Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Unlucky Rabbit

Paul Fehribach, the chef-owner of Andersonville’s upcoming Big Jones (5347 N. Clark St.), has a defined focus for his new restaurant, bowing in early April: “It’s contemporary coastal Southern—cuisine from low-country Carolinas—a little bit of Florida and Caribbean,” he says. “And a lot of Cajun and Creole, more of the urban Louisiana cuisines.” Fehribach, an Indiana native who created the recipes for the Hi Ricky noodle chain during his lengthy stint with the company—and learned to appreciate Southern food during five years in the kitchen at Harmony Grill (3159 N. Southport Ave.; 773-525-2508)—will bake his own bread, brew his own Worcestershire, and make some of his own cheeses. Also, look for a menu of classic prewar cocktails like pink ladies and...

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Stretch Armstrong

Govind Armstrong has set his sights on Chicago. “ Govind who,” you say? Armstrong is the man behind red-hot Table 8 in Los Angeles and Miami, and he is breaking ground at an undisclosed location in River North by the end of January. “I’ve always wanted to do a place in Chicago,” says Armstrong, 38. “It’s got an impeccable dining scene.” Armstrong, an L.A. native who apprenticed at the age of 13 with Wolfgang Puck at Spago, has Costa Rican roots, but describes Table 8 on Melrose Avenue as: “Nothing fancy; warm and inviting, a little gem that you would walk into. It’s not exactly comfort food, but it’s approachable. We’re not reinventing how people should eat, or what they should eat.” (The only dish he’s bringing to his 120-seat restaurant in Chicago that he’d reveal to us was a prime salt-roasted porterhouse.) Armstrong is currently searching for a Chicago chef who is...

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Do you know someone who has recently lost or is about to lose his house in a foreclosure? If you don’t, you may very soon—and that’s true whether you’re rich, poor, or somewhere in the middle. The latest and most precise figures show that foreclosures are on the rise everywhere in the Chicago area, including such affluent places as Glencoe, Lake Forest, Hinsdale, and Lincoln Park.

Last week, the National Training and Information Center released figures compiled by Record Information Services (RIS), a data-gathering company based in far western Kane County. The figures compare the number of new foreclosures in the first half of 2006 with the same period in 2007. They are broken out for 77 individual...

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Yesterday afternoon, the day before Halloween, several real-estate agents and their children went on a special trick-or-treating route on the 4100 block of North Bell Avenue in Chicago’s North Center neighborhood. Stopping at five of the six houses that are for sale on the block, the kids picked up treats—but what their parents saw was pretty scary.

On this block alone, there are four new replacement houses in the $1.2-million to $1.4-million price range, all finished (or nearly finished) and unsold. Also listed for sale are...

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We scoured the city for the top offerings on Chicago's world-class restaurant scene. From appetizer through dessert, from über haute pineapple rum soup to down-home juicy fried chicken, here's your road map to the 124 yummiest dishes around. Read more
As Chicago's real-estate market began to experience the big chill, homeowners worried that this was the beginning of the next ice age. But as our annual house survey demonstrates, there were a few bright spots in a year that was more frustrating than desperate. Read more