Found Kitchen of Evanston makes Chicago Magazine Hot List

Congratulations to the owners of Evanston's new restaurant Found!

The Hot List: 10 places everyone’s talking about and dining at in January in order of heat

FOUND A 1920s salon? A 1950s beatnik lounge? Amy Morton’s living room? Found is all of these, plus fried oyster tacos with bacon. 1631 Chicago Ave., Evanston, 847-868-8945

Click here to see the list!

Visit Found online at foundkitchen.com.

P.S. Although this was announced on the Found Tumblr page in December, I took a long break from my blog and am just now coming back to life. You'll notice I've yet to event eat at Found, so when I add it to my favorite place to eat in Evanston, you'll know why! Food review coming!

Here's the beginning of a great review by Chicago Reader's Sam Worley;

Even for somebody who lives in Rogers Park, Evanston can seem a bit far afield—away from the city's nexus of nightlife, and particularly remote from the restaurant scenesters who cure their pork belly in the environs of Fulton Market, Randolph Row, and River North. So I don't know what I was expecting on a recent visit to the new Chicago Avenue (that'd be the other Chicago Avenue) restaurant Found Kitchen & Social House, which comes from chef Nicole Pederson, who most recently oversaw the kitchen at C-House, and restaurateur Amy Morton. It may not have been this: a lively, happy crowd; people at every mismatched set of table and chairs; and a 45-minute wait. Or this: a dining room so haphazardly arranged and yet so inviting that you'd be tempted to wait out those 45 minutes no matter how crowded the circumstances—because, also, did you get a look at that menu? Have you seen those bottles of bourbon behind the bar?

Click here to read the full review.

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Thank you for reading my blog Evanston Newbie, a blog devoted to covering my family's move from El Paso, TX, to Evanston, IL, in 2011. We arrived in June 2011 and several people have pointed out that I am no longer a "newbie" and should start some other blog. But I disagree and want to keep the "newbie" status for a while longer, maybe five years and for several reasons. #1 - there are many Evanston families who have lived here for generations since the town incorporated in the late 1800s, so in comparison to them, I am very much a "newbie". #2 - I firmly believe this blog is a good branding tool for the city of Evanston and it's the least I can do to thank our new town for being so AWESOME! If you have any questions or need to get in touch with my about this blog, Evanston, or anything else you can email me at thelisadshow@gmail.com. Thank you for reading and have an awesome 2013.

Warning: There is a whiskey distillery less than a mile from my home

Update from Few Spirits Facebook wall! It's harvest time here at Few, which means we are asking for volunteers to come help us bottle & label this Saturday the 17th, from 9:45am-1pm. Please message us via Facebook if you can make it in. Or, hey, just come on in...we will make it fun.

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As you all know, I’m in the love with the walkability factor of living in Evanston and the more I get to know this city – the more walkable it becomes.

Just a few months ago I heard something from somewhere about a gin distillery in Evanston. How funny I thought to myself and how old school to have an actual distillery in your hometown. Doesn’t that only happen in the Deep South? And didn’t Evanston’s history involve a healthy and prolonged Temperance movement? My mind soon moved on to another topic and I forgot all about this alleged distillery.

Then a few weeks ago my husband’s coworker told him all about this “amazing distillery where they make gin and whiskey and spirits and it’s the best you’ve ever tasted and they have tours!” I quickly went online and found Few Spirits of Evanston and signed up for a tour which I totally flaked on. Do you see a pattern here dear reader? The party has to come to ME!

Background added today: Few Spirits is located just off Chicago Ave. in a former chop shop adjacent to the Purple Line tracks and offers tours and tastings ($10, more info on their website at fewspirits.com.) The distillery opened in 2011 and is owned and operated by Paul Hletko, a 41-year-old patent attorney with an undergraduate degree in industrial engineering. Opening up the distillery was a long and complicated process which included Evanston changing zoning laws. Last February Mike Sula of the Chicago Reader did a good story on Few Spirits and Hletko's work, click here to read it.

This is the part where the party comes to me! Last weekend I heard that Few Spirits was doing a tasting at Whole Foods Evanston South from 1-4 p.m. and seeing as I needed juice boxes for lunches, I ran out the door faster than you can say “free whiskey”. (I can never recall in my long life (40 years) being able to walk to a whiskey tasting in less than 1 mile from my house.)

The line at the Few Spirits table was long and the offerings were plenty, so I waited patiently, and was rewarded with a smooth, hearty and heart-warming Bourbon Whiskey taste served up by Brooke Saucier, Brand Manager at Few.

I intend to sign up for a tour again but before that I’m going to the Fifth FF, a party at Few Spirits the day after Thanksgiving featuring live music, food, cocktails and the food truck Samich Box. See party info below and see you there!

Fifth FF, Friday, November 23, 2012
5:30-8 p.m.
918 Chicago Avenue
847-920-8628
info@fewspirits

After swearing that our Fourth FF would be our last one at the distillery until spring, we hereby unswear. Thiiiiis one will be 2012's final fling. We're putting up a tent, with perhaps a Few fancy heaters.

Join us the evening after Thanksgiving for music, food and cocktails. Bring family & friends. You just know they want to go do something...

Music will be provided by Precious Moment, aka Adam Voss Unplugged, who will be rockin' an acoustic set sure to please, amuse and confound.

The food truck presently known as SamichBox will join us again, and they promise not to foist any turkey leftovers on us.

Cocktails will again be served, along with juice boxes for the kids, as well as for those who really really love juice.