Fried chicken, kakigōri and one very good waffle: The best meals Salon staffers ate in 2022

“I’m always a sucker for a new dining experience on top of just the pleasure of eating out, but when my two friends recommended going to a skewer restaurant, T-kebab, I was intrigued. While I’ve had yakitori and other skewers served to me, this place asks you to place your raw ingredients on a motorized, mechanized spit that accommodates multiple skewers. It’s a mesmerizing sight watching your protein of choice shifting and rotating before you, juices dripping with a satisfying sizzle below. I don’t eat beef and pork at home, so I got my fix here, and I was able to indulge in my rare craving for kidneys as well – all dipped in a tongue-numbing dry spice blend. Along with a cold beer and company, it was one of the most satisfying meals I’ve had in a long time.”

“I had my first vegan chik’n sandwich from Turkey and the Wolf on my birthday in May and have thought about it ever since. It’s a good thing this place is pretty far from my house or else I’d eat here every single day.”

“After a long day of cold rain, multiple trains, and more Bruegels than I ever knew existed, I found myself in the most beautiful train station in the world. I bought a waffle that was smothered in whipped cream and chocolate, with a little Belgian flag stuck in it for good measure. Then I went across the street, where I promptly collapsed on the bed of my Antwerp hotel room, flicked on the TV to an episode of ‘Repair Shop,’ cracked a bottle of minibar chardonnay, and somehow had the most wonderful meal of all my travels and my entire year. It was a very, very good waffle.”

“La Chinesca is both the name of the Chinatown in Mexicali and of the new Philly restaurant that serves the Chinese-Mexican fusion that comes from that neighborhood. Everything there is fantastic, but they usually have some form of mushroom tacos that are absolute perfection. I realized, too, that putting salsa verde on a General Tso’s tofu dish is the best thing ever.”

“This year I found comfort in repetition – I more regularly ordered fried chicken sandwiches and BLTs than any year in memory. Spurred on by the never ending ‘chicken wars’, I sought out who my personal chicken champion might be. Turns out the best of the gourmet approaches and the whole slew of Nashville Hot Chicken purveyors can’t stand up to how reliably good Popeye’s Spicy Chicken sandwich really is.”

“In early January, I kicked muddy snow off my boots and slid into a warm booth facing the open kitchen at Penny’s Noodle Shop, a Chicago institution since 1991 that’s located less than half a mile from Wrigley Field, home of the Cubs. Stephen — my partner in both life and dining — had been talking about this place since we made the decision amid the pandemic to boomerang back to Chicago together after respectively spending years away. While I had miraculously never visited, it was his go-to place for about a decade and I had heard him wax poetic more than once about their lad nar. Sometimes written as lard na or laad na, Penny’s version features ‘stir-fried broccoli, carrot and ginger in a light gravy served over crispy pan fried wide rice noodles.’ Sounds simple, right? And it is.

But sitting there, with the light rumble of the L track overhead, it felt like I was absorbing Stephen’s memories of the neighborhood through a kind of culinary osmosis. We’ve returned a bunch over the last year — after I learned to ride a bicycle through busy Wrigleyville traffic, after we got our Chicago library cards — to make some new memories, too.”