When you have to brunch...Victory's Banner

I admit it; I'm not a big breakfast eater. I know you're supposed to eat a substantial breakfast in order to be healthful and all that stuff, but I just can't do it. Whenever I eat a large breakfast, I end up eating a large lunch, dinner and several 'substantial' snacks in addition. I can't help it; eating begets more eating in my lack-o-willpower mind! So I keep it very simple and safe most mornings.

However, I am married to someone who looooves breakfasts, brunches and anything else he can ingest before noon. There are times that I compromise and agree to go out to brunch on a weekend day. If we wait long enough it works for me, too. By 11:00 AM or noon, I'm actually starting to get hungry, especially if we've gone to the gym beforehand. When this happens, I often push to visit Victory's Banner.

Victory's Banner is an all-vegetarian breakfast and lunch establishment that's run by students of the Spiritual master Sri Chimnoy. Their promise is to serve you 'joyfully', which they certainly do. They're a very laidback yet helpful bunch of people.

Since this is my first contribution to our food blog, I'll also confess here that I'm quite choosy about what I eat. I don't eat red meat or poultry (couldn't stop eating seafood, though), I don't ingest anything partially hydrogenated or that contains corn syrup-type stuff, blah-betty-blah-blah. I'm also sensitive to a few foods. So I have problems now and then taking myself out in public for a decent meal. This is one reason Victory's Banner appeals to me. I know that anything I order here is going to be scrumptious and good for me, to boot! They make incredibly delicious food that virtually anyone, no matter what they prefer, will delight in eating.

I know what you meat-eaters are thinking. How can I possibly enjoy a meal that doesn't include animal flesh? It's not as difficult as you may think. Dirk is a hard-core carnivore-omnivore (check out his Hot Doug's post and you'll know what I mean), yet he tells me he 'barely' misses the meat. In fact, he often orders their Stripples, a non-meat bacon alternative. Despite the masochistic nipple torture moniker (well, that's what sprang to mind for me), stripples do taste similar to bacon. You do need to get past the scary neon-pink marble look of stripples though, so be prepared.

Allow me to dish about the breakfast entrees. You were wondering when I'd get to that, right? I'll start with our favorites. I adore the Eggless Wonder, which is a lightly stir-fried tofu and vegetable dish. It's created by lovingly combining marinated tofu with broccoli, onion, tomato, mushroom, zucchini, potato, goat cheese and brown rice into a piping hot mixture that satisfies your by-now starving stomach. The goat cheese is what really lifts this dish from the potentially mundane into the zone of Fulfilling and Nourishing. Being the allergic / sensitive soul I am, I always ask them to leave out the onions. Unlike some stuffy places, the VB wait staff acquiesces with a smile. You will get the feeling that they actually want you to be happy and satisfied upon leaving their restaurant.

Dirk almost always gets the Satisfaction Promise, which consists of two eggs scrambled with spinach, pesto, sun-dried tomatoes and feta. He says it's a hearty combo of flavors. All of their egg dishes are nudged into breakfast-lover contentment by the addition of warmed hearth bread and grilled potatoes. BTW, they use Phil's eggs (cage-free, vegetarian-fed!), so you can rest easy knowing your eggs didn't come from some ill-fed, miserable chicken.

VB also offers many omelettes, including a soy sausage and Gouda which has gotten rave reviews in our circle of family and friends (again, several meat-eaters in the group loved this one). For the sweet-toothed among us, choose from pancakes, French toast, or waffles. I suggest either version of VB's French Toast. One is touted as their 'Award-Winning' French toast. Believe it! It's served with peach butter and warm maple syrup (genuine, of course). They also dish up Raspberry French Toast with powdered sugar, which bursts with juicy raspberries. The pancake menu includes oat bran for the health-conscious sweet tooth, apple pecan, and chocolate chip (also features a kid-size portion - smart move!). Waffles come in similar flavor combinations, for those who prefer their sweets in a checkered pattern.

You have an option of ordering granola, yoghurt, and hot oatmeal if you want to keep it simple. Once you sit down after inhaling the scents around you, you'll probably pass on those and run through the heartier menu choices. Drinks include a reasonably good coffee, a thick hot chocolate (recommended by me!), and a selection of wonderful teas. I often order the organic ginger tea, a powerful ginger boot to the brain that provides a natural kick- I mean, pick-me-up. If you aren't feeling like coffee but want to remember that you are, indeed, awake, choose this. Ginger is great for your digestion, you know, so you win twice!

If you have a sweet tooth but don't wish to devote your entire meal to a sugary entree, I vote for one of VB's homemade muffins to begin your meal. On occasions that Dirk and I are there together or with family / friends, we order a muffin or two to temporarily satiate our appetites while we're waiting for the rest of the meal. The chocolate muffin is fragrant and cocoa-ish; mm-mmm. The raspberry muffin uses the same succulent raspberries that are swirled into the pancakes. Yum!

