Clarke's Opening on Monday!

posted by chicago pop

Alas, a non-locally owned chain displacing cell phone stores and promoting foot-traffic on 53rd Street late at night. From the U of C's 53rd Street Blog:

Clarke’s 24-hour restaurant will open this Monday starting at 8 a.m. During its opening day, Clarke’s will offer a pre-Valentine’s Day special to include a 10 percent discount for each total bill until midnight.

Located at 1451 E. 53rd St., the menu choices include a variety of items such as omelets, pancakes, stir-fry dishes, sandwiches and a host of other food selections.

UChicago officials brought the all-night eatery to Hyde Park’s key commercial corridor to address the interests of students and the community for more late-night amenities.

“As we continue to work closely with the community, the City and Alderman Will Burns to strengthen our ongoing revitalization efforts, we believe adding the right mix of restaurants and retail businesses will bring added value to Hyde Park that residents have been asking for over the past several years,” said James Hennessy, director of Commercial Real Estate Operations for the University.

Established in 1986, Clarke’s has existing locations in Lincoln Park, Evanston, Lakeview and Bucktown.

“We are very proud to make Hyde Park our new home for Clarke’s as a key destination on the South Side of Chicago,” said Steve Dionysopoulos, co-owner of Clarke’s. “With the rapid growth in an important business area along 53rd Street, we believe that our 24-hour restaurant will meet the needs of both students and the community at large. We are very excited to be a part of the Hyde Park community.”

New Five–Screen Movie Theater Coming to 53rd Street

posted by chicago pop

Well how about that. Sorry, all you 5th Ward Hairston voters, but the 4th Ward is really where it's at. We won't object to you coming north to spend your money.

From the University of Chicago:

The University of Chicago plans to bring The New 400 Theaters, an independent movie operator that will offer a mix of art, children’s and wide–release films, in the soon–to–be renovated buildings at 53rd Street and Harper Avenue.

Officials said the 10,149–square–foot theater plan includes five screens with state–of–the–art digital projection. One screening room will have tables placed between the seats for future lunch and dinner options.

The New 400 Theaters plans to discount tickets for students, seniors and children. General–admission seating will be below market prices, said theater officials.

“We believe students, faculty, staff and our neighbors will be very excited about having a new movie theater within walking distance,” said Kimberly Goff–Crews, Vice President for Campus Life. “As we talk to members of our community about how to enhance campus life, this is one of the ideas that comes up frequently.”

The agreement with The New 400 Theaters is part of a broader effort to revitalize the 53rd Street corridor as a focus of commercial, retail and entertainment activity.

Last month, the University unveiled plans to begin a major renovation of the commercial and theater buildings at 53rd Street and Harper Avenue, which are currently vacant. Five Guys restaurant, scheduled to open by year’s end, will be the first tenant. Additional tenants will be announced in the upcoming months. The University is also partnering with the City and community leaders to lead an ambitious redevelopment of the adjacent Harper Court property as a mixed–use complex.

“The theater, along with other strategic revitalization efforts, will bring added value to the area. It is one more piece of our ongoing conversations with the City and the neighborhood to build Hyde Park as a key destination on the South Side of Chicago,” said Susan Campbell, Associate Vice President of Civic Engagement.

The New 400 Theaters opened its first venue in Rogers Park in July 2009. That site, built in 1912 near Loyola University and formerly known as Village North, is one of the oldest continuously operating movie theaters in the country. Tony Fox, owner and operator of The New 400 Theaters, said the Hyde Park location was ideal due to its close proximity to the campus and the overall commitment from the community to upkeep its neighborhood.

“We are proud to bring our theater to Hyde Park, a place where people really care about their community,” said Fox. “My passion is community service, and we hope to continue in the same tradition as we have done in Rogers Park — to bring safe, reliable and sound entertainment to the area.”

Fox said his business partner, Tom Klein, will serve as general manager in Hyde Park. Klein is also the general manager for The New 400 Theaters in Rogers Park. He said they are interested in talking with Doc Films, the University student group that screens diverse films each quarter for students, faculty, staff and the community, to see if there are potential partnerships that could work in the new theater model.

The movie theater has a targeted opening date of fall 2012.

