All Together Now - Brunch

 

If you look around Chicago, you will find many ethnic groceries with an attached cafe.  There are also many bottle shops where you can buy beer and wine that also have an attached bar, locally known as a slashie.  To a lesser extent, you can also find restaurants that also sell packaged foods (normally gourmet).  Last year, a place opened up in Ukrainian Village that was both a bottle shop/bar and a cafe/gourmet packaged goods store.  Called All Together Now (and originally Brothers & Sisters), it aims to fulfill many of your quick food and drink desires.  The front is a glass fronted storefront and walking in, the first thing that you will encounter is the Cheese and Cured Meat display counter.  There is a counter behind the cheese and meat display with a cash register on the left, where you place your order, and seating to the right for drinking and dining.  There is a beer refrigerator opposite the counter with a lot of local beers and wine shelves on either side of the beer refrigerator and around a pillar in the center of the room.  Aside from the counter seating, there are tables in the back, next to the beer and wine and a large communal table in the front, where we sat, that was made from a large log.

 

As I mentioned, you place your order at the cash register and pay up front.  You then find a seat with your beverage and your food is brought to you.  It was a warm day when we went, so I went with an iced coffee from Ruby Coffee Roasters.  It was a Central American blend with a medium roast and flavors of chocolate and citrus and a little inherent sweetness (I don't add cream or sugar to my coffee).  It was very good and I think I ended up having a couple of cups.  While I was waiting for my food, I decided to take a look at the cheese and saw something that excited me a lot.  When I was at a fine dining restaurant earlier this year, on their tasting menu one of the courses included a grilled cheese sandwich made with Tomme Cheese which was the best grilled cheese sandwich that I have ever had.  When I saw that All Together Now had Tomme Cheese in their display case, I had to try it again, so they cut me a small sample.  Tomme Cheese is a hard French Swiss-style Cheese made from Skim Milk.  It is light, but despite the lack of fat found in other cheeses, it does have a lot of flavor.  While this wasn't as good as the Grilled Cheese Sandwich (and Fermented Tomato Soup), it was good and brought my memory back to the sandwich.

 

Normally for brunches I will tend to order a sweet course and a savory course.  In this case, I actually ordered two savory courses, though admittedly the first did have some sweetness to it.  I had what was essentially an Open Faced Beet and Goat Cheese Sandwich that was a special.  It had Golden Beets, Heirloom Tomatoes, Chervil, Chevre, and Blue Cheese, on a thick slice of some very good Country Bread.  One of my friends dining with me had another Open Faced Sandwich.  This was Creamed Eggs over Toast with Pork Fat Collards, Pickled Pearl Onions, Lemon, and Aleppo Pepper.  It looked and tasted good, but I liked mine better.  Beets and Goat Cheese seems to be a natural pairing and this worked very well.  I liked the bitterness that the blue cheese added as well.  While I did try to eat this by hand, I quickly saw that that would not happen because everything would fall off the bread, so I enjoyed it with knife and fork.

My main course was a Breakfast Sandwich.  As with most breakfast sandwiches, it was built with an egg, meat, and cheese on an English Muffin.  For this one, the meat was Underground Meats Sorpressata, the cheese was Aged Cheddar, and it was finished with Fresno Chile Aioli on a Housemade English Muffin.  While fairly standard, the ingredients used were very good and resulted in a very good sandwich.  While All Together Now is very casual, the service and the food and drink that they both sell and serve are very good and it is a good option for a stop when I am in Ukrainian Village.  

Flat & Point

 

 

There are many barbecue joints in Chicago.  Most don't do a single style, but at least most of them now smoke their meat.  A new restaurant opened up in my neighborhood, that, while they serve meat from a smoker, and use a variety of sauces to go with the meat, doesn't call itself a BBQ joint.  Called Flat + Point, which refers to the to sides of a piece of brisket, they don't refer to themselves as a barbecue joint because, as the chef said, there are only two slabs of rib from each animal and there is a lot more than that from each animal that they also serve.  The outside of the space looked very modern.  The inside has hardwood furniture and floors and an open kitchen with wood stacked in front where you can see the smoker.  I came, with Tasting Collective, for a 6 course whole animal dinner, the animal, of course, being a pig.  Before dinner started, I started things off with a Mezcal Negroni.  Negronis are generally a gin cocktail, made with Campari, Vermouth, and garnished with an orange peel.  While I like gin, I generally tend away from Negronis because I am picky about the combinations and they will frequently come out too bitter (for me).  I have never met a Mezcal Negroni, though, that I have not liked.  The sweetness and smoke from the mezcal makes the drink more than just bitter and I like it a lot.  This was very good and a nice start for a meal that would have lots of smoked meats.

