Mike Sula Tonkotsu ramen, Strings Ramen Shop I can’t help but beat my head against the truth that the current wave of ramen slingers who do a million other things besides ramen will never make a bowl as good as the ones I slurped at Ramen Misoya, the Japanese chain that opened last summer in Mount Prospect. It’s a belief I have to smother in the service of objectivity every time I try a new bowl at a place that also happens to make sushi, or whatever filler they use to pad the menu for people who can’t deal with a restaurant that doesn’t have 180 options....

He tracked down some black-fig vinegar and made a “shrub,” a sort of concentrated syrup, by soaking the bacon bits in it and then straining them out. He used “just a touch” of the infusion in his cocktail, the Dr. Baconstein—”because it’s nearly toxic, I think.” Other elements included overproof white rum, ruby port, and a little egg white. *To make the shrub, soak a half teaspoon of McCormick Bac’n Pieces in a half ounce of Cuisine Perel Black Fig Vinegar....

JULES BATES/ARTROUBLE Bob Casale Yesterday, Devo guitarist Bob Casale died at age 61 “from conditions that led to heart failure,” according to his brother Gerald. There have already been plenty of obituaries for the musician, an original member of the brilliant experimental rock band from Akron, Ohio, who found unexpected success on the pop charts with their 1980 single “Whip It.” I have distinct memories of having my little mind blown when they performed on Saturday Night Live in 1978—I had no idea who they were, but they made a strong impression....

You could probably assume as much by the review’s disdainful headline, but Bill Wyman was not enamored with Lollapalooza ’92. Never one to mince words, the former Reader writer, now a culture critic at Al Jazeera America, wrote a scathing critique of the second Lollapalooza to hit the Chicago area 23 years ago at Tinley Park’s World Music Theater (now Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre), which you can read here. He cited the festival’s weak lineup and—surprise—the rainy weather: “For those of us who were there,” wrote Wyman, “the rain that began around the time Pearl Jam started their set and quickly grew to downpour proportions meant that the words Lollapalooza ’92 will forever conjure up the pungently aromatic memory of tens of thousands of soggy teens....

Chicago playwright Brett Neveu has received nearly unrivaled attention on local stages (not long ago, four of his plays opened in a single season). Yet mainstream success has eluded him, in large part, I imagine, because his ineluctable, often seemingly plotless scripts withhold the sort of narrative ease and emotional transparency theater audiences love. And given the hyperbolic media interest he surely knew A Red Orchid Theatre’s premiere of his new full-length play Pilgrim’s Progress would generate (not, mind you, because A Red Orchid has one of the most accomplished ensemble’s in town but because one particular ensemble member in the cast, Michael Shannon, has made some movies and is thus deemed more worth staring at than when he was just a great local actor), this should have been Neveu’s moment to cash in....

Taking its title from singer Dinah Washington’s 1960 R&B hit, this 2017 two-hander by Minnesota playwright Harrison David Rivers—a Chicago premiere from About Face Theatre—focuses on thirtysomething gay lovers Jesse (Sheldon Brown) and Neil (Daniel Desmarais). Jesse, a black man from a conservative religious upbringing in Kansas, has come to New York to become a playwright. Neil is a white trust-fund baby who, freed from having to work for a living, devotes himself to activism in the Black Lives Matter movement....

Jason Wyatt Frederick Some people have strange talents. Take Patrick Stanton—he has managed to win this contest for the second year in a row. Patrick correctly identified a mind-boggling 46 characters on this year’s B Side cover, no small feat. This year, we’ve provided a detailed key of everyone and everything that appears on Jason Wyatt Frederick’s Pitchfork cover. Take a look below and see what you might have missed (and use the image above for reference)....