There is one downside of visiting Victory's Banner. Ever since some traitor went on Check, Please! and regaled the audience with how wonderful VB is, the place has been extremely crowded on weekends. Before that, they were reasonably busy, but not outrageously crowded. If you don't arrive before 9:30AM or so on a Saturday or Sunday, you'll probably have to give your name and wait around for a table to open up for your party of whatever. If this was a giant restaurant, it probably wouldn't be an issue. They would have a waiting area / room for their guests who had to wait for a table. However, VB seems determined to stay in their present space, which is no longer large enough to hold their famished fan base. They have a dinky little waiting area (translated - a small bench) that holds three or four people. So you'll be spilling out into the street if it's warm, or literally be standing amongst the tables if it's cold, doomed to stare at patrons eating a luscious breakfast while your knees grow weaker and weaker. I have witnessed people waiting actually trying to stare down the lucky people sitting at a table. I suppose they're trying to shame the people at the tables into leaving.

Unless someone decides to use a table just to sip coffee and stretch out to read the Sunday paper on a busy Sunday (I've seen that too - come on people, where are your manners?), then those of us waiting simply need to relax, say a mantra to ourselves, and be patient. You will get your turn, too! Then it will be your choice to decide whether or not to begin your meal with a delectable muffin while you wait for the Promise of Satisfaction. Namaste, and bon appetit!

Day off = Lunch at Hot Doug's

One of my favorite things to do on a week day off is visit the mecca of encased meats, Hot Doug's. If you are a carnivore and you live in Chicago, you need to know about this place. The owner and chef is Doug Sohn, a Kendall College Culinary graduate. You don't normally use chef and hot dog stand in the same sentence, but you will soon understand.

Hot Doug's has limited hours, Monday through Saturday, 10:30 - 4:00. The first four times we went was on a Saturday, and the lines were out the door and around the block. Then we went during the week. The first few times, no wait. While Fridays seem to be the busiest day of the week, the wait is only about five minutes as opposed to the Saturday wait time of up to an hour. Doug himself works the counter, taking your order with a smile and occaisionaly a wisecrack. Despite the crowds, he and his staff find a way to remain well-tempered and helpful.

Friday and Saturday only, Hot Doug's serves Duck Fat Fries. These are worth any wait in my book, though aren't for everyone. We went with some friends one time and taste tested both regular and duck fat fries. It was almost split as to who liked which better. Needless to say, their regular fries are outstanding too. The duck fat adds a richer, creamier flavor to the fries. You must try.

Regardless of the fries, the sausages are what will keep you coming back. If you don't eat meat, be warned, you will only have two choices; the Veggie Dog and the Veggie Corn Dog. This makes it difficult for Babette to share my enthusiasm, as she only eats fish. We requested Doug make some fish sausages to expand. His response was that while it is more difficult to make and store fish sausage, he is experimenting with smoked salmon and lobster sausages.


Now, back to the sausages. Today, being a weekday away from work, I made the trek down. Every week they have a Celebrity Sausage, named after the celebrity du jour. My first visit I had a Sauternes Infused Fois Gras Sausage with truffle sauce. I still have dreams about the flavor combinations. This celebrity sausage was named after Alderman Joe Moore, the miguided Chicago alderman who initiated the city wide ban on fois gras. (We'll address this ban and ethical issues relating to foie gras in a later post.) Today's celebrity sausage was the Yvonne DeCarlo, honoring the passing of Mrs. Herman Munster herself, which is an Atomic Bomb Spicy Pork Sausage with Chipotle Dijonnaise and Pepper-Jack Cheese. They also have a weekly game sausage. Today, there were two. Headlining was the Cognac-Infused Smoked Pheasant Sausage with Truffle Sauce Moutarde and Fromage D'Affinoise. The second game sausage, at the bottom of the specials list, was the Smoked Alligator Sausage with Spicy Remoulade and Blue Cheese.

Now if you know me well enough, you know that it would be absolutely impossible to for me to get only one sausage at a place like this. I ordered the Smoked Pheasant sausage yet passed on the Yvonne DeCarlo (too spicy) and the Smoked Alligator (Alligator is for Taste of Chicago and visiting my Uncle in Florida). I opted for the Catalonian Pork Sausage with Saffron Rouille and Manchego Cheese.

While the Catalonian Pork Sausage was the wild card, it was by far the best of the two. Nice, smoky flavor, a little tougher, and not as salty or fatty as most pork sausages. It was similar to a Spanish Chorizo in texture. The Manchego cheese was a brilliant idea, bringing the slightly briny flavor into the sausage. The Saffron Rouille was a light mustard that had only faint saffron taste. The Smoked Pheasant sausage was a disappointment. While still very good, it was a bit too top heavy in flavors. The creaminess of the D'Affinois and the intensity of the Truffle Sauce Moutarde really overpowered the Pheasant. I took a few bites of just the sausage, and found it to be excellent, but far too subtle in flavors to pair with the monster taste of the ingredients.

Of course, to round out my meal, I ordered the Duck Fat Fries, which were, strangely, too salty. I managed to finish them, how, I will never know. I also put my support into the place by buying a Hot Doug's T-Shirt. I was disappointed to find that they were out of extra large. I brought the large home and tried it on. My two sausage and duck fat fry lunch made the large too small. I guess I will have to return it soon. Darn. Maybe they will have an XXL by then to go with my next order.

The New Blog!

After much deliberation, Babette and I have entered the blogosphere. What a better topic for us than food and drink. Travel maybe? Stay tuned for our further gastronomic adventures.

Bon Appetit

Dirk