrami sandwich.  Other than New York, more hot pastrami sandwiches have to be eaten in Las Vegas than any other place.  But the reuben was all right, nothing special.  It was a basic bar reuben that was neither extremely appealing or overly unappealing.   

My dealer's burger was a big thick patty drenched in melted Swiss cheese between two toasted bun halves.  He said it was pretty good.  But once again, it was nothing special.  His salesguy said his barbecue pork sandwich was pretty good, as well.  All our sandwiches/burgers were just that - pretty good.  Definitely not bad, but not something where I'd crave to go back and have.  Like I said, it was bar food that was above average.  

After we finished our lunch and paid the tab, we ended up walking around Lagasse's Stadium to take a look at the place.  My dealer, who also does some sports promoting with mixed martial arts fighting, was completely amazed at the place.  "Man, I'm glad you brought me here," he said as he snapped pictures of the place with his cellphone.  "This place is amazing."  

There's a little nicer dining area toward the back and on a lower level from where we were seated in the stadium part of the place.  It appeared to be a little nicer than the dining area that was up front near the entrance where we came in.  (There's also an entrance from Las Vegas Blvd. into Lagasse's Stadium.)  This area was shut down for lunch, but they still had the big screen televisions on showing some soccer match from Europe.   

There's also a couple three private rooms at Lagasse's Stadium that feature dining areas, pool tables and leather couches similar to the ones we sat on for lunch.  All throughout the place was sports memorabilia that may or may not have been authentic.  Interestingly, there were hybrid jerseys on display - 1/2 Peyton Manning's jersey and the other half his brother, Eli's, jersey.  Things like that.  I just sort of shrugged my shoulders when I saw stuff like that.  I was interested in some of the old pictures that were on display, however.  

In a city that never sleeps, Lagasse's Stadium only serves food up to 10 p.m. each day.  I suppose once the sporting events are over, the place usually clears out. But they do open at 7:30 a.m. on Saturdays for college sports that begin at 8 a.m. Las Vegas time, and at 8:30 a.m. on Sundays for pro sports that begin at 10 a.m. in Vegas.   The food is all right, but it's not necessarily the reason one goes to Lagasse's Stadium.  It's definitely an upscale sports bar, one of the nicer ones that I've ever been in.  But compared to other sports bars I've been to, the food is about on par with most of them.  And that's all right - Lagasse's Stadium is a sports bar, for God's sake!  And an interesting one, at that. 

Cafe Bionda - Chicago

I've been working with a new dealer in the South Loop area of downtown Chicago.  Both partners are near-southside Chicago guys who have turned me on to a number of eating places in the area that I wasn't familiar with.  One of their favorite places to dine is a small neighborhood restaurant - Cafe Bionda - that serves Italian food.  After a meeting one evening, we took the trip from their store to Cafe Bionda for dinner.

When I asked one of the guys how long Cafe Bionda had been in business, he sort of shrugged his shoulders and said, "I don't know.  Ten years or so.  We've been coming here for ten years and it was pretty new when we first started coming here, so it can't be too much older than that."  Cafe Bionda was founded by Gerard Burke and Joe Farina.  Farina had been a corporate chef for the Rosebud restaurants in the Chicago area and he partnered up with Burke to start Cafe Bionda.  Gerard Burke was the one who designed the interior of the restaurant on S. State St.  Bionda means "blonde woman" in Italian and the restaurant is presumably named after Burke's wife, Kim, who is, indeed, a blonde.

About 2009, Farina left the fold at Cafe Bionda and went to work for one of Steve Harris' Francesca restaurants in the Chicago area - Salatino's in Little Italy.  However, I found that Salatino's had closed up recently and I don't know where Farina landed.  And I couldn't find who is the current chef at Cafe Bionda.  But I believe that Gerard and Kim Burke are still the owners of the establishment.  

(At one point there were two other Cafe Bionda locations - one up on N. Milwaukee in Wicker Park, about a half block from one of my dealers; and one in the Financial District in Chicago's Loop.  The Wicker Park location closed in late 2009, while the Financial District location - called Bionda's To Go - closed in the Spring of 2011.)   