People Don't Drink in Hyde Park; Why People Drink to the Windermere Building; CMB Forgets She Has No Degree From Harvard; Local Election Blog

posted by chicago pop

"I could really use a drink right here, but guess I'll have to go to the Northside."

The Maroon to Hyde Park: Know Thyself (or ask thy business leaders and quote them in The Maroon):

“People don’t drink here.”

“People don’t really like the idea of a bar in a college neighborhood like this.”

"[A] commercial real estate agent ... “told me that I would be throwing my money away [if I tried to open a bar in Hyde Park]...."

The shocking story about how a young person wanted to open a cafe/arcade/bar somewhere in the neighborhood and was roundly chased out of Whoville by sundry Whosits. Including one real estate agent - who may fear that such a business would hurt Carol Moseley Braun's inflated property value.

********

An interesting video clip of the 2010 Christmas Party at MAC's Windermere House. Part Reality TV, part unpaid advertising, part infomercial, it is nonetheless interesting to hear the thoughts of Windermere residents, and to see their diversity. Black, white, military, civilian, academic, professional, young and married, old and single, Mana-hattanites in exile, and more -- all the things that make Hyde Park the demographic wild card we love are right here:

********

A telling gaffe from imminently destitute but eminently self-satisfied Hyde Parker, Carol Moseley Braun, in which she claims (mistakenly -- but who hasn't done this?) to own "an advanced degree from Harvard."

The Consensus is that the Consensus Candidate has no Harvard degree
[Source: Chicago Magazine]

Astonishing. Chicago Mag writes:

What’s striking about Moseley Braun’s statement is that later in the interview she had a chance to clear things up. Host Greg Jarrett opened the segment to calls, and a caller named Jeffrey remarked that he’s “impressed” by all of Moseley Braun’s accomplishments, including that she “went to Harvard.” The moment passed without a clarification from the candidate—that she was a visiting fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics in 2007, but the program did not offer a degree.

Look, it was a morning radio interview, and anyone who has given one without adequate pre-air caffeination knows how hard it can be to keep one's advanced degrees straight. (I never have, but why should that stop me from saying so?) I know, I know; in these tough times, anyone can go broke running their business into the ground, and anyone can mistakenly claim to own a Harvard PhD. Woe to those who throw stones.

*******

And finally, from a reader, a quirky little blog devoted to the upcoming February elections. Not too much for Hyde Parkers to chew on, but there is good coverage of the mayoral race, and interesting mini-travelogues such as this one.

The Piano Lesson @ Court Theater

posted by chicago pop

A.C. Smith portrays Doaker in August Wilson's The Piano Lesson
at Court Theater*

At the center of a room in Pittsburgh stands an ancient, upright piano, its legs and body decorated with distinctive carvings. In the house that holds the piano lives a widow with her young daughter, and her widowed uncle. Into their home enter two men from Mississippi -- family -- the widow's brother, whose father was killed a quarter century before, and a young man hoping to flee the injustice and hard rural labor of the South.

All this family can claim as its patrimony, a family strained by the dispersal of the Great Migration, and ruptured by the violent destruction of its men, is the 137 year-old piano.

The fate of this object is the subject of August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning, 1987 play, the fourth in his epic "Century Cycle" of dramas exploring the experience of African-Americans across each decade of the twentieth century.

With a story of two siblings drawing the remnants of their kin into their dispute, Wilson presents a classic tale of sibling rivalry and, in the conflict over how to divide the family's inheritance, a struggle to achieve reconciliation with the past.

For this family, that past is dominated by slavery. The piano formerly belonged to the owner of the family's ancestors, and was bought by the slave owner in exchange for the grandmother and father of Doaker (above), whose likenesses were then carved onto the piano's body.

The piano is thus an ambivalent object, one with a sentimental link to a horrible past, and a money value that recalls the commodification of the slaves it was once bartered against.

Berniece (Tyla Abercumbie) and Boy Willie (Ronald L. Conner)
Argue Over the Family Piano*

What should be done with this object? Boy Willie , up from Mississippi, wants to sell it and use the money, fulfilling the long deferred promise of Emancipation by buying land and gaining independence as a free, yeoman farmer.

Berniece, Boy Willie's sister, resists her brother's entrepreneurial plans, and wants to keep the piano as a link to her dead mother in the past, as well as with her living daughter in the present, who is receiving formal piano lessons but knows nothing of its story.

