Our culinary tour of Chicagoland continues on this week’s Check, Please!  A great burger, classically prepared pasta dishes, and coq au vin are on the menu.

The tour begins in Evanston, where student and guest reviewer Amber introduces us to a campus favorite, Edzo’s Burger Shop. This is not a low-calorie experience, so save room! At Edzo’s you can build a burger that is the envy of all other burgers. It starts with a fresh (never frozen) choice chuck. Aside from a selection of locally-raised beef options, you can also choose to have a “Griddled” burger, which is pressed down thin on the grill making it crispy or the “Char” burger, which is left thick and juicy. Finish your burger with a selection of cheeses and toppings. For a side, they are hand-cut, twice-cooked potatoes that can be made plain, with garlic, gravies, sauces, and more. And Amber tells us your meal is not complete without a milkshake. They use an old-fashioned Multimixer spindle machine which blends the shakes at a slower speed than modern mixers. According to the Edzo’s website, this older machine whips in less air, so the shake is creamier. During our visit to Edzo’s, our crew raved about these shakes, specifically the addictive Nutella shake. Edzo’s owner and Chef Eddie Lakin is not your average burger-joint cook. After culinary school he worked in European kitchens and many fine dining restaurants in Chicago, but his desire was for something a little different life. He wanted to prepare delicious food at his restaurant and still be home in time to have dinner with his family. So, if you’re going to try Edzo’s, get there before 4:00 pm because they’re only open for lunch (and late lunch).

Next, we visit Chicago’s latest restaurant hot spot, Logan Square. Over the past few years many high quality restaurants have popped up in Logan Square, like Hachi’s Kitchen, Lula, and El Nandu. I actually grew up in Logan Square… it wasn’t such a young and hip place to be back then. It is such a pleasure to visit and see such businesses thriving. On this week’s show, guest reviewer Adam shared his favorite Italian eatery in Logan Square, Buona Terra Ristorante. The cuisine is classic Italian and Chef Jose Garcia adds a special flair to each of his signature dishes. The farm-to-table fresh ingredients were a hit with our reviewers, as well as the crew who took home extras to share with their families on the day of the shoot. This vibrant restaurant is intimate, warm, and relaxing – and definitely a great place for a date night. Amber says it’s her new favorite place in Logan Square, and all of the reviewers agreed it was a delicious experience that is priced right. Check them out on Thursdays when they have a fantastic prix fixe menu for $21.95.

Finally, this week’s culinary tour ends with a relaxed, French dining experience in Oak Park at Hemmingway’s Bistro. Guest reviewer Reggie and his wife enjoy finding a nice, relaxed place to have a great meal and he says Hemmingway’s is one of their favorites. This restaurant has a classy, elegant feel. The owner and Chef Christopher Ala has worked in kitchens all over the world and brings that experience to his French menu. The dishes are delicious and elegantly presented. However, there is a price to this elegance, so our guest reviewers all agree that Hemmingway’s is more of a special occasion restaurant.

Here’s a little insider information on the production of this episode: our bartender did not show up for the taping of this episode but, as they say, the “show must go on” and we needed to have a bartender. Executive Producer David Manilow grabbed a dish towel and slid right into the role! Watch closely during the discussion segments and you might see him pouring wine and busily maintaining the bar in the background. Hitchcock would be proud.

Happy Eating!

Carmen M. Schmidt
Associate Producer, Check, Please!
WTTW

New episodes of Check, Please! are back. Just like the weather, this week we’re featuring a couple of restaurants that are truly out-of-the-ordinary and one that is sure to be the topper for a fun night out on Michigan Avenue.

If you’re in the Hyde Park neighborhood and have at least $10 in your pocket, guest reviewer Elliott tells us you have to try the unique gourmet sandwiches at Zaleski & Horvath Market Café. The name is a mouthful, but so is the place. Zaleski & Horvath looks like a deli, possibly a coffee shop, or even an organic grocery, but don’t let that fool you. It really is one of the tastiest sandwich shops in Chicago. The owners are serving up food with a conscience. As many ingredients as possible are purchased from local growers and meat purveyors. What’s more, these sandwiches are not just your run-of-the-mill turkey and swiss! There are sandwiches like the Jamon, Jamon which includes Serrano ham, manchego cheese, quince paste, dijon, mixed greens, and roasted tomato on French bread. Vegetarian options are plentiful and if you’re a picky eater there are create-your-own options as well. Visit their website and you will also find an incredible selection of daily soups. All of our guests loved their uniquely crafted sandwiches and eclectic environment. We’ve heard it said many, many times on Check, Please! but this one truly is a gem – delicious and the price is right!