I was suffering from mental gout two and a half years ago when the Gold Coast’s Maple & Ash opened in the midst of a citywide steak-house glut. When I proved unable to face another expense-account feedlot, Julia Thiel soldiered on in my place as I treated my symptoms with white rice and raw ginger. But are we now in the midst of an open-hearth glut? Seems like over the last few years the restaurant scene has been swept by forest fires with the proliferation of the likes of Hyde Park’s the Promontory and the West Loop’s Roister, El Che, and Lena Brava, et al....

Tattoo The Field Museum www.fieldmuseum.org/discover/on-exhibit/tattoo Runner-Up Kerry James Marshall: Mastry

karilydersen.com Runner-Up 999: A History of Chicago in Ten Stories by Richard B. Fizdale

Room Escape Adventures Fine Arts Building 410 S. Michigan, room 632 roomescapeadventures.com/chicago Runner-Up Temple of Boobs: An Indiana Jones Burlesque

Lauren FitzPatrick/Sun-Times Troy LaRaviere The mystery of Blaine Elementary is how it became what every neighborhood school is supposed to be—an anchor of its neighborhood. Years ago I noticed that it had been freshly tuckpointed; no longer a weary 19th-century brick fortress, it looked alert and inviting. Then I became aware of the large number of kids with backpacks, many escorted by young parents, converging on the school each morning along the sidewalks of Greenview and Jannsen and Grace; this was the rare neighborhood school in a white, wealthy part of Chicago that actually drew from the neighborhood around it....

By now local MC-producer Tree has established a reputation as someone who can steadily push out great tunes. Actually his track record this year sets the bar even higher, as the series of EPs he’s had his hands on the past year include some of the best hip-hop songs of 2014—both in this city and beyond its borders. Tree’s stepped away from the mike on most of these EPs and instead focused on producing for other local rappers (though he does drop some verses on a track here and there), and his peculiar, earthy, and engrossing “soul trap” sound has brought out the best in his collaborators....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Monday, June 5, 2017. Shootings decreased by 19 percent in May in comparison with 2016 Gun violence in Chicago decreased in May in comparison with last year, though levels are still high in comparison with previous years, according to DNAinfo Chicago. Shootings were down by 19 percent and murders were down by 15 percent in May compared to May 2016, but that year recorded the highest level of violence since the mid-90s....

Drew Swithin Golden Physique www.goldenphysique.com Runner-Up Melissa Mcnamara

Bob Odenkirk‘s CV is an aspiring comedian’s fantasy: writing for SNL in its late-80s heyday, the ahead-of-its-time Chris Elliott show Get a Life, and Late Night With Conan O’Brien in its 90s prime; cocreator and costar, with David Cross, of Mr. Show; a recurring role in The Larry Sanders Show. He also happens to have discovered Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim. Not all of A Load of Hooey induces laughs: some of the pieces are too oblique or ridiculous, and Odenkirk’s poetry (yes, there are poems) doesn’t exhibit his characteristic sharpness....

Chicago Folks Operetta has carved a niche over the past decade by specializing in long-forgotten hits from the “Silver Age” of European operetta in Vienna and Berlin in the 1910s and ’20s—schmaltzy, tuneful romantic comedies that evoke nostalgia for a simpler age before the First World War shattered the established order of European imperial politics and culture. But now—marking the 100th anniversary of America’s entry into World War I—CFO has taken a bold gamble on the long-overdue Chicago premiere of Kurt Weill and Paul Green’s 1936 operetta Johnny Johnson....

Here’s an old Czech proverb: Lepsi jeden prd nez deset doktoru, or “Better one fart than ten doctors.” It’s earthy advice for digestive health, but it’s also an apt metaphor for what’s going on at Bohemian House. That’s why his potato pancakes are dainty little things; a trio of bites, dabbed with apple preserves, kohlrabi matchsticks, and ribbons of cured salmon with dill fronds for corsages. These are three dear ($12) and tasty little hors d’oeuvres—or they would have been had they arrived when they were still hot (one of a few examples of poor pacing and disorganized service that hadn’t been ironed out by the time I visited)....