The piano is the capital accumulation of one family, but is understood as a different type of capital by Boy Willie and Berniece, in a way that reflects the distinct gender roles of 1930's America: for Boy Willie the piano is economic capital, a commodity to be converted to cash for the purposes of investment and economic self-improvement, a prospect which is not equally available to Berniece, for whom the symbolic capital of the object, a sort of shrine to a tattered family heritage, far outweighs its selling price.

Perhaps the strangest thing about Wilson's play is its reliance on a literal haunting of the piano by a deceased white landowner to move the plot to resolution. But it works, whether taken literally or figuratively as the haunting of 1930's American with Jim Crow and the unfulfilled promises of the post-Reconstruction era.

In other ways, Wilson's play draws upon many genres and conventions, from slapstick to musical: the most moving sequence is arguably the field worker's song joined in by the men as they remember days in the South. The production suffered from only a few flaws, such as unintentional bumping of furniture, or a noticeable pause in Smith's recitation at one point.

My fellow theater-goer that evening, originally from the East Coast, remarked that anywhere else, he would expect a theater of Court's quality to be in the liveliest, most vibrant entertainment district of a large city, steps away from the after-theater bars, bistros and restaurants.

At one time, 55th Street might have filled that role, and the washed up piano man Wining Boy in Wilson's play, when he exited the stage, might have felt comfortable crossing the street and pounding the ivories till the early morning.

Though those days are gone, the attraction of the Court's productions is consistently high enough to accomplish what we spend so much time encouraging on this blog: draw people to the neighborhood from the rest of the city. On the night we were there, people were being turned away from the box office. That's the kind of problem we could use more of in Hyde Park.


*Image source: http://www.courttheatre.org/season/show/the_piano_lesson/

On the Pavement: The End of BYOB on 55th

posted by chicago pop

The timing couldn't be better: as the financial meltdown accelerates, Hyde Parkers may soon be able to to forget the plunging value of their 401(k)s by ordering a drink with their noodles at any of the restaurants on 55th Street between the Metra tracks and Cornell.

According to a notification sent to neighbors last week, MAC Properties is seeking a zoning change that would allow the restaurants on the 1601-1623 stretch of E. 55th to operate as "General Restaurants," thereby enabling them to obtain a city license to sell alcohol on their premises.

The idea, according to MAC representative Peter Cassel, is to make it possible for restaurants on this strip to sell higher-margin items, such as alcoholic beverages, in order to improve their income statements. Higher revenues would allow them to invest more in interior refurbishments and menu improvements.

The request for a zoning change was arrived at in discussion with the strip's businesses, who support the zoning change and the increased revenue it would allow: Morry's, Nile, Thai 55, Cafe Corea, and Kikuya.

The proposed change will be discussed at a community meeting at 6PM, Thursday, October 2, at 1621 E. 55th Street. Fifth Ward Alderman Leslie Hairston will be in attendance.

Forget Preservation...PROHIBITION!

posted by Peter Rossi

Photo illustration by GFC

As you sit down to dinner in Hyde Park, the doorbell rings and you cringe: chances are it's either a solicitor or a "cause."

Residents of Harper and Stony Island Avenues opened their doors early this month to find a bearded NIMBY or one of his minions, armed with a petition. What was the petition about? It sought to put a referendum on November's ballot voting the 39th Precinct dry. "Dry," of course, means to prohibit the sale of alcohol in any commercial establishment. Hey, Hyde Park is already a nuclear-free zone, so why not also take aim at the devil's brew? Visions of corseted women being raped by drunken immigrants, children being neglected by their alcoholic parents, and Bar Mitzvahs gone mad drift into your head.

But no, this petition is pure subterfuge. The Bearded One is a longtime NIMBY who wants to halt development in Hyde Park. It's no accident that the 39th Precinct includes the old Doctors Hospital.

On the subject of Doctors Hospital, popular opinion appears to have turned against the NIMBYs, so how can they block the hotel project? It's easy: hotels depend on restaurants for profits, and restaurants depend on liquor licenses. There's no surer way to plow salt into the DH soil than to forbid the sale of alcohol.

