CHICAGO — When you travel south from downtown Chicago, it is like free-falling past the slow decay of urban blight. You leave multimillion-dollar, high-rise, lake- front apartment houses and pass modest walkups, then torn-up asphalt, boarded-up warehouses and crumbling brick projects.
Even on a Sunday morning, the graffiti and the fenced-in apartment blocks and the groups of bored youths long without hope formed a metaphor for the America many never want to see.
It seems like a lot to go through just for a plate of French toast.
But this quest during the U.S. Olympic Team Media Summit downtown was more about this country’s future than breakfast. I sought out Valois Restaurant (VUH-loyz), the favorite neighborhood breakfast haunt of presidential candidate Barack Obama.
My friend, a Chicago resident, and I left my opulent Palmer House Hilton, complete with chandeliers and portraits of every show business celebrity who played its Empire Room through the 20th century. We took the L train south past the Bronzeville neighborhood, past the White Sox’s U.S. Cellular Field and past one of the worst ghettos I’ve ever seen.
We found ourselves shivering against the biting wind at a bus stop near Garfield Park. A woman sold Obama T-shirts on the street corner. An elderly woman approached us and said, “Excuse me, do you need help?”
We didn’t. We were catching the bus east to Obama’s neighborhood, a historic enclave on the banks of Lake Michigan called Hyde Park. Once the haunt of intellectuals, artists and free thinkers, Hyde Park is now known as the launching pad of Obama’s political career and home of one of the best breakfast joints in America.
Valois, with its huge landmark sign, has been at this same spot since 1921. It’s a simple, sprawling restaurant with seemingly enough seating for a thousand. It would have a true blue-collar cafeteria feel if not for the beautiful murals of the Chicago skyline and nearby Jackson Park. The place was packed, and we fell in a fast-moving buffet line that nearly stretched out the door.
Obama’s office is two blocks away. His home is five blocks away. When we walked into a Walgreen’s across the street, the first stand we saw sold his books, “The Audacity of Hope” and “Dreams From My Father.”
“Before he become senator, he was always around the neighborhood, organizing and helping,” said Spiros Argiris, Valois’ Greek owner. “He was here off and on. Sometimes he’d be by himself, sometimes with friends, sometimes with family.”
Obama leaned toward Argiris’ massive bacon and cheese omelets but also bounced around the menu, from his fluffy pancakes to his $12.95 prime rib. Argiris often sent food to Obama’s office when he was too busy to stop.
Needless to say, the candidate’s way too busy now.
“He comes in less and less,” Argiris said. “Now I haven’t seen him for three or four months.”
Let’s just hope he has the same energy as Valois’ staff, which raced around behind the counter as if they were putting out a giant grease fire. Pancakes flew onto plates like Frisbees. Hash browns went from grill to plate faster than the eye could follow. I was ready to duck to keep from getting hit by a flying scrambled egg.
I ordered the French toast, my measuring stick for good breakfast joints. You can easily screw up French toast. I haven’t made it in years. But Valois’ was heavenly. With the tubs of whipped butter and two little glass pitchers of warm syrup, the melted conglomeration of butter, maple syrup and soft French toast was the perfect elixir to a cold Chicago morning.
The great thing about Valois is not only could Obama afford it when he was a mere community organizer here but so could everyone on the South Side, from the brainiacs at neighboring University of Chicago to the homeless. My friend and I had six slices of French toast, two scrambled eggs, a giant pile of hash browns, two milks, orange juice and apple juice.
Total: $13.47.
Two days later I would order a shrimp Caesar salad and a Coke through Hilton room service and spent $36. A breakfast this size? I would’ve needed a nearby bank to give me an egg loan.
Argiris, who came to America in 1965 and bought Valois in 1971, knows how to cater to his customers.
“We’ve got the most immigrated restaurant in the Chicago area,” he said. “We’ve got everybody: University of Chicago professors to beggars in the street, police, city workers, people from the neighborhood. You can find educated, not educated, rich, very rich, very poor.”
Obama has my vote. If elected, I’m betting he’ll improve the South Side. He can ignore Valois. It can’t be improved.
Staff writer John Henderson covers sports and writes about the food he eats on the road: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
If you go:
Valois Restaurant, 1518 E. 53rd St., Chicago, 773-667-0647
