Two Hungry Guys Missing Their Mommies Talk Turkey In Chicago

CHICAGO – The holidays can be rough, but that’s where I come in. My name is Jeff Arnold and this year, I’m stuck in Chicago for Thanksgiving, hoping to find a holiday dinner to fill the pit of sorrow in my gut over missing out on being with family in Michigan.

My buddy Mark Konkol feels my pain. His sister the nurse, her husband and kids all got COVID-19 last week, killing Thanksgiving as his family knows it — crowded around a small table in the south suburbs.

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So, what are a couple of hungry reporters longing for family feasts to do?

“Let’s cheer ourselves up by trying to score some samples,” Konkol suggested last weekend when our last-minute master plan was hatched.

“On it,” I replied.

I live in a North Side foodie heaven, where every culinary delight is a bus or train ride away. I scoured the blogs and Thanksgiving to-go lists and started reaching out to joints with the kind of grub I’d be most thankful to savor on a lonely Turkey Day.

Konkol, a food-desert survivor, mostly avoids suggestions from foodies who rarely venture south of Roosevelt Road. He’s content recommending grub presented by trusted neighborhood folks and their culinary co-conspirators.

I’m proud to say that I had better luck finding restaurateurs willing to offer up some Thanksgiving previews than my South Side counterpart. But Konkol’s favorites indeed made my mouth water.

So, if you’re like us, planning to gather around a small table with your quarantine crew considering where to order a stockpile of Thanksgiving dinner to-go that will last a long weekend, consider this public service journalism.

Take our advice before it’s too late.

Smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em with Lexington Betty:

A CTA bus seems like a strange place to discover a restaurant’s goodness. But after visiting Lexington Betty Smokehouse's West side location near the Rush University medical campus the wafting aroma of chef Dominique Leach’s soul food staples caught my nose’s attention.

My first text was to Konkol, alerting him that my first foray into restaurant review reporting had officially begun.

“How is it?” Konkol replied.

“I don’t know yet, but if it tastes half as good as it smells, I’m in business,” I said.

My next text was to a female friend to offer up a taste in exchange for a second opinion. My impromptu dinner invitation scored me some points. The table before us was a banquet of Leach’s “non-traditional” Thanksgiving to-go offerings of smoked brisket, rib tips, collard greens infused with smoked turkey and house-made turkey stock. The brisket baked beans, candied yams and a heavenly, obnoxiously delicious five-cheese baked macaroni and cheese that includes a secret weapon of smoked Gouda and a hint of jalapeño to cap the meal.

After cleaning my plate, I sure was thankful — for my OrangeTheory Fitness membership.

Leach started Lexington Betty as a catering company out of a food truck but then opened three restaurants in 2019 with locations in the West Loop, Pullman and The South Side and has a fourth location on the way. She figures in what is her third year offering Thanksgiving offering holiday meals to go, this year she’ll serve about 200 people, her biggest year yet.

The special to-go package of smoked turkey and side dishes serve as tributes to family that Leach can’t be with this year — including her 85-year-old, life-of-the-party grandmother, Betty King, who hails from Lexington, Miss., and is the barbecue-joint’s namesake.

It’s more than a meal. Leach considers it a personal care package for folks like me quarantined away from loved ones.

“It’s just kinda sad if someone is alone, especially on the holiday,” Leach said, in a clear preaching to the choir moment. “So you better eat some good food otherwise it’s going to be a very depressing day.”

To me, Leach’s Turkey Day offerings, inspired by the Southern cuisine favored by Grandma Betty from Mississippi, tastes like she saved me a spot at her home table.

For $140, the traditional menu includes smoked turkey and gravy, turkey gizzard dressing, cranberry relish, candied yams, macaroni and cheese and cornbread muffins. If you’d prefer barbecue standards, for $100 you can score a smoked chicken, brisket, rib tips, brisket baked beans, macaroni and cheese and muffins. There’s also offering ala carte items including the meats, bourbon bread pudding ($55), sweet potato pie ($18) and the mac and cheese ($60).

Whichever menu route you choose, all culinary roads lead to holiday bliss.

Missing Mommy? Order From Mom’s

Konkol’s advice sounds like jingle: If you can't visit your mom, order carry-out from Mom's.

You’ll find Mom’s at Marz Brewing at 3630 South Iron St. in Bridgeport, which is quickly becoming Chicago's coolest cuisine capital no matter what those snobby North Sider's say.

It’s the latest collaborative effort of visionary South Side entrepraneur Ed Marszewski, who over the years has help cultivate a hipster utopia near the banks of bubbly creek. His collection of co-operative ventures merge tavern life, packaged liquor sales, rad street art, micro-brewing, Asian-Polish fusion delicacies, and his own quirky karaoke-meets-Dungeons & Dragons vibe, that emibies a "radical art, music and public affairs" spirit broadcast on Bridgeport's WLPM 105.5 F.M., the local community radio station Marszewski founded.

Mom's head chef Kelly Ijichi launched the Japanese comfort food joint at Marz at the dawn of the coronavirus outbreak. As the pandemic’s second wave descended on the city — hinting that many folks would be without their mommies on Turkey Day — Mom's, Marz and chef Joe Yim of Knox Ave. BBQ launched a collab worth being thankful for.

"People downsizing for the holiday, so rather than a full turkey we're doing a meal to feed up to four people," Ijichi said. Mom’s answer to pandemic Turkey Day, friends: beer-can chicken.

