822 Ottawa Avenue NWYou know if you open a place called “Chicago Beef Joint” that I’m going to make it my mission to get there, right?
I’ve written extensively about Chicago Italian beef. It’s by far my favorite of the Chicago foods. Deep dish pizza? Meh. Chicago Dogs? *shrug.* Italian beef? I will walk through a blinding snow storm just to get this ultimate Chicago food stuff.
Chicago Beef Joint just opened up a few weeks ago on Ottawa Avenue NW north of Newberry Street and across the street from the Garage Bar & Grill. The restaurant, which looks kind of like a modular home, takes the place of Sandy Point Beach House which was owned by the same group that put Chicago Beef Joint together in just about six months.
I had to work a Sunday evening shift in Grand Rapids and I decided to put in an order on my way in. When I got to Dorr, I pulled off the highway real quick and used the online ordering to put in an order for an Italian beef and an order of fries.
Chicago Beef joint has an interesting set up. Beef places in Chicago are usually hole in the wall type restaurants with no seating. You stand up at a counter along the wall…if there’s room. This place has the look and feel of a full service restaurant with a full bar, a nice big dining room, and TV’s showing the Bears game.
I walked in and told the guy waiting by the door that I had a carry-out order and he sent me to the bar. The bartender grabbed a bag and handed it over. I had my Bears hat on so they assumed I was a Chicagoan. They tried to get me to sit in the dining room to eat but I had to get to work. Next time. It feels like a cool place to hangout and wearing Chicago gear definitely made me feel like I was in a place that wasn’t gonna try to force me to drink the Honolulu Blue Kool-Aid.
I started in with the fries when I got to the office. These are just crinkle cut fries with a house seasoning on them. They very much remind me of Portillo’s. They’re really simple, frozen fries. A lot of neighborhood beef joints cut their own fries and you get this really greasy yet still crispy French fry. Most people outside of Chicago recognize this kind of fry as what you get at a beef joint because most people associate Portillo’s as the pinnacle of Chicago style food.
The beef. The sandwich has everything I love about Chicago Italian beef. The durable Italian bread, the thinly sliced, oregano heavy beef, and a delicious mixture of veggies in the hot giardiniera. The only thing this sandwich was missing was the gravy. It was bone dry. They give you the option for wet, dipped, or dry when ordering online. I picked wet. The sandwich was slightly dipped on the bottom but that was it. I like my Italian beef so wet you can’t pick it up. The bread should be soaked all the way through and fall apart in your hands. There’s a reason Chicagoans do “the hunch” when eating an Italian beef. Maybe it was a miscommunication with the online ordering but I went back and checked and I did pick wet. I ate the fries first because I wanted the beef to soak in it’s own juices even longer. The flavor of the beef was fantastic. The meat, the bread, the giardiniera were all on point. I love this kind of giardiniera with a mixture of veggies. Some places only do green veggies and it’s just not as good as the ones that include carrots and cauliflower alongside the jalapenos. All this sandwich really needed to be amazing was being baptized.
I will absolutely go back to Chicago Beef Joint next time I’m in Grand Rapids and make it a point to tell them the sandwich needs to be dunked and swirled around in the gravy for a while before being put in the to go box. Chicago places usually wrap in wax paper, then foil, then plastic wrap to hold everything in. It’s not as nice of a presentation as the Styrofoam box but it’s necessary to keep all the juice that should be in an Italian beef where it needs to be.