Guest reviewer Ed took us to a truly unique culinary experience in Lincoln Square at Jibek Jolu Central Asian Restaurant. Listening to our reviewers discuss this restaurant was quite a history lesson. Jibek Jolu, which means Silk Road, is the only Kyrgyzstani restaurant in Chicago. Kyrgyzstani flavors are a mix of many cultures due to the nomadic nature of the people and the influences of neighboring countries. You’ll find Russian, Turkish, Afghani, Chinese, and even Korean styles of dishes at Jibek Jolu. The menu is dominated by meat, potatoes, dumplings, and noodles. Jibek Jolu is not a restaurant for vegetarians, but certainly for adventurous eaters willing to try a unique cultural cuisine. The noodles are hand-pulled on the premises and the house salad is served hot including fried beef, onions, garlic, and cucumbers in a soy sauce. You can be sure you are having an authentic Kyrgyzstani experience because Grandma is busy cooking in the kitchen at this family run business.

I think my favorite part of this week’s show was the discussion about the Michigan Avenue gastro pub, The Gage. Situated across the street from one of Chicago’s most visited tourist attractions, Millennium Park, The Gage offers the perfect fine dining experience for native Chicagoans or visiting tourists. On that point, Alpana and the guest reviewers practically broke out into an enthusiastic tourism commercial for Chicago! “Welcome to Chicago – we’re glad you’re here!” It was a silly moment, but fun to watch. With such a great location, The Gage is the perfect place to end your day of sightseeing in our beautiful city. The energy in this restaurant is electric and the food and spirits are top-notch. All of our guest reviewers were very pleased with their meals. That is until guest reviewer Ed’s dining neighbor poked her nose across the table, just inches from his sour cherry strudel, to admire his dessert. Alpana calls this “food-dropping.” While it is a compliment that others “ooh” and “ah” at your order, let’s all be good foodies and keep our noses out of others dishes, okay?

Happy Eating!

Carmen M. Schmidt
Associate Producer, Check, Please!
WTTW

Check, Please! is a pretty popular show on WTTW, so when people hear that I work on the show, I get a lot of questions. Viewers send e-mails with questions, comments, and even some suggestions. Since we’re on a break until January 2012, I thought it might be a great time to answer some of these frequently asked questions.

How do people get on the show?
This is the most frequently asked question I’ve heard or read. We have 36 guest reviewers on Check, Please! each season which are selected in early spring. If you are interested in becoming one of our “real-people” reviewers, just click on “Be On Show” and complete the application. We look for detailed and “flavored” responses and for restaurant picks that have not been featured on the show. To be sure your restaurant has not already been reviewed, you can search for your pick on this site. Prospective reviewers must be available to tape the discussion segments of the program at the WTTW studios in the middle of a week day, during the summer months. And, of course, they must be willing to visit two other restaurants recommended for the episode. Each season, applications are considered by our Executive Producer and one of the Associate Producers, and calls are made to potential reviewers as we organize the next season’s episodes. As you’ve seen on the show, we try to select a variety of people and restaurant types, and put them together for each episode.

Who selects the restaurants you review?
The restaurants are recommended by our selected “real-people” reviewers, not by the staff of Check, Please! We get lots of letters from individuals recommending restaurants or asking why we haven’t covered a restaurant. The answer is simple: if we haven’t received an application from an interested reviewer for that restaurant, or we haven’t selected the person recommending that restaurant for the show, then it won’t be reviewed on Check, Please!

How many restaurants have you covered and will you run out? By the end of this season, we will have reviewed 396 restaurants. You can watch reviews for almost all of them on this website. And no, we will not run out of restaurants to cover! We invite reviewers to tell us about restaurants throughout the Chicago area, which includes the suburbs and just over the border of Indiana. There is no shortage of restaurants to consider. Not to mention, new restaurants are opening all the time.

What happens when a reviewed restaurant closes?
The restaurant business can be difficult so restaurants closings are not unusual. Restaurateurs often close one eatery, only to re-open another with a completely different chef, menu, atmosphere, or address. As soon as we know of restaurant closings, we update the website and pull the episode in which it was featured from our broadcast replay lineup. Sometimes, our viewers are the ones you let us know about restaurant closures – thanks for your updates!

Does Check, Please! impact business for restaurants?
Most if not all of the restaurants featured are overwhelmed by the business that follows a review on Check, Please! “Hidden gems” are revealed to thousands of viewers who look forward to new culinary experiences. In fact, the bump in diners and business continues each time an episode featuring that restaurant airs! So if you like a restaurant you see on the show, get your reservations in early!

Do the restaurants know the reviewers are coming?
No. When our reviewers visit the restaurants, the restaurants do not know that they are visiting or reviewing it for Check, Please! We want our reviewers to have the same experience any person would have visiting the restaurant. After our reviewers dine at the restaurant to form their opinion and review, they come to our studios to tape the discussion part of the show with the other two reviewers. It’s only after we’ve heard the reviewers comments that we send a producer and camera crew out to the restaurants for a few hours to videotape exterior shots of the restaurant, the décor and atmosphere, activity in the kitchen, interviews with the chef and staff, and the dishes the reviewers mentioned in the studio discussion.

Well, that’s all for now! I hope you found an answer to one of your Check, Please! questions here. If not, write in and let us know what’s on your mind!

Happy holiday eating!

Carmen M. Schmidt
Associate Producer, Check, Please!
WTTW