Icosium Kafe

On Friday No Longer Wayward SAICer and I went to Icosium Kafe (at Foster and Clark) for dinner. This was a first visit for both of us but I had read rather positive reviews about the food and was looking forward to Turkish coffee. Icosium Kafe is a créperie (I think that accent's wrong) and has quite the selection of both sweet and savory crepe fillings. And most everything comes with either Chicken or vegetable soup. I went with chicken. The broth was very fine though the chicken was a little too uniformly chopped for my taste.
The coffee was exactly as I hoped...I asked for it sweet...I'm not sure that sweet is 'authentic' but that's how I like it and it was perfecto.
I ordered the Greek Crépe which was filled with tomatoes, olives, Feta cheese, hummus-like dressing, Halal Merguez (extremely tasty lamb sausage), baby spinach and maybe something else. The thing was massive. If I hadn't ordered the lamb it would have been $8.50 for the huge crepe and soup. I wonder if they make their sweet crepes a bit thinner, more dainty, or if they're as hearty as my savory crepe.
I'm totally going to go back.

Visitors=Good Food

The boyfriend flew into O'Hare airport on Thursday night. Friday morning he and I picked up his sister and his sister's boyfriend at Midway airport. Then we went to Turkish Bakery & Cuisine. We sat at the same table as my other visit to the restaurant but we had a different server. I had the shepherd's salad and the Etli Bamya. The salad was lovely, the tomatoes could have been a bit more ripe but I understand.
The etli bamya was good. I remembered really liking it when the boyfriend had it our last visit. This time around I felt like the lamb wasn't as tender as I expected it and, at moments, tasted more like steak. I enjoyed the okra's petite size and density.
The boyfriend had the kasarli pide and I was quite taken with its bready cheesy goodness. The boyfriend's sister and her boyfriend had a zucchini appetizer that wasn't half bad, the best part was the yogurt dipping sauce.

Lunch at Turkish Cuisine

There's a little lag time with my meals to post time right now. That's mainly because I'm lazy and my parents being in my apartment seems like the perfect excuse to do nothing. Though I did finish a scarf yesterday ... and started a puzzle with the boyfriend the day before. But to the meal we had on, hmmm, Wednesday I believe. We went to Turkish Cuisine and Bakery. We started with the cold appetizer sampler plate. Which had the usuals like hummus, babaganoush and stuffed grape leaves as well as a few less well known treats.

I had the lunch combo #1, which included soup and salad and a half portion of one of their entrees ... all for about seven dollars (it is a super deal, I'm thinking about writing it up for Chicagoist). I had the shepard's salad, gave my soup to my father and the 1/2 portion of the lamb sis kebap. And all was tasty.
The only thing that was weird was our server. She was new and didn't speak Turkish. This led to her not knowing a lot about the food or how to communicate with the cooks. I am not doing a good job of explaining her weirdness. She was weird though.

First Meal in Chicago

The first night in Chicago my parents and I stayed at Heart o' Chicago Motel on N. Ridge Avenue near Bryn Mawr. Our first meal in C-town (does anybody in Chicago call Chicago C-town...I don't know) was at Arkadash Cafe. We stumbled upon this restaurant by pure happenstance and were encouraged to go in by a young woman with a big dog. We did and it was fantastic. We had (among other things) an appetizer sampler, shepard's salad and a meat combo that included lamb kabobs, gyro and lamb patties. Chased down with a Turkish red wine and apple hookah. We were the only customers on a Thursday night but the owner or manager said that on the weekends the place was packed...they seem to have a dj and belly dancers. The funniest thing is that I have ended up living not too terribly far away from the place and look forward to taking any future visitor to the establishment.