4 CHICAGO READER | JANUARY 6, 2006 | SECTION TWO

Good to GoDelivery and carryout spots with food ratings of 7.5 or higher

Art of Pizza3033 N. Ashland | 773-327-5600

F 8.3 | S 6.8 | A 3.5 | $ (5 REPORTS)PIZZA, ITALIAN | LUNCH, DINNER: SEVEN DAYS |OPEN LATE: FRIDAY & SATURDAY TILL 11 |RESERVATIONS NOT ACCEPTED | BYO | SMOKEFREE

rrr I’m not usually a fan of pan pizza—I’ve encountered too many gummy, half-raw bottom crusts—but Art of Pizza’s pancrust is crisp and buttery, with only a bitof chewiness. Even more impressive: top-pings here aren’t superfluously greasy.The menu forgoes froufrou California-style pies in favor of specialties such as“Art’s Meaty Delight” (sausage, bacon,ground beef, pepperoni, and sliced beef).Handily, all slices are $2.75, no matter thecrust or topping (Raters are nuts aboutthe stuffed pizza). Reasonably pricedsubs, sandwiches, ribs, chicken, and pastadishes are also available, along withprepackaged salads and cake slices forcarryout. The ambience isn’t much, butthis small storefront is clean and friendly,and its strip-mall location makes a con-venient stop-off if you’re hitting the Jewelacross the street. Anne Ford

Arya Bhavan2508 W. Devon | 773-274-5800

F 8.0 | S 7.7 | A 5.8 | $ (13 REPORTS)INDIAN/PAKISTANI, VEGETARIAN/HEALTHY |LUNCH: FRIDAY-SUNDAY; DINNER: SEVEN DAYS

rrr “Friendlier and more relaxed thanMysore Woodland and Udupi,” says oneRater, while another gives Arya Bhavanpoints for serving southern as well asnorthern Indian dishes and a buffet that’s“amazingly fresh.” The lunch spread isoffered Friday through Sunday, the dinnerbuffet nightly. Some favorite dishesinclude the garlic naan, mixed-vegetablepakora, chana masala, tandoori paratha,tandoori gobi (marinated cauliflowercooked tandoori style), and the dosai,enormous crepes filled with potatoes,onions, and chiles. A delivery menu isavailable online at aryabhavan.com (mini-mum order $35). Laura Levy Shatkin

Coast Sushi2045 N. Damen | 773-235-5775

F 8.5 | S 7.0 | A 7.3 | $$ (12 REPORTS)ASIAN, JAPANESE | DINNER: SEVEN DAYS | OPENLATE: MONDAY-SATURDAY TILL MIDNIGHT | BYO

rrr Starters at this subtly lit sushi placeinclude unique creations like sesame-crusted scallops and Sunny Side Shiitake,

RestaurantsListings are excerpted from the Reader Restaurant Finder, an onlinedatabase of more than 3,000 Chicago-area restaurants. Restaurantsare rated by more than 2,200 Reader Restaurant Raters, who feedus information and comments on their dining experiences. Webratings are updated daily; print listings reflect the most currentinformation available at publication time. Reviews are written by

Reader staff and contributors and (where noted) individual Raters.Though reviewers try to reflect the Restaurant Raters’ input,reviews should be considered one person’s opinion; the collectiveRaters’ opinions are best expressed in the numbers. The completelistings and information on how to become a Reader RestaurantRater are available at www.chicagoreader.com/restaurantfinder.

into the restaurant. “It was definitely late at night,and I was disgruntled about the fact that I was stillthere,” she says. “I mentioned something aboutwanting to find a more nine-to-five job. Within aweek I got a call from Richard Melman, offering mehis corporate chef job—and I could work out of myhouse if I wanted to.” In 1999 Diaz gave up her partownership in the business and spent the next fewyears concocting new dishes for the Lettuce empire.She says she loved the job, but when she and herpartner adopted a son in late 2001 she decided shehad to move back closer to her Addams-inspiredvision. “What kind of values do I want to teach mykids?” she asks. “There’s need right next door to you,and I want my kids to see that.”