 

 Our first course was a charcuterie plate, which is a logical and easy way to use offal.  Our plate included a Head Cheese with Pig Ear, Noes, Jowl, Feet, and Tail, Pork Loin, Pickles, Hard boiled Eggs, Barbecue Sauce, and a Seeded Lavash (Cracker).  I had had head cheese before, it 's basically a pressed meat that includes leftover parts.  This was pretty good.  The loin was very tender and everything tasted very good.  The Lavash was delicate but flavorful and went well with the charcuterie. 

The second course was the salad, but it was also similar to a Bruschetta.  It was Pastrami Tongue Endive Salad with Candied Walnuts and Chive Vinaigrette.  The endives were served as single pieces with the tender pastrami tongue on top.  The walnuts provided some sweetness and a crunch and the vinaigrette added some sour.

Course three was pasta.  It was a Pork Shoulder Canneloni with Pork Jus, Mushroom Duxelle, and Pea Shoots.  It was kind of funny when the dish came out, with the color and shape of the pasta, it reminded me of a plate of bones topped with greens.  Despite what the menu said, I thought we were going to have a marrow dish.  Duxelle is a dish of minced mushrooms and herbs cooked down to a paste.  With the pork shoulder being pulled, it looked like everything inside the pasta shell had been through a grinder (which contributed to the look of a bone and the thought that we would be eating marrow).  In any case it was all very flavorful and I liked it a lot.

Our next course featured pork (like every other course),  though it wasn't a major part of the dish.  It started with Creamy Polenta topped with Grilled Asparagus and Crispy Pig Skin.  Polenta is interesting.  It is simply boiled corn meal with butter, similar to grits, but it seems to come in a variety of textures.  This polenta was firm, about the texture of oatmeal, and very flavorful.  The Asparagus was plentiful and very fresh.  The Pig Skin was broken into small pieces about the size of croutons and sprinkled over the top, like croutons, that added to the flavor.

By the time our entree arrived, we were starting to get full.  It looked a little overwhelming, especially after all that we he had so far eaten.  The meat was a roulade that was actually a Porchetta that was made with everything, Pork Belly, Ham Sausage, Liver, Kidney, and Fat Back, and served over Shredded Rutabaga (done in a sauerkraut style) and Apple Butter.  While everything on this plate was eaten, it definitely went slower than the early plates.

When we reached dessert, it was like a challenge as to whether we would be able to finish it or not.  When our plates arrived, the challenge was readily accepted.  We were served Pork Fat Brioche Chocolate Bread Pudding with Dulce de Leche.  This was very good, but pretty heavy, and I was glad that I was able to walk here because riding my bike would have been uncomfortable.  I really enjoyed my dinner here and am glad that it's really close.  I will definitely return with friends.        

Mon Lapin - Montreal

 

Part of the reason that I wanted to go to Montreal in the first place was to visit the most well known restaurant in Montreal, Joe Beef.  As it is the most well known restaurant in Canada, it is also very difficult to get a reservation.  They take reservations three months in advance which are gone very quickly and I was unable to get one.  Eater Montreal, said that Joe Beef has become very tourist focused and to go instead to Mon Lapin, a Wine Bar by Joe Beef, which is located in Little Italy (as opposed to Little Burgundy which is where the other restaurants in the Joe Beef group are located) and does not take reservations.  This sounded like a good idea because I would have to take a subway to get there and it would let me explore another neighborhood.  I decided to get there when it opened both because I could much more easily get a seat and I was going on my last day and would be leaving early on the next day.  The subways were pretty cool.  They were bigger than those used in Chicago with multilevel stations.  It actually reminded me of the Tube system in London.  I arrived in the neighborhood early and explored a little.  Located on the other side of Mont Royal from Downtown, Old Town, Little Burgundy, and the port, it's smaller and looks more residential than the downtown area.  Mon Lapin is in a storefront on a main road and has a large front window and a nice patio to the side.  The inside is small, a little rustic, and bistro-like.  There is a small granite-topped bar in the rear that overlooks the kitchen where I decided to sit.  I sat to one side, next to a selection of French Liqueurs using things like quince and cherries, but the one that caught my eyes was the tomato liqueur.  They all sounded interesting, though I did not try them.

