Looking for that last, legal foie gras fix [before August 22]? Here are some places to go:

Avenues, Peninsula Chicago Hotel, 108 E. Superior St., 312-573-6754. Chef Graham Elliot Bowles has amended his 12-course tasting menu ($145) with an all-foie gras option ($245), in which the dishes are enhanced with creative foie gras treatments. Available daily through Aug. 21.

Cyrano's Bistro & Wine Bar, 546 N. Wells St., 312-467-0546. At 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, the restaurant will host a Foie Gras Festival, featuring a multicourse menu with wines. Participating chefs include Jean Banchet, KiKi Cuisance, Didier Durand, Bernard LeCoq, Dominique Legai, Francis Leroux, Carlos and Debbie Nieto, Jean-Claude Poilevey and Dominique Tougne. Cost is $149, tax and tip included; proceeds will benefit Chicago Chefs for Choice. 312-467-0546.

Fixture, 2706 N. Ashland Ave., 773-248-3331. Fixture features "Farewell to Foie Gras," a five-course tasting menu priced at $35. Dishes include a foie gras and mushroom terrine, and seared foie gras with strawberry-rabbit ragout. Cost is $35. Available daily through Aug. 21.

Hot Doug's, 3324 N. California Ave., 773-279-9550. The gourmet sausage stand features foie gras as an ingredient in such creations as its cognac-infused smoked-pheasant sausage with truffle-sauce moutard and foie gras butter. It also features as an occasional special, the "Joe Moore," named after the alderman who sponsored the ban; it's a duck sausage with foie gras and sauternes topped with foie-gras-truffle-Dijon-mustard sauce and marinated goat cheese.

mk, 868 N. Franklin St., 312-482-9179. Chef Todd Stein is offering an all-foie gras degustation, featuring three foie gras courses plus salad and dessert. The degustation is priced at $82; courses may be ordered individually as well. Available daily through Aug. 21.

676 Restaurant & Bar, Omni Chicago Hotel, 676 N. Michigan Ave., 312-944-7676. The restaurant will reprise its Outlaw Dinner, featuring once-banned and about-to-be-banned foods and preparations (with a special nod to foie gras) on Wednesday. Seven-course tasting is $95; reservations available 7-10 p.m.

Socca, 3301 N. Clark St., 773-248-1155. On Aug. 21, chef Roger Herring will be joined by a dozen other Chicago chefs for a fundraising foie gras dinner. $100; benefits Chicago Chefs for Choice, an organization fighting the foie gras ban.

Tru, 676 N. St. Clair St., 312-202-0001. Foie gras appears on all of the restaurant's tasting menus (called Collections) and there are foie gras choices on the a la carte menu as well. Available through Aug. 21.





http://www.chicagotribune.com/entert...nmentfront-hed

bye bye,

stupid f'in city council

Might be one more time for me at Sweet & Savories.

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call first...i went to S&S three weeks in a row (hangs head).

I think they stopped with the fois gras long ago.

looks like one of ILP's suggestions might be the way to go. ^

Yeah, it's enough to make a Republican out of you.

Whoops, too late in my case!

We'll end up with a bunch of foie-gras-serving restaurants just outside the city border, like a string of pearls. The same way Wal-Marts and Targets will arrange themselves.

Hehe. I was thinking the same thing. Again, I wish I would have discovered that place months ago. Especially, when it was still an Idine place

I just read the Tru will now be serving Faux Gras, basically a fattied chicken liver. Brilliant move city council.

Is it going to serve pastrami sandwiches too ? Much as I like chicken liver - I don't think it's quite the same thing as foie gras. Robyn

That's what makes it "faux."

No pastrami, but I hear they plan to do a nice lox and bagel.

Slightly OT, but I did do dinner at Tru a few weeks ago and it seems like it's going down a bit. I know it sounds stupid but there are papertowels in the bathrooms instead of the nice hand towels that they used to have.

Editorial in the Chicago Tribune:

Good intentions can have perverse results. When the federal government passed a ban on assault weapons in 1994, it had the unwanted consequence of spurring some gun buffs to run out and buy one or three before the law took effect. So maybe it shouldn't be surprising that Chicago's ordinance against the sale of foie gras has ignited a rage for the delicacy in its last days of legality.

Foie gras is made from the livers of ducks or geese that are fattened by force-feeding, a practice the Chicago City Council deems inhumane. The ban, however, doesn't take effect until Aug. 22, giving food connoisseurs a chance, and a reason, to get it now. Lately there has been a surge of restaurant-goers clamoring for foie gras.

At Cyrano's Bistrot & Wine Bar and mk restaurant, sales have tripled. "Farewell to Foie Gras" events have been a big hit, in spite of price tags reaching into three figures. "There are other things I might have ordered, but I thought, `I'm on the clock,'" a patron of mk, which has a special foie gras menu, told the Associated Press.

"Not only are customers ordering the tasting in its entirety, but we're also selling the dishes a la carte," mk's executive chef, Todd Stein, told the Tribune. "The whole thing is causing people to try it for the first time." One cooking school, The Chopping Block, even offered a class on how to make your own.

So the City Council may find it has not killed off the taste for foie gras but created a whole new group of aficionados. That wouldn't matter much if these foodies had no way to find the stuff. But all sorts of avenues will remain open.

One leads to suburban restaurants, many of which will be happy to provide what Chicago forbids. Another option is to buy it for home consumption at suburban groceries, a few of which carry it.

And there is a host of online retailers. No doubt sellers who offer foie gras will be targeting their appeals to deprived Chicagoans.

So it could turn out that instead of reducing the local demand for it, the City Council may have made foie gras more popular than ever. In that case, the ducks won't be much better off.

But opponents of artificial fattening of waterfowl shouldn't give up hope. We are, after all, talking about duck liver, which is not to every taste. It may be that when local diners sample foie gras, they'll be surprised to find they hate it.

And the ordinance might have another effect, as one gorging diner suggested to the AP: "I'm trying to eat enough of it so when the ban comes, I won't care about it."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/o...ewsopinion-hed

Had the degustation at MK last week. Excellent. Dining in SF a few weeks ago I told someone in Berkley about the ban and they thought we were crazy. Imagine Chicago being called radical by a Berkelyite.

According to the Trib a lawsuit will be filed challanging the ban before it goes into effect.

I always try to look at the bright side of things.

I think foie gras has become a cliche. A way for chefs to give the illusion of luxury - without doing a lot of work in the kitchen. The true test of a chef in my opinion is taking something rather plain - and making it extraordinary (some famous food writer once said that the ultimate challenge for a chef was a plain fish). In fact - I don't recall eating foie gras in France except once - in the Dordogne (foie gras region of France - where it is a local specialty). So I'd look at this as an opportunity for chefs to really "show their stuff". And none of those tedious tasting menus where everything is lukewarm and prepared 10 hours in advance. I want to see chefs who really know how to cook. Robyn

FYI, I just called Sweet & Savories, they are still serving the Kobe foie gras burger (full description and address info in the IDine thread). On Wednesday nights it is still only $10^ ^ ^ ^ ^


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I heard on the radio this morning that there's a good chance this foie gras ban will be overturned by the City Coiuncil