Orange

Orange

75 W Harrison, Chicago, IL 60605

I posted a long rant about this place already on my bacon blog, but I suppose for the sake of posterity, I should say something about it here, and rather than repost my irate ramblings, I figured I'd try to write something a bit more level-headed and coherent. A few weeks later, I still think the place is totally overrated. But I'm ready to use my indoor voice when talking about it now. 

Ask any breakfast afficionado to recommend a place, and likely as not, they'll mention Orange. "They do this thing where they make fruit sushi, it's so neat!" The lines are famously long, but people swear up and down that it's worth the wait. But they're wrong. 

Granted, the interior is pleasant, and the place is actually well designed to handle hordes of hungry waiting people. At least, the Loop location is - I can't speak to the other ones. The place has a funky, upbeat feel to it. But what irritates me about it is that the whimsical funkiness of the place is a total illusion. It tries to pretend it's some fabulous fantasy candy land of no rules and sweets for breakfast (or fancyschmancy yuppy fare) but the food is decidedly mediocre and the experience is incredibly frustrating. It's misguided, is what it is. Almost anything you get off the menu will, at best, be fabulous for maybe two bites, but then you just want it to go away. And you'll kind of resent yourself for having ordered it, and for how much money you're about to pay for it. And in the meantime, you'll find yourself getting annoyed over petty, stupid things like the fact that they tie each set of silverware up with a string - what a waste of perfectly good string, not to mention, somebody's time just to tie that shit! Ugh! That's what Orange does to me. I can't stand the place. I try to play nice, I try to give it another chance, but it pulls the same ol' bullshit, and every time, I'm just a little more pissed. It's over, Orange. We are SO through.  Pack up your bland breakfast potatoes and candied pancake offerings and get the hell out. 

Cans

Cans, 1640 N Damen, Chicago, IL 60647

Brunch: 10am-3pm Saturday and Sunday

Dude, check out their webpage. It's AMAZING.

Cans  is the kind of bar where you would not be surprised to see people doing body shots. You can almost hear the faint echoes of “WOO! SPRING BREEEAAAK!” reverberating off the walls. I say almost, because even if the howls of lusty co-eds did have that kind of staying power, they’d probably be drowned out by the bizarre music selection – Top 40 hits intermingled with GNR, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and... the Beatles? I guess it makes sense. But not first thing on a Sunday morning. There are at least 5 tvs in the place. In case you managed to find a spot that isn’t facing a tv, there’s a gigantaur mirror along the wall that ensures that you’ll be able to see the Bouncy and Fun! Jeep ad from wherever you’re sitting.

Jen is going to explain the hollandaise debacle in depth, so ima focus on other things. Like the bloody mary bar. Holy crap the bloody mary bar is awesome. For $6 they will either bring you a bloody mary sans garnish, or a pint glass of vodka and ice. Jen went for the easy option, I went for the start from scratch option. I quickly regretted this decision, because there have got to be at least 8 different bloody mary mixes to choose from (and the good ol’ standy of regular-ass V8), and that’s an awful lot of responsibility to handle before your morning coffee. There are also 3 or 4 different hot sauces, some steak sauce, worcestershire, and a container of Cajun Seasoning. I dumped in all of them. And then, the garnishes. Sweet jesus, the garnishes. Why order breakfast? Celery, peppers, cucumbers, pickles, limes, lemons, 2 kinds of olives, cocktail onions, pepperoncini, jalapenos, several kinds of cheese (Jen: How will the bleu cheese crumbles work with the straw?), and two different kinds of meat garnish. Sidenote: I am informed that the meat I consumed was what Oscar Meyer calls salami. This blew my mind. Anyhow, I gleefully manufactured the mother of all bloody marys, only to realize I'd forgotten the celery and could not longer fit it into the glass without threatening its structural integrity. It was awesome. 

Build it, and they will come.

Their brunch menu is fairly small, but it covers all the bases (scrambles, eggs benny, french toast, pancakes, skillets), and includes a build your own breakfast sandwich option. These people really believe in giving you a sense of agency, apparently. While some women might find it demoralizing to be bombarded with hypersexualized images on tv, I revelled in a sense of empowerment. I can have breakfast ANY WAY I WANT. I went with the breakfast skillet, potatoes, onion, peppers and bacon, with cheddar thrown on at my request. Although the potatoes looked vaguely plasticized, they were quite tasty - much better than the usual sports bar fare. The best part of the breakfast, though, is the side of toast - their texas toast rocks my world. Seriously though, the food isn't amazing when compared to some of the other things that Chicago has on offer, but it's way, way better than you'd expect from a place of that kind. 