There is a small parking lot behind Cafe Bionda, but it was full when we got there.  We cut our losses and pulled up in front of the building just south of the corner of Archer and S. State (see map) and had the valet park the car.  The area is a mix of buildings that had been rehabbed into upscale condos, restaurants and shops.  I had no idea that this area even existed in Chicago as I rarely travel south of Roosevelt Road during my travels to Chicago.  

The interior of Cafe Bionda is long and narrow with a section bar on the right as you come in and the dining area on the left.  The two guys from my dealer were greeted warmly by the staff - one of them estimated that he eats there at least three times a week - and we were seated at a table along the wall in the cozy and ornate dining room.  

Cafe Bionda's lighting was so subdued that I wouldn't have been able to get a picture of either the interior or the food without using my flash on my cellphone.  And Cafe Bionda isn't one of those places that you can take pictures with a flash without annoying other people in the process.   So, unfortunately, I have no pictures of food from my visit.  (Picture above right courtesy Trip Advisor.)    

We were given menus and our waiter told us of the specials they had at Cafe Bionda that evening.  One of the specials was a thick cut New York strip steak served with garlic mashed potatoes.  I had my eye on the pasta because another server brought out a basket of bread and a bowl of seasoned marinara.  The marinara sauce was outstanding.  We quickly gobbled up the available bread and marinara as both were outstanding.  

Going through the wine list, one of my guests picked out a bottle of the BonAnno cabernet.  BonAnno is a relatively new winery in the Napa Valley region who sources a lot of their grapes.  I'd never had it before and once it opened up, it was a very good cabernet.  

Getting down to the meal at hand, I had trouble figuring out exactly what I wanted for dinner.  The first thing that caught my eye was the Rigatoni Genovese mixed with spicy sausage and a creamy tomato sauce.   "Nanna's Gravy" featured pot roast-style beef mixed with rigatoni noodles and the wonderful marinara sauce that we had with the bread.  I thought about the Veal Saltimboca for a moment - veal medallions with prosciutto ham, sage, Parmesan and mozzarella, and cooked in a white wine sauce.  I briefly thought about the ricotta cheese-stuff pasta shells served with a tomato vodka cream sauce.  But I kept going back to Nanna's Gravy and the Rigatoni Genovese.  

When it came to take our orders, I had the other guys go first.  Both of them picked the New York strip steak special.  That put some pressure on me when the server came to me.  I told him I was torn between the Nanna's Gravy and the Rigatoni Genovese.  My two guests and the waiter all immediately said, "Rigatoni!"  The waiter said, "The pot roast is very good, but if you're looking for a zesty taste, go with the Rigatoni."  Zesty is exactly what I'm looking for in my food, so I went with the Rigatoni Genovese.  

For starters, I got a caprese salad.  It featured large beefsteak tomato slices topped with fresh buffalo mozzarella and fresh chopped basil.  However, they only had olive oil on the caprese salad and no aged balsamic vinegar.  The balsamic vinegar is what makes a good caprese salad in my book and this one was sort of "blah!"  I should have asked for some balsamic vinegar.  Next time...

Our main entrees showed up and I wish I would have been able to get a picture of the steaks.  Those things had to be 20 ounces, at least.   They were well over an inch thick and I was told they were tender and flavorful.  Good Italian restaurants can really do a good steak if they put their mind to it.

And I wish I would have been able to get a picture of the huge bowl of the Rigatoni Genovese.  There was absolutely no way that I was going to be able to finish the whole thing.  It had chunks of ground spicy Italian sausage mixed in with the rigatoni pasta.  The tomato cream sauce was very good and helped take some of the spicy edge off the very spicy sausage.  I got about halfway through the dish before I began to just concentrate on the sausage.  When our server came back, he asked if I wanted to have it boxed up to take with me.  No, it just wouldn't have tasted good reheated and without the sausage.  Cafe Bionda impressed me with their food, their service and the ambiance of the place. 

Cafe Bionda would be a wonderful place for a first date or a romantic dinner, or for a get-together with friends, or for a business meal like we had on my first visit there.  In the warmer months, Cafe Bionda has sidewalk seating for lunch and dinner.  I need to scout out more places to eat south of Roosevelt because of all the gentrification that has been going on in the area south of the loop over the past few years.  A lot of new places have popped up and I'm sure there are a few more surprises like Cafe Bionda that I'll find. 