But wait. Isn't this Bearded One the same man who stood up at the August 5th community meeting on Doctors Hospital and solemnly declared, "I'm in favor of development"? Isn't this the same person who insists he's not against a hotel, but merely wants the developer to "reuse" the existing building in the construction? Isn't this the same person who feigned righteous indignation when the developer, White Lodging, said "reuse" was not feasible for this project? How can this man be publicly in favor of development and "preservation" of the structure as a hotel, and at the same time go door-to-door, trying to submarine not only the proposed development but any future development?

Welcome to the Wonderful World of NIMBYs. They think the means justify the end, and that no one will hold them accountable for their outrageous actions.

Notes From Undergrads: Hooked on Hookahs?

posted by Jason Finkes

One of an occasional series at Hyde Park Progress exploring things from an undergraduate perspective.

As has already been discussed (and at great lengths in the comment field of my last post), Hyde Park lacks in late night locations for cups of tea, conversation and general hang-outs. This time around, I want to examine one of the places that I was excited and surprised to see make it in to Hyde Park: the Noon Hookah Lounge.

The first thing to clear up is that it is not the best hookah lounge in the city. That prize goes to one up on the Northside, whose name I can't recall, that really cultivates a unique "oriental" experience complete with floor cushions and low tables, bellydancers and Turkish coffee. For those who want to give it a shot as a one time experience, I heartily recommend making the trek with a group of friends.

However, for the more quotidian experience, Hyde Park's Noon Hookah Lounge does deliver. I've been three times, twice with people who have been to real hookah lounges in the middle-east and the most recent when I conversed with a new friend. The only real complaint that can be offered by my cosmopolitan friends as to the inauthenticity of the experience was the lounge's failure to provide an ashing tool to move around the coal and keep it burning hot. And admitedly, this is mitigated by the Lounge's relatively constant attention towards providing new coals.

The actual experience of the lounge, each time, was stellar. There is little that can compare with spending 3 hours at a time (how the time flew!) chatting about the state of medicine, educational philosophy and a combination of literature, philosophy and politics. The lounge reminds me of the salons and cafes of nascent modernity, an area in which people sit down and have intimate conversation at a broad range of topics, sharing well-reasoned opinions and developing new ones.

I cannot in good conscience ignore the aspect of the smoke, though. There are as many opinions about the healthiness of hookah smoking as there are opinions shared while smoking it. Some say it's worse than smoking a pack of cigarettes due to the length of time spent breathing the smoke, others say that the water filters the smoke well and that it burns at a lower temperature, generating less of the obnoxious noxious elements of cigarette smoking. This is in addition to the issues of cigarette stink, where hookah excels in flavor and residual smell. You come out reeking of mint or fruit scented smoke instead of stale tobacco and additives. So while it can be unpleasant for many, it is a valid if infrequent option for a niche market.

If Hyde Park is to maintain its current small shop feel and mentality (with "like 3 shoe shops" and lamp shops), the Hookah Lounge is of the quality and character that I would expect. A niche market, but a decent iteration; small, but interesting, and due to the health concerns, a place that one would go like to go to with some regularity, if infrequently. It would be even better if there were a few other places to put in to a late night weekend entertainment rotation.

How Not to Market Hyde Park

posted by chicago pop

A little while ago, I was part of a focus group sponsored by the University of Chicago. I was curious just how this was going to work. I've been in focus groups where I was asked to imagine myself as a certain brand of nasal spray and then describe the car I'd drive, or asked, "If you were a disposable baby wipe, which L stop would you get off at?"

In this case, we were spared the application of method acting to consumer products. It was just nice (free!) dinner conversation among strangers. The ostensible purpose of the meeting was to help put together a little brochure promoting Hyde Park living to prospective faculty and staff. We were asked what we liked about the neighborhood, and I agreed with most of it.

The University claims that "more than 60%" of faculty currently live in the neighborhood, which is apparently a lot compared to peer institutions, so I'm not quite sure what the problem is. But if the University even feels the need to do more to attract professors, that's telling you something right there.

Going into this, I knew that if you actually get out and talk to professors across the disciplines, it's clear that a lot of them would be living on the North Side if it weren't for the very powerful attraction of living close to work. Or getting their kids more conveniently to and from the Lab School. A lot of grad students take their stipends and scoot over to Wicker Park, Humboldt Park, or Logan Square.

