Seven Lions - Restaurant Week

The last restaurant that I went to for Chicago restaurant week that was not a place where I have previously gone was the second restaurant in Master Sommelier Alpana Singh's growing restaurant empire.  Located on Michigan Avenue, across from the Art Institute, Seven Lions is a modern take on a classic supper club.  Done in shades of brown and using a lot of stone and leather, the space is large with banquettes on two walls as well as large semi-circular booths with a classic design.  There are also a few high tops close to the large rectangular bar located in the center of the dining room.  The dining room was only half full when I was there, but with the high ceilings and construction of the room, I have to imagine that it would be pretty loud if the room was full despite the fact that there is space between diners and they are not sitting right next to one another.  The floor is hardwood and the lighting is electric chandeliers.  There was also a mural on the wall closest to us of a classic and crowded city scene.  With lots of people, a bicycle, drawbridges, and a lot of buildings.  We were seated in a large booth with leather seats that could have easily seated six.  There was a wine pairing available for our dinner and, as Alpana Singh is a Master Sommelier, I am sure that it was fantastic, but I was not in the mood for wine on that evening, so I went with a cocktail.  Called the Cool Hand Luke, it contained Tito's Handmade Vodka, Cucumber, Lime Juice, and though it was not listed, soda I am sure because it had some fizz to it.  On paper, this sounded better than it turned out to be, Tito's is very smooth and Cucumber and Lime both go well with vodka, they just didn't meld especially well.  It wasn't terrible and I did drink it, it just wasn't my favorite drink.

I started my meal off with a Roasted Brussels Sprout and Squash Panzanella Salad.  When I think of Panzanella, I think of Bread, Tomatoes, and a Vinaigrette.  While this did have bread, it was unlike any panzanella that I have ever had.  It was very good, but it was different.  The main ingredients were Shredded Brussels Sprouts and Golden Squash with Bread, Glacier Gorgonzola, and a Sage Dressing.  It was crisp, fresh, and had a lot of flavor, with the gorgonzola providing a nice blue cheese start and the sage a nice herbal finish.

My entree was a spin on the classic pot roast.  It wasn't actually Pot Roast, it was Braised Short Rib, but it was presented similarly to how pot roast is presented.  It was served with White Bean Puree, which took the place of Mashed Potatoes, Carrots, Tokyo Turnips, and Sassafras Jus.  The short rib was fork tender, juicy, and very flavorful.  The white bean puree, while it looked like mashed potatoes, had more of a savory flavor, and the sassafras jus added a flavor similar to root beer, which actually worked very well.

For my second cocktail, I went with something, that to me, sounded like a spin on a Moscow Mule (Vodka, Lime, and Ginger Beer).  Called Mr. Pink, it had CH Distillery Peppercorn Vodka, Ginger Beer, Strawberry Puree, Peach Bitters, and a Lemon garnish.  I took my first sip of this and my head exploded.  There was a lot going on and it was very good.  The peppercorn vodka gave it a strong peppercorn flavor, with the strawberry providing tartness, the ginger beer adding spice and the peach bitter adding a bitter peach flavor.  If I were to see this again, I would definitely order it again.

For dessert, we finished with a classic, Chocolate Espresso Tart served with Salted Caramel, Strawberris, Black Raspberries, and Whipped Cream.  It was bitter sweet and chocolatey with an undertone of strong coffee.  The whipped cream added some lightness and cut some of the bitter and the strawberry and blackberry added some fruit tartness.  It was a good finish to a classic style meal.  I enjoyed my meal here and the space is very nice.  The food, while not exceptionally groundbreaking, does taste pretty good and it is a good place for those who might be a little timid.     

 



    

