Meat-Free Diner Food?!

The Chicago Diner 3411 N. Halsted, Chicago 773.935.6696 About $20/person for brunch w/ drinks See their website for menus and prices.

review.

Taking Shayna's birthday as an excuse, 54FF kicked off its 05-06 season of restaurant going at The Chicago Diner. This was no ordinary diner, however; the diner's own website proclaims, "Meat Free since '83!" Indeed, pretty much everything on the menu is meat-free and most of it can be full-on vegan at your request. There's even a macrobiotic dish for those who subscribe to that belief/dietary system. As you can imagine, part the Chicago Diner's attraction is that it takes a stereotypically meat-heavy menu (Diner food) and does wacky things with tofu and seitan to make vegetarian versions of them. In fact, the Diner's menu can be divided into two categories: veggies that look/taste like veggies, and veggies that look/taste like meat.

We gathered at the Chicago Diner on a brisk (but not too brisk), sunny Sunday around the brunching hour. After waiting for our table (no reservations), we got a spot on the patio and settled in for our veggie-tastic brunch. For appetizers, Young ordered an amazing onion soup and Sheila had alcohol of some sort (eye opener!). I can't remember what everybody ordered, but I got the scrapple (meat with meat with meat...except it wasn't) and our Guest of Honor and Compositional Rockstar Kotoka Suzuki got the biscuits and gravy with hash. Also, Sheila got some sort of seasonal pancakes that seemed delicious (based on the noises she was making). Towards the end of things, Sheila whipped out a delicious chocolate cake she had bought at Whole Foods and we stuffed ourselves silly.

All in all, it was good eatin'. I would recommend this to Chicago vegetarians, but I got the impression that every vegetarian and vegan in the tri-state area is aware of this place. Instead, I'd like to recommend this to non-vegetarians and "flexitarians" (you know who you are!). Although their their attempts at emulating meat sometimes miss the mark for texture, most of their "meat" dishes are delicious—if you're willing to accept near-meat likenesses. Of course, if you don't care whether your dish looks and/or tastes like meat, the vegetable preparations are garden-fresh and exquisitely prepared.

Besides, there's no gristle and bone fragments in The Chicago Diner's "meats", and you can rest assured that their "breakfast sausage" contains no snouts, hooves, or anuses. More than we can say for many diners...

minutes.

1. We celebrated Shayna's b-day,
2. Despite her being rather hungover.
3. There was cake.
4. It was very chocolatey
5. We formally acknowledged our guest of honor, Kotoka Suzuki.
6. We decided that our next meeting would involve Indian food.