Bare Bones Barbecue - Moline, IL

A barbecue joint that has been on my radar for the past couple years is a place near the Quad City International Airport by the name of Bare Bones Barbecue.  I've heard from a handful of people that their food is good with large portions.  The only thing that sort of gave me pause in visiting the place was that they also make pizzas at the place.  I sort of cringe when I find a barbecue place that takes a left turn and offers something completely different than basic barbecue.  Prodded by my wife who also had been wanting to try the place out, we went there on one of our recent Monday night "date nights". 

Bare Bones Barbecue has been open since 2010 and is run by Brian Canfield, son of the owner of Bud's Skyline Inn, located just around the corner and down the road from Bare Bones.  (Click here to see the recent update on Bud's Skyline Inn.)  Both Bud and Brian Canfield have a stake in the barbecue place.  Prior to becoming Bare Bones, the building housed a breakfast place called the Omelet Shoppe, then it later became the Runway Cafe for a short time.  

It was around 7 p.m. when we pulled into the parking lot at Bare Bones Barbecue located right across the street from the Quad City Airport Hampton Inn (see map).  From the outside, the place isn't much to look at.  They probably haven't spruced up the outside of the place since it was still the Omelet Shoppe.  In fact, a big sign that says, "Cafe" still stands near Airport Road.  However, on the inside, it looks fine with a number of large wooden booths and red and white-checkered cloth cover tables in the main dining area.  

There's also a bar at Bare Bones featuring a full selection of liquor, wine and beer.  A man who was staying at the hotel across the street was waiting at the bar for his pizza to take back to his room.  

In addition to barbecue and pizza, the menu features a handful of sandwiches and, interestingly enough, a selection of omelets that are available throughout the day.  They also have a small salad bar area that is available with each barbecue entree.  That's something you don't see at a barbecue place very often, but as one of the servers explained to us that since they're connected to Bud's Skyline Inn - which has a very good salad bar - that's why they have one at Bare Bones, as well.  

At most barbecue places I haven't tried before, I always look for a sampler platter.  They had one at Bare Bones that had brisket, pulled pork and a 1/3 slab of ribs, so I ordered that.  A side and the salad bar came with the meal and I ordered up baked beans.   

Cindy was torn between a couple things, but ended up ordering a 1/3 slab of ribs along with their sweet creamy cole slaw.  We both went through the salad bar and I was careful not to load up as I had a lot of food coming.  Cindy was somewhat disappointed that they didn't have the pickled beets at the salad bar at Bare Bones like they do at Bud's.  

After finishing up our salads, our barbecue platters came out.  I had a middle part of the slab while Cindy got the end part.   She was having problems with cutting into her ribs because they were so boney, so I traded her slabs.  The barbecue platter came with some sauce that was sort of tangy and sweet, and a homemade piece of cornbread.  

While there were a lot of bones in the 1/3 rack that I traded with Cindy, there was a lot of meat on the bones.  It was a little difficult getting the meat from the bones on my slab, but Cindy was having no trouble getting meat off the bone from the slabe I traded her.  The meat was a little chewy, but the sweet and spicy dry rub was flavorful and not too overpowering.  

The brisket was basically a big slab of beef, juicy and tender.  The brisket easily pulled apart and it was more like a fine piece of roast beef than what I would actually call brisket.  Still, it was very good and paired with the barbecue sauce, it was a great taste sensation.

The pulled pork was also decent enough.  It featured chunks and shredded pork that was also moist and juicy.  I couldn't even begin to finish all that I had, so I gave Cindy portions of the shredded pork and brisket.  There was more than enough for us to eat, considering the salad bar we had at the start of the meal.  

While Cindy continued to eat, I had to run back to the men's room to clean the sugar and spices off my hands that had accumulated while eating the ribs.  While the main dining room at Bare Bones is nice, the men's bathroom needed some attention.  While it wasn't the cleanest bathroom I've been in, it was a little disappointing that the men's room would be that scuzzy in what was otherwise a clean restaurant.

The men's room and the outside appearance aside, Bare Bones Barbecue was fine enough to dine at.  The barbecue was all right, not the best I've had in the Quad Cities, but there's not too many good places for barbecue in the area.  I'm still a little leery of places that do pizza and barbecue together, but the pizza they brought out for the man at the bar smelled pretty good.  Still, the barbecue was good and we're glad we gave them a chance.  And we'll probably head back at some point.  