Piccolo Sogno - Restaurant Week

I've mentioned before that while I really like Italian food, I don't eat it often (other than pizza, which doesn't really count) because, to me, it feels like something that you eat with family or a group of friends.  Having said that, there are a few Italian places that I feel that I need to go to whether I have a dining companion or not.  Piccolo Sogno (Little Dream) is one of these restaurants.  While it has been on my radar for years, and I have actually made reservations several times (mostly during restaurant week), I have never gone because I couldn't coordinate my schedule with someone else.  I decided this year that even if I couldn't coordinate with someone, it is a place that I wanted to visit and I would go whether or not I had a dining partner.  I have had samples of the food prepared at Piccolo Sogno at various benefits and festivals, I had never actually dined at the restaurant itself.  Chef/Owner Tony Priolo was raised in Chicago and had established himself as a great chef (at Coco Pazzo) before he opened Piccolo Sogno eight years ago.  The building in which Piccolo Sogno is located has actually been a restaurant as long as I have been in Chicago.  I first remember it as Thyme, a French bistro-style restaurant which switched to Italian and Timo before becoming Piccolo Sogno.  The building is a large old brick building in River West.  The entrance is on the side of the building off of a small parking lot and you enter into the lounge area.  There are three dining rooms inside, I think I was in the largest one, which seats about 70 with 2 tops and round 4 tops.  There is also apparently a fantastic courtyard that is open in the summer, but I obviously didn't see that.  The walls were dark blue (not quite navy blue) with light ceilings and dim lighting that was slightly augmented with candles at the tables.  The passageways between rooms are arched.  When I was seated, I was offered still or sparkling water and was presented with three menus:  the Chicago Restaurant Week Prix Fixe menu, the regular dinner menu, and the wine menu which was a pretty sizeable book of Italian wines.  I asked for still water, ordered a nice Rose from Tuscany and started perusing the menu.  While I was looking, I was presented with the bread basket.  It contained bread sticks and two different loafs with some olive oil at the table for dipping.  The bread had a nice crust and soft interior as good bread is supposed to be. 

While there were many good things on the regular menu, I decided to go with the Restaurant Week Prix Fixe and started with the Coda di Vaccinara, Roman-Style Braised Ox Tail braised with Carrots, Celery, and Onions.  I had had ox tail before and while it tastes good, it can be messy and a lot of work to get the meat off of the tail bone.  This ox tail had the potential of being very messy as well because it was very juicy with a lot of sauce.  There was sufficient meat though, to make it easy to peel it off of the bone.  It was very tender and flavorful and with the carrots, celery, and onions, it reminded me of a very good and flavorful stew.

For my entree, I went with some housemade pasta, Tagliatelle served with a Ragu Sauce, specifically I had a Tagliatelle con Cinghiale (Wild Boar Ragu) which was topped with Parmigiana at the table.  This was pretty amazing.  The Tagliatelle was a perfect al dente, the ragu was more meat than sauce, and my server was very generous with the Parmigiana.  Wild boar has a flavor similar to farm raised pork although the flavor is a little stronger.  The tagliatelle was long and strong so each bite was a great bite of pork and pasta with a generous helping of Parmigiana.

For my dessert, I went with a Tavoletta, layers of Chocolate and Pistachio Mousse on a Dark  Chocolate Crust served with Pistachios and Amarena Cherries and garnished with Chocolate Sauce and Powdered Sugar.  It was a sweet, rich, and nutty, with a little tartness provided by the cherries.  It was also a very good finish to a very good restaurant.  While I still think of Italian restaurants as a family/group thing, I am glad I came out and finally got to try the restaurant.

Oak + Char - Brunch

As I mentioned when I came the last time, it is interesting to see a familiar address in a different guise.  I came t, and really enjoyed Oak + Char for dinner, I decided to come and see how their brunch stacks up.  I will first state that while the dining room has a large window on one side, as it is on the south side of the dining room, if it is daylight, it makes little difference whether it is morning or afternoon/evening because the reflected light is about the same either way.    The menu had a variety of small plates and larger plates, they don't have as much an international flair as the dinner menu does.  The menu would not look unfamiliar to anyone that is familiar with brunch places.  They also don't have a lot of sweet on the menu.  They do have coffee, juice, and breakfast cocktails.  I had both a coffee and a cocktail.  Their coffee is Colombe and is very good.  I prefer my coffee black, so when I drink coffee, I would prefer if to be good and flavorful.  This is very much so.  For my breakfast cocktail, while they did have a Corpse Reviver #2 which is my favorite breakfast cocktail, I decided to go with a Beermosa, a beer and orange juice mixed drink, in this case, the beer was a New Belgium Snapshot, which is an unfiltered wheat beer with natural citrus flavors, and the beer was freshly squeezed.

For my main course, I went with Biscuits and Gravy, which used a biscuit that was crusty on the outside and very fluffy on the inside.  It was topped with perfectly cooked and seasoned Scrambled Eggs, and surrounded with Sausage Gravy.  Everything was very good individually and together and while I might have preferred a little more pepper in the gravy, that was a very small issue because if I had thought I could have gotten away with licking the pan, I would have.

