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An untapped resource for fans of ethnic food...

Because I miss writing about food, and because I’m too poor to review Chicago’s fine dining scene on any regular basis, I’ve decided to start a new restaurant-related project here on the blog. I think it’s a pretty great idea, if I do say so myself.

One of my very favorite things about Chicago is the seemingly limitless variety of ethnic food we have easy access to. That’s the good news. If you’re like me — willing to eat just about anything — this is an awesome opportunity. Unfortunately, unless you happen to know someone who hails from every country whose cuisine you’re hoping to explore, you’re not likely going to be able to discern which restaurant features the most accurate representation of each culture’s culinary style. I know what you’re thinking, “But, David, why don’t I just go on Yelp and see which place has the best reviews?!” Well, that’s alright if you’re in a pinch, but I’m pretty confident that if you scroll through the 75 five-star reviews that Ethiopian restaurant has racked up, you’ll notice that about 90% of them were written by white Americans who have never even been to Africa, let alone spent much time learning the ins and outs of Ethiopian cooking.

To address this conundrum, I’ve come up with a system to gather all the restaurant recommendations I can from people who spent most of their lives living and eating in countries other than the U.S. It’s pretty simple; Chicago has a veritable army of international ambassadors roving the city at all times, willing to give you a ride and a bit of insight for a nominal fee. That’s right, cab drivers. I don’t think it’s too politically incorrect for me to assert that the overwhelming majority of Chicago cab drivers are fairly recent immigrants to the States. So, starting a month or so ago, every time I get in a cab, I make it a point to ask the driver where he’s from originally and what one restaurant in the city would he recommend as the best, most authentic example of his homeland’s food. Since I began doing research for this project, I’ve been compiling a list, which you’ll see below. I’ll continue to add to this as I receive new recommendations with every ride.

Now, this project isn’t without challenges. For one, English is definitely a second language to a lot of these guys, and their accents are usually pretty strong, so it can sometimes be difficult for us both to accurately convey what we are trying to communicate. This is most commonly a problem when the spelling of the name of a restaurant isn’t immediately obvious (e.g., Al Bawadi Grill was originally saved in my phone as “Bellady”). The good news is that I can usually figure out the right place with a little help from Yelp and Google Street View.

The second problem is that a significant portion of these cab rides have taken place very late on weekend nights when my cognitive abilities are moderately impaired, thanks to my friend Captain Morgan. This leads to situations like the time a very obviously African gentleman told me that he was from Alaska, and that I should go to Shaw’s Crab House to get the best Alaskan food in Chicago (as a side note, any Alaskans want to confirm or deny this suggestion?). At the time, I remember thinking that he might be messing with me, but I couldn’t be sure, and I didn’t want to come off like a racist by pressing the issue.

The last problem is really the main reason I have to take cabs in the first place; I don’t have a car. A fair amount of these places are easily accessible via a quick trip on the CTA, but there are others that will either require some significant planning, with transfers between multiple buses, or expensive cab rides to places on the outskirts or other side of town (but, hey, at least I could get a couple extra recos out of the ride, right?).

That being said, I think I can make this work. At this point, I’m leaning toward starting with some of the African places in Edgewater, so be on the lookout for the first reviews to arrive in the coming weeks (I’ve already been to Ethiopian Diamond and Bolat, so they’ll probably start at the back of the line). In the meantime, check out the list below, broken down by region. Let me know if you’ve been to any of the places I’ll be heading and what you thought. I’ve made each restaurant’s name a hyperlink to its Yelp page, so you can read what other people thought and see all the other important details.

Wish me luck!

