Busy As Beavers!

Our pals over at Busy Beaver Button featured our Mermaid Shack heroine, the Bardot Mermaid, on their blog this week. Thanks, guys! We're looking forward to many more years of jean-jacket-decorating with you.

When John Manion of the now year-old La Sirena Clandestina approached us about making buttons last October, we had no idea just how familiar the restaurant’s mermaid image would become around the Busy Beaver office. Though the name translates as “the hidden mermaid,” the restaurant’s iconic siren is unmistakable now that it’s been emblazoned on more than 7000 buttons over the past year. 

As John, La Sirena’s chef and owner, described, “We started our Busy Beaver partnership with an image of mermaid-ed Brigitte Bardot that had become something of a figurehead for La Sirena Clandestina. Bardot visited Buzios, an obscure fishing village near Rio de Janeiro, with her Brazilian boyfriend in the 1960’s and her trip is a time stamp on a very cool scene, one we used as a template for the vibe of La Sirena Clandestina.”  

The mermaid image was wheat-pasted all over the neighborhood in anticipation of the restaurant’s opening and John said, “It was logical that we continued with the trend for our first run of buttons, which we started handing out immediately. We’ve switched up color palettes with the seasons, but we’ve stuck with our original Bardot Mermaid.”  

The mermaid was first printed on our fall paper special colors last fall– a trio of paper colors in bronze, gold and rusty orange. John also experimented with our metallic effect, utilizing a silver background as well as an inverted image with a photo-negative look and one batch with a metallic ocean-blue background. The mermaid has recently been featured on a fluorescent pink background, a fun play on the ultra-feminine imagery.  

As La Sirena Clandestina moves into its second year, their buttons will be updated to match the restaurant’s continuing evolution. Though John assured us that the Bardot mermaid isn’t gone completely (“We’ll do some limited edition runs at some point.”), the new buttons, designed by local firm Nitewerk, will feature an image that “stays true to our original inspiration for the restaurant, but is also reflective of how we’ve changed and grown.” We’ll be sure to share the new buttons that will, no doubt, be another iconic image for La Sirena.

Hot As Hell.

Photo by John Manion / @juanmanjuan

We’re going to keep this cozy beach shack warm through a Chicago winter, which is no small potatoes. We’re generating heat in the form of the mountain of hot sauces John’s been making and stockpiling over the past few weeks. 

You see, we work with a number of local farmers and vendors in order to keep our menu full of the freshest and tastiest products out there. One partnership we’ve come to rely on is with Peter Klein at Seedling Farm in Michigan. Once John learned that Peter planted heirloom pepper seeds in the Spring, he bought the lot. No, really. All of them. Seriously, don’t ever give this guy a blank check when he’s within earshot of a farmer.

The weather that brought this crop to fruition was, in scientific terms, “conducive to all his peppers ending up hot as hell.” (If you’d prefer a layman’s translation: the peppers are really hot!)

We’re about halfway through the space in one of our coolers and there’s no end in sight. John has plans for every variety of seed he bought, and there’s a bunch: serrano, red jalapeno, habanero, scotch bonnet, piri-piri, havasu, limo amarillo and verde, aji amarillo and rojo. If you are able to describe or recognize all of those varieties of pepper: Congratulations, you are officially a pepper savant!

Milanesa, Mermaid Shack Style

If we were to think of one word to describe John Manion, our ship’s captain, it certainly wouldn’t be grandmotherly. Except, that is exactly what John was aiming for when he created La Sirena Clandestina’s Milanesa, now residing quite happily on our lunch menu in sandwich form, though we dress it up a little for the dinner version when it’s accompanied by a wild mushroom ragu and fried egg.

So why does John want to cook like a grandma? Because, as he says, "everyone's grandma made me a Milanesa in Argentina...And of course everyone's grandmas was the best."

Milanesa is a time-honored Argentine tradition, dating back more than a hundred years when the Italian diaspora made their way down to South America. In the vein of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’ we stick to the traditional Milanesa preparation. Starting with the freshest pork loin available, we dip that bad boy in an egg wash, dredge in flour and seasoned bread crumbs and fry it to crisp perfection. Just like grandma used to make!

Proper Black Beans

Back in La Sirena Clandestina’s early days, black beans — a Brazilian staple — were on the opening menu in the form of a vegan black bean dish. And it was tasty enough to pass John’s lofty standards, so on the menu it stayed. Then John collaborated on a dinner with Rob Levitt of The Butcher & Larder and made his OG, pre-LSC black beans: he started with pork (in the form of renderings), made a pork stock (by adding onions, garlic, melegueta peppers and such), then emulsified the pork into the beans. He took a little taste and guess what? They were perfect.

Remembering the vegan black beans on La Sirena Clandestina’s menu, John shook his head. He looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize the man he’d become — a man that would serve vegan black beans. Because [insert higher power of your choice] made pork and beans to go together. Forever. It’s pure coincidence that we say ‘like peanut butter and jelly’ instead of ‘like pork and beans’.

The vegan black bean dish was immediately stricken from the menu, and John began drafting an apology letter to his staff. La Sirena Clandestina is not a restaurant with a bacon agenda, but John insists that porkless black beans is simply “counterintuitive” and he was ashamed that he’d gone so far off course as to forget that.

So that’s what you get at the Mermaid Shack these days: proper black beans. And Feijoda Black Beans & Rice is one of the best dishes on the menu, though “only” a side dish.  And our solemn promise to you (from that fateful collaborative dinner and beyond): you’ll never see a porkless black bean dish on our menu again.