NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2001 05:20:11 CDT Organization: Ameritech.Net www.ameritech.net Complaints: [email removed] Xref: usenet.INS.cwru.edu chi.eats:10665 Kenji wrote: > > Headed South for lunch today. I had a hankering for Southern cooking. > Went to Glady's Luncheonette. > > Wow! Felt like I was in Mississippi in 1970. Oh, yeah! I first went there about 20 years ago, when my boss decided to show me some good, down home cooking. As we walked in, I could hear the sounds of people talking, silverware clanking (pretty loud for a place of its size), but when I entered the main room, dead silence. For about 2 seconds, the patrons noticed the white guy who came in...and then the sounds continued. We had a good laugh about it--I was told with a smile that "not a lot of white boys come here for lunch," and we proceeded with the meal. Good food, good service, and a friendly atmosphere. And if IIRC, one of the first places to voluntarily establish a complete "no smoking" policy. Smothered chicken and peach cobbler...Mmmmm. Haven't been there in a while--glad to hear that not much has changed.
Chicago, IL
Wonderful Soul Food
NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 13:35:18 +0000 (UTC) X-Sender: [email removed] In-Reply-To: Xref: usenet.INS.cwru.edu chi.eats:10680 > Good to know about this place, especially since it seems to be > so close to Hyde Park. Any other exceptional recommendtions on > the south side (outside Hyde Park, which I am quite familiar > with)? Neighborhoods as well as isolated great restaurants. > There's a Polish/Baltic place on Cicero near Midway called something like Mabenka. Don't care for the cuisine, myself, but know lots of people who make the trek from all over the city to go there.
User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.1 (PPC) X-Complaints-To: [email removed] Lines: 25 Xref: usenet.INS.cwru.edu chi.eats:10738 , Richard H. wrote: > > Good to know about this place, especially since it seems to be > > so close to Hyde Park. Any other exceptional recommendtions on > > the south side (outside Hyde Park, which I am quite familiar > > with)? Neighborhoods as well as isolated great restaurants. > > > > There's a Polish/Baltic place on Cicero near Midway called something like > Mabenka. Don't care for the cuisine, myself, but know lots of people who > make the trek from all over the city to go there. > I've been to Mabenka once. It's named for the owners three children, BTW. The food is good and the service friendly. If you are looking for a variety of eastern European food, it's one of your better choices. Dave
NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 12:55:12 +0000 (UTC) X-Sender: [email removed] In-Reply-To: Xref: usenet.INS.cwru.edu chi.eats:10841 On 19 Jul 2001, Brian M. wrote: > Someone wrote: > > Richard, I was the one who asked the question. Thank you for your > > reply. This sounds very much like Ford City area but I can't > > remember or visualize it (haven't been there for a while). > > It's a bit past Ford City near 79th and Cicero. If kishka and blood soup are > your kind of thing, go there. I try not to :) > Mabenko 7844 S. Cicero, Burbank, (708) 423-7679. Polish/Russian/Eastern European. Breakfast, lunch, dinner: seven days.
User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.0 (PPC) Message-ID: Lines: 40 X-Trace: X-Abuse-Info: Please forward ALL headers when reporting abuse. X-Complaints-To: [email removed] NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 13:21:51 PDT Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 15:24:45 -0500 Xref: usenet.INS.cwru.edu chi.eats:10663 Headed South for lunch today. I had a hankering for Southern cooking. Went to Glady's Luncheonette. Wow! Felt like I was in Mississippi in 1970. The menu is chocked full of southern cooking favorites. There are specials everyday, which include seafood/fish, chicken, pork and beef dishes. Knowing that I like pretty much all soul food I had the waitress order for me. Pork Chops, one smothered, one fried with dressing. Lunch included two side dishes and choice of corn biscuits or rolls. I chose the bisquits, and had black eyed peas, and collard greeens. Other choices of sides that I remember were okra, mac and cheese, rice, candied yams, fried corn, mashed potatoes...... The two pork chops were pretty large, served with a dressing and of course gravy. Everything tasted like someone's mother made it. Black eyed peas were cooked just right. The greens were a little salty for my personal taste, but were very fresh, and not to smoky flavored. I reviewed the breakfast menu and told myself I'd be back to try it. I even saw three separate choices for brains and eggs. Lunch with two sides and ice tea plus tax came to 10.00. The portions would be large enough to order just one for two people split it and have some other sides added. Service was very professional and efficient. I also want to go back to try the sweet potato pie and peach cobbler, both homemade for desert. Rating, scale of 1-10........ 8. Gladys' Luncheonette 4527 S. Indiana Chicago 773-548-4566 Hours 6:30am-11:30pm Free fenced in parking in Gladys' private lot right next door
NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 19:48:17 CDT Organization: The University of Chicago X-SessionID: [email removed] X-Hash-Info: post-filter,v:1.4 X-Hash: cb267932 b53d1a21 2d3fc9d1 8a02a24c b4a7a788 Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 00:48:17 GMT Xref: usenet.INS.cwru.edu chi.eats:10682 Someone wrote: >Richard H. wrote: > > >>There's a Polish/Baltic place on Cicero near Midway called something like >>Mabenka. Don't care for the cuisine, myself, but know lots of people who >>make the trek from all over the city to go there. > >THAT was a wonderfully informative message! Keep us in mind again >whenever you feel the urge. Here you go-- Mabenka 7844 S. Cicero Ave. 708-423-7679 and a positive review from Chicago Magazine: http://www.tribads.com/chicagomag/text/dining/bbeat.htm John a lurker who (w/o sarcasm) finds chi.eats very informative.
NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 19:04:27 CDT X-SessionID: [email removed] X-Hash-Info: post-filter,v:1.4 X-Hash: bf925deb 3ae314e0 38f96863 c4dc049a 2632d151 Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 19:04:26 -0500 Xref: usenet.INS.cwru.edu chi.eats:10698 Richard H. wrote: > > There's a Polish/Baltic place on Cicero near Midway called something like > Mabenka. Don't care for the cuisine, myself, but know lots of people who > make the trek from all over the city to go there. I was working on a Lithuanian series but it isn't finished yet. Since Mabenka has come up in discussion I figured I'd post this now. With this hotter weather, the last thing in the world I feel like is Lithuanian food so it might be a while before I'm ready to post the others. It comes as a bit of a shock to me but two of the better places in Chicago to eat cheaply and well are actually in Burbank. My very first trip to that suburb, just south of Midway airport, was to visit Chuck's, certainly the best of the sit-down barbecue places and one of the best in any category. It was Chuck himself who mentioned Mabenka to me, as one of the other worthwhile places to eat in the vicinity. Mabenka is on a truly horrible stretch of Cicero Avenue that has seemingly every national discount chain store and restaurant franchise. From the outside Mabenka doesn't look too promising, kind of like a Lithuanian Denny's. Even inside it looks a bit like a chain restaurant but it's pleasant enough. It's quite large and bustling, almost always crowded. The Lithuanian combo plate ($6.45-$7.95 depending on the day; an extra buck or less gets you the complete dinner) is a good introduction. Start with a large bowl of soup (hot beet, sauerkraut, tripe, etc) and a nice bread basket (light rye, dense pumpernickel, and egg-raisin). A large boiled potato comes along side the soup, just to get you in the mood. Then a large, forgettable but fresh iceberg salad with standard-issue dressings. The main plate has a big chunk of kugelis, a mound of sauerkraut, a generous length of homemade Lithuanian sausage, and cepalinais--the mother of all dumplings. This thing looks like a large boiled potato and has a very thick chewy potato-based shell surrounding a mild ground meat filling. Pretty tasty but one of these babies is plenty for me. The sausage is excellent, a fine-textured peppery veal/pork(?) mix, very different from the usual smoked, garlicky Polish version. Sauerkraut is nice and fresh, with a firm texture and a light caraway flavor. The kugelis is the star; I'd strongly recommend getting it with what ever you order. There's a 0.75 surcharge to substitute kugelis for potato with many dishes; go for it, you won't be disappointed. An entire kugelis dinner is also an option but I imagine that might be too much of a good thing. This is rather light-textured as far as kugelis goes (at least compared with the also excellent version at Healthy Food), baked in a flat pan and served in squares. Nice bacon flavor and a fantastic crisp crust. Of course a tub of sour cream comes along. I couldn't resist trying an odd sounding dish: pork goulash served over potato pancakes. Lots of lean pork chunks in a thin gravy came atop a huge bacony pancake. Both were pretty good on their own but serving them together like that didn't seem exactly inspired. The gravy soaked into the pancake and made it rather soggy. It was clearly a superior potato pancake and would have been excellent all by itself. They have a good variety of pancakes, blintzes, and dumplings on the menu. I'll bet many are really good. By the time you finish dinner (almost everyone gets a doggy bag) dessert might seem like a bad joke. Nothing too exceptional, just rice or bread pudding, Jello, ice cream. The rice pudding is blessedly light and rather soupy. Bread pudding is basically the egg-raisin bread, slightly dampened. They have a full bar with cheap mixed drinks ($2.75) and a small, slightly scary wine list. How about an $11 bottle of ruby port to go with your meal? Somewhat more appealing is a Washington riesling ("perfect for salads, Canadian smelts and chicken"). Beer is clearly the way to go with most imports at $2.50. A dollar more gets a half-liter bottle of Kalnapilis from Panevezys, Lithuania. The very large menu includes many fairly standard meat and fish items as well as lots of sandwiches. Some of the more interesting entrees are roast duck ($8.95 for a half duck complete dinner!), Hungarian goulash, lamb or pork shanks, stuffed veal breast, veal tongue, oxtail stew, zrazai (stuffed, rolled steak), and tatar ("fresh pint ground beef tenderloin"). The servers, mostly young Lithuanian women, do a good job but seem overworked. Don't expect the coddling you may get at Healthy Food. It's clearly a mass-feeding operation but they do a very good job at providing some pretty well-prepared food at very good prices. Mabenka 7844 S Cicero Av Burbank IL 60459 708-423-7679 Sn-Th 8am-9pm; Fr-St 8am-10pm