Pizzeria Antica - Bloomingdale, IL

Out of habit, I find myself staying from time to time at the Hampton Inn in west suburban Addison when I go into Chicago for meetings.  It's sort of far out of the city, but it's easy to get to and away from.  It's sort of centrally located for the dealers that I have around the Chicagoland area, plus there's a number of restaurants in the vicinity.  For the past number of years, I usually head east into Addison or Elmhurst to get something to eat when I'm staying there.  On a recent overnight there, I decided to look toward the west to the Bloomingdale area to see what they have to offer.  I found a little Italian/pizza place called Pizzeria Antica. 

Pizzeria Antica is a small family-owned restaurant that opened in the fall of 2007.  Gaetano Ancona is the principal owner/chef at the restaurant, but other family members are involved in the restaurant.  Pizzeria Antica is located in a small building on W. Lake St., just past Bloomingdale Rd (or Roselle Rd north of Lake).  (see map)  There is only one way in to Pizzeria Antica from the westbound lane on W. Lake.  And you can only go west out of the place when you leave.

It had been a long day of meetings and driving around the Chicago area when I decided to head west on Lake to Pizzeria Antica.  It is, indeed, a very small place seating only 26 people.   There were two other people in the place finishing up their meal when I got in after 8 p.m.  I was greeted at the front counter by a young lady and I thought that you actually ordered your food there.   But it turns out that they do have sit down service at Pizzeria Antica. 

I took a seat at a table and took a look through the menu.  Pizzeria Antica specializes in thin crust pizza and they have a number of specialty pizzas such as the Antico - a pizza topped with Italian tuna, capers, mushrooms and onions; the Frutti de mare - octopus, shrimp, calamari and crab meat are on that one; and the Wurstel - it has hot dogs, mushroom, basil and extra virgin olive oil on it.  None of those sounded appealing to me in the least.  

Since Pizzeria Antica opens at 11 a.m. for lunch, they also have a number of sandwiches, salads and appetizers.  But I was there for the pizza that evening. 

My regular reference pizza of sausage, mushroom and pepperoni was what I was looking for.  And that's exactly what I ordered when my server came over to take my order - a small (10").  (They also have a 12" medium, a 14" large and a 16" extra-large.)   I also noticed that they had Peroni beer on the menu.  I ordered up a bottle of Peroni to drink while I wanted on my pizza.    

It took less than 20 minutes from the time I ordered to the time the pizza made it to the table.  The pizza featured ample amounts of pepperoni, chopped fresh mushrooms and chunks of sweet Italian sausage on the top mixed in with caramelized mozzarella cheese.  It was cut into triangles.  

The crust was crispy and a little crunchy.  It easily held the toppings without drooping.  Parmesan cheese, ground oregano and red pepper flakes were available on the table to put onto the pizza.  However, I tried the first piece without any additives.  The flavor was very good.  The sausage was a little bland, but the pepperoni slices had a nice spicy and salty bite.  The mushrooms were also very good on the pizza.  It passed my "Does it taste good with a beer?" test that I have for every new pizza that I try.  

Because the toppings and cheese were so plentiful on the pizza, I was able to eat five of the eight slices of the pizza.  I asked the young lady for a to-go box as I had a fridge and a microwave in my room back at the Hampton Inn.  Pizza for breakfast is always a treat.  

When I was getting ready to leave, the server asked me how my pizza was and I told her that it was very good.  It wasn't the best I've had in the Chicago area, but it was still very good.  She gave me a printed menu to take with me and I didn't notice until I got back home that it said on the front, "Moving soon!"  Honestly, I don't know if the menu was printed up two months ago or two years ago.  I'll keep checking back with them to see if they finally moved and I'll be sure to update this entry.

While I do like finding these small gems of a restaurant in my travels, I can see why they probably would like to move.  The place is small and you can't get into the place if you're coming from the west on Lake St.   I'm hoping that wherever Pizzeria Antica moves to, they'll keep the same pizza ovens that are obviously seasoned with thousands of pizzas they've cooked in them over the past five plus years.  I'll definitely follow them, as long as they're close to the hotel when I stay there.  I'll be sure to let you know when they move and where.  

