Colorful Chicago

I'm in Chicago for several days at an academic conference. Yesterday, we arrived early enough to walk up and down the Magnificant Mile and to eat a couple of interesting meals.

We had lunch at Eppy's on Ontario Street downtown. We saw the colorful sign from across the street and decided to give it a try. As we walked down the stairs (it's lower than street level), we saw a small but cozy deli full of local businessmen eating a quick meal. I ordered the tomato basil soup and potato salad, Johnnie ordered the roast beef sandwich. My soup had a very strange taste, although I did like the chunky texture. Johnnie's sandwich, on the other hand, was quite good with its brightly colored meat and horseradish.

I laughed at the handwritten sign claiming that Eppy's came about due to the owner's anger at eating a Subway's sandwich (I feel your pain!) and later seeing the "Soup Nazi" episode of Seinfeld. The quirky owner greets everyone and seems to really enjoy his work. One thing that is unusual about Eppy's is that one pays AFTER the meal instead of before.

After shopping, walking, and resting, we were finally ready for dinner. Alex joined us for sushi at Kamehachi's, a recommendation of the concierge at our hotel. Also, on Ontario Street, this restaurant is well decorated and lit, giving off a golden glow. We ordered two appetizers: vegetable tempura and a vegetable spring roll. We especially liked the latter with its red and green tofu wrappers filled with shitake mushrooms, avocado, noodles and cilantro, served with spicy sesame dipping sauce.

In addition to the Kamehachi platter, we ordered special salmon rolls, spider rolls, and summer rolls. The presentation was nice, but most of the sushi was just okay.

On the left side is our favorite roll of the night, the special salmon with scallions, cucumber, and tempura drizzled with eel sauce. The smoky salmon and crunchy tempura played nicely together. The summer roll on the right combined tuna, yellowtail, green bell pepper, avocado, cilantro, spicy mayonnaise, spicy sesame oil and lime. Although there was a lot going on in that roll, it was flavorful. These two rolls flank the spider roll made with soft shell crab.

The kamehachi platter combined a number of different kinds of sushi including a spicy tuna roll on the upper left and a California roll on the upper right. The spicy tuna roll was my second favorite of the evening.

Although I'm still not sure that I love sushi, I'm glad to have branched out to new flavors and textures. I look forward to continuing this culinary adventure.