We just love when TimeOut Chicago lists its "top 100 best things we ate and drank for the year.” Especially when a number of its selections have been represented by Kurman Communications! We aren't sure how dining editors Heather Shouse and David Tamarkin keep their svelte figures, having dined in 100s of restaurants to choose what they believe are the best of the lot here in Chicago. (Get TimeOut's complete list here.)Congratulations to our friends well as to all others featured. We’ve dined at many of these restaurants and can vouch for Heather’s and David’s good taste. Here's what they had to say about our clients. Bon appétit during the Holiday Season and throughout 2009! For our friends visiting Chicago over the holidays, be sure to check out these places!
Tallulah, chef Troy Graves achieves greatness with similar flavors, but his kimchi gets served with a luscious, fist-size slab of pork, equal bites of tender meat and near-melting fat. The belly even invaded downtown dining this year, showing up at newcomer. - HSSticky toffee pudding at Aigre Doux Whoever said the Brits don’t know good food from a hole in their head has never eaten sticky toffee pudding. The British classic is executed with finesse at Aigre Doux, where Malika Ameen folds nibs of chopped dates into sponge cake, drizzles toffee sauce on top and serves the hunk of genius with a scoop of Devonshire cream sorbet and segments of Cara Cara orange. —HS
Uncommon breakfast melt at Uncommon Ground on Devon Uncommon Ground labels lots of things uncommon—it has an Uncommon salad, an Uncommon cassoulet…the list goes on. But its Uncommon breakfast melt is the only dish that’s truly out of the ordinary. And it’s not just because this decadent, messy combination of over-easy eggs, thick peppercorn bacon, cheddar and spinach on onion black bread is one of the best breakfast sandwiches in town, but because we’re inordinately inclined to brave the brunch lines to eat it. —DT
Fig Leaf cocktail at Eve If you’d told us last year we’d be drinking a saketini
—and loving it—sometime in 2008, we would have bet you one time machine you were wrong. Times change. At the Gold Coast restaurant Eve, figs infuse vodka with savory-smoky, almost whiskeylike notes, which combine perfectly with sake for the Fig Leaf cocktail. Good thing we didn’t wager our time machine. —HS
BLT cupcake from More (the trick is to see the bacon-stuffed cake with ranch frosting as a snack, or even lunch, not dessert). - DT