Austin's Steakhouse - North Las Vegas

During the annual Consumer Electronics Show that was recently held in Las Vegas, our friends from Cambridge Audio invited the North American sales team out for dinner.  Their pick for dinner was literally out in left field - a place called Austin's Steakhouse that was in the Texas Station casino on the far north side of Las Vegas.  Actually, it's in North Las Vegas and it was a little bit of a drive from our hotel on the Strip.  But we made the trek and met the Cambridge Audio crew there for dinner.  

Austin's Steakhouse is sort of an oasis within Texas Station, a Station Casinos hotel/casino that includes other places such as Red Rock Resort and Casino, Green Valley Resort and Casino, Palace Station, Boulder Station and a handful of other hotel/casinos in the Las Vegas valley.  Texas Station has been part of the Station Casinos line-up since 1995.  The first Station Casino - Palace Station - has been around since the mid-70's.  Frank Fertitta, Jr. opened what was then simply called "The Casino" that adjoined a low-priced motor inn in 1976.  He had been in Las Vegas for over 15 years working his way up from a bellman to becoming the general manager of such places as the Stardust, Fremont, Circus Circus and the Tropicana.  While many thought he was foolish for opening a casino, it turned out that many of the workers in the casinos didn't feel welcome to gamble in other places since they couldn't gamble in the places where they worked.  Fertitta positioned the Casino to cater to the locals - primarily the card dealers, the waitresses and the cab drivers of Las Vegas.  The Casino opened with 100 slot machines and six gaming tables.  

Over time and as business grew, Frank Fertitta, Jr. eventually changed the name of the place to "The Bingo Palace" and eventually "Palace Station" in 1983.  Frank Fertitta, Jr. retired from the business in 1993 and from there, his son Frank Fertitta III, oversaw the growth of the Station Casinos into the 90's with more "locals friendly" casinos with the opening of Boulder Station in 1994, Texas Station in 1995 and Sunset Station in 1997.  Frank Fertitta III is also the co-owner of Zuffa, the parent corporation of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.  Fertitta's brother, Lorenzo, is the CEO of Zuffa while both have a hand in the Station Casinos business, as well.  

(As an aside, the Fertitta brothers' first cousin, Tilman Fertitta, has been mentioned on Road Tips a couple times in the past in connection with his ownership of Landry's Seafood restaurants.  Click here to see my entry on Landry's.  In all, the two Fertitta brothers and Tilman Fertitta are worth over a billion dollars on paper.)

We made it out to Texas Station after about a 20 minute drive from The Mirage.  It's located at the corner of Rancho Dr. and Lake Mead Blvd., two main drags into North Las Vegas (see map).  We parked the van at the valet and went into the somewhat smoky and run down casino.  I don't want to say the people that we saw sitting at machines throughout the casino were bad, but the clientele was significantly more low brow than what you'd find at many of the upper scale hotel/casinos on the strip.  Although this disheartened some of the guys in my group, I reminded them that The Steakhouse at Circus Circus (where we had eaten a couple three night prior - click here to see my previous review on the Steakhouse) is also located in a pretty bad hotel/casino.  

Finding Austin's Steakhouse toward the backside of the casino floor, we were ushered through a very nice open dining area that was adorned with stone and dark wood walls with subdued lighting into a private dining room with a large table for 18.  I have misgivings about dining in a large group as the service and the food tend to suffer, especially when you're ordering off the menu as we were that evening.  But I've also learned to just go with the flow when it comes to situations like this and just try to make the best of it.   

Once we all got seated and the menus were handed out, a couple people from Cambridge Audio took it upon themselves to order a number of appetizers for the table.  These appetizers included bacon-wrapped shrimp, crab cakes, fresh oysters on the half-shell, and oysters Rockefeller.  I'm going to save my breath and your time and tell you up front that none of them were very good.

Like the French people I work with at Focal, the Brits at Cambridge Audio are all big carnivores, looking forward to eating pounds of red meat when they come to the U.S.  The primary steaks at Austin's are the filet, a New York strip, a porterhouse steak, and their specialty - the bone-in ribeye that is pan-seared, then grilled over mesquite.  They have a number of sauces to compliment the steaks such as a creamy horseradish, a hollandaise or bearnaise sauce, a creamy peppercorn sauce, or Austin's house-made steak sauce.  You could have your steak cooked in a peppercorn "au poivre" style, or topped with crabmeat, shrimp or encrusted in blue cheese.  Salads and sides were all extra, but the prices weren't out of this world.  