 

There was a chalkboard on the wall to the left behind me that listed the wines by the glass that were available.  I started with a dry white that had a very fruity aroma, though a dry flavor and it was very nice.  For food, I decided to go with the tasting menu.  Items on the tasting menu were also on the a la carte menu, but I figured that the chef would better be able to put a meal that flowed well, than would I, so I let the chef drive.  The food menu was very vegetable heavy, and in fact, the only meat that I had was in the first course.  I was served Radishes with an Eel Cream Sauce and a very large Razor Clam with Asparagus and topped with Pork Belly.  The Radishes were very fresh and crisp and the eel cream sauce complemented the spice of the radish well.  The best way to eat the razor clam was with both the asparagus and pork belly, though admittedly, that was a little difficult.  Every part of it was very good.  The clam was briny which complemented the saltiness of the pork belly.  The asparagus was also fresh and crisp and gave this part of the course some crunch.  I saw quickly that things were going to be very fresh and crisp.

For the second course, I was served Shrimp with Lovage (an herb similar to parsley with a celery flavor) and Cucumbers.  In the center of the dish there was a plastic skewer that skewered all three elements together.  The shrimp was very fresh, tender and sweet, and the lovage and cucumber added texture and a green vegetal flavor.

Course three was probably the most savory and was a favorite.  It consisted of Snow Crab with Tagliatelle topped with Bread Crumbs and Chives.  The pasta was perfectly al dente with a lot of tender and flavorful crab.  The bread crumbs added a little texture and flavor and tied everything together.

 

   I was ready for another glass of wine with my fourth course.  It was a Red Vinho Verde, which is actually called a Vinho Tinto.  Like other Vinho Verdes it was bright and light.  It isn't exceptionally complex, but it's a great table wine.  As it is a red, it does go well with more savory courses.  With my Vinho Verde, for my food course, I was served Halibut with Fried Nettles.  I had had and like halibut before, but I had never had Fried Nettles (nor nettles at all, for that matter).  The Halibut was light, moist, tender, and flaky.  The nettles had a texture similar to kale and a flavor similar to spinach.  With the light flavor of halibut, the nettles definitely added some flavor, though the butter also helped.

For course number five, we went back to the vegetables and, in fact, back to the Asparagus.  I was served Fresh Grilled Asparagus with Ramps.  While asparagus has a strong flavor, grilling actually concentrates the flavor.  Ramps are a type of wild onion that are in season in May.  They have a flavor that is kind of like a cross between garlic and onions and it went well with the asparagus.

Course number 6 actually surprised me a bit because it was essentially a salad.  I am aware that serving salads first is an American tradition and other parts of the world, France specifically, will serve it after the entree.  That doesn't mean that it still didn't throw me off a little.  I was served Lettuce with Bacalao Sauce and Salmon Roe.  Bacalao is a dried and salted cod, so with the salmon roe the dish was pretty savory.  It was very good, but it was a salad.

Pre-dessert was a Cheese Course.  It was a Louis Dor Hard Cow Cheese served with a Sour dough Cracker and Honey.  The sourdough was thin and crisp and was easily breakable into smaller pieces.  the cheese, had a nice sour salty flavor similar to cheddar, and the honey added a nice sweet finish.  It was enjoyable enough that I would have eaten the cheese even without the cracker or honey.

To finish things off, came a dessert that both was very seasonal and referenced Canada.  Called Maple Flan with Fried Rhubarb, it started with a nice firm flan topped with a lot of Maple Syrup.  If that would have been it, it still would have been very good.  Maple complements the sweetness of flan well.  I have had Rhubarb both fresh and baked in a pie with strawberries.  It is very sour, though cooking does reduce that.  Frying it made it more tender and added a little sweetness to the sour.  It was very good, I liked it a lot and it was a very nice finish to both my dinner and my trip to Canada.     

