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Siblings Mary Nguyen Aregoni and Theresa Nguyen, whose family migrated to Thailand after the Vietnam war, got started selling banh mi in the French Market before introducing reimagined Vietnamese food at the West Loop’s Saigon Sisters. At the forthcoming Bang Chop Thai Kitchen they’ll try their hands at fast-casual Thai. The 25-seat BYOB spot within spitting distance of their flagship will feature a small menu of familiar Thai standards; Saigon Sisters cook Amy Gajewski will lead the kitchen....

A Reader staffer shares three musical obsessions, then asks someone (who asks someone else) to take a turn. Burna Boy I became a fan of Nigerian singer-songwriter Burna Boy in September, after he dropped the single “Gbona,” which pairs his deep baritone with a jazzy instrumental. When I explored his other work, one track caught my eye: “Heaven’s Gate” from the 2018 album Outside. It features UK pop singer Lily Allen, whose light, controlled harmonies layer perfectly over Burna Boy’s brisk, bouncy singing....

Midwestern Cuisine To be a midwesterner is to be humble and proud of it. Let New Yorkers bray about how they have the biggest and best of everything. Let New Englanders brag about how goddamned old everything is. Let Californians bore us all talking about their stupid perfect weather and southerners go on about all that tragic lost-cause Gone With the Wind shit. Let Texans be Texans. We sit there modestly, quietly, midwesternly, secretly taking note of everybody else’s foibles so we can mock them later amongst ourselves....

No Fun cover by Taiwanese artist Sorry Mama In the spring of 2011 former Reader intern Robyn Chang moved to Taiwan to work for Groupon, quit her job, and joined a couple bands. When seven groups from Taiwan flew to Austin to play SXSW last year, Chang wrote about her experience in the Taipei scene in a fantastic Reader post that’s also a pretty convincing case for booking a flight to the tropical island just southeast of China....

CHRIS WALT Salif Keita Looking for something to do today? Agenda‘s got you covered. For more on these events and others, check out the Reader‘s daily Agenda page.

Before I lugged my ass to the Chicago Reader in 1993, I spent quite a few years at Jazz Record Mart, and the other day one of my former JRM coworkers, Steve Dawson of Dolly Varden, posted on Facebook about the famous folks (well, “famous” is a relative term) who shopped at the store on his watch. His list reminded me of of meeting wonderful saxophonist Pat Patrick at JRM—a longtime member of Sun Ra’s Arkestra, he’s now better known as the father of former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick....

Freelance photographer Joshua Mellin was on site at McCormick Place to capture President Obama’s farewell speech to Chicago and the nation last night. See more photos after the jump:

Filmed at TWO by Scrappers Film Group One of the most striking images from the January 21 Women’s March on Washington was a photo of a cluster of white women wearing pink pussy hats and taking selfies, while a black woman, Angela Peoples, stands in front of them sucking on a lollipop and holding a sign that reads white women voted for trump. Fifty-three percent of them, in fact, as opposed to the 94 percent of black women who voted for Hillary Clinton....

Chicagoans is a first-person account from off the beaten track, as told to Anne Ford. This week’s Chicagoan is Ana Gil-Garcia, 60, Venezuelan-American and Northeastern Illinois University professor. Chavez was trained in the military, and for me, a person that is trained with such a philosophy only has one way of thinking. Because of him, the Socialist Party came to power and has remained in power. It has become a dictator type of government....

On last October’s Friends (BMG) White Lies have almost all of the ingredients for greatness: the lean and direct rhythms of early U2, the airy synths of 154-era Wire, and the hopeful-albeit-dark melodic sense of New Order. But the one major component missing from this London-based postpunk trio’s formula is the actual punk—these tunes are about as edgy as a Jell-O mold. While the toothless and safe approach on Friends sounds downright menacing compared to White Lies’ earlier output, it clocks in below Interpol on the dark-and-heavy scale....

