Suburban Cajun Showdown: 3 Deuces vs. Heaven on Seven vs. Moe Joes

The Service:

Heaven on Seven:  Servers are very friendly and attentive.  Your water glass never goes empty.

3 Deuces: Very understaffed for the night that I went.  I felt ignored most of the time throughout my meal.  Plenty of tables that had not been cleared down.

Moe Joes: Probably the most welcoming of the bunch.  The Appetizers were a little slow to get out but after that the food flew out of the kitchen.

Edge: Moe Joes

The Food:

Bayou Chicken

3 Deuces:  Execution wasn't exactly perfect, but they get points for the creativity of the menu.  Though the menu size is kept small and concise, the dishes also seem to be a bit unique.  The Bayou Chicken signature dish was very good.  The chicken was perfectly fried and crisp and the sauce was quite nice.  It came with broccoli that was steamed to perfection as well.   It took a solid 25 mins to get out my appetizer which consisted of a lukewarm crab cake that in it's defense tasted very fresh and filled with crab and had a very good remoulade sauce accompanying it.  The greens in the salad that were served with it could have been better and some of the greens in it had wilted.  I passed on dessert because they seemed so overwhelmed in the kitchen.

Heaven on Seven:  I started with the Fried Green Tomatoes over a  Warm Remoulade Sauce.  The tomatoes were fried and crispy and the remoulade wasn't the mayonnaise based one that I am accustomed to but is one that is made from a very dark roux that gives a little bit of an acidic punch and a little bit of spice. I settled on the Chicken Fried Steak for the main course and it was tender with that perfectly crisp breading.  Combined with that tasty gravy and you had the perfect execution of a southern favorite.  Not to mention that the portion was so big that I had enough to take home.

Alligator Po Boy

Moe Joes:  I started off with the Calamari, the only problem with this dish was the plating.  It was a good price for the dish the plate it was on made it look as though they were skimping on the calamari  Also it was just slightly greasy though it had a good spicy kick to it.   The turtle soup was tasty and had a strong tomato notes.  You could definitely get the complexity of it from the thick roux that was used to  create it.  The Alligator Po' Boy, was perfectly fried.  It as a little messy to eat but the bread was nicely toasted, and it was a well seasoned dish.  I asked for the sweet potato fries to go along with it and they put cinnamon sugar on their sweet potato fries.  I hate that.  There are some scenarios in which sweet potatoes should be treated like a dessert, say when your making a pie and other scenarios in which they should be treated like a substantial savory side dish.  Like say when they're being fried and subbing in for traditional french fries or onion rings.  There are so many seasoning combinations that would have been better. 

Edge: Draw

The Cocktails:

3 Deuces:  Why am I drinking a halfway decent White Russian at a Cajun themed restaurant? 

Heaven On Seven: The Voo Doo Juice made me feel like I was was walking down Bourbon Street.

Moe Joes:  The Old Fashioned was a pretty epic cocktail made the way it should have been made.  I also tried the Give Me Some Beads, which hides the very strong nature of the drink among fresh juices with a bit of red Bull for some kick.

Edge: Moe Joes

Decor:

Heaven on Seven: More of a casual approach with tons of unique hot sauce bottles bordering the walls.  The place remains fun and casual.

3 Deuces:  An intimate and more of a upscale approach.  3 Deuces lends itself to more of the atmosphere of the more exquisite Cajun restaurants. 

Moe Joes: Lands somewhere in the middle of the two.  Though the jazz music is slightly obtrusive.

Edge: 3 Deuces

Hot Sauce:

3 Deuces: Tabasco.  It is a Louisiana hot sauce but at the same time you can get it anywhere.  Their food stands on it's own anyway.

Moe Joes: Tabasco and Crystal.  Crystal is usually one of my hot sauces of choice and it is a Louisiana hot sauce.

Heaven on Seven: A bunch of unique hot sauces are on every table.  How can you not be tempted to try one named ass on fire?

Edge: Heaven on Seven.

Verdict:

Moe Joes and Heaven on Seven are clearly ahead of 3 Deuces.  That being said I would have to give just the slightest of   victories to Heaven on Seven.  It may only be a victory as controversial as a split decision in  boxing but it is a win none the less.

