Every week on The Dining Table podcast, David Manilow shares his own experiences from some of Chicago’s best places to eat, drink and shop. Crain’s reporters bring expert insight into all aspects of the city’s restaurant and food scenes. And we welcome chefs, culinary experts, cookbook authors, bartenders, business owners and more to discover what makes them tick.

See all available episodes from The Dining Table. Here’s what you’ll find in the latest episode:

Manilow made a trip to Piccolo Sogno for a 6:30 p.m. reservation Tuesday night and found the place to be fully packed when he arrived. “If there’s a better outdoor patio in the city, please tell me, because I haven’t found one,” Manilow said of the Italian-Mediterranean restaurant. His order: grilled octopus, mixed beet salad with gorgonzola and hazelnuts, and pappardelle with spiced wild boar ragu (and, of course, two bottles of Sicilian red wine for the table).

Manilow went for lunch at Chef Doug Psaltis’ contemporary Greek restaurant Andros Taverna in Logan Square. It’s a lively place with nice outdoor seating. It can be hard to get a reservation for dinner, so lunch is a good option. Manilow had the Galician sea bream: four small, head-on fish cooked over coals with olive oil and lemon juice. His daughter had a watermelon salad, which he describes as being more like a “watermelon steak” because of its thickness.

For another lunch stop, Manilow went to Hing Kee in Chinatown Square Plaza on South Archer Avenue. The restaurant is known for its soup dumplings. Manilow said there’s a wide variety of dumpling options; he opted for one of the pork items. His advice: Eat the dumpling in one bite or be careful to keep the soup inside from exploding onto you.

Manilow went to Publican Quality Bread on West Grand Avenue to pick up a loaf of Spence whole-grain. They have sandwiches you can get there, but Manilow prefers to take the bread home to make his own avocado toast and sandwiches.

This Northbrook staple has a small menu, but that’s all Manilow needs at Charlie Beinlich’s. He orders the same thing every time: a cheeseburger cooked medium with grilled onions and cheddar cheese, fries and coleslaw on the side.

Manilow and his family frequently order takeout from the authentic Pakistani restaurant Sabri Nihari on West Devon Avenue. This time: dal, chicken biryani, vegetable samosa and garlic naan.

Inflation is hitting Chicago restaurants harder than it has in decades. Operators are struggling to keep up and watching as rising costs erase the strides they made in pandemic recovery. With customers curbing their own spending, restaurants hesitate to raise prices too high and scare them off. As a result, many are losing money.

Crain’s restaurant reporter Ally Marotti joined the show to discuss her recent reporting on how Chicago restaurants are coping with financial pressures of inflation, labor costs and pandemic recovery. You can find her full story here.

"Meathead" Goldwyn, who gets his name from the television show “All in the Family,” is one of just 26 living members of the Barbeque Hall of Fame.

Once a wine critic for the Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post, Meathead decided to take a turn in his career around the year 2000 to start building websites. “The internet thing was coming around and I figured maybe there’s some money to be made there,” he explained.

That’s when he took his love for barbecue and turned it into AmazingRibs.com. The site, which now has nearly 2 million monthly visitors, has become one of the most popular culinary websites in the country. It’s unique in that it doesn’t just provide recipes but also goes further in explaining the science behind the food.

“People want to know why things happen,” he said. “They don’t want me just to tell them ‘do step one, do step two, just shut up and do step three.’ They want to know why do I do step one, why do I do step two, what happens if I skip step three?”

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AmazingRibs.com has some of the best experts in barbecue. The company has a person whose sole focus is testing different grills and smokers. Another guy just reviews meat thermometers.

Meathead shared some advice with Manilow for anyone getting behind a grill: use a digital thermometer, don't cook too hot (225 degrees is what he generally recommends), and set up your grill with a hot side and a cold side.

Manilow quizzed Meathead on his favorite vegetables to grill. His answer: Asparagus, eggplant parmesan and tomatoes. Pineapple received an honorable mention.

"Just about anything you can cook indoors, you can cook outdoors, only better," he said.

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