So, last night was our seventh anniversary, and we decided to do Thirsty Pig, since that space has meaning to us. You know what? It far exceeded my expectations. I had the sliced brisket (flat), and the only complaint I had about it was that it perhaps a little bit less toothsome than I like it, but, man, it hit all the right notes: no stringiness, no dryness, fat was properly rendered, good rub, nice smoke ring, clean smoke flavor, not over-smoked, juicy through-and-through. I even forgot there were sauces on the table. I mean, I was really surprised at how good this brisket was. With a little more chew, I would have put it on Smoque level. Not at all what I was expecting, and I wonder if anyone else had a similar experience.

Otherwise, wife had pulled chicken, which was executed well, but it's pulled chicken so nothing I could really judge on. My cornbread was delicious. Fried pickle appetizer was great. Didn't get into rib tips, burnt ends or anything like that. But I was damned impressed with the brisket.

Sweet Willie wrote: The fried bread hill w/cheese was the big downer for our group of 8 last night, bread was so overfried that it was very hard, greasy & tasteless. I can imagine that if the bread is fried just so it is crispy on the very edges but chewy, this would be a terrific dish as the cheese/garlic sauce was quite good. But as mentioned, big disappointment last night.
Great service, which isn't always easy to find at some Eastern European places I've been to.
The other starter was the veal dumplings w/sour cream bacon sauce. Quite tasty and a deal as there were probably 20 in an order.
While the beef tongue in cream sauce looked quite good, I opted for the Lithuanian Combo Plate: slice of Kugelis, zepplin, potato sausage, Lithuanian sausage, sauerkraut.
Dinner also included a cup of soup, I chose the warm beet soup which was terrific.
Highlight for me was the potato sausage and Kugelis. Zepplin was far too much dumpling that had very little flavor, ground meat stuffing was good. Lithuanian sausage was bland.
Nice to have Lithuanian beer on tap.
I'll for sure be back, just will stay clear of the bread hill.

It was sold and relocated?
I was one of the other diners at this event. I guess I should share the images of that night. For a few of them, my Canon SX600 HS did not want to focus , and I was not going to slow the dining by asking for a second shot.
This could also serve as a reminder that Lithuanian Independence Day [one of them] is approaching on 16 February.

pudgym29 wrote:It was sold and relocated?

Same owners, new concept.

They are working on a new location out west.

The new location is now open...

Grand Dukes
980 75th St, Downers Grove

The old location, now a BBQ place, still has the same owners

Thirsty Pig BBQ
6312 S Harlem Ave, Summit

Binko wrote:Didn't get into rib tips, burnt ends or anything like that. But I was damned impressed with the brisket.

Unfortunately, my second, recent, visit (at Thirsty Pig) didn't go anywhere near as well, so they're just batting one for two. I'll give it a couple more shots to see if they can recreate what I had there the first time.

I had a nice dinner Sunday 10/13 at the new location. May add a few pictures if they came out. New name is "Grand Duke's", perhaps an admind or the OP could update the thread title.

diversedancer wrote:I had a nice dinner Sunday 10/13 at the new location. May add a few pictures if they came out. New name is "Grand Duke's", perhaps an admind or the OP could update the thread title.

It's actually been "Grand Duke's" since at least 2007 (according to Google street view pictures of the old place.) I had thought it always was known as that, but maybe it did have a slightly different name just previous to this.

Binko wrote:

diversedancer wrote:I had a nice dinner Sunday 10/13 at the new location. May add a few pictures if they came out. New name is "Grand Duke's", perhaps an admind or the OP could update the thread title.

It's actually been "Grand Duke's" since at least 2007 (according to Google street view pictures of the old place.) I had thought it always was known as that, but maybe it did have a slightly different name just previous to this.

I think he’s referring to the fact the title of the thread doesn’t reflect that.

Panther in the Den wrote:

Binko wrote:

diversedancer wrote:I had a nice dinner Sunday 10/13 at the new location. May add a few pictures if they came out. New name is "Grand Duke's", perhaps an admind or the OP could update the thread title.

It's actually been "Grand Duke's" since at least 2007 (according to Google street view pictures of the old place.) I had thought it always was known as that, but maybe it did have a slightly different name just previous to this.

I think he’s referring to the fact the title of the thread doesn’t reflect that.

Ah, sorry -- I thought it was that the restaurant had changed its name in the new location. Yeah, it looks like sometime in 2007 they must have officially changed their name. I see references to "Duke's" before that, but "Grand Duke's" afterwards.

Memory is a funny thing -- it feels like (Grand) Duke's had been there forever on Harlem, but it only opened in January 2006. OK, that is almost 14 years ago, I suppose, but it feels like it's always been there to me (well, until the move, of course. )

Duke's morphed into the Thirsty Pig, which has recently closed:
https://desplainesvalleynews.com/thirst ... 38-117.htm

alisonmackenzie wrote:Duke's morphed into the Thirsty Pig, which has recently closed:
https://desplainesvalleynews.com/thirst ... 38-117.htm

That’s coincidental. Just today I ran across their menu.


We visited maybe twice and enjoyed our visits. Pretty good BBQ.

alisonmackenzie wrote:Duke's morphed into the Thirsty Pig, which has recently closed:
https://desplainesvalleynews.com/thirst ... 38-117.htm

Well, that explains why it looked so dead last Sunday night when I drove past it. I only ended up going twice; first time great experience food-wise. Second time, not so great, but they made up for it with very good service. We've been meaning to go again, but, well, I guess we missed our opportunity.

Several addresses and iterations, so a bit confusing. Never ate at the place in Summit. Only know The Grand Duke's in Downer's Grove -- relatively recent move, according to a comment on page 2 of this thread -- nice place with good food. Not an expert on this particular cuisine, but went with a fairly knowledgeable crowd, and those with more experience in this cuisine thought it very good. I enjoyed everything but particularly liked the potato pancakes with duck and the potato cake with bacon.