Cajun Chicken Salad

I decided to use  the remains of the roast chicken I made in order to make a chicken salad. You can also make this salad pretty quickly using a rotisserie chicken from your grocer. Visits to these places had me thinking outside the box of my normal Mediterranean direction that I usually plant myself in using capers and giardiniera and settled on more of a light remoulade to coat the salad.

Ingredients:

1 Half Roast Chicken, Shredded and Deboned, skin removed
1/4 Cup Mayo 
1/4 Cup Hot Sauce (I prefer Frank's or Crystal)
1/8 Cup Grape Seed Oil (Any light oil will work here, Extra Light Olive Oil, Canola Oil, Safflower Oil, etc.)
2 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 Egg Yolk
1 Teaspoon Tomato Paste
2 Tablespoons Pickle Juice
1 pound pasta of any type cooked and drained (Almost any, would be a little silly to use a strand type of pasta like spaghetti or linguine, go with something along the lines of macaroni or farfale, but even orzo would work)
1 Tablespoon Tony Chachere's Cajun Seasoning (Should almost be illegal to do Cajun cooking without it)
1/3 Cup of Dill Pickles Chopped (There are lots of good pickles out there, at the very least use Claussen, but if you have a good local pickler, go with those.   I would never advocate the use of the store-bought stuff that has likely been sitting on a shelf since the Reagan Administration.)

This recipe is pretty simple.  Whisk the Egg yolk (ff you want to take your salmonella risk to near zero, you can put the egg and boiling water for a few seconds and remove I usually skip this since your odds of getting salmonella from eggs is about 1 and 10000 to begin with, but hey I like to live dangerously) and Mayo together  Slowly drizzle in the Olive and grape seed oils while continuing to whisk.  Then do the same with the tomato paste, Pickle Juice and Hot sauce.  Then toss the remaining ingredients together and viola.  A very quick and easy dish.

American Idiot

I'm a pretty big fan of Green Day.  I own all their albums and listen to them all.  I don't know what I was expecting to get out of American Idiot the Musical, but I thought that it couldn't be bad.  I thought completely wrong.  Punk Rock doesn't exactly work in a theatrical setting.  Picture yourself at a Green Day Concert sitting down and listening to the music rather than being in a  pit or something getting into the music.  Then imagine that the band is replaced with a mediocre cover band.  There you have it folks, that's American Idiot in a nutshell.

Not to say that the dancing and singing wasn't good because it was.  The whole thing just came across as a poorly done version of Rock of Ages.  I guess I had too high of expectations for the show, but when the curtain closed, I was glad that it was not an intermission.  The plot was pretty much nonexistent.  A short bit of profanities in-between every song.  I walked in thinking "How could this be bad?" and walked out thinking "How could I think that this would be good?"

Carpaccio

Anyhow I decided to cheer myself up from this overwhelmingly mediocre performance with not just a good meal but a great meal.  I had been wanting a good steak ever since I had my well overpriced and just decent steak at Morton's in Miami.  Smith and Wollensky is where I decided to make up for it.  I usually decide to go with a seafood based appetizer whenever I'm going to have a great steak dinner, I don't know why.  If my good friend Doug was around I would have definitely done the Calamari along with the Carpaccio that I ended up going with.  Served on a Himalayan Salt Block I was sold by it.  My only complaint about it was that the crostini served along side it were slightly thick for my taste.

Rather than enjoy just one steak I got the Tenderloin Trio.  It was a good value in I would be able to try out three different sauces for the steak.   The steak in general was just slightly over the Medium Rare that I requested but not so overdone that I would send it back.  The Roasted Chipollini onion sauce was very sweet and just slightly earthy.  I will be the first to claim to be a person that likes things on the salty side, but the bacon on the Gorgonzola crusted steak almost made the steak a little too salty (I'm nitpicking here though, the steaks were excellent).  The third in the trio was the Foie Gras and Mushroom Ragout.  The delicate fatty Foie Gras gets lost among the boldness of the dry aged steak.

Coconut Cake

The sides were just not disappointing.  The green beans I had were cooked to perfection and I kind of wish that the server would have pointed out that there was Gorgonzola on the green beans as well because I would have ordered a different side as I like to avoid overlapping flavors.  Had I known this I would have probably went with the Asparagus as a veg.  The Truffle Mac and Cheese in my opinion lacked a little bit of both truffle and salt.  Should have been called Mac and Cheese with a hint of Truffle rather than Truffle Mac and Cheese.