That, in fact, is the essence of an observation reported in the opening salvo of this blog, Why Hyde Park Progress? "It's great for kids, but is basically boring."

Although the company was pleasant, the way the focus group itself shaped up, I must say, did not give me confidence in the prowess of the University to sell Hyde Park to potential hires. In fact, the little meeting managed to elicit a lot of the attitudes that make other Chicagoans want to throw rotten organic tomatoes at them. So I can only wonder how effective any promotional material will be that parrots the opinions of people already living here who just luuuuuuuuuv the place for their special quirky reasons.

They're already here, after all. The point is to woo the ones who aren't. Not to scare them off, which I'm afraid is what may happen.

It seems that the shrewdest thing to do would be to go find those people who could have lived here but don't, and ask them why they decided not to. Then you could really isolate and tackle your PR problem.

Enough generalities. I'll share with you the following (paraphrased) comments elicited in our conversation, statements that seem guaranteed to spook all sorts of potential recruits. I can't wait to see how the University uses these nuggets of stodginess:

"I like Hyde Park because it's not commercialized. I don't want a Home Depot on my block. I don't want a GAP. There are lots of little shoe repair places that have been here forever."

"I like Hyde Park because other people don't come here. I don't want to share my neighborhood with everybody else."

"I don't need much night life, because I'd rather stay in, or have dinner with friends."

"The Point controversy showed how the community is involved and really comes together about what it cares about."

So, if I were in the marketing laboratory and had these focus group transcripts dropped in my lap, what kind of advertising magic would I cook up for my client? Well, going strictly on this input, I'd have to tell my boss that if we want to sell Hyde Park based on the things people like about it, we need to hit these points: Hyde Park is reclusive bordering on anti-social, thread-bare bordering on tightwad, boring at night, and stubbornly resistant to change even when it's needed.

There's your promotional brochure right there. Can't wait to see it!

PS: I have to confess, as I did at dinner that night, that I do want a GAP. A big one, with cashiers in their headsets dancing to canned music, right over in the old Harper Theater building. I'll be waiting in line outside the day they open.

Notes from Undergrads: Where Fun Comes to Die

Introducing the first of an occasional series at Hyde Park Progress exploring things from an undergraduate perspective.

posted by Jason Finkes

Anyone associated with the University knows this fated phrase. It slips from our tongues, ironically self-describing our love of the ascetic lifestyle, slaving away for the sake of truth and beauty in our gothic monastery. But more and more, I begin to wonder which came first: the deprivation of doing things or the lack of things to do in Hyde Park.

Now before I get jumped all over in the comments section, I do appreciate all the wonderful things Hyde Park does have to offer: the decaying and rodent-infested Point, the generally overpriced Museum of Science and Industry, the gamut of high culture (the Court Theatre, the Oriental, Institute, the SMART museum) and the nice oddities, few and far between (Hyde Park Art Center, Doc Films sometimes, the new Hookah lounge). As far as I can tell, aside from the great wealth of entertainment for stereotypical academic and/or cultivated individuals, Hyde Park is a dead zone.

Now I love a good classical concert, or a great art exhibit, or the amazing opportunity to educate myself and see real artifacts stolen from real ancient civilizations. But sometimes, to get away from rigorous academic bootcamp, you don't want stereotypical academic pasttimes. And when you don't want to do those things, you're hopping on a bus and traveling god-knows-how-long on CTA or Metra to a neighborhood that actually DOES have some night life.

Now some may say that we don't have night life because the neighborhood can't support it or that all neighborhoods can't be the center of night life. Furthermore, they may argue that Hyde Park is uniquely situated so as NOT to have night life, due to unsafe streets at night.

But then again, there isn't a whole lot to do on the southside in the first place. Something really would be better than nothing. And as far as I can tell, responsible and well-conceived development comes before low crime. I'm not arguing for gentrification, I'm arguing for some real development that could develop into a functional neighborhood that could support some night life, in a community chock full of young people who desperately need to be entertained and begin to interact with the community they've been isolated from.

What really irks me is that one of the best additions to the neighborhood, a blues/music club/venue in the form of the Checkboard Lounge that was brought here with much urging from the University is a 21+ venue. Now this wouldn't be upsetting if any of neighborhoods other night life activities weren't impossible to get people to go to for fear of their respiratory health (hookah lounge) or bars (does any know how many there are or does everyone else lose count when they try to total them?). We didn't need another 21+ venue.

