It was around 2:30 p.m. last Wednesday in Chicago, and I was trying to pace myself. I’d come to town for one reason: dinner at Alinea, one of the country’s most innovative and important new restaurants, and I wanted to be ready.
I knew it would be a meal to remember, several hours and at least a dozen courses, and I didn’t want to ruin my appetite with something so plebian as a hot dog.
But when you’re in Chicago, you have a hot dog. It’s that simple.
So, knowing that my immediate future held things like softly braised short ribs on a gelatinlike pad of reduced Guinness, hot and cold potato soup with shaved black truffle, apple-horseradish shooters and lamb on a hot brick with mastic and rosemary aroma, I went for it: a fully loaded Chicago-style hot dog on a soft bun with pickle, peppers, onions, ketchup and shocking-green relish.
Greasy fries on the side.
And I’d do it again.
After all, even though I was blown away by dinner at Alinea, what with the bacon with butterscotch and thyme, swinging from a wire mezzaluna, and the Meyer lemon and cinnamon-flecked caramel, springing from a foot-long cinnamon stick like a Senate subcommittee microphone, and the duck with mango and yogurt, perched on a linen pillow of lavender-scented air, and the wagyu beef, and the licorice cake, and the powdered vanilla with basil, and the…
Well, let’s just say there’s just nothing quite like a great big old hot dog in Chi-town. And there’s just no good reason to refuse one. Even if you are about to embark on a memorable meal.
Does that make me sound unappreciative of the fried monkfish with banana or the cream-cheese croquettes with smoked steelhead roe or the octopus with shiso and papaya over toasted soy soup or the chanterelle mushroom mousse with carrot foam or the truffle-stuffed raviolo, or the foie gras meringue?
(Wait, you say. Didn’t they ban the sale of foie gras in Chicago? Yes, they did. But you see, if the chef sends out a foie gras dish without adding it to the bill, as they do at Alinea, well, then it wasn’t a sale, was it?)
That exciting dinner at Alinea, with its over-the-top dishes and enthusiastically artistic presentations (not to mention the unfathomably good wine service and spot-on pairings), will certainly linger on in my memory. It stretched into some 20-odd courses and four-plus hours.
I, my dinner companions and my cholesterol count won’t soon forget it.
But Alinea’s not the kind of place I – or anyone – could eat at every day. All that artistry leaves precious little room for soul.
And when all is said and done (and all the foie gras is eaten), I guess I’m just an old-fashioned fully loaded hot-dog boy.
You don’t have to leave town to get your own Chicago-style hot dog. Try Chicago, 6680 W. Colfax Ave. in Lakewood, 303-233-0500.
Dining critic Tucker Shaw can be reached at 303-954-1958 or at dining@denverpost.com.