I ended up ordering a large filet with the peppercorn sauce.  The waiter asked me if I wanted it cooked au poivre with the cracked peppercorns encrusted around the steak.  "Sure," I replied.  I also ordered a wedge salad and we ordered a number of sides that we were going to share such as garlic and horseradish mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, broccoli with a hollandaise sauce, and sauteed mushrooms.  

The wedge salad (below left) was nothing special.  It was just a chopped wedge of lettuce with a shitload of bacon bits on top of a creamy blue cheese dressing with a little bit of chopped tomatoes mixed in.  It wasn't bad, but it was nothing of note.

It's very difficult to get all the orders for a big party to come out at the same time, but Austin's pulled it off.  18 meals came out at the same time.  It helped that it was late and there weren't many people in the main dining room at the restaurant.  My filet (above right) was literally covered in cracked black peppercorns, completely covered in cracked black peppercorns.  I love cracked black pepper, but this may have been too much.   There was a small serving of the peppercorn sauce, which was just basically gravy with a little bit of cracked black pepper in it.  There were some veggies on the plate with the steak and I know it's not a good picture but if you look closely, you can see some blu-ish items that look like broccoli.  They were broccoli.  The broccoli had been cooked for so long they turned blue.  Whoa!  

I like my filets rare and this one was over-cooked to a medium rare.  The mesquite-charred outer shell of the cracked peppercorns was overpowering to the taste.  It wasn't that great of a steak.  My colleague, Simon, seated next to me and who got the exact same thing that I did down to the temperature of the steak, was even more critical and vocal about how bad his meal was.  Mine was edible, but it wasn't what I had expected.   

My colleague, Ian, had also ordered the filet, medium-rare, and without all the "busy-stuff", as he called the peppercorns on our filets.  He felt his was fine, cooked perfectly, had a nice flavor and was tender to the cut and the chew.  My colleague, Matt, had gotten the porterhouse and he, too, said it was very good.  

One of the Brits seated next to me, Ben, had ordered up the bone-in ribeye and he said it was outstanding.  It looked very good and I sort of wished afterward that I would have gotten that instead.  

The sides were all OK.  The mac and cheese was rather pedestrian as were the garlic/horseradish potatoes.  Thankfully, the sauteed mushrooms were pretty good and the broccoli in the hollandaise sauce wasn't overcooked like the ones that were on my entree plate.  

While my steak wasn't the greatest (and Simon would tell you that it was complete shit), the service was still very good with three servers doting on the table of 18 all through the evening.  The wine continued to flow, the conversation was fun, and it turned into a nearly three-hour meal by the time we were finished.  By the end of the evening, we were all full and tired, ready to get back to the hotel as there was still another day of the show left to go.    

With all the world-class steakhouses in Las Vegas, I can name probably a dozen that I'd recommend over Austin's.  But the menu prices weren't outrageous, the service was pretty good, however my steak was pretty average, at best.  If I ever make it back to Austin's, and I'm not certain I will, I won't order the filet au poivre style.  But for the most part, it was a good value and an OK place to eat in an otherwise dingy and seedy casino in Vegas.

Epic Burger - Chicago

About a year ago, I had stopped into the Old Orchard Mall in north suburban Skokie to check in with the Apple retail store than was displaying some of our Focal multimedia loudspeakers.  I saw a burger joint with a rather bold name - Epic Burger - that I wasn't familiar with.  It was around the lunch hour and I thought about stopping in, but the place was packed.  I kept Epic Burger in the back of my mind and actually drove by a couple more in downtown Chicago during the course of the next year.  I had some time to kill between appointments in Chicago on a recent trip and I was doing a little beer hunting at the Binny's on the southwest edge of the Lincoln Park neighborhood.  After leaving there, I looked over at a strip mall next door and saw that there was an Epic Burger location.  (see map)  I decided to stop in for lunch. 

Actually, the Epic Burger in Lincoln Park has been around since June of 2010 and since I usually hit that Binny's on the occasions when I'm in the immediate area, I'm sort of surprised that I hadn't noticed it before.  (That's no surprise to my wife who says I'm not very observant...)  The first Epic Burger opened in the South Loop area of Chicago near Robert Morris University and the Harold Washington Library in May of 2008.  They now have seven locations in the Chicagoland area with plans to open more in 2013.  