On Friday, Donald Trump will place his left hand on a Bible, raise his right hand in the air, and, repeating after U.S. Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts, take the oath of the highest office in the land. Seriously, folks, we’re supposed to be the virtuous country that honors the truth. But Trump’s ushered in a golden age of lying—we’ve come a long way from George Washington and his cherry tree....

Chicago garage-pop whiz kids Twin Peaks have been gigging seriously for only a little more than two years, and in that time their career arc has gone pretty much straight up. In July they played to an amped-up early-afternoon crowd at Pitchfork, just weeks after rocking one of the final shows at beloved DIY venue Animal Kingdom. In August they dropped their second album, Wild Onion (Grand Jury), and their biggest headlining date yet is a belated hometown release party this week at Lincoln Hall....

The Block Beat multimedia series is a collaboration with The TRiiBE that roots Chicago musicians in places and neighborhoods that matter to them. Queen laughs mischievously, flashing her signature dimples. “Damn. I did use to kick y’all niggas out of y’all shit,” she admits. “But that’s just because when I write my songs, I really do it in private.” “I was taught the same thing everybody else was taught in this world—to just be regular,” Queen said....

GETTY IMAGES/iSTOCK PHOTO Poutine Fest Looking for something to do today? Agenda‘s got you covered. For more on these events and others, check out the Reader‘s daily Agenda page.

Cold in July I miss the short reel they used to run before coming attractions at the Cineplex Odeon theaters, which gave the impression you were about to watch a movie in a Greek amphitheater in outer space. Julian Antos projected that reel at a Northwest Chicago Film Society event sometime in the past year. I was happy to see it, though I didn’t think about it again until this past weekend, when I saw Cold in July for a second time at the Landmark Century....

This remarkable—and affordable!—two-night festival, presented by Chicago Moving Company, showcases a dozen young local dance makers exploring the fertile zone between composition and improvisation. A hundred iterations might yield a surprise as small and simple as a new quality in the raising of a hand—but that can be plenty. Some highlights from the two programs, each of which will feature work by six different artists: Jason Torres Hancock’s four performers (Thu 7/24) seem to have a special reverence for gifts from the improv muse; before one rehearsal, when Torres Hancock warned them to close windows against birds, a dancer piped up “Could be a compositional element....

Michael Brosilow As Giovanni, Don Mariusz Kwiecien woos soprano Andriana Chuchman The announcement that Robert Falls would be directing Don Giovanni , the opener for Lyric Opera’s 60th season, was reason to hope that this 18th-century staple of the repertoire would get a shakeup that would really make it click with a 21st-century audience. Meanwhile, the musical performances—by a cast that includes baritone Mariusz Kwiecien as Giovanni; sopranos Ana María Martínez, Andriana Chuchman, and Marina Rebeka as his furious conquests; and, especially, tenor Antonio Poli as the designated avenger, Don Ottavio—are excellent, as is the Lyric chorus and the orchestra, conducted by Andrew Davis....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Tuesday, April 18, 2017. Shootings were scattered around the city during a violent Easter weekend Gun violence was scattered across the city from Lakeview to the south and west sides over Easter weekend. Only two of the 45 shootings were fatal, but it was the most violent weekend in 2017 since New Year’s, according to the Tribune. A 14-year-old boy shot in the arm in Pilsen was the youngest victim....

Technically, Margo Jefferson grew up in the south-side neighborhoods of Park Manor and Hyde Park. But metaphorically she comes from Negroland—her name for a small segment of black America “where residents were sheltered by a certain amount of privilege and plenty.” Her father was the head of pediatrics at Provident Hospital; her mother graduated from the University of Chicago. Her family belonged to the most exclusive black clubs, and their friends included the city’s most prominent lawyers and clergymen, academics and publishers, plus an opera singer and an Olympic athlete....

Eric Michael Pearson The Harvard Sailing Team Looking for something to do today? Agenda‘s got you covered. For more on these events and others, check out the Reader‘s daily Agenda page.