- DGH

• Ethiopian – The Peacock Cafe and Restaurant – 6014 North Broadway – Edgewater
• Eritrean – Ethiopian Diamond Restaurant – 6120 N Broadway St – Edgewater
• Nigerian – Vee Vee African Restaurant – 6232 N Broadway Street – Edgewater – X2
• Nigerian - Nigerian Kitchen – 1363 W Wilson Avenue – Uptown
• Nigerian – TBS African Restaurant – 4507 N Sheridan Rd – Uptown
• Nigerian – Bolat African Cuisine – 3346 N Clark St – Lakeview
• Nigerian – B&Q Afro Root Cuisine – 4701 N Kenmore Ave. – Uptown
• Somali – Muqdisho Grill – 2826 N. Lincoln – Lakeview
• Somali – Banadir Restaurant – 6221 N Clark St – Edgewater
• Somali – Mogadishu Restaurant – 931 N Orleans – Near North Side
• Ghanaian – Grace’s African Restaurant – 4409 N Broadway Street

Pan-Asian:

• Pakistani – Usmania – 2244 W Devon Ave
• Pakistani – Sabri Nihari Restaurant – 2502 W Devon Ave
• Indian - Flaming Wok N’ Grill – 903 N Halsted St – Goose Island
• Nepalese - Chicago Curry House – 899 S Plymouth Ct – South Loop

Middle Eastern:

• Palestinian – Al Bawadi Grill – 7216 W. 87th Street – Bridgeview
• Moroccan – Zad – 3112 N Broadway Ave – Lakeview

American (by region, for cab drivers from the U.S.):

• Chicago Pizza – Father & Son Pizza – 2475 N Milwaukee Ave – Logan Square

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Each year, the school hosts what it calls the “Life-Raft Debate.” The premise of the debate is that there’s been some sort of global apocalypse, and all the students watching the proceedings in the auditorium are the only survivors, floating in a life-raft with just one seat left. The debate pits six professors, each from a different academic discipline, against each other as they argue why someone with knowledge of their field would be the most valuable as they begin a new civilization, thus deserving the last seat.

Now, depending on your opinion of philosophical debate, this may or may not sound interesting (I think it’s a cool concept), but as the years passed, the debate became less about intellectual arguments, and more about making the students laugh.

I think this is a good example of what’s wrong with our education system today. Teachers have become convinced that they can’t challenge their students to understand an intelligent argument or produce intelligent arguments themselves. I’m not saying this is all on the teachers — certainly parents complaining about teachers being too critical and students feeling entitled to A’s played a part, but it needs to change. It has lead to a generation of students and young professionals that has never been forced to address its flaws.

One of the professors interviewed for the piece offered his perspective on the situation:

“As of the 90s, everybody was so frickin’ concerned with everybody’s self-esteem, that it was very hard to just actually come out and say something that everybody knew was true but it would have been perceived as being impolite. It became very hard or unusual if you actually said ‘This is a bad argument,’ to a student on a paper. And you would think that students who have been brought up being told they’re special all the time, this is everybody who talks about, you know, the Millennials as the generation that were brought up being told they’re special all the time, would be these fragile narcissists who would collapse at the instant that they got some real criticism. But what I’ve found is that they’re quite robust.”

The last two sentences are what’s important here. We Millennials may be guilty of putting in the least amount of effort we could in order to succeed in school (I know I was guilty at times), but we are NOT fragile. The real problem is that the epidemic of grade inflation that has permeated the education system has made the vast majority of students complacent. If a 3.0 is seen as an acceptable GPA for a student and he only has to work 30 minutes per day to earn it, he’s not likely to do anything more. We need teachers to require kids to put in some serious effort to achieve the minimally acceptable levels. The fact of the matter is that, when it comes down to it, students want to be pushed. If you tell us how we can do better and challenge us to do the best we can, we will.

Ask just about any former student who his favorite college professor was. It won’t be the professor who passed out completed study guides before the tests and didn’t have an attendance policy. It WILL be the professor who challenged him intellectually in the most engaging way. My favorite professors were always the ones who returned my papers with the most red ink on them. I didn’t always love the grades they gave me, but I always appreciated that they took the time to actually read my work closely and showed me how I could do better.

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However, I should have some more free time in the coming weeks, so I’ll get back in the swing of things very shortly.

I’m anxious to hear how the Food + Wine Fest went this weekend, so if you have any interesting stories please leave them in the comments.

