Thanks for the info! I’ll be sure to try them out. Pleasant House is a good bit closer to my neighborhood (probably 15 minutes by car), but I do find myself up in the Evanston area every so often, so I’ll keep in mind Caribbean American Bakery next time I trek up there.
I actually was inspired by this thread and kind of made a sloppy joe type of thing based on the spicing of a Jamaican patties I’ve read online, so I’m curious to see what an actual patty tastes like, having never had one before. (I have a gazillion Scotch bonnets from the garden I need to start finding uses for)
Kolaches have been mentioned… I am a Jamaican patty fan, having grown up on them (mum is Jamaican). They can be powerfully hot. The frozen type are of variable quality, but there’s a brand that makes a cocktail patty that is really good. Any decent Caribbean bakery should have chicken patties as well as ital (veggie) patties.
I’m also a fan of British savory pies, such as the Cornish pasty and steak and kidney pie. The latter sounds hideous but it’s lovely. I’ll also have a heaping plate of sausage rolls, while we’re at it.
Here in Austin we have a regionally well known Australian meat pie shop, Boomerang. They now have pies in the freezer section at Whole Foods, at least here in Austin. They don’t seem to be flavored as well as the ones from the restaurant, though.
Being a Chicagoan, I generally keep at least a dozen of Caribbean American’s meat pies in the freezer. But I never heard of Pleasant House. I’ll for sure be bicycling to Bridgeport for lunch tomorrow!
(Yikes! I just looked at Yelp and it seems that it’s a restaurant, not a bakery.) So maybe not for lunch tomorrow.
For completeness, we should mention that in Chinatowns you can usually find places selling Cantonese/Hong Kong–style buns filled with barbecue pork or curry chicken. But it’s Chinese-style “pastry” that’s more gummy than short.
In general, I’ve found Chicago bakeries so disappointing; they hardly ever have anything other than cookies and cakes, and they insist that the health department makes them refrigerate everything.
You need to find different bakeries then. Off the top of my head: Bridgeport Bakery, D’amato’s, Racine Bakery, Weber Bakery, any of the myriad of Mexican bakeries in my neighborhood or nearby (Central Bakery being the prime example)…all have bread products and non-sweet stuff, in addition to sweeter offerings. I still mourn the loss of Baltic Bakery, which had my favorite pumpernickel brick bread. It was this black, coarse, dense bread with a slight sourness to it–I’d describe it as the Grape Nuts of bread.
Pleasant House may be a restaurant but its a tiny little concrete block place with maybe 6 or so tables. I always get it to go. They do have a food truck but I’ve never managed to catch up with it.
I wouldn’t call it cheap but definitely worth every penny.
Brazilian salgadinos-they are basically deep-fried snacks with cheese or meat fillings. One (coxinga) is filled with chicken-really good.
Pleanty of Brazilian stores have them.