Sunday Dinner (+ optional food exchange) 3/17 @ Café Alif

EvA did a great writeup of Café Alif, a place I hadn’t heard of before. It specializes in the cuisine of the Uyghurs, a minority ethnic group in China, with roots in Central Asia. I vaguely remember having Uyghur food on a trip to Xi’an years ago, but the (non-Uyghur) dumpling scene there was so strong, my memories of the Uyghur offerings aren’t great.

Help me renew my Uyghur memories by joining us Sunday, March 17, 5:30 pm, at Café Alif.

As usual, the more the merrier (especially if you need an alternative to St. Patrick’s Day craziness). That’ll give us great ordering power; a chance to sample lots of offerings that you wouldn’t get with just a two or four person group.

Also as usual, some of us may be exchanging single-serve foodstuffs — which are handy on those nights when, rather than actually cooking, you’d prefer to pull something out of the freezer and re-heat it for dinner. (Exchanges made by other LTHers are usually pretty good [but speaking for some of my offerings, not always].) Details on exchanging are here, but no one is expected or required to exchange (although if you want to make a batch of soup or stew, you might go home with something interesting).

Just come for the camaraderie and good food.

Let us know if you can join us by responding in this thread, so we can give the restaurant a head count. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Attending:
nr706, plus exchange (Chili Verde)
Cathy2, plus exchange (Irish Soda Bread)
Moetchandon
GAF
Colleen + 1

Sunday, March 17 @ 5:30 pm

Café Alif
2245 W. Devon Ave.
Chicago, IL 60659
(773) 685-1818

Me, too, plus exchange!

This time I will offer Siberian Pelmeni.

I’m in for dinner.

I'm in. This is a true LTH event.

For reasons not worthy of explanation here, I was a judge at a chili competition from Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management’s chili making club. I tried 15 different chilis (out of 20) before running out of stomach space. As you might expect, some were much better than others, but my favorite, by far, (among several winners) was a version of chili verde. I think I can reverse-engineer what they did, so that’s what I’ll be bringing for my exchange. (Some of my earlier exchange stuff has been a bit more exotic.)


To reiterate, no one going to this event needs to bring anything to exchange. But if you happen to have some leftovers that you can put into a Gladware container, I’ll exchange your container with some chili verde.*

Hope you can join us!

*Chili verde will be at C2 spiciness level. If you don't like cilantro, you won't like this.

I wish we could join you, but we have a family event that evening. Hope you enjoy Café Alif!

Hi,

I am doing a switcheroo: I will offer a loaf of Irish Soda bread instead of Pelmeni, which I hope to offer next month.

Regards,
Cathy2

Plus two - Colleen from last month and her husband ...

Reservation under "Tom."

Anything to report from Sunday's dinner? The place sounds interesting so I was waiting for any hits or misses before trying them out.

I thought it was very good, but not too dissimilar from other Central Asian places. The Honey Cake is a must-have dessert. Service was exceptionally accommodating. We all left full, and the total, with a nice tip, was $20 per person.

The honey cake was definitely the high point. I wished that I had ordered several slices to take home. The rest of the meal was quite good at pre-pandemic prices.