Desserts are big enough for two to share and my Coconut cake was huge.  The cake was moist and perfectly sweet and I love the fresh coconut strips that garnish the top of the cake.  It's nothing like my Great Grandma's coconut cake with the lemon filling, but it's still pretty tasty.

Chef's Week Part 2: Japonais

I felt obliged to go to Japonais during chef's week, as it is the favorite of a couple of my friends.  Japonais is French for Japanese.  I haven't been to many fusion restaurants, they usually fall a little flat for me to be honest.  Elegantly incorporating the cooking techniques of two different cultures is a hard feat to accomplish.  Go too far one way or the other and you don’t remain true to the referenced cultures, you create dishes that are alienating and foreign in the sense that they feel as though they are from another planet and not another country.

Spicy Hamachi Roll

Japonais is definitely an upscale establishment.  There are many lounge style seating areas.  The place definitely gives off that upscale business casual sort of a vibe. For me I’m all about value and looking at the regular menu, the prices seem a little steep even for me.  For instance I love rib eye steak.  It is probably my favorite cut of meat.  A bone in rib eye, which is nicely marbled, can deliver really high on flavor.  However, I cannot justify in my mind spending $72 on a steak.  Their seven spice waygu beef rib eye must be phenomenal. 

Now that the hypotheticals are out of the way, I can stop talking about what was theoretically good or not, and move on to what I actually tried.  The three courses for $44 was an excellent value and a party of three ordering different dishes would give us a good sample size of the dishes.

The Booze:

Braised Short Ribs

The Flying Orchid their signature cocktail that comes complete with an edible orchid is quite the well balanced sweet drink.  It does lack some of the floral notes that I would want in such a cocktail, as they use vodka vice gin.  It’s definitely lands in the category of chick drink, but it is damn tasty.

Geisha Ok so I really love lychees.  They’re probably one of my favorite fruits.  It’s a shame that I don’t get to enjoy them often.  I know that I have mentioned this before but a cocktail with lychees is a definite try for me.  You get sweetness from the Lychees in this one and it is balanced by a little bit of cranberry.  As far as lychee drinks go this one was not one of my favorites as though it felt like many of the other elements in that drink hide the flavor that I think should be the most prominent.  This is not to say that you can’t taste the lychees in the drink, because they were definitely featured in it.  The lychees just ended up being more like a Chris Brown when I wanted a Michael Jackson

Lobster Spring Rolls

Yuzu Julep Reading through the menu when you come across this drink, I immediately had the thought how come I couldn’t think of that.  It’s so obvious, a play at a whiskey sour it was with mint that was present but not prevalent enough to garner the name julep.  All in all it was a solid drink.

The Food:

Our first appetizer was the spicy Hamachi roll.  I really liked the roll quite a bit, though the white onion salsa just slightly overpowered the delicate fish.  The Hamachi roll was clearly sushi elevated to a level above that what you would get at your average sushi purveyor.  The spicy tuna roll that we were served was pretty good, but wasn't exactly amazing either.

Beef Carpaccio

Then there was the Carpaccio.  I have always been a big fan of Carpaccio and whenever I see Carpaccio or tartare on a menu I am obliged to try it.  There is something great about being able to create a good dish without any heat.  This particular version was one of the best perpetrations I’ve ever had.  The soy and ginger meld with the yuzu to create this complex and intriguing blend of acidity, saltiness and umami.

The lobster spring rolls were pretty good, but even though they were advertised as lobster spring rolls they tasted much more like shrimp than lobster. They were fried nice and crisp and the orange glaze and mango relish went well with them.

Out of the entrees, my favorite was the braised short ribs.  These short ribs were tender and the glaze danced around that perfect line of reduction to a thick sweet thickness just before being over reduced.  The duck was also quite tasty.  It is lightly smoked and also has a slightly sweet glaze and mango chutney.  It is thinly sliced and served with mushu style wrappers.

Cheesecake

The dessert was especially good too.  I’m not much for sweets, but this cheesecake was quite good.  It had an almond crust and was not too sweet.  The dried pineapple was a great garnish for it.

Agony of Defeat

There's nothing wrong with 27 wins in a row.  Second most all time.  It is a very impressive run.  Still I was pretty disappointed by the loss.  Oh Well.