What we needed were places for a larger portion of the University and the Hyde Park community to mix. The Checkerboard could have been such a place. But by bringing in a 21+, you create a place that Undergrads will never attend, because they simply can't until their 3rd or even 4th year, by which point they won't go because it wasn't an option early in their career. They're stuck in a rut, thinking Hyde Park is dead.

This lack of a night life and prevalence of 21+ venues like bars and the Checkerboard certainly makes it more understandable when one hears that some younger students lament the passing of the Co-Op (not as a bastion of the community and a defunct organization that used to be SOMETHING that activists desperately try and preserve and remind us of) but as a place to go to get booze and not get carded, so they too can do something or anything on those cold, lonely, boring Hyde Park winter nights.

What is this Sh*t! or Why I Love Jerry Kleiner

posted by chicago pop

"It’s been 50 years since we had anything here with any style or energy."

--Jerry Kleiner on his new Hyde Park Restaurant

Photograph by Sarah Preston

Jerry Kleiner's first words when viewing the property that has since become the home of his Restaurant -- Name Pending: "It's like, what is this shit! What an ugly effing building." (Chicago Reader, April 14 2006)

Not only did he win my heart then and there with his frank appraisal of the ski lodge that never made it to Vail -- around here known as Harper Court (and its nearby clones) -- but the man is the most perfect confounding element in a rather pious neighborhood with 5 theological seminaries (that I know of) and a lot more people who, though maybe not thinking so much about G-d, know that this is where "fun comes to die."

Long story short: here's to more men in pink pants in the vicinity of Harper and 53rd. White guys, actually, who don't mind getting kneed by beautiful black women (well, she's not really "black," she's his Italian-American girlfriend). That's what Hyde Park is all about, right?

As much as I love him, I can't help but ask myself: can Hyde Park survive Jerry Kleiner -- assuming he can ever find a name for his restaurant?

Here's some more, from Chicago Magazine: “I was going to call it Hyde Park Grill but I ... got people saying to me, ‘It’s a shit boring name. All of your places have cool names like Red Light, like Gioco, like Marché. It’s been 50 years since we had anything here with any style or energy.’ And I got to thinking about it, and they’re right."

This can only be good.

While our community leaders set up their committees and subcommittees with preliminary expanded meetings for later preparatory reviews of previous exploratory committees on the future of 53rd Street, some on the 4th floor, some in the basement, Kleiner has got the neighborhood figured out. As he said in a 2006 interview for the Chicago Reader: "Somebody like me needs to set the bar for the community. Somebody needs to take a shot at it." ... "Even Kleiner complains about the retrograde aesthetic sensibilities of Hyde Parkers: "Where they are now, there's no real fashion or design."

This little corner of 53rd might get a whole lot more interesting before you can say the word TIF.

Jerry Kleiner Thinks About What to Call His Hyde Park Restaurant
(Photo courtesy of Jim Newberry http://www.newberryphotography.com)

Kleiner is right, of course, though most Hyde Park crunch-sters, grad students, and full-time activists probably don't care what they wear. Or, like me, are probably too busy trying not to freeze most of the year to wear anything interesting. But it's nice to see someone try, and know that, like a PhD in some obscure topic in the humanities, someone (thankfully not me) is out there doing it.

And after all, Kleiner knows that he can't push it too far too fast. He knows, just like we do here at blog headquarters, that Hyde Park will never be the meatpacking district of West Randolph, or the high-rise jungle of South Loop, or alt.Wicker.Park. Of all the nightmares we try to plant in the minds of neighborhood NIMBYs, this isn't one of them. "My feeling is to create something that has a little bit of flair to it, but not too much ... a sophisticated approach to non-sophistication."

Or maybe a non-sophisticated approach to sophistication. Whatever. Just open the damn thing Jerry. Don't leave us with Ein Kleiner Nichtmusik. I need someplace where I can wear my pink pants.

Chant: Raising the Bar in Hyde Park

posted by chicago pop

Chant, the new pan-Asian restaurant on East 53rd, doesn't seem to need anybody's help.

