Chicago Flower & Garden Show offers theatrical preview of spring

Do you need a breath of spring? The snow’s still piled up and we’ve weeks of mudtime ahead before things start turning green, but you can get a preview of the coming season starting tomorrow during the Chicago Flower & Garden Show on Navy Pier through Sunday, March 14.
The 2010 show’s theme, “Cultivating Great [...]

Crawfish season is comin’ to Chicagoland

Here’s the best deal we’ve found in the Chicago area: Every Wednesday and Thursday night, from March 3 through April 29, Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen in Arlington Heights and Westmont will offer boiled mudbugs, served with potatoes and corn on the cob, for $3.95 per pound. The crawfish dinner deal is for dine-in customers only.
Need to [...]

Chicago food news and views from around the Web

We check out all the best foodie news from Chicago restaurant chefs and others….

Chef Grant Achatz of Alinea in Lincoln Park recounts his experience judging the Bocuse d’Or culinary competition, where competitors included Jennifer Petrusky, a sous chef at Charlie Trotter’s. He ponders whether the international contest could become a reality show, like “Top Chef [...]

Leah’s Notebook: Comings, goings, this and that

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MANNY’S! On this day in 1942, Jack Raskin opened what was to become Chicago’s foremost delicatessen, Manny’s Coffee Shop & Deli in the South Loop. Going stronger than ever, Manny’s is now run by Jack’s grandson Ken and great-grandsons Danny and Matt Raskin.
PUBURBAN NEWS. Bob McCullough’s Pub & Billiards has opened in Schaumburg [...]

Can you handicap Chicago’s Top Chef Masters?

We have upped the ante in our Top Chef Masters contest.

Can Chicago keep the Top Chef Masters title? Tell us and win

Graham E. Bowles
David Burke
Tony Mantuano
M. Samuelsson
Rick Tramonto

 
UPDATE: Prizes announced! Be first to pick the ending position of all five Chicago chefs and you can host a segment of Dining Chicago on TV with David Lissner at one of Chicago’s most famous restaurants, along with dinner. For 10 others who come closest, there will be [...]

Earn triple points at Lettuce Entertain You today

Today is Triple Points Day at Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises! Members the restaurant group’s Frequent Diners program will threefold points toward future meals if they dine at participating restaurants today.
Lettuce Entertain You was the first Chicago chain to offer a Frequent Diners program, one of many innovations the company, perhaps the single most influential [...]

Free fish days at the Shedd Aquarium

OK, they’re not fish to eat, but only to look at.
The Shedd Aquarium is open for free on Mondays and Tuesdays all this month, as well the whole of next week, Feb. 15 through 19.
The free admission applies only to the original galleries, and not special exhibits or the Oceanarium, but there are plenty [...]

Size matters! Be the big man at the wienie roast with this Chicago hot dog

You no longer need to be embarrassed by your puny hot dog, you can have the biggest wiener at the cookout!
Gorilla Tango Novelty Meats, a strange new sideline for the folks behind Chicago’s Gorilla Tango Theatre, introduces the Big Hot Dog, a 16-inch-long, 4-inch-diameter, 7-pound wienie.
No ordinary Chicago-style dog, this frankenfurter is made of [...]

Burglars targeting Chicago restaurants

As if the slow economy weren’t enough…. Police warned yesterday that burglars have hit at least a dozen Chicago restaurants.
The break-ins have occurred across the North, West and Northwest sides. The thieves cut phone lines to disable security systems, and broke in through back doors to loot the closed eateries’ safes and steal cash [...]