Pork Hash at Bite Cafe

On this particular trip to Chicago, I would start off with breakfast at Bite Cafe.  It is a cozy little cafe that is amazing for being BYOB.  The baby blue chairs accent the unassuming and comfortable little cafe.  I really went because of the menu though, one item in particular.  The pork hash.  The pork shoulder was braised to be very tender and had the nice bite of a bit of vinegar that I love in a pork shoulder.  It reminds me of when my great grandmother made pork shoulder.  Two of my favorite vegetables also made an appearance in the hash, kholrabi and brussel sprouts.  When you top everything with the spicy hollandaise, you end up with a dish of pure bliss.  The menu describes a crispy sourdough that accompanies it but the toast being under the mounds of hash doesn't remain crisp.  This is not to say that the toast isn't tasty as a matter of fact I do like it being underneath to soak up the hollandaise sauce an runny egg yolks.  The crowning achievement of the place was the mashbrown.  It is one of those taste to believe it things but I think it  is one of the best hashbrowns I've ever tasted.  It is crisp and  has creamy mashed potatoes on the inside and a nice bit of onion flavor from scallions.

I checked into the Hilton Chicago, again and this time they were doing renovations on the lobby.  I was kind of surprised that they didn't have anything regarding the upgrades on their website.  It was only a minor annoyance and this time I had a much larger room on one of the floors that had not been renovated.  Overall it was still a good experience.

Andoullie Corn Dogs at The Southern

For dinner that night I ate at The Southern.  I wanted to love this place, I really did.  The decor was awesome.  It's set up as to be a restaurant that serves upscale southern food.  The servers were awesome.  I started out by having one of the Maple Bacon Manhattans, which was really the selling point to get me into the place.  It winded up being not disappointing but more of an excuse to have a slice of bacon to accompany your drink.  I enjoyed the drink quite a bit but it was still a little disappointing.

The overall big complaint I have about the Southern was that all of their food was way under seasoned.  The fried chicken had crispy skin and was perfectly fried, but if there wasn't hot sauce on the table, I wouldn't have been able to eat it because it was so bland.  Also I have no idea how you can even make a Cajun dish like an andouille corn dog so completely pedestrian.     The batter needs flavor and seasoning.  Southern dishes deliver strong bold flavors rich well seasoned dishes.  Not a average corn dog with a mustard dipping sauce that tasted like somebody popped open a bottle of French's.

Potted Pork at Howells and Hood

For the game I had a seat in the club level, which is nice since they take orders for your food and drinks.  I have been to the United Center before for a concert and it is just acoustically horrible.  For a basketball game though, it is pretty good.  I had a pretty good view of the court and was close enough in the 200 section that I rarely looked at the screen.   That being said it would be hard to convince me to go to a game there again since the tickets are so pricey.  

In the morning I couldn't decide where I wanted to eat and I finally after scrolling through lists of places I finally decided on Howell's and Hood, since I was passing through breakfast time and into lunchtime.  The prices are a little up there but it is one of those cases where you get what you pay for.  I thought it would be awesome to go to a place where they have 104 beers on tap, a beer lovers paradise.  Then I was overwhelmed by the astonishing array of choices.  The beer menu is organized pretty well but the only complaint I have about the beer selections is that they should have many more flights.  There are a hundred and four beers and you might want to try a lot of them.

Lobster Roll at Howell's and Hood

I started off with the smoked potted pork.  Could have used a couple of extra slices of baguette toast to accompany it, but overall  it was still pretty great.  It almost seems as though the dish might even be a little under priced when you consider the fact that you are enjoying the amazing presentation that you get with it being served in a small cast iron pot.  The pork is really tender and chopped into fine pieces to make it spreadable over the baguette.  It also has that nice compliment of acid with a little bit of vinegar and the apples are delicious and not overcooked to the point of mushiness.

Then there was the lobster roll.  The lobster was amazingly fresh and on the nicely buttered roll. It had so much lobster and you could really taste the freshness of it.  It was paired with these purple potato chips, that were beautiful and crispy and had just the perfect addition of vinegar.  I wonder what this place would like when it's busy since there are so many workers.

The Perfect Roast Chicken:

Cooking chicken isn't rocket  science after the disappointing displays of chicken I had at Mon Ami Gabi and The Southern I wanted to make some really great chicken and here it is.  Meat is one thing that you should never skimp on and if you use a free range bird, you will appreciate the much chickenier taste.

