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Windy City Blogger Wed Dec 30 2009

Windy City Blogger Wednesday: Eat a Duck I Must!

By Whitney Merritt

Sorry for the silence last week. This week we have our first joint interview with Alice and Jared of Eat A Duck I Must!

Photo: Sarah Krusen of Chennergy Photography

What brought you to Chicago?
Alice: I was born and raised in the southwest suburbs and kept moving to and from St. Louis for undergraduate school and work. We were living in two different cities and the 3 hour drive from St. Louis to Peoria and back got pretty tiring. After Jared proposed during a monthlong trip around Asia, we made plans to both move back to Chicago and we've been a happily married couple since!

Jared: I pretty much grew up in Chicago (in the city) after moving here from China at the age of 7. Then I went away for college and work for several years, but now I am back in Chi-town. Central Illinois just wasn't cutting it for me. Plus I knew I wanted to marry the love of my life, and she sure wasn't going to move to Peoria ☺

What do you do when you aren't blogging?
Alice: I constantly have some sort of side art project with my sewing machine. Not too long ago, I hopped on the Etsy felt train and made some 8-bit Mario Brothers felt characters that were pretty epic. Crap, I think I just exposed my geeky side.

Jared: When we are not blogging or taking photographs, I like to sharpen my knives with whet stones. It has a therapeutic affect for me. Our dog, Chef, keeps us pretty busy too. We have yet to successfully teach him how to make breakfast for us.

Favorite restaurant in Chicago
For authentic Japanese food, we absolutely love Ginza beneath the Tokyo Hotel, downtown. It's a hole in the wall type place, but has really authentic Japanese izakaya type food. We also make trips to Schaumburg for the ramen at Santouka in the Mitsuwa Marketplace. It's the only place we'll eat ramen at.

Favorite restaurant in Chicago, if you aren't paying
Having been to most of the high-end places in Chicago, in the end we just like simple comfort food better. (Jared has an undying love for Harold's Fried Chicken.) Honky Tonk BBQ in Pilsen has THE best brisket sandwich. If price wasn't an issue, we would order a whole roasted pig and a large bucket of wings.

Favorite recipe and/or post
For the both of us, it has to be the post where we met Keijiro Doi, a master knife maker, in Japan. He is regarded as a national treasure, and at the age of 82, he is still making hand forged knives. It felt like a defining moment in our short blogging career thus far.

How do take your coffee?
Alice: I love a strong Vietnamese drip coffee with condensed milk. If that doesn't wake you up, I don't know what will!

Jared: I don't drink coffee very much but I'll definitely eat it in ice cream form.

Cubs or Sox?
Alice: I'm not a huge sports fanatic and I think I'm a Sox fan by default. But that works because I prefer games where rowdy heckling is encouraged. Ha!

Jared: I grew up on the "souf side" and literally blocks away from Comiskey, so my allegiance goes to the SOX. GO SOX!!!

What is the one thing/place/restaurant that you recommend to your out of town guests?
Alice: I have been touting The Publican to anyone and everyone who will listen. I don't know that many vegetarians, so a beer-centric menu with pork, pork and more pork? How can you say no? But really, everything I've ever had there has been pretty amazing. I have yet to go, but I hear their Sunday brunch menu is possibly even better than dinner. And if they find themselves roaming the south side at 3am, I always recommend Maxwell Street Depot for a pork chop sandwich or polish sausage ☺

Jared: Besides the ones I mentioned above, I would have to say Chicago is an extremely diverse city with great ethnic neighborhoods. So I would recommend out of town guests to try eating in the various local restaurants in neighborhoods around the city.

One (or two) things that you can't live without in your kitchen
Alice: Does Jared count as an item since he cooks all of my meals? Haha. When it comes to baking, the Kitchenaid stand mixer has saved me tons of time.

Jared: I have 3 and they are my Suisin knife, tongs and towels. Having worked in the food industry for a little bit, having a clean towel is important, both for cleaning and handling hot pots and pans.

Catch up on all the previous Windy City Bloggers here.

Do you have a favorite Chicagoland based food blogger? Email drivethru@gapersblock.com with [food blog interview] in the subject line with the name and URL of the blog and I will check it out!