 

Restaurant Toque - Montreal

 

When people thin of fine dining in Montreal, most will first think of Joe Beef, but if you google Fine Dining Montreal, Restaurant Toque' will show up high on the list.  Located in downtown Montreal, it serves seasonal French cuisine a la carte or as a Tasting Menu.  I decided to try their tasting menu so I could try more things.  Located in what looks like an office building, it's pretty unobtrusive and easy to walk past.  It's also located on a side street, but it's opposite a park, so it has good visibility and you have a lot of opportunity to see it.  The dining room is large open and carpeted with a curved bar opposite the window modern looking wine storage.  Located in a glassed in room visible from the dining room, the bottles sit on their sides on modern minimalist shelving.  There is also a stairway in the room, which I imagine, leads to more wine storage.  While their wine list did look good, I decided not to opt for a wine pairing with the tasting menu.  I went with a cocktail called La Detox instead.  It looked and tasted like a vegetable smoothie, which it was, with some booze added.  Starting with Gin St. Laurent, it also had Cucumber Juice, Celery Syrup, Lime, and Egg White.  I am generally not a vegetable smoothie drinker, but this wasn't bad.

Before the dinner actually started, I was presented with an Amuse Bouche.  It was a Cold Cod Soup with Cod Confit, Olive Oil, and Croutons.  It was thick, creamy, and very good.  While I like cod, I was surprised with how much flavor this contained.  I liked it, though think that a larger portion would have been too much.

The first course was also in the seafood vein., but was also very seasonal.  We started with Nordic Shrimp with Cucumbers and Strawberries.  I was surprised that strawberries and shrimp would work together, but the sweetness from each complemented each other and the vegetal flavor of the cucumbers also went well with the shrimp.  It was interesting and very good .  I liked it.

I will admit that course number two really didn't do it for me.  It was a Filet of Hake with Turnips.  Hake, like cod, is also a white fish, so it has a generally mild flavor, but turnips are very earthy, and it brought out the earthy flavor of the hake.  Overall, it kind of tasted like dirt.  I ate it, but it wasn't something I would have chosen.

The next course progressed to the savory and had a lot of combinations of flavors.  Starting with Foie Gras, it also had Raspberry Jam, Mushrooms, Pistachios, Cipollini Onions, and Shortbread.  Individually, everything was very good, but it was also a lot of fun to see how the different elements would taste together.  The Foie, Raspberry Jam, and Shortbread were good, but I think my favorite combination was the Mushrooms, Onions, and Foie.

My first entree was Braised Lamb with Eggplant, Tomatoes, and Mushrooms.  The Lamb was heavily glazed and was very tender.  While we were given a steak knife, the meat was so tender that it flaked apart with a fork.  It sat in a Tomato Puree.  The Mushroom was also pureed, but the Eggplant was folded on either side of the lamb.  It was all tender and very flavorful and was a good entree start.

My next course was Duck, which is generally my favorite protein.  As is typical, the main part was Fileted Duck Breast.  It was served with a Green Garlic Leaf, and Truffle and Foie Gras sauce.  On the side were Pureed Raspberries, Potatoes, and Duck Heart.  This was also a lot of fun combining flavors and textures.  The duck breast went well with the raspberries (as did the potatoes).  The duck heart didn't taste largely different from the duck breast, it did have more of a minerally flavor, but the texture was very different.  It was all good, and I enjoyed mixing and combining the different flavors.

For my pre-dessert I had a choice, I could go with the Cow's Milk Cheese for a Cheese Course, or I could go for a surprise.  While I am sure that the cheese was good, I will always go for the surprise.  For my surprise Pre-Dessert, I got Fennel Jelly, Star Anise Meringue, Celery, Brambleberry, and Brambleberry Sorbet.  Fennel and Anise both have a Black Licorice flavor and Brambleberries are pretty tart.  The variety of textures and flavors made this my favorite course.  It was sweet, tart, licorice, a little bitter, or a combination of these depending on what you tasted.  It was a lot of fun and very good.

Dessert was creative and I liked the way that it looked, though I can't say that I liked it overall.  Starting with a White Chocolate Torte, it was topped with Lemon Creme and White Chocolate and Raspberry Meringues.  On one side was a rolled slice of Cucumber and Raspberry Pudding, and the other side was a Cucumber Sorbet.  The main part of this I did like, even if it felt a little incomplete.  The Raspberry Pudding was okay, but I didn't think that the Cucumber or Cucumber Sorbet worked.

Finishing things off, I was presented with a couple of Mignonettes, both referencing the cuisine of Quebec.  The first was a Maple Candy and the other was a Blueberry Jelly.  They were both nice, sweet, and simple, and were a nice way to finish a good meal.  I was glad to have come here even if it wasn't a home run.