You're not gonna get much feedback from me regarding service, because I find people who bitch about service really annoying, but in this case, it should be mentioned that our waitress was super friendly, and really nice about the what I have decided to call the Eggs Hollangate. Also, I was watching some of the bartenders play pool (they remove the cover from the pool table at noon, I think), and I saw a guy make one of the most bad-ass shots in pool I have ever seen. It was sweet.  So yeah, gold star for the employees.

I have a hard time recommending such an all-out frat bar with a straight face. Especially when the food, though good, isn't amazing. The bloody mary bar is kind of amazing. But the thing about starting your day off with a bloody mary is, once you've had one, you might as well have 5 and spend the rest of the day shooting pool and watching James Bond movies. 

At the same time though, there is something very appealing about the place. As far as frat bars go, it's pretty top-notch - decent prices, good food, lots of tvs, etc. And when you go on Sunday morning, it's pretty much empty. In other words, it's like a kind of theme park/playground, where you can go play with all the toys without having to interact with the people who generally frequent such establishments. So you get all the fun parts without the popped-collar-gelled-fauxhawk guy either running game or looking at you like you're some kind of frizzy haired space alien that has inexplicably materialized in his periph. It's kind of neat. Much like Disneyland, you probably wouldn't wanna go there weekly, but once in awhile, it's a good time.

Woo! Spring Break!

Why Tinajon Makes My Day, And Orange Makes Me Cry -OR- Everyone Here Is On the Wrong Side of the Street

I must confess from the beginning that I was dying to go back to Orange.

I had only been there once, and I still rue not ordering the flight of pancakes when I had the chance. Those things consistently look amazing, and the square, portioned plates that they are served on are just too sexy. So when Kasia, Harold and I strolled into this restaurant around the corner from Printer’s Row, I was totally pumped.

The next hour bore witness to the slow, tragic deflation of my naïve hopes.

The day’s flight of pancakes was Candy Land themed. That meant tons of peanut brittle, cherry syrup, chocolate chips, and even crushed up lollipop garnish. I took one look at the description and knew that that dish would leave me one gumdrop shy of a diabetic coma, so I dealt with my grief and turned to the omelets. The list was short, topped with a disclaimer about how all the omelet recipes had been meticulously crafted, and the suggestion that you seek out a build-your-own omelet, should that be your desire, at some other place with either “Golden” or “Nugget” in the name.

Now, I happen to be of the opinion that if you are going to dish out that kind of pretention, you have to push the product to back it. In this respect, Orange was an epic fail. My pesto eggs were cold, bland, and barely even tasted of basil. They were not made with love. They tried to pass off a molded wad of starchy goo as “home fries,” and, I shit you not, the “multigrain toast” that I ordered was pre-sliced Pepperidge Farm. Shenanigans.

The real warning lights went off early, though, when Kasia, who has very particular dairy issues, asked to swap out the cheese in her omelet, and was met by a face of mild panic on the waitress. She looked like she was as eager to ask the cooks to make a substitution as I am to confess my flossing habits to my dentist. That tells me that the kitchen is being run by an egomaniacal dick wad who I should know better than to trust with something as emotional as my breakfast.


So, the following weekend, as our breakfast adventures took us up north to Roscoe Village, Kasia and I discovered a second Orange location on N Roscoe, we both let out audible cries of distaste as we drove past. My housemate Sean took us to this fateful block to eat at Tinajon, a tiny little Guatemalan restaurant that boasts a hearty breakfast menu, and home to Sean’s summer stint as a bus boy in 2003. We shoveled past the droves of customers waiting to pack themselves into trendier breakfast joints, and grabbed a table in sunny dining room of this overlooked little gem.


There are no huge surprises on this menu, no crazy food experiments or gluttonous combinations that make the menu pop, but every single thing we ordered was great. And I mean great. From the homemade salsa, to the refried beans and rice, every thing was spot on and done just right. I ordered the yucca con ajo as an appetizer, and it was spectacular. The garlic spicing was perfectly balanced, and wasn’t so heavy that it destroyed your palate for later. For my meal, I had huevos con pollo, which turned out to be a simple egg scramble with shredded chicken, tomatoes, and hot peppers, and spices. It was a simple dish but done so well. I was impressed. An egg scramble impressed me. Not many restaurants can make me say that. Damn, even the rice was fantastic. I swear, they put coconut fat in it. Yum.

Also, lest ye be afeared that a place like Tinajon will venture too far from the usual breakfast fare for a regular Saturday morning, I have to mention that this place held its own by being one of the very few honest to goodness restaurants that will refill your coffee and refill it often. Five or six times maybe. And they brew it with cinnamon. You have no idea what you are missing.

