Juergen's Bakery and Restaurant

Juergen's Bakery and Restaurant is an intimate, old fashioned German bakery conveniently located in German Village. Amidst the Bavarian classics, Juergen's offers up a couple of meatless entrees, sides and baked goods to showcase how vegetarians are embraced by Teutonic cuisine.

Upon walking through the door, diners are first met by a bakery case filled with cakes, cream puffs and other pastries designed to irritate your doctor but delight your dentist. Another bakery benefit for diners is the ample, endless bread basket that came with bread rolls, whole grain nut bread, a cheese roll and a few other savory bread and butter packets.

Vegetarian items on the menu include the spätzle and red cabbage sides as well as the spinach and cheese strudel and the mixed veggie strudel. While portions are small, prices are inexpensive (under $7 for both strudels). Diners who want to get stuffed should gorge themselves on the bread basket and order a side.

The veggie strudel was topped with sauteed carrots, green onions, potatoes, cauliflower and cabbage with a dill accented sauce. The flaky pastry binds the vegetables together nicely.

Service is leisurely. A member of staff was playing art songs on the in-house piano. There is seating for about 30 people at Juergen's.

My camera battery died, and most of these photos came out less than stellar. There are much better pictures of food (including non-vegetarian items) here.

Juergen's German Bakery

Regional Mexican Jazz

Rick Bayless operates the mecca of fine regional Mexican dining in the River North area of Chicago. Topolobampo, which has a four star rating in Chicago Magazine, earned every one of those stars when I ate there the other night.

Bayless' culinary philosophy in vegetarian dining utilizes mushrooms in most dishes to create the sensation of umami that comes from savory meat dishes. The vegetarian options comes without the psychological baggage of eating carcass. Upon request, the chef can create a vegetarian degustation, which he did for me.

The first course was a mushroom empanada with cream and red chili sauce. The second course was a carpaccio-ed beet salad with Mexican gherkins and apricot salsa. The third course was a huilacoche enchilada with salsa verde, rice pyramid and fried onion strings. The fourth course was a fava bean suffle with a dark mushroom mole sauce topped with micro greens. Desert featured two bread puddings, an earthy ice cream cone bite and a cinnamon cookie.

The staff matched wines with each course. The restaurant offers outstanding cocktails such as a ginger mojito, a Tecate beer mojito that was more interesting than it sounds and a blood orange margarita, amongst others. The tequila list is a tome with about 100+ selections. The staff is exceptional and knowledgeable.

Explore images from dinner as well as the jazz concert that will be described following the Picasa link below.

Topolo-Baker-Kessler-Bishop-Zerang

The Hideout looks about exactly the way you'd expect a club called the Hideout to look. It's hidden away on Wabansia, surrounded by a metro vehicle gas station and machinist shops. Last night they hosted Honeyboy. Tonight, it was the Arp assault by Jim Baker alongside the improv stylings of Jeb Bishop, Kent Kessler and Michael Zerang.

I am unfairly biased in favor of anything with a Arp synthesizer in it. For example, if there was a toothpaste commercial with an Arp synth doing the background music, I would use that toothpaste. That being said, however, the show was a fertile ground for exploring the improvised dialogues of four veteran Chicago musicians.

Baker plays both synthesized piano and Arp. Bishop plays trombone with various mutes. Kessler plays a deliberately understated bass. Zerang plays a hodge podge drum kit and could be described as a percussionist more than he would be described as a drummer.

The group played two sets, and the only complaint I had was that I wanted more Arp. Despite my pathetic pleas for semi-modular analogue subtractive synthesizers, the show was a refreshing blast of energy that lifted me beyond the ordinary. Check out the pictures and video in the Picasa link above.