Getting good food to hungry people proved morecomplicated than she’d assumed. At first she part-nered with organizations that already helped theneedy, but she says they often turned away unrulyindividuals—the people she thought needed hercooking most. As she puts it, “I felt like if I was

going to blow a decent restaurant career I wanted tofind the people most in need of nutrition.” So shestarted First Slice. Many of the free meals she nowmakes are distributed through groups such as theChicago Recovery Alliance and the HeartlandAlliance’s HOPE Center, both of which serve peoplewith substance-abuse problems.

Diaz believes she’s found her calling. Sheremembers volunteering at Angelic Organics a fewyears ago, teaching low-income families how tomake the best use of the boxes of vegetables thefarm donated. “That’s when I knew that I wasmeant more to cook for people in need than forpeople who could more than afford to sit at arestaurant,” she says. She admits that if she raisedher prices at the cafe or opened a fine-dining FirstSlice restaurant she could probably afford to feedeven more needy people. But she also wants tochallenge the notion that the more food costs thebetter it is. “I want everyone to be able to enjoydecent food,” she says. —Susannah J. Felts

Food Service

Mary Ellen Diaz at First Slice Pie Cafe

On a frigid afternoon the week beforeChristmas, Mary Ellen Diaz hurries intoEpiphany United Church of Christ, home of

First Slice, the organization she founded to providerestaurant-quality food to needy Chicagoans. In thesmall basement kitchen of the church, off Damenjust south of Irving Park, her small staff and a hand-ful of volunteers are preparing pork chops, oxtailsoup, chicken potpies, and glogg cakes—a holidayspecialty. Diaz peers into a large pot of soup. “Hank,I need more vegetables in there,” she says. “I needcarrots and celery.” She pulls out some cash, and avolunteer heads off on a grocery run.

Diaz launched First Slice—as in the first slice ofthe pie rather than the crumbs—in 2002. Shesigned up paying subscribers for three freshly pre-pared three-course meals every week—such assalad, veggie lasagna, and peanut butter chocolatepie—then used the income to provide the samemeals for free to the needy. At one point she hadnearly 100 subscribers, but she eventually decidedshe was too busy cooking for them instead of thepoor. Now she has 40 or so, though she recentlystarted advertising for more. They allow her to offer hundreds of free dinners every week—nutrient-rich meals instead of the processed, highly starchy, heavily sugared foods the needy too often get from food pantries.

Hoping to bring in more funds, Diaz opened theFirst Slice Pie Cafe in November, a few tables tuckedinto a corner on the first floor of the Lillstreet ArtCenter. She offers slices of several truly scrumptiouspies—from basic apple to red wine and poachedpear—cakes, cookies, and fair-trade coffee served in mugs made at the center. The nondessertsinclude simple, hearty dishes such as Swedish peasoup, turkey chili, black bean tamales with pepitasalsa, and shredded duck, baby spinach, and moz-zarella served on sesame flatbread. Several dishes

are from the First Slice reper-toire but with a twist: the baconand eggs dish Diaz serves thehomeless becomes a light butrich bacon and sweet onionquiche. “Quiche doesn’t connectwith people on the street,” she

says. Everything’s affordable, which is a little sur-prising given that Diaz is a three-star chef and theingredients she uses are locally grown and organicwhenever possible.

Diaz studied with Madeline Kamman inCalifornia and at L’Ecole des Arts Culinaires inLyon, and she was head chef at the Printer’s Rowrestaurant for several years. But she was alwaysmore interested in working in a restaurant modeledon Jane Addams’s Hull House community kitchenthan in becoming one of Chicago’s celebrity chefs. In1997 she rehabbed an old skaters’ warming house inLincoln Park and opened it as North Pond Cafe,where she emphasized seasonal, locally growningredients she found at farmers’ markets and triedto keep prices down. She wanted the cafe to be“something where friends could walk in and have agood meal. Every place I’d cooked prior to NorthPond were places that my friends could only go toon special occasions—not just their birthdays buttheir 30th birthdays.”

But the opening of the cafe coincided with thebirth of her partner’s daughter, and before long Diazwas wishing she could spend nights at home withthe child. One evening a group of Lettuce EntertainYou partners who were fans of her cooking came

First SlicePie Cafe4401 N.Ravenswood773-506-7380

Let Them Eat Cake . . . and OxtailSoup . . . and Veggie Lasagna . . .