Based on our experience dining there on a recent Saturday evening, the establishment has been well received in Hyde Park. All tables were full, and new customers were arriving regularly.

It's no wonder. The place sparkles on 53rd and enlivens the entire block, making it possible, if you squint your eyes, to pretend you're on a date somewhere on the edges of Park Slope, or perhaps the East Village: it's late, sort of chilly, and you're out on the street; you see the clutch of people near the entrance, the flicker of orange and amber lights from the bar inside through the broad windows; once you're in, you smell not the faintest trace of Pinesol as you might in any of the slop-gallies on 55th Street; and, most noticeably, you are greeted by courteous and very charming staff.

Chant, we'd have to say, is off to a raging start as a great neighborhood restaurant. In terms of vibe, decor, and food, they've raised the bar in Hyde Park.

But we also think they could raise it a bit more, and we hope they do.

Pan-Asian is tricky to pull off, and the standard risk is that by trying to be everything, you wind up being less than anything. There's also the tendency to cater to certain preconceptions about what a middle-American market will tolerate as "Asian" food.

Which is why we were prepared to walk if there was any sign of Crab Rangoon on the menu -- an appetizer which typically has very little to do with crab, and even less to do with Rangoon (though quite a bit with cream cheese).

A nervous scan of the appetizers let us get past our own deal-breaker, but only on a technicality: the all-American Crab had been thoughtfully upgraded to Lobster Rangoon. Thankfully, we could continue.

Chant advertizes itself as a tapas place, so it's perhaps appropriate that the kitchen shines brightest with the small dishes. We tried the crispy mussel bites and Szechwan short ribs. The latter are a take on a classic dish found in several regions of China, notable versions of which are served up at a few other locales on the South Side. While good, the didn't come across as particularly Asian apart from the sauce, especially in a town full of ribs. But for that reason alone, they are bound to appeal.

The mussels were a clever assemblage of fried egg, scallions, a crispy mussel topped with sriracha sauce, enough sweetness and crunch to make the mussel-averse forget about sand, seashores, and red tide.

I had the Lemongrass Roasted Chicken, and my companion the Clay Pot Tofu. I definitely placed the better order and was generally happy with it. The chicken was beautifully roasted to a golden crisp while retaining its tenderness. Accompanied by several slices of eggplant in a delicious sauce that carried the aroma of tea-smoked fowl, on the whole I thought it should have been accompanied by a broader range of flavors and textures to avoid the impression of "meat-on-a-plate."

My companion was disappointed with the vegan option of Clay Pot Tofu. Especially in an Asian restaurant, this kind of dish should be bursting in flavor to counteract the potential wateriness of the glass noodles and tofu combo. This dish needed a lot more garlic, ginger, basil, and thoughtfulness before it should be sold for $9.

The shiraz was a happy and workable accompaniment to the relative spiciness of the appetizers, and held up well through the more savory flavors in the entrees. My companion was very happy with the mohito.

Dining at Chant was, overall, a very pleasant experience. The service was fast, attentive, and fantastic (let's hope it lasts!) the ambiance a very welcome departure from the utilitarian neighborhood standard. The tapas-like appetizers especially, the range of which we only sampled, were peppy and enjoyable.

The entrees, in our opinion, need some refinement, especially for the price. The Chinese bun added little to the Lemongrass Roasted Chicken, which was somewhat overwhelmed in a tasty but monochromatic bath, with little to give it contrast. The Clay Pot Tofu was bland, and fell far short of tofu-based vegetarian dishes that can be ordered on Cermak and Wentworth.

Chant has definitely raised the bar. We just encourage them to keep doing so.

Menu for 2

Hors d'oeuvres

Crispy Mussel Bites
Szechwan Braised Short Ribs with Spicy Sesame Mango Dipping Sauce

Entrées
Lemongrass Roasted Chicken with Enoki Mushroom Gravy and Chinese Eggplant served with Rice and Chinese Bun
Clay Pot Tofu (Vegan)

Drinks
2006 Bong Bong Shiraz
Chant Mojito

Tab (Tip not included)
$50


Chant, 1509 E. 53rd Street, Chicago, Illinois. Hours may vary.
773-324-1999
773-684-2817 (Fax)
M-S 11-10
Sun 11:30-10:30