megabites
Meet Mr. Megabites
Irv Leavitt is our humor writer, winner of the 2009 and 2010 Suburban Newspapers of America awards for best column writing in our category and the 2010 Chicago Headline Club’s Peter Lisagor award for best feature writing. He has covered the news of 17 different …
Mission: Unwolfable
Highland Park’s Real Urban Barbecue makes a 7-pound sandwich, and dares you to eat it in 40 minutes. I wouldn’t try, fearing death as I do. But I thought Stu Nitzkin might. I caught him on his cell phone moments after he, coincidentally, finished lunch …
The day of eating dangerously
Our Megabites series has taken you to big-food chow-downs at 26mostly-mom 'n pop restaurants in 16 towns, and some people say weheedlessly encouraged hitherto little-known opportunities for cardiacdisease.Fair enough. We maintain, however, that almost anywhere you go, you'llfind a well-known food franchise nearby where thousands have indulgedin gastronomic self-endangerment with no help from us
Little Louie's Cohnan is a barbarian of a burger
Brad Cohen says that The Cohnan, the massive meat bomb at Little Louie's Red Hots in Northbrook that bears his nickname, is more than a sandwich. "It's a workout," he said. "And a commitment." That's because once you pick up The Cohnan -- two hamburger patties, French fries, bacon, cheese and an over-easy egg, all on a bun -- you can't put it down.
The Unemployee in ... A slice of life (with olives)
Even after we wrestled the 120-pound mass of raw pizza dough out of the big steel mixing bowl, it had a starchy little mind of its own. It reminded me of Jabba the Hutt, only cleaner and quieter. Viccino's was the site of The Unemployee's day of training in the Way of the Pizza Guy, starting at the bottom.
We best Megastructure, are beaten by a 2x4x15
The Megastructure, a 1.3-pound toasted sub sandwich with cheese and eight different kinds of meat, has reigned for yearsat Rammy's Sub Contractors in Wheeling. But this week, the biggest of the improbable sandwiches was bested by a new champion.
It's all in this big sundae - Kitchen Sink included
The Lesson of KeyLime Cove: Food that comes in a single container is not necessarily food for one person, even if it's ice cream. Or for two people.And all their friends. I invited KeyLime's Dale McFarland to one of the restaurants in the Gurnee indoor water park resort assuming we could knock off its sundae together.
Monster Gyros are no match for fork and knife
"When I do something really new, I need to go that extra ridiculous step," said Gus Romas, proprietor of Bo-Bo's Fast Diner in Vernon Hills, in explaining the Monster Gyros -- 10 ounces of gyros meat, a deep-fried Polish sausage, grilled onions, barbecue and cheddar cheese sauces, piled on a pita.
Big prime rib and a long good-bye at Don Roth's
Was it something I said? A few days after visiting Don Roth's Blackhawk for an oversize prime rib, the restaurant announced it's going out of business. The Blackhawk, founded 90 years ago in the Loop, is an old-fashioned place, and it's going out in an old-fashioned way.
A meal (or two or three) in a Catlow sandwich
If you like to put away a day's calories while sitting in front of the TV, the Catlow Theater is your kind of night out. The Barrington movie house has a diner off the lobby called Boloney's where you can buy a sandwich. And these are no ordinary sandwiches. These are sandwiches that could choke a horse.
Here's the beef, all 4.5 pounds of porterhouse
Chuck Wenk, the crusty old columnist of the Highland Park News, was visibly taken aback when Bruce Bertucci brought out the raw 72-ounce steak to be photographed. "It looks like it could have been running around a few days ago, doesn't it?" he asked, gazing guiltily at the mass of bovine muscle.
Dish is a skillet meal fit for a cast-iron stomach
"Hey, Mario," I asked the waiter as he went by. "Does anybody actually finish one of these things?" Mario Velez shook his head as he passed the 9-inch skillet weighing down my table, brimming with several pounds of steaming victuals. "Some people come close," he said with a grin. Velez makes his bones at Johnny's Kitchen & Tap, one of those places where no one goes away hungry.
