🥞 Breakfast for dinner?! Say less.

Vargo Brother Ferments returns to Monday Night Foodball [READER]( [Food & Drink]( August 25, 2023 You know how it goes. You spend your sweaty, fitful sleeping hours tossing and turning, dreaming of biscuits and gravy; eggs and hash; ham, cheese, and jam deep-fried French toast sandwiches. Your stomach is gnawing on itself, and when the alarm finally rings, you bolt upright out of your stupor and—damn! It’s 6 PM already. Too late for breakfast. I’ll tell you what: that nonsense stops on August 28 when the untamed geniuses of Vargo Brother Ferments serve up breakfast for dinner at the next [Monday Night Foodball]( the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up at Ludlow Liquors. You’ve probably seen [pickling prodigies]( Taylor Hanna and Sebastian Vargo everywhere this summer, plying their wholesome lacto-fermented wares at farmers’ markets and pop-ups. Little did you know that all along they were devising Chicago’s most diabolically indulgent breakfast sandwich since the Michigan Avenue Bennigan’s closed a decade ago. That’s right. After a little more than a year, [VBF returns]( to Foodball with a shocking advancement on the [ailing]( “Irish” chain’s decadent signature “World Famous” Monte Cristo. It’s a quivering, stacked strata of shaved ham and oozing cheddar and gruyere between two slabs of crispy, panko-battered, deep-fried French toast, draped with [Wild Witch Preserves’]( smoked concord grape-habanero jam. Naturally, you’ll need a G. Dilla sour on the side to razor through that richness. “A little boom-bop,” according to Vargo. “We believe in that deeply,” affirms Hanna. Pick your jaw up off the floor. There’s more. They’re also slinging coffee-rubbed, smoked brisket hash with the new VBF PickleKraut, and two cackleberries done your way. Vargo’s been exercising his French omelet flair for this night, swaddling it around ropes of Oaxacan cheese, fermented Swiss chard, and the Korean hot peppers he’s been growing all summer, and sprinkling this delicate beauty with crunchy nugs of cheddar gold. Meanwhile, Hanna has achieved the flaky laminated biscuits of her dreams, with a crispy mushroom medley and a complementary rich fungal gravy, all sparked with VBF’s new Red Drop hot sauce. (You’ll find a bottle waiting at your table.) With all this, you’ll need sides of sausage, and cheddar grits with fermented garlic scapes. The Truth, per Hanna: “You don't see grits on enough menus here in Chicago.” If that’s not enough gut love for you, they’re bringing their Green Tea Citrus Kombucha, and the revolutionary new Vanilla Cold Bru-cha, both of which Ludlow bar manager and [SuperHai]( Jane Shang is working into cocktail specials. Do not sleep through this. It’s going down at 6 PM this Monday, August 28, at 2959 N. California in bucolic Avondale. Walk-in orders and dine-in only. BYO doggie bags, and feel free to wear your cool summer jammies. Meantime, there’s plenty of patio time left in 2023. A new fall Foodball schedule is shaping up nicely. More on that next week. [It’s breakfast for dinner with Vargo Brother Ferments at the next Monday Night Foodball]( Taylor Hanna and Sebastian Vargo serve up the most important meal of the day—hell, the year—THIS MONDAY at Ludlow Liquors. by [Mike Sula]( | [Read more]( → [Publican Quality Meats butcher Rob Levitt returns to the kitchen—but don’t call it a comeback]( Even after closing the legendary Mado, his cooking never stopped evolving. by [Mike Sula]( | [Read more]( → August 2021 [Don Pablo’s Kitchen is one man’s ode to empanadas]( Pablo Soto is the Pablo Neruda of Chilean hand pies? by [Mike Sula]( | [Read more]( → June 2021 [The city’s first food equity council works to feed everyone]( The group is reexamining food distribution through a racial equity lens while fighting for long-term systemic change. by [Sharon Hoyer]( | [Read more]( → [Issue of Aug. 24 – Sept. 6, 2023 Vol. 52, No. 23]( [VIEW/DOWNLOAD ISSUE (PDF)]( [View this e-mail as a web page]( [@chicago_reader]( [/chicagoreader]( [@chicago_reader]( [Chicago Reader on LinkedIn]( [/chicagoreader]( [chicagoreader.com]( [Forward this e-mail to a friend](. Want to change how you receive these e-mails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe from this list](. Copyright © 2023 Chicago Reader, All rights reserved. You were subscribed to the receive emails from Chicago Reader Our mailing address is: Chicago Reader, 2930 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 102, Chicago, IL 60616