The man behind Epic Burger is David Friedman (pictured right), a 25-year-plus veteran of the restaurant industry.  Friedman was trained at the Culinary Institute of America and has held positions as a restaurant and nightclub owner, an executive chef, a corporate chef, as well as a culinary consultant to restaurants and food manufacturers.  Friedman envisioned Epic Burger has a simple burger joint where "less is more", in that having a focused menu will result in better food. 

The beef Epic Burger uses is described as all-natural and "humanely raised" using no anti-biotics or hormones in the growing process.  All the food at Epic Burger is never frozen and never processed.  The buns for the burgers are hand-tossed and baked fresh daily.  The eggs they use on some of the burgers are from range-free chickens and the bacon is all nitrate-free.   The cheese they use is all from Wisconsin and naturally made and aged.  In a world where upscale burger joints are beginning to saturate the market, Epic Burger strives to give their customers a "better burger experience".  

Most of the Epic Burger locations are in downtown Chicago near the loop, but the one just north of North Ave. has ample parking in front.  That is probably more true during the week than the weekend when the lot can get packed with shoppers.  Going into the place and not knowing the drill, I quickly figured out that it was a place that where you order at the counter, then they bring your food to you.  The menu is located just above the ordering station.  As I said, it's pretty basic.  The Epic Burger, alone, is $5.99.  From there you can add a second patty for $2 bucks, as well as your choice of lettuce, onions, tomatoes, pickle and "Epic sauce" for free.  For a small upcharge each, you can get bacon, an egg, and cheese added.  For people who are more health conscious, Epic Burger also has turkey burgers, all-natural grilled chicken sandwiches, and a portabella mushroom burger.  They don't serve beer at Epic Burger, but they do have real fruit smoothies, as well as malts or shakes made from all-natural ice cream, or non-fat yogurt along with organic whole, skim or soy milk.  I almost felt guilty ordering a burger.

I ordered up a burger - a single - and had them top it with some bacon, aged cheddar cheese, and a fried egg, hard.  The counter guy was sort of surprised that I didn't want anything else on the burger - no onions or pickles.  He asked if I wanted any fries and even though they did look good, I declined.  He gave me a table stand with a number at the top and I took a seat at a table in the middle of the restaurant.  

The restaurant, itself, had sort of a contemporary industrial feel to the place.  It had high exposed ceiling with a row of booths along the far wall.  The table and chairs were heavy and sturdy, and were comfortable to sit in.  It was past the lunch rush and the place was a little less than half full.  With the concrete floor, big windows looking out to the parking lot and the metal-trussed ceiling, it was sort of loud in the place.  But I understand that the new chic restaurants are the ones that are loud.  

About 15 minutes after I ordered, the same guy who took my order brought my burger to the table. It had a very good looking bun crown to the burger, crisp on the outside, but flaky inside.  The burger patty was smashed on the grill - not my preferred way of making a burger, but it's growing on me.  A hard fried egg, cheddar cheese and thick cut bacon adorned the top of the burger.  The bun had been toasted to a golden brown and looks like they may have used butter on it before the grilling process.   

The first bite yielded a crisp, yet salty taste to the burger.   I didn't immediately know if I liked it that way.  If you're a regular reader of Road Tips, you probably know by now that I don't salt much of anything.  The salt they use at Epic Burger is sea salt - the only kind of salt I'll use when I use salt.  But the burger had a bit of a salty taste that sort of detracted from the taste of the burger patty.  

However, the bun was excellent, as where the combination of egg, bacon and cheese.  I could have easily eaten a double as the Epic Burger patty was smashed down pretty thin sticking out from all sides of the delectable bun.  Other than the salty taste of the burger patty, it was a very good burger.  

For my first experience at Epic Burger, I was impressed by the burger.  Saltiness aside, the burger had good flavor, was lean, yet still juicy from the smashing technique they use to seal in the juices.  The bun - which is a key to any good burger - was outstanding.  And the extra toppings - egg, bacon and cheese - were great compliments to the overall taste of the burger.  I'm not certain that it was a true "epic" in the sense of the meaning of the word, but it was well above average.   I can see myself going back to an Epic Burger at some point, but with so many other burger places to try in the Chicagoland area in the meantime, it may be awhile before I do get back in.