CARL

OS

J. O

RTIZ

CHICAGO READER | JANUARY 6, 2006 | SECTION TWO 5

in which the mushrooms are filled withan egg-yolk sauce. The tofu in theagedashi salad was cut into thick trian-gles, quickly fried (leaving the center softand creamy), set on a bed of babyspinach, and topped with scallions, driedbonito flakes, and a light dressing ofdashi (soup stock). The nigiri was super-fresh; the red snapper, yellowtail, andsea bass are all worth a try. Signaturemaki include Coast Crab—tobiko, kingcrab, and spicy mayo—and a Maine lob-ster variety rolled with cucumber anddrizzled with ginger sauce. Hot dishesinclude the expected tempura and teriya-ki along with a seared scallion-and-gin-ger-glazed tuna and an expertly preparedorange-tamarind duck served with chilledbaby spinach. You can order online atcoastsushibar.com. Laura Levy Shatkin

Dharma Garden Thai Restaurant3109 W. Irving Park | 773-588-9140

F 8.5 | S 6.8 | A 7.5 | $$ (8 REPORTS)ASIAN, THAI, VEGETARIAN/HEALTHY | LUNCH:TUESDAY-FRIDAY; DINNER: SUNDAY, TUESDAY-SATURDAY | CLOSED MONDAY | BYO | SMOKE FREE

Catering to a health-conscious crowd, allthe dishes here are prepared withoutMSG, processed sugar, fish sauce, or arti-ficial ingredients. Though there are chick-en and beef offerings, menu items aremostly meatless versions of Thai classics:vegetable pot stickers, a “garden” rollfilled with tofu and vegetables, an imita-tion duck curry (the “meat” is made withsoy and wheat). Other dishes incorporatenuts for protein. Cold options include atofu-and-oyster-mushroom salad and atangy chilled seafood salad; a standoutsoup is the kow tom, seasoned with gin-ger, garlic, and lime and made substan-tial with a choice of seafood or tofu.Laura Levy Shatkin

Eatzi’s2828 N. Clark | 773-832-9310

AMERICAN CONTEMPORARY/REGIONAL |BREAKFAST, LUNCH, DINNER: SEVEN DAYS | NODELIVERY

Eatzi’s, the new megamarket in the base-ment of the Century Shopping Centre, is avast museum of food. There’s a huge delicounter with salads and spreads and meatloaf and sides all lovingly bathed in goldenlight, a decent salad bar and make-your-own-sandwich station, a bakery, a grill, asmoothie stand, an espresso bar, wide-as-your-living-room aisles of gourmet crack-ers and condiments and chocolates, a sur-prisingly good little cheese shop, a winestore, and pretty much everything else youcould possibly want, and its location,downstairs from a movie theater, makes anight’s entertainment ridiculously effort-less. I love sneaking a sandwich and somewine into a movie, so I was pretty excitedabout this embarrassment of riches. ThenI ate there. Everything looked great, but ittasted like it was made by people who hadonly seen pictures of food. The hummuswas so heavy on the tahini that it tastedlike peanut butter and was thick as paste.The spicy black-bean and mushroom que-sadilla was not in fact spicy at all—the pre-dominant flavor was grease. How can youmess up a quesadilla? Same goes for theThai basil roll—you’d think you couldn’t gowrong with glass noodles, tofu, carrots,lettuce, and herbs in a rice-paper wrapper,but try biting through the cardboardlikeEatzi’s version. The mushroom caps,stuffed with a gluey mixture of spinachand manchego, were flavorless, and myhusband found his red-curry beef saladsalty but otherwise bland. Everythingreminded us of food, without actually tast-ing like it. In fact after a full meal atEatzi’s, the latest outpost of a Texas chainowned by the dude who createdFuddruckers, we pined for the real thing,and went home and made some dinner.Anaheed Alani

Fox and Obel Cafe401 E. Illinois | 312-410-7301

F 7.9 | S 6.5 | A 6.4 | $ (11 REPORTS)GLOBAL/FUSION/ECLECTIC | BREAKFAST, LUNCH,DINNER: SEVEN DAYS | SMOKE FREE | NO DELIVERY