I enjoyed brunch here, the food was very good, the staff was friendly and helpful, and the space looks nice.  Having said that, if I had to choose between going for brunch and going for dinner, I would choose dinner.

Club Lucky

In order to talk about this, I need to tell a story.  When I was growing up in Michigan, there was a really good Italian restaurant one town over from where I grew up, Terry & Jerry's O Sole Mio.  It was so good, as a matter of fact that it was recognized in the Michigan Mobil Travel Guide (the Zagat Guide of the time).  It was a great thing because we got to know some really good Italian food, but it was also kind of sad because when the owners retired and it closed, there really was no other Italian restaurant anywhere close.  We have visited the few Italian restaurants, in the Mid-Michigan area and have been disappointed, so I decided to look in Chicago for an Italian Restaurant that was similar in style.  There are a lot of really good Italian restaurants in Chicago, I wanted to find a neighborhood restaurant that felt like a family run place with a good menu and really good food.  I had heard about Club Lucky in Bucktown, a while ago, a friend, also from Mid-Michigan, lived around the corner from it and really liked it.  A coworker recently recommended it as well, so I finally decided to try it out.  As it's located in the neighborhood, it's a bit off the beaten path, and unless you are going there, it isn't somewhere you will pass by everyday, so it's pretty easy to slip your mind.  Located on a corner, it is easy to find, but it is a block off the main drag.  Arriving there, I had a small annoyance.  I am a cyclist and I like to lock up close to where I am going.  There were no bike racks in the area and the street signs around the building had "no bike parking" signs on them and there didn't look like there were any other street signs on that side of the street.  I ended up locking up across the street.   Entering the restaurant felt like going back in time.  Club Lucky was apparently a dance club in the 1940's and they have seemed to have kept the style.  (The bar side of the club was also a hardware store that hid a speakeasy during prohibition). The entrance is in the lounge area and you have to walk through the lounge to get to the dining room.  I sat in the lounge, which has the same menu as the main dining room because I didn't want to take up a two top with just myself in a busy restaurant.  While I didn't dine in there, I did take a look.  There were booths on one side and two tops on the other with larger round tables in the middle of the room.  The floor was tile, the walls were wallpapered, and the furniture was wood.  Everything had an old style to it.  As I was eating, I noticed that the restaurant had a lot of regulars that the staff knew and many of whom could order without looking at the menu.  While the menu was pretty classic and I probably could have picked a classic Italian dish that was on the menu, I wanted to see the breadth of what they had.  I started things off in the lounge with a cocktail, The Pamplemousse, the French word for Grapefruit.  It started with Creme de Pamplemousse and mixed with it, Hendrick's Gin, St. Germain, Lemon, and a fresh Thyme garnish.  As might be guessed, the drink has a strong grapefruit flavor.  It was very refreshing and I liked it.

For my appetizer, there were a few things that interested me.  There was calamari on the menu prepared three ways, but they were all for two.  While I was interested in them, if I had ordered calamari, I wouldn't have had room for anything else.  I decided to go with an Italian classic, Sausage and Peppers.  The sausages were large and were served with Red and Green Peppers and Tomatoes in a White Wine Brodu (Vegetable Broth).  There were also pieces of garlic that were so tender that chewing was pretty unnecessary.  It was flavorful, the Italian sausage was spicy (although one was a little overcooked) and the vegetables were tender, sweet and flavorful.  It was also a pretty large serving which made me wonder how I was going to feel at the end of the meal.

The standard Italian menu is set up in four sections, the antipasti (appetizers), pasta, the entrees that aren't pasta, and dessert.  I knew going in that I wasn't going to get something from every section and while the pasta is supposed to be handmade every day and very good, I was interested in what they did other than pasta.  I was hoping to find something that wasn't pasta, but had pasta served as a side.  I succeeded.  I went with the Veal Francese, Breaded Veal Cutlets served with Mushrooms and Butter in a White Wine Sauce over Pappardelle Pasta.  I like veal in any case, but this veal was very good.  It was very tender and flavorful in the buttery wine sauce and there were a lot of very good mushrooms.

When I was ordering, I thought, I've ordered 2 orders of meat, I should probably get a vegetable, so i ordered a side of Broccoli.  What I didn't expect was to be served an entire bush.  It was very freah and green and lightly coated in melