Vegans are purists when it comes to their vegetables. Vegetable pots are for cooking vegetables, and–this being an imperfect world–meat pots are used when other people are cooking meat, and never the twain shall meet. So when the Lakeview restaurant Amitabul changed its name to Far Eastern Barbecue in June and added meat to the menu, its vegan fans wondered what was going on. Had chef Dave Choi–who owned the restaurant with his brother, his sister, and her husband–traded in his vegetarian roots? Had he succumbed to the red-hot restaurant competition by serving meat?
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Choi first moved to Chicago from southern California in 1984, to help his sister run Jim’s Grill on Irving Park Road, then a hot dog joint. Jim’s had originally been opened by Choi’s cousin Jim, who gave it to his brother, who handed it over to his cousin, who gave it to Choi’s aunt, who then gave it to her niece. After Choi took over the kitchen, he gradually introduced a mostly vegetarian menu that included some meat. His dream, though, was a completely vegan place, and in 1995 Choi and his siblings opened Amitabul.
Meanwhile, he was working six days a week in Madison starting up another restaurant, called Cafe One Heart. But the commuting and the hours took their toll, and Choi closed Cafe One Heart after less than a year. Then he resigned his supervisory role at the Irving Park diner. Finally, Choi and his brother gave their share of the Southport restaurant over to their sister and opened the new Amitabul. Now everybody is happily cooking in his own pot.
Dishes are available mild, medium, or spicy, and last-minute adjustments can be made using the two squeeze bottles of sauce on the table: In the red bottle is Choi’s “somewhat secret” miso sauce, fermented from brown rice and peppery hot with cayenne. In the yellow bottle is a plum sauce. The two, somehow, go together and keep each other in check. If you’re not used to inhaling cayenne, take care with the red.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Dorothy Perry.