This 50-seat cafe is an extension of the22,000-square-foot high-end market,which carries house-cured salmon, dry-aged prime beef, and more than 350cheeses in addition to a lineup of prepareddishes (“home meal replacements,” as theycall them in the biz). Chef JasonHandelman oversees the kitchen, whichprepares up to 75 dishes daily, several of

which are featured in the cafe. They mightinclude marinated flank steak withchimichurri, Thai-style tofu-and-vegetablestir-fry, couscous salad with an apricotcurry vinaigrette, or a spice-rubbed NewYork strip sandwich with caramelizedonions and blue Brie. Pastry chef PamelaFitzpatrick (from LA’s acclaimed LaBreaBakery) runs the bakeshop, where shewhips up treats like plum sabayon trifleand lime poppy-seed cookies plus an arrayof artisanal breads. Laura Levy Shatkin

Green Tea2206 N. Clark | 773-883-8812

F 8.0 | S 6.9 | A 6.4 | $$ (9 REPORTS)ASIAN, JAPANESE | LUNCH: TUESDAY-SATURDAY;DINNER: SUNDAY, TUESDAY-SATURDAY | CLOSEDMONDAY | RESERVATIONS NOT ACCEPTED | BYO |SMOKE FREE

rrr The menu is ambitious at this tinyLincoln Park sushi bar—the only seating isfive tables and a short counter. There’s anextensive array of maki—from negitoro(fatty tuna and scallion) to ebikyu (shrimp,

cucumber, and avocado) to a Chicago SpicyCrazy Roll (an oversize roll with tuna,salmon, whitefish, cucumber, and masagoin a spicy sauce)—plus more than 30 typesof nigiri and several sashimi options. Theydo a hefty business in carryout and deliv-ery; lunch specials range between $7 and$12. Laura Levy Shatkin

Horseshoe4115 N. Lincoln | 773-549-9292

F 8.0 | S 6.8 | A 7.2 | $$ (5 REPORTS)AMERICAN, BARBECUE/RIBS | DINNER: SEVENDAYS; SUNDAY BRUNCH | OPEN LATE: SATURDAYTILL 3, OTHER NIGHTS TILL 2

rrr This faux Texas roadhouse is a swell

place to drink, with right friendly staff,regular live music, and a juke wellstocked with punk, redneck rock, andcountry. But while its mission of fillingthe north side’s black hole of barbecue isadmirable—see how easy it is to findTexas-style smoked brisket anywhere elsein town—it fails to achieve true transcen-dence in the manner of Hill Countrygreats like Black’s or Kreuz Market. Apeek in the small kitchen reveals a possi-ble reason: Horseshoe cooks with a smallSouthern Pride smoker, notoriously diffi-cult for the untrained and unvigilant tocoax proper slow-smoked barbecue from.Besides, how can you trust a pitman whosmokes seitan and calls it barbecue?

Other items—jalapeno corn bread, mac ’n’cheese, chicken wings—are above par forbar food, and heaven help me but I loveme some Frito pie. Mike Sula

Indie Cafe5951 N. Broadway | 773-561-5577

F 7.8 | S 6.9 | A 6.7 | $$ (14 REPORTS)ASIAN, THAI, JAPANESE | LUNCH, DINNER:SUNDAY, TUESDAY-SATURDAY | CLOSED MONDAY |BYO

Indie Cafe serves Thai and Japanese foodway above average in terms of quality,presentation, and value. The AndamanSalad, for instance—a substantial melangeof shrimp, scallops, and calamari tossedwith red onion, shredded carrots, and asauce made with lemongrass, lime, andhot peppers—perfectly balances sweet,salty, spicy, and crunchy. It’s a bargain at$8. The richness of the red curry and thesubtle sweetness of the coconut milk inthe Indie Signature Curry are likewiseexquisitely counterpoised—it’s tempting toslurp the leftover sauce straight from the

Food (F), service (S), and ambience (A) are rated on a scale of 1-10, with 10 representingbest. The dinner-menu price of a typical entree is indicated by dollar signs on thefollowing scale: $=less than $10, $$=$10-$15, $$$=$15-$20, $$$$=$20-$30,$$$$$ =more than $30. Raters also grade the overall dining experience; these scoresare averaged and rs are awarded as follows: rrr=top 10 percent, rrr=top 20percent, rrr=top 30 percent of all rated restaurants in database.