The great American food writer M.F.K. Fisher grew up with an ascetic grandmother big on boiling chickens, eating crackers soaked in hot milk, and sternly denying her family the sinful pleasures of the table. When the matriarch went away on religious retreats, the rest of the family would feast on pastries and bloody steak.
Those midwestern shrimp appear on the menu more than anything else: in a lightly dressed green papaya salad, delicately sweet, sour, and spicy, with cucumbers and snap peas, and in one of the few larger plates, a kind of rustic bouillabaisse (no saffron, no pastis) featuring clams and two generous pieces of fatty cobia collar that beg to be sucked clean. The heads from these dishes are reserved for the deep fryer, from which they emerge brittle as potato chips, a slightly hazardous, slightly bitter snack, the shattery carapaces softened by a classic, tangy, thick Catalan salbitxada: tomato, sherry vinegar, and garlic sauce thickened with crushed almonds.
432 W. Diversey 773-857-2540mfkrestaurant.com
