(Jamie Keiles)

There are two types of vegetarian restaurants.  The first type tops things with sprouts and tosses around words like seitan and tempeh.  The second type pretends it isn’t a vegetarian restaurant.  Brother Tim’s, situated near 87th and Stony Island in Calumet Heights, is the second kind.  Their menu, which proffers “vegetarian fast food,” is conspicuously rabbit food–free.  Instead of salad, they offer a Super Link Soy Hotdog with melted soy cheese.  Instead of tofu, they serve chicken–less hot wings (mild or spicy). The dessert menu, which boasts a variety of cobblers and puddings, seems more at home as the capstone to a classic soul food meal than it does to something like a bowl of quinoa. Luckily, Brother Tim’s fare is junk food first and health food second—the rarest kind of vegetarian restaurant.

In the tradition of other fast food restaurants, Brother Tim’s upholds the nugget as an art form. One of their specialties, the fish nugget, near-perfectly mimicked the taste of seafood.  The nuggets, which come in orders of 12 and are delivered folded in a tinfoil bag, are lightly breaded in a cornmeal batter and fried in just the right amount of oil. Though the texture was less fish and more nugget, this wasn’t as bothersome as it might have been with a real piece of meat. Omnivores might find the homogenously spongy texture off-putting, but as a vegan, the processed mouth-feel was a welcome return to the Gorton’s frozen fish sticks of my childhood that I’ve since forsaken. Think McNugget, but slipperier and with less guilt.  The morsels paired wonderfully with Brother Tim’s homemade dairy-free Ranch dressing, which is available in house for dipping or in sixteen-ounce bottles for home use.

Brother Tim’s dessert case looked like an elementary school bake sale, filled with individually wrapped banana nut loaves, palm-sized sweet potato pies, and jumbo trays of fruit cobbler with sloppy handmade crusts. The blueberry cobbler, ordered for takeout, came double wrapped in a Styrofoam cup and a paper bag, welcome defenses against the white-shirt-hostile deep purple filling. The sweet potato pie, also portioned for takeout, filled a mid-sized plastic box and tasted sweet enough for dessert, but not so sweet that it couldn’t be eaten for breakfast.

Brother Tim’s shuns corn syrup and artificial sweeteners, but the establishment is largely devoid of the organic, gluten-free, and vegan–type rhetoric that characterizes many trendy vegan and vegetarian establishments. Sure, the fare is made without meat, eggs, or dairy, but the restaurant doesn’t come across as pushing a dogma. The vibe is downright unpretentious. Everything from the restaurant’s menu—hand painted directly on to the wall—to its in-house notices—rendered in rainbow WordArt—shirks that sort of self-congratulatory, Whole Foods activist affect that one might expect from a restaurant of this genre. Hell, they don’t even recycle, a fact that is somehow refreshing, bothersome, and confusing all at once.

What was most surprising about a visit to Brother Tim’s, though, was the clientele.  During the Saturday afternoon lunch rush, a steady stream of people passed through, most of them men. Men ordering soy chicken sandwiches. Men eating nut loaf burgers. Men sipping honey ginger lemonade, and liking it.  One after another, Brother Tim’s customers contradicted the meat equals masculine mindset. The venue doesn’t make a spectacle out of eating vegetarian, and this strategy appears to be working.

All in all, Brother Tim’s isn’t the kind of food you should eat every day, but it certainly makes for a nice treat, and definitely serves as an improvement on the real fast food establishments that blanket the surrounding area.

711 E. 87th St. Monday-Saturday, 11am-9pm; Sunday, 11am-7pm. (773)375-4722. brothertimsvegetarian.com

Anna Fixsen

At noon-sharp last Saturday afternoon, a group of squirming kids in Calumet Park shuffled outdoors for the annual Easter egg hunt. A grassy area was smattered with polychromatic splotches of color that only PAAS egg dye could elicit, and the hunting grounds were marked off with yellow caution tape. A coordinator laid out the rules: hunt in your age group, don’t be stingy, and bullies are automatically disqualified.

Donning a butter-yellow sweater, 10th Ward Alderman John Pope stepped to the front of the crowd and raised a megaphone to his mouth. “On your marks…” Tension in the air rose as parents pushed their kids to the front of the pack. “Get set…” Children clutching baskets and adults with camcorders froze into position. “Go!” The floodgates burst and kids surged forward to gather their loot. Parents took the liberty to coach their kids from the sidelines. “Over there, Danny—look over there!” a parent yelped, jabbing frantically with his index finger toward an overlooked egg as his dazed three-year-old toddled by.

The egg hunt has been an annual tradition in Calumet Park for over a decade. The event is sponsored by the South Chicago, East Side, and Hegewisch chambers of commerce and the 4th district police department. South Chicago Parents and Friends, a non-profit organization for developmentally disabled adults and children, helps out too: some of the organization’s participants decorate the eggs for the hunt.

