You are WHERE you eat

A lot of the fond memories I have from growing up revolve around going out to restaurants for meals. Since I grew up Reform and my family did not keep Kosher, there were a lot of available options for dining out. I wanted to highlight a few of my favorites:

*Ed Debevic’s: I was inspired to write this entry when my friend posted an article about a new 50’s style diner opening up in the Chicago suburbs. It made me think of Ed’s. The first time I ever went to Ed’s was after we went to the Lincoln Park Zoo with some family friends (at the time). We visited the downtown location and were amused and impressed. The food was delicious and the atmosphere was a lot of fun. Our waitress had a button that listed the special of the day, which was Pot Pie when we were there. So my dad thought that was her name and kept calling her “Pot Pie” the whole time. The fun part of dining at Ed’s is that all the servers have attitudes and get to make fun of customers. The customers are aware and enjoy this treatment. Sometimes they’ll all get up on tables and dance to whatever song is playing. There are little jukeboxes at every table, so customers can pick what songs they want. At the end of the meal, the best dessert option is the World’s Smallest Sundae (that comes with an incredibly tall spoon). After that experience, we went to Ed’s in Deerfield often (before it turned into an overpriced Greek restaurant). We’d take out of town visitors there. I had my 11th birthday party there, as well. I even tried to get a summer job there when I was older, but I guess I wasn’t surly enough. The ironic thing was that when I worked at IHOP, I’d joke around with customers and one of them told me I should work at Ed’s. During the same year I had my birthday party there, I decided to make up a commercial for Ed’s to the tune of “Duke of Earl” (a song played there a lot) and recorded it on cassette during one of my pretend radio shows. My BFF still has the tape and we joke about it being used for blackmail. I guess the cat is out of the bag now! :) The final thing I loved about Ed’s was that I got to collect tokens from kid meals and would get cool T-shirts and buttons. My favorite was a T-shirt with a peace sign in rainbow colors. Another memory I have is that every time we went there with one of my cousins, she’d always want them to sing happy birthday to her, even though it wasn’t her birthday. She was probably the same age as my younger son at the time. :)

*Yen Yen: I pretty much grew up at this neighborhood Chinese restaurant. My family and I went there all the time. I used to only eat beef and gravy or beef in a nest because I was so picky. After I got a job there during my high school years, my tastes expanded and I got to try new items. It also allowed me to expand my tastes when I went out elsewhere for Chinese food (even though I felt like a traitor for doing so). I eventually got friends, as well as my husband, addicted. Yen Yen was the place to go for Chinese food if you lived in the Buffalo Grove or Arlington Heights area. I think it is the restaurant I frequented the most with or without my family. We had my maternal grandma’s 70th birthday party there, and went there for countless other birthday meals. It was also the place to go when we got back from vacations. And keeping with small world coincidences, one of my favorite waiters had a day job as a teacher and worked with “Will’s” mom. When I got back from Israel, he told me that he worked with someone who had a son who was there at the time. I told him that was the same person I got to see during my trip.

*Ember’s Charhouse: This was a nice steakhouse where the servers sang all the time. It was a great place to go with family for special occasions or on a date. For a while, a friend of mine from college worked there and on a quieter night, she let my sister and I join her to sing something from “Rent.” I think it was “Seasons of Love.” On birthdays, all the servers would surround the table and sing a song they made up for the birthday celebrant. When I was still eating non-Kosher meat, I really enjoyed their prime rib. They also had delicious French onion soup. It eventually closed down and I was sad to see it go. It’s a place I could have seen myself working, as I love to sing all the time. I sing while doing average household chores and I’m pretty much a server during dinnertime anyway.

These are the three that stick out. I was addicted to T.G.I. Friday’s during my college years. I also have fond memories of going to a lot of birthday parties at the Ground Round when I was a kid. There was a clown named Bingo and she would lead everyone in games of hot potato or pin the tail on the donkey. A couple other standouts are Bill’s Pub, where we could throw peanut shells on the ground; Lou Malnati’s, which has the best Chicago pizza in my opinion; Chuck E. Cheese, which was fun before it went all modern and a great place of entertainment when we were kids; Buffalo, for their fabulous sundaes and small world Jewish geography connections (when didn't we see someone we knew there?) and Fuddruckers, which had delicious burgers on top of which I would pump lots of piping hot cheddar cheese. Finally, there was Journey’s End, which had the best vegetable soup (that we now make at home) that was served in buckets and refilled often (and came with lots of oyster crackers). It also met its demise when it sold out to CVS. Every time I eat the soup at home, I still feel like I'm sitting at the round table in the area that looks like a ship.

These days, we still enjoy taking our kids out but are limited with where we can go. We end up at Ben Yehuda a lot, as they have delicious pizza and we love their cheese fries. It has become a favorite for our kids now. My older son was making up a song about going to Ben Yehuda once and it made me think of my Ed Debevic's commercial. I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree after all.