For $145 (and little extra for delivery), Mom's will package-up a feast for day-before Thanksgiving service complete with easy re-heat directions.

You'll get chicken barbecued with a can of Marz's easy-drinking "Chug Life" inside, and Ijichi's take on traditional Thanksgiving sides with a Japanese twist: Sweet potatoes with smoked, candied walnuts and bourbon barrel maple syrup, pork belly and fall vegetable soup and roasted mushroom and kabocha squash stuffing, Nueske bacon, raclette and garlic chive. A salad of local greens and spicy marinated persimmon and Furikake milk bread rolls and nori butter. And coconut butter mochi for desert.

If that seems like a lot for a table of one (or two), Ijichi suggests considering the bright side.
"If you're a quarantine of one person, you could get this meal and feed yourself for a whole weekend," she said. And you can order an extra six-er of Marz's special cranberry and hibiscus holiday brew, Krambiscus to wash it down.

With leftovers and fruity beer, you’ll have plenty to be thankful Marszewski curated a collective of such talented friends in the heart White Sox country.

Ballin’ Out, Take-Out Style

I can appreciate leftovers and a cold adult beverage like the next guy, but the finer things certainly aren’t lost on me.

I called Guy Meikle, the culinary brains behind Heritage Restaurant and Caviar Bar at 2700 W. Chicago Ave. where Humboldt Park, Ukrarian Village and West Town all meet.

Meikle grew up on Czech family favorites and considers himself more of a rule-follower than a rebel when it comes to Thanksgiving meal planning. His speciality comes in elevating comfort food, which comes screaming through his first-ever to go-Thanksgiving that comes in a year when he says running a restaurant hasn’t been about making money, but rather, about staying alive.

So, in the spirit of ‘go big or go home’, Heritage has elevated the Thanksgiving experience to what Meikle calls the ‘Baller’ level.

For $175 for two people, Meikle offers explosive flavors in a brined and smoked turkey breast, a confit turkey leg, a smoked oyster and kim-chi Polish sausage stuffing that is as other-worldly and mind-blowing incredible as it sounds. His Grandma Stepanek’s dumplings do not disappoint alongside roasted green beans with apples, sheep’s cheese and wood smoked bacon, roasted corn and cauliflower salad, mashed potatoes, giblet gravy and sauerkraut.

But let’s add another show-stealer to the food-induced coma creator. Caviar. That’s right. Caviar to-go for Thanksgiving. And it comes with homemade accompaniments, washed down with Heritage’s smokey Manhattan. Homemade caramel ice cream added an exclamation point.

“Those are the kind of little extras that make the experience special for them,” Meikle said. “Everything is made from scratch by hand and I still want people to walk away feeling like they’ve enjoyed that.”

I know I did. Honestly, it made me thankful for being quarantined from Thanksgiving in Michigan, where dinner is Bring Your Own Caviar.

(Sorry, Mom.)

Don’t Duck-Up Christmas, After Procrastinating On Turkey

Konkol called to break bad news: "The best I can do is tell you about an amazing Thanksgiving to-go meal that you can’t have. So, consider this a cautionary tale on being prepared for a quarantined Christmas."

He was talking about Michelin-star Chef Kevin Hickey's take on a traditional Turkey Day that turned out to be too good to be true. "We're sold out. And I've already had to disappoint too many customers," the soul of Duck Inn in Bridgeport said.

If you're wondering why it’s even worth mentioning that Duck Inn is serving up Slagel Family Farm Turkey — braised dark meat and duck-fat poached breast with giblet and sage gravy — with duck sausage stuffing, rum-glazed and spiced sweet potatoes topped with pumpkin-spice marshmallows, buttermilk mashed potatoes, cranberry-tangerine chutney with the gourmet corner bar's signature brussels sprouts and pumpkin cheesecake for desert, the answer is simple.

This is a lesson, lonely, single Chicagoans, about the evils of procrastination.

If you were more prepared — and Konkol would have told us sooner — you could have added a seafood tower, kids meals, cocktails and a boozy holiday punch to a feast that's ready for pickup on Turkey-holiday eve.

Hickey said he has mixed feelings about the Turkey to-go sell out that's a one-week boon amid a pandemic shut down. "I'm currently begging to get one more turkey to help a lady who might otherwise have a breakdown," he said. "And I'm having nightmares about what's going to happen the week after Thanksgiving."

See, Hickey, like a lot of Chicago restaurateurs, has followed all the pandemic social-distance rules. None of his employees has contracted COVID-19, and not a single customer or contact tracer has called to say they had a meal at Duck Inn around the time they came down with coronavirus, Hickey said.

The second state-ordered indoor dining shutdown after a summer of barely break even business has Duck Inn, and a lot of joints that serve-up gourmet grub, staring at an uncertain future.

Ask Hickey what Chicagoans separated from family holiday celebrations who were too late to enjoy his fancy Thanksgiving to-go feast can do to help easy his night terrors.

"Order for Christmas," he said. "We're doing a traditional Irish Christmas meal, Standing Prime Rib, Yorkshire pudding. Irish cheddar potato casserole."

And more, so much more. Go ahead, take a peek at the menu for yourself and order early.

You can thank us later.

— Patch writers Mark Konkol and Jeff Arnold collaborated on this story.