Variety

Sometimes too much variety is not a good thing. I've heard from someone who heard from Oprah (uhhh...whatever...I can't stand her...you're not always right ya know!) that a restaurant with that offers too many things on their menu isn't really that good. Scratch that.... Places that offer too much aren't focused and overlook something like quality or taste...which is one of the thing you consider when eating. (Except for the 2 AM bites at La Bamba or Wiener Circle...anything with salt is good at that time. And I also have to exclude breakfasts...omelets are good at most places.) Anyway...Look at diners...just add grease and butter to everything on the menu and it's "good" at the time but you want to die later. You get filled up with rolls and butter, fries, and you get a half-assed main course. There's the chinese place on Briar and Broadway or any other chinese place for that matter...there's way to many things to choose from...I get kinda frustrated deciding what freakin dish I want...they all sound good but everything sounds the same. Choosing what you want shouldn't require you to look at more than 4 pages...the first page being the restaurant name and cheesy pencil rendering of the facade.

This was a topic of conversation at dinner with the Ryan Sisters. We ate dinner Jerry's Sandwiches on Division. There were seriously 100 sandwiches to choose from. It's subdivided into what meat you want in it...then it gets confusing as hell from there. After taking forever to decide and then an eternity to place an order, I got a really awesome sandwich. Don't remember the name but it had prosciutto, saprosatta, fried eggplant, provolone and bell peppers...delicious. You get 2 sides...the corn bread, dill potato salad were good but the fries and the mac and cheese were sub-par.

The sidewalk patio area is really nice. A lot bigger than the ones you have in Lincoln Park and Lakeview. The downer was the new manure laid out not far from out table. Without the wind made by passing cars, it was no big deal. I have to say that the waitress wasn't great...and I can say this because we paid the bill in cash. We gave her a $20 to get change. She only brought back a $10 bill. Just so she wouldn't think that we ripped her off...3 yuppies, I went inside to give her our money, the bill and the message that she kept our $10. She was like, "are you sure you gave me a $20 and not $10?" and "really?" as she dug around in her pocket. Seriously, if we were even the types to rip off a restaurant, you think one of us would go inside?

http://www.timeout.com/chicago/Details.do?page=1&xyurl=xyl://TOCWebArticles1/128/eat_out_drink_up/jerry_s_sandwiches.xml

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/dining/chi-0809_d_cheap_jerrysaug09,1,943177.story