If you missed it yourself, you should definitely check out Stephanie Barna’s most recent posts over at City Paper’s “Eat” blog. Her comments on the McCrady’s dine around with Wylie Dufresne and Johnny Iuzzini induced some major jealousy.

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I just want to take the opportunity to thank everyone for their continued readership. It’s been just over a year since I started this site, and it has been more successful than I ever could have hoped.

What I might be most proud of is the fact that I’ve been able to stick with it. Though there have been some slow periods, I’ve still churned out just over 100 posts in that time. By tomorrow we should also reach 17,000 visitors, which I feel is a great start.

In the next year, I’d like to increase subscriptions, comments, and, hopefully, the amount of reviews I write per month. If you have any suggestions or recommendations, please let me know. I’m always open to constructive criticism.

Again, thanks for supporting me here at DavidGHeiser.com. I’m looking forward to another great year.

- DH

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The post is titled “7 Personal Branding Tips for College Graduates” and is essentially my advice for other college students on how to begin differentiating themselves from the pack in order to secure a job after graduation. The impending job search is going to be a period of high anxiety for me, like everyone else, but I’d like to think that all the work I’m doing is giving me a little leg up.

Once you’re finished reading my post, I encourage you to subscribe to Dan’s blog. His articles, while generally aimed at young people who are already in the workforce, usually have aspects that college students can apply as well.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the article so please comment on this post, on Dan’s blog, or shoot me an e-mail if you have an opportunity.

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If you are a staunch Republican and a regular reader of my blog, please don’t hold my views against me. As long as you can logically defend your views, then I have no problem with us agreeing to disagree.

Other site news: I’m going to see the new Pacino/Bobby DeNiro movie Righteous Kill tomorrow afternoon, so I should have a review of that up soon. Also, I watched The Band’s Visit the other day and really enjoyed that. I’m going to try to get a review up, but if I can’t find the time, go ahead and check it out. I highly recommend it.

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As I move toward graduation and the real world of jobs featuring paychecks with (hopefully) four columns left of the decimal point, I figured I needed to start making things a little bit more professional around these parts and trying to build a bit of a personal brand.

Thus, I went ahead and purchased www.DavidGHeiser.com. I would have gone with the easier www.DavidHeiser.com, but some jerk named Bill Davidheiser has had it registered for eight years (even though he’s not even using it!). Anyone who has bookmarked dhisgood.blogspot.com can still use that URL, it will just bring you here.

A few other things you may notice:

1. I changed up the logo to reflect the new name. I’m familiar with Photoshop, but I’m no graphic design specialist, so this is about the best I can do, while sticking with the current theme. I think it looks all right, but if any of you out there in Internetland are feeling particularly generous, I’d more than welcome an alternative.

2. I trimmed down the category list in the sidebar to just the four major ones because it was starting to take over the page, but it shouldn’t be difficult to find whatever you’re looking for. Two options: 1) Use the search box by the logo to enter the name of a specific restaurant or movie, a type of cuisine (e.g. Mexican, Lowcountry, Fine Dining) or movie genre, or the general location of a restaurant (e.g. West Ashley), or 2) Use the new Archive feature in the side bar to browse by month.

3. I added some new ways to connect with me to the navigation bar. I just recently got a FriendFeed account, so I could use some more contacts there, and PROpenMic, which is a great social network focused on public relations students, professionals, and teachers. I currently make up half of the Charlestonians (or is it Charlestonites?) currently registered, so if you’re a local and in/interested in PR it’s definitely something you should check out.

4. I’ve noticed a bunch of visitors clicking over here from McCrady’s chef Sean Brock’s blog. If it’s your first time, welcome. I encourage you to sign up for my feed, either through an RSS reader or by email, so you get updated as soon as I post a new review.

5. My review of Fuel is in the current issue of the George Street Observer and my Home Team BBQ review should be in the next issue which comes out on Thursday.

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Also, one other thing to keep your eye out for. Under the advice of personal branding expert Dan Schawbel, I’ll soon be buying a new URL for my blog that will better help DH promote DH. The current URL (http://dhisgood.blogspot.com) will still work, at least for a while, but the name will reflect the new address.

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