Brine Ingredients:

1 Gallon Water
1/2 Cup Vinegar
1/3 Cup Sugar
1/3 Cup Salt
30 Cardamon Pods
3 Bay Leafs

1 Roasting Hen
1/4 Cup Olive Oil
1 Tablespoon Dried Tyme
Fresh Ground Black Pepper

This recipe is pretty simple.  All you have to do is combine the brine ingredients and let them dissolve.  If you don't have cardamon or bay, you probably have something that usually has a lot of good spices in it.  You can toss in a couple of shots of good quality Gin.  If you don't have good Gin in your house shame on you.  The chicken will still be pretty good without it.

Put the chicken in the brine for 8-12 hours.

Remove the chicken from the brine and pat it dry.
Rub the olive oil over the chicken and sprinkle on the tyme and black pepper

Roast in a 375 degree oven until you get 160 degrees Fahrenheit in the thickest part of the thigh and breast (about 45 mins to an hour depending on the size of your bird). 

Let The Beets Drop

Beet salad has been a popular one as of late.  One of my favorites I've had recently was at Trenchermen.  They slow roast their beets (overnight at 175 degrees) so they get chewy and intensely sweet.  As an added bonus, you get the aroma of the beets in your house for the entire cooking process.  I decided to combine this with elements I liked from Beet Salad at Topolobampo and Aria.  At Trencherman they combined the slow roasted beets with your good old fashioned roasted beets.  I wanted to feature the raw beets to add additional crispness to the salad.  Yeah I know twelve hours is a lot of time to put in for beet salad, but it is worth it.

Ingredients

• Two bunches beets (About 1.5 pounds) (Save the greens)
• 5 oz Arugula
• 8 oz Goat Cheese
• 1/3 Cup hazelnuts.

Meyer Lemon Vinaigrette

• One Meyer Lemon (If you cant find them you can substitute a regular lemon with a teaspoon of orange juice)
• 1 tsbp Fresh Chopped Dill
• 2 Teaspoons champagne vinegar
• 1/3 Cup Good quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil (I usually keep two types of olive oil on hand.  One rather expensive bottle, that I use whenever I'm making salad dressing, or anything that I'm not heating the oil for.  The other, still Extra Virgin, I use for cooking at low heat, because the nuances in flavor of the better quality Olive oils tend to die in the heat)

Step 1: Toast the Hazelnuts.  I've learned over the years, that even though I'm a pretty decent cook when it comes to toasting anything, it needs my undivided attention unless I want something burnt.  You can toast the nuts in a small pan over medium heat stirring until fragrant.  No matter how tempted you are don't step away.  They will burn, you will be mad, and have to start over.  Then give those nuts a rough chop.

Other Longer and Probably happened first Step 1a:  Slow roast half the beets.  Remove the greens from the beets and the tops.  Don't trow away those tops though Beet greens are awesome.  Cut half of the beets into  steak fry shaped pieces (The best way I can think of describing it off the top of my head).  Loosely wrap them in aluminum foil allowing a couple of inches of open space to vent and let them go for a solid 12 hours in the oven at 175 degrees.

Step 2: Peel and julienne the other half of the beets. I love Oxo and their Good Grips Mandoline Slicer makes quick work of this.  If you're not a cooking enthusiast and spending $99 on a slicer seems absurd to you, then do not despair.  I have a few more tricks up my sleeve.  One, is using the vegetable peeler, make ribbons out of the beets once you've peeled them.  Another method is to blanch them in boiling water for a minute and evacuate them into an ice bath for julienne by hand.  My knife skills aren't that great and there is no way that I would get the julienne of a beet as small as the mandoline slicer can get by hand.  The blanching isn't necessary, it just gets the beet slightly easier to cut.


Step 3: Make the vinaigrette.  Add in salt and pepper, as well as the zest from the lemon at the end of your whisking.   The lemon juice goes in at the beginning.  The mustard which is suggested in the video is not needed.

Step 4: It's a salad so put everything together.

Bonus:  Some of my favorite ways to eat beet greens are as follows:
Sauteed in bacon fat. (Hey you're eating veggies you can afford to have a little bacon)
Sauteed with a little garlic and olive oil.
Finely chopped for next mornings Omelette.