Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [141]
Among the “Italian” dishes is one that we’ve found only in Chicago, and it is magnificent: chicken Vesuvio. Chicken Vesuvio is several bone-in pieces of chicken, sautéed then baked to utmost succulence, encased in a dark, red-gold crust of lush skin that slides from the meat as the meat slides off its bone. Is it tender? Yeah, baby! The dark meat in particular sets new standards for chicken tenderness. Piled among the chicken are wedges of potato, long-sautéed in a bath of white wine, garlic, olive oil, and spice until they are soft as mashed inside, but develop crunchy edges. Even if you don’t get chicken Vesuvio, “Vesuvio” potatoes are available as a side dish to go with any steak or chop. The only problem about ordering them is that you likely won’t also be ordering Harry Caray’s garlic mashed potatoes, which are superb.
The setting is vintage: a 1895 Dutch Renaissance–style limestone building now on the National Register of Historic Places, its interior a luxuriously muscular space of mahogany woodwork and broad tables covered by thick white napery. Although a sumptuous place to which many customers come in pinstriped business suits, there is a democratic feel about this dining room that makes any decently dressed customer feel right at home. Harry Caray was a people’s hero, and that’s the way he liked it.
Lagomarcino’s
1422 5th Ave.
309–764–1814
Moline, IL
LD | $
Started as a Moline candy store in 1908, Lagomarcino’s is still renowned for hand-dipped chocolates, as well as fancy fruit baskets. You won’t find better sponge candy anywhere. (Sponge candy is crunchy chunks of spun molasses enrobed in dark chocolate, also known as “fairy food,” “seafoam,” and “violet crumbles.”) And the chocolate-dipped fruit repertoire includes orange, apricot, pineapple, pear, and kiwi.
What we like best is the hot fudge sundae, its fudge made from a recipe acquired in 1918 from a traveling salesman for the princely sum of twenty-five dollars. It is a bittersweet, not-too-thick elixir that just may be the best hot fudge in this solar system or any other. When you order a sundae, the great, dark stuff is served in a manner befitting its distinction: in a small pitcher alongside the tulip glass full of ice cream and whipped cream, so you can pour or spoon it on to taste. This serving technique provides a fascinating demonstration of how one’s soda fountain habits reflect one’s personality. Do you pour on all the fudge at one time, willy-nilly, risking that some will spill over the sides of the serving glass? Do you pour it on spoonful-by-spoonful, carefully ensuring that every bite will have just the proper balance of ice cream and fudge? Or do you eat all the ice cream, with maybe just a dash of fudge poured on, so you can then conclude your snack by downing all the hot fudge that remains in one dizzy chocoholic binge?
Leon’s
1640 E. 79th St.
773–731–1454
Chicago, IL
LD | $
For the Roadfooder traveling through town, Leon’s is a huge pain in the neck. That’s because the food it serves is some of the messiest barbecue anywhere, and there is no place to eat it. Everything at Leon’s is take-out. On a pleasant afternoon, it would be great to dine standing up off the trunk of one’s car, but local gulls are wise, and as soon as any food is out in the open, they start flocking and squawking and making threatening dives toward your meal. While we have never actually been attacked, these birds make outdoor dining feel downright dangerous. So you eat in your car, winding up with sauce on your fingers, the steering wheel, the seats, the gear shift, everywhere.
Rant over. The fact is, we love this place. The food is Chicago soul barbecue at its finest. Ribs, rib tips, and hot links are insanely luxurious, the rib meat pulling from its bones in long, savory strips, the hot link a real Chicago-style sausage, very soulful but with a distinct Italian accent. All these things are available with mild or hot