(Max) I arrived in Chicago from San Francisco, having eaten in the last twenty-four hours only two barely doughish substances, one disguised as a sundried tomato bagel and the other as a pallid and saltless pretzel-the very idea that such airborne shenanigans might be construed as sustenant is seditious, but that's a different screed altogether....Needless to say, I was starving.  But, this being a reunion of old friends, and thus a just cause for swilling what have you, I let my liver do the talking.  Soon we found ourselves stuck to the chairs at Jimmy's Woodlawn Tap Room, a delightfully dingy hideout where Ed Asner had worked while attending the University of Chicago.  His brutish odor still permeates the place. 
        The revelry of the evening only exacerbated the next day's hunger.  I'd just begun to contemplate the palm of my hand as a suitable lunchtime appetizer-if only I had some bread!-when we happened upon Valois Cafeteria on East 53rd Street in Hyde Park.  Their mostly accurate motto is "See Your Food!"; sandwiches are only partly visible, as they are assembled by a pair of hands and passed through a service window behind the hot line.  My towering reuben sandwich, pungent with sauerkraut and served on that species of rye that can only be found in Chicago, flickered briefly before it disappeared from view.  A similar fate met the tasty cole slaw, the likes of which I haven't tried since the grade-school lunchroom. 
        Service at Valois is particularly efficient: indecisive customers are instructed to hurry up and order, while those lingering overlong are told to get it in gear.  As we were getting up from our table, the lunch rush was just petering out, and one of Valois' talented short-order cooks stepped into the dining room and flicked ash from his cigarette onto the floor, as would a matador saluting the hysterical throng.  Humbled but satisfied, we hit the sweltering Chicago streets.