Leaving Tinajon, it was almost tragic to see the crowds of people waiting with their screaming children to over pay for bland, pretentious cooking at Orange across the street. My breakfast was so good that it left my body humming. I shook my head at the Orange patrons, watching them putter around the hostess like penguins on an iceberg. There is nothing inside for them to order, no place for them to go, that isn’t cold, wet, and ultimately not quite as good as the standing around they were doing before hand. Do yourself a favor, guys, and cross the street. Cross the street as fast as you can. Orange doesn’t love you. Get your dvd’s back from his house and break it off. Your new lover, Tinajon, will bring the passion back to your mornings.

…I do still think about that flight of pancakes sometimes.

El Tinajon

El Tinajon, 2054 W Roscoe Street, Chicago, IL 60618

M-Th 11am-10pm, F, Sa 10am-11pm, Su 10am-10pm

Instead of waiting an hour to get a table at Orange on Roscoe, head down the street to this marvelous little restaurant. El Tinajon is a fantastic Guatemalan joint that apparently has very tasty lunches and dinners. I wouldn't know, but I believe it. Their breakfast options aren't massively extensive; they're mostly fairly simple combinations of eggs, beans, fried plantains and rice, but they're very, very well done. The interior is homey but not cheesy; warm orange walls and some mediocre paintings of village streets and Mayan ruins. The service is prompt and friendly.

As soon as you sit down, fresh chips and salsa are set in front of you. Not especially amazing, but good. The water, I have to say, kind of tasted like swimming pool. It was strange. The coffee, on the other hand, is fantastic, rich and smooth and with a hint of cinnamon. They're not that quick on the refills, but then, many restaurants don't really seem to understand just how much coffee I wanna drink in the morning (I'm not even kidding - I share responsibility for one place revoking its bottomless cup policy). 

For an appetizer, Jen ordered the yucca for us all to share. I had ever eaten a yucca. It's a lot like a potato, albeit somewhat mushier, kinda. This arrived in small cubes, coated in some marvelous spices and fried or possibly baked. I don't think I'm going to become a yucca enthusiast, but I also don't think I'm going to get yucca that good in very many other places. I'll bet it's really easy to prepare yucca in a way that really accentuates its bland mushiness, rather than playing to its strengths as a mild-mannered vegetable.

For an entree I had the Huevos a la Mexicana, scrambled eggs with cilantro, tomatoes, onions and peppers, served with rice and black beans. The scramble wasn't particularly complex, but it was simple, good food done right. Not too dry, not too mushy, the various vegetables came together into a solidly tasty symphony. The black beans were really quite good - I'm not usually a big fan of beans, but these were flavorful and actually enhanced my eating experience. The rice, also, packed more flavor than you'd expect, and had just the right sticky-but-not-mushy texture, a nice change from usual bone-dry fare one finds as an accompaniment to a lot of Latin American food. I got a side of the fried plantains, and they rocked my world. Buttery fried goodness. 

If you have never encountered beans, rice and plantains for breakfast, you owe it to yourself to give it a try. It may seem strange at first (like, wow! dinner for breakfast!), but it's actually a much healthier, pleasanter eating experience than most American breakfasts. You'll leave full and energized but not stuffed to the gills and ready to lie down. It's fairly simple food, but it's good for you. You may scoff at the idea of fried food being healthy, but I tell you what - you know it is, because of how you'll feel after eating it. Trust me on this one.

Anyways, an enthusiastic recommendation from me on this one. I will definitely be coming back for more. Probably quite soon, actually, given that my car broke down right after breakfast and I had to leave it there. Um. The food is great!

Our Mission

So I was a little dubious about starting yet another blog (I've already got two somewhat frivolous blogs, one about books and movies and one about bacon) but this morning, we were finishing an absolutely incredible meal at a marvelous little Guatemalan joint up in Roscoe Village, and I thought, man, people need to know about this place. This is one of the best breakfasts I've had in awhile, and here it is, cheap and delicious and no wait at all for a table, and meanwhile just down the street people are flocking to Orange and thinking they're gonna treat themselves. 

And yes, you might say, "you know why there's no wait? Because people don't know about it." True dat my friend, but you know, if you somehow managed to stumble across this blog, you deserve to know. And those restaurants deserve business. And I truly believe there is enough brekkies out there for everyone to have some.

Thus, we launch our newest project, Champions of Breakfast. Updates will probably be on a weekly basis, because we're not so decadent as to go out for brekkies more often than that (if only!). But our aim is to give you the low-down on the good, the bad and the ugly of Chicago's breakfast scene. Who knows, given our crazy nomadic habits, other cities might even guest-star.