Truffle tastes, burger budget

If you want to know which bistro has the best duck confit, ask a restaurant critic.

But sometimes the rent is due, the student-loan payment is late and the car is making that unsettling, “yep, that’ll cost ya $800” noise. We can’t always afford caviar at Trotter’s (well, never, actually), so when we wanted a bead on a tasty, cheap meal that doesn’t begin with Mc, we asked four chefs-in-training enrolled in culinary schools. They’re students, so they’re tight on coin, but they also know a quenelle from a quesadilla. Here’s where they go for a terrific meal when money’s tight.

Rick Crump

Graduating in September, Illinois Institute of Art, Culinary Arts
Soon-to-be chef Crump simply can’t get enough of the “fantastic” plantain enchiladas ($7.95) at Fiesta Mexicana (4806 N Broadway, 773-769-4244). “The plantains turn out soft and sweet because they cook them slowly and caramelize them,” he says.

“Fiesta Mexicana doesn’t do anything far-out technical,” he says, “but everything, like the enchiladas, has a really good taste profile”—that’s chef-talk for “is delicious.”

Crump also likes the queso fundido ($5.40) at Don Quijote (4761 N Clark St, 773-769-5930). He knows the dish is basically melted fresh Chihuahua cheese with chorizo, so it’s “hard to screw up.” But here’s the important thing: The Don is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. “That’s totally key,” Crump says. “It has saved me from many a hangover.”

Isaac Weliver

First-year, Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago/Le Cordon Bleu
Weliver, 19, has only lived in Chicago for six months, but his outsider status has given him an extra incentive to explore the city’s culinary bounty. “I’ve never lived anywhere else besides Crawfordsville, Indiana,” he says, “so I’ve been totally experiencing the diversity Chicago offers.”

That would include Spoon Thai (4608 N Western Ave, 773-769-1173), where he goes at least once a week for the “amazing” crab rangoon ($3.95). This verdict comes after a lot of thought: Weliver fancies himself “a crab-rangoon specialist,” noting he’s ordered the dish at least 30 times since moving to the city. “What separates Spoon Thai’s crab rangoon from other places,” says the Crawfordsville crab king, “is its perfectly smooth skin, because they wrap the wonton really, really tight. It’s not bubbly or pocked—and it’s outrageously hot.”

On those rare occasions when he doesn’t want crab, Weliver stops by Garcia’s (4760 N Lincoln Ave, 773-769-5600) for “a really big melted cheese burrito at a really low price ($5.50).” Garcia’s gets more nods for the “huge shrimp in the shrimp fajita ($13) and the Gothic-like wooden chairs that you would expect in an old Mexican cathedral.”

Kristina Soukup

Junior, Kendall College
When Soukup and her culinary-school classmates aren’t cooking their own potlucks—“We copy what we’re learning in school, so it’s not your regular burgers and dogs, but stuff like venison sandwiches,” she says—they pop over to Pie-Eyed Pizzeria (1111 W Chicago Ave, 312-243-3735). “It’s a small place,” she says, “like, only four tables and some stools, so most people take out.”

But Soukup sits and stays, not only for the “thin and crispy crust” and “fresh, not canned, mushrooms” ($3.15 for a slice with one topping), but because Pie-Eyed is a gas. “If they see that you and your group are having fun,” Soukup says, “they take a photo and put it up. The walls are covered with pictures.”

Soukup, a vegetarian who eats seafood, also likes Thai Castle (1546 W Chicago Ave, 312-733-3339), which she visits a few times a month. She orders the pad ki mao ($6.45) the “drunken noodles,” extra spicy, and adds, “they have really good shrimp that are superfresh.”

Craig Nemetz
Second-year, Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago/Le Cordon Bleu
Once this Greenwich, Connecticut, native discovered Tropical Taste (formerly known as El Autentico Sabor Dominicano, 3330 W North Ave, 773-395-0804), he was sold. “A whole roast Dominican chicken costs just $9,” he says (it’s only $7 without the rice and beans). “I don’t need a knife or fork. I pick at it with my fingers because the meat just falls off the bones.” And on the side, he always gets maduros ($1.50), which are “smashed, guacamolelike, sweetened-down plantains.”

Nemetz has tried to duplicate the taste himself—to no avail. “I’ve eaten there 12 times, but they won’t give me the chicken recipe,” he says.

He has found another cheap-eats gold mine in a proto-Chicago place. “If you want the most bang for the buck for food,” Nemetz says, “go to a street fest, especially an ethnic one. I recently had four pierogi, potato pancakes, kielbasa and cabbage—all for $9. I couldn’t finish it.”