Peace You Will Find in Riverside

So, I had planned to watch the Cubs Celebrations at McNally's Saloon on Western Ave., notorious these days as a last bastion of White Sox partisanship.  I am a Sox fan, but I don't get my shorts in a knot, if the Cubs succeed - neither does anyone at McNally's - truth be told.

 McNally's stays single-minded about whom backs and  did not change the sign when TYPO went up.

McNally's is a great place to kill and afternoon.

Dim bulbs get outraged, offended and mount social media campaigns in  response to people who just do not shive a git about leaping onto bandwagons, wearing buttons, sports wear, or 'showing solidarity.'

On Tuesday, one of the most obnoxious and embarrassing displays of American stupidity will come to something like an end.  Enough said, about that.

Instead of covering a bar stool and soaking in the authentic atmosphere at McNally's yesterday. I did my baby a solid.  I drove to and walked around Riverside, a suburb of Berwyn, up around 31st & Harlem and hung up flyers for her up-coming Jazz Concert at Sts. Peter & Paul Lutheran Church on Sunday November 20th, featuring the exquisite Miss Terry Sullivan (vocals), Bobby Schiff (piano), Stewart Miller (Bass) and special guest - the great  Art Davis (trumpet and horns). More details on this opportunity to soak real jazz in the coming days.

Yep, I hung paper all over the great village of Riverside.





Riverside is what an ideal town looks like.

The men who planned Riverside were Calvert Vaux and Fredrick Law Olmstead. The streets of Riverside wind and caress the banks of the Desplaines River.

 The homes are beautiful and shout out affluent.  I live west of tony Beverly with homes on the majestic Longwood Drive rivaling Tara from  Gone with Wind and next to Riverside looks like 'Hootin' Holler.'

The town center has a an old world look to it with an almost uniform architecture reflective of some Sigmund Romberg operetta.

Even the Metra Station is something else

Walking the town, especially on river is a treat and I chatted up a couple of guys who were fishing with waders and having no luck, due to the speed of the current.  I pointed to a seven inch Buck Kife laying a few feet from me in about a two feet of water and thge guys named Mike went home with an expensive bit of piscatory cutlery.


Cubs fans were returning from the big day downtown and the universal word about their adventures was "Epic."

I decided to search out and Epic eatery.

Found it less than three hundred yards from the Metra.

Little Bohemian Restaurant sits on a side street near the Chew-Chew tavern and a great little empanadas shop , where I bought Miss Sullivan four of the best (2 beef, 2 spinach) for her evening meal.

Little Bohemian is a place that needs to hugged repeatedly like a sweet, plump Slovak aunt who makes everything from scratch and with love.

One of my psychological triggers is the trend of American sheep to flock to cookie cutter eateries from Coopers Hawk, to Olive Garden, to PJ McSwill's, to the nadir of gormandizing McDonald's and pass up great family owned restaurants like the Golden Steer in Forest Park, Klas in Cicero, Kens in Beverly, Schallers in Bridgport and Club 81 in Hegewisch.  Nothing makes me more postal than this trend - that and our two choices for President.

Little Bohemia serves up great simple family fare - stuffed cabbage, pot roast, meat loaf, duck, chicken and fish with a Bohemian grace and boats of the proper gravy. . .and home made kolaches!



We walked off the lunch again taking the river walks and soaked in sunshine, autumnal colors and very nice people.

Get over to Riverside and chill.  

Preserve The Family Restaurant and Steak House - The Golden Steer

A brilliant banker, writer and culinary journeyman, Steve Jordan, lamented the manic idiocy that passes for Food Shows on cable television.  He noted that what had once been a comfortably informative sharing of recipes and food prep techniques is now a mere rat-race of reality TV tryting to beat the clock.

Cable has done more to kill history than Howard Zinn - witness the History Channel Lineup: Pawn Stars, American Pickers, Ice Road Truckers, Counting Cars.  Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall is  the greatest holistic consideration of an epoch of history and the History Channel is a cartoon station with very rare exceptions. So too. have become  Cookin Channel Food Network treatments like Chopped, Rev Runs Sunday Dinners, Cupcake Wars, and Cutthroat Kitchen.

People who relish these television servings of shallow and empty I.Q. calories, also tend to flock to LongHorn Steakhouse, Chipotle, Applebees, Chilies, Olive Garden and other trick-name ( PTSD McNugget's Shamrock Pub Grubs) big-box swill troughs.  Family owned restaurants offer better food and often better parking, service and mosty certainly atmosphere.

Yesterday, I treated my lady friend to dinner at Forest Park's. Golden Steer*.

This is a family owned and operated steak house run by the same family since 1969,  "Owners/Chefs Kiriakos (Charlie) and Gus Tzouras bring more 35 years experience in creating meals that will warm up your stomachs and your souls."

Tell me about it.

We arrived at 4:30 P.M. and were greeted by two lovely women who have worked at this restaurant for more than two decades. The hostess informed me that she also works as a soda jerk in an old fashiones icecream parlor during the day.  Our waitress was a decades long veteran who said," We love coming to work here and if we get fired, we are hired back the same day - go figure."

Loyalty begets great service.

I ordered a T-Bone medium rare with baked potatoe, roasted asparagas and Roqueford salad and the exquiite Miss Sullivan ordered the broiled scrod, baked potatoe and house salad and shared the broiled asparagas.  After we placed our order the Owner/Chef Charlie asked if we would mind moving to another table, as a large family had come in with more guests than the reservations taken - it was big Mexican American family celebrating a young lady's graduation from Dominican University in River Forest.  We were only too happy to jump tables.

By 5 P.M. the restaurant was filled to capacity and the bar was thick with people waiting for a table.

The food was wonderful and our waitress was attentive and sweetly salty with me, " Want me get a wheel chair to roll out after tucking away the grub, Honey?" Truth be told, I took home 3/4the of the T-Bone and Miss Sullivan carried away half of her scrod.

Before I could call for the bill,  the owner and our lovely waitress put a thick slice of Tiramisu between us and order us to do it justice.  I did most of the heavy-lifting.  This was Chef Charlie's thank you to us for moving to another table.  Family means much to a family business.

Will family owned and operated restaurants be around for future generations?

I rather doubt it.  Look at what passes for television and look at the forest of Applebees, Longhorns, Chili's and DT McPtomaine's.

*Get to Golden Steet - there are no on-line reservations - you must call in 

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