Although the holiday is sometimes eclipsed by marshmallow treats and pastels, Calumet Park’s event was no hollow chocolate bunny. “A lot of these families can’t afford Easter baskets for their kids,” Alderman Pope explained. “We want to stress that Easter is more than the eggs and lots of candy; we don’t want to force anything spiritual on them of course, but we really want to stress the importance of respect for faith, family, and the community.”

Of course no egg hunt would be complete without an appearance from the Easter Bunny himself. Luckily, he was available for comment. When asked if he was ready for Sunday’s big day, he responded with a gruff, “Yeah.” He paused to take a picture with a pair of siblings. “I am dripping with sweat,” he added in a muffled voice, tugging uncomfortably at his plush pelt.

The menu at Calumet Fisheries; Veronica Gonzalez

Calumet Fisheries is the pride of local foodies. This shack, excuse me, smokehouse, is touted by the owners as one of the only authentic smokehouses left in Illinois. This disappearing art involves marinating the fish in brine overnight and then stoking fires with special oak logs in the smoking process. Take-out and cash-only, the place is known for its smoked and fried fish, and no matter your taste, it’s all good. Recently “Coastal Living” named it one of the magazine’s “25 favorite seafood dives across the country,” and, as quoted in Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations” trip to Calumet, “It’s destination: smoked fish.”
As you walk in you are greeted by the lightest, least offensive fish smell you’ve never thought imaginable. With the temperature dropping at nightfall, that along with your close proximity to the deep fryer will warm you to your bones. With only enough room for standing and placing orders, you’ll have to take your fish and go. And from a look at the regulars walking in and back out to their cars, you will come back. The loyal fans of Calumet have kept the place open for over sixty years now. Reading a sign on the wall, “This is our one & only location. We have no other stores,” it seems that change isn’t coming any time soon, and customers like it that way.
Do not invite your vegetarian friends to join you in gritty Calumet. If it’s smoked fish you desire, try showing up around 9:30 or 10am to watch the smoking process for yourself. This also allows for you to get freshly smoked fish at the proper (not straight from freezer) temperature. Offerings include chubs, salmon, shrimp, and trout, with the smoked garlic-pepper trout coming in as the most economic choice at $8.15/lb. This fish-eating experience is dominated by textures, as the flaky exterior holds in a powerful, fleshy, salty center. Locals also report that the salmon collar has a truly memorable fatty flavor that makes you happy to wrap up and bring the remainder home. With your take-out sitting in your lap, you might not be able to make it home (or to your local watering hole for the ever-so-complementary pale ale pint) before you break into your meal.
Some fried favorites include fish chips ($6.45) and shrimp ($8.79), with fries, coleslaw and sauce included in the dinner order. However, if you’re feeling a little daring, Calumet also serves fried clam strips, smelts, and frogs’ legs. The old favorite fish chips were fried to perfection. The meal is light and dry until you sink your teeth into one of those bad boys. The fish itself is delicate and moistened only by its natural fish oils—not drippy from the fryer at all. To accompany the fish you get a choice of mild or hot sauce, which although watery contains a surprising sweetness that adds another layer to the fish. Finally, the element that has all my companions jumping is the fries.

These thick babies are evenly cut, firm and again devoid of any fryer greasiness. Lightly salted (only requiring two pinches for my salt-fiend taste) but full on potato, they just tie the basket meal together the right way.
So whether it’s the smoked collar by the river on a hot summer day, or warming up with some fried smelt before the winter’s end, bring $10 to $20 cash (with the smoked fish on the more expensive side) and a bunch of friends to try it all.

Calumet Fisheries, 3259 E. 95th St. Sunday-Wednesday, 10am-9:45pm; Thursday, 9am-9:30pm; Friday-Saturday, 9am-9:45pm. (773)933-9855. calumetfisheries.com

Inside, Naugahyde upholstery in maroon, cream, and glittery silver date Soul Queen several decades in the past. Just inside the entrance hangs a faded portrait of Helen Anglin, the Soul Queen herself, decked in fine clothing. In the next room, a massive buffet holds staples of soul food: fried chicken, fried chicken with gravy, fried catfish, macaroni and cheese. Sweet potatoes and collard greens provide some vitamins and keep a diner’s blood pressure held in delicate balance. For dessert, peach cobbler and sweet potato pie. On a Friday evening, Soul Queen’s massive dining area is sparsely populated and deathly quiet. Through the silence I can hear a man at the table next to me commenting on the food. He is nonplussed. He is “disappointed”; the food is “tasteless.” Luckily, for situations such as this, each table comes equipped with a giant bottle of hot sauce. The man liberally douses his chicken and digs in.

Photographs hung on the walls suggest that Soul Queen once saw more prosperous days. Once a hub of community activism, Soul Queen attracted a great deal of celebrity traffic. Faded and coated with shellac, the photos depict Helen Anglin posing with many high profile guests, including Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali, Jesse Jackson, Bill Clinton, and Mr. T. Newspaper clippings from the Chicago Sun Times and the Chicago Tribune are framed and hung on the walls. They date up until the 1990s and sing praises of Soul Queen. In the dim light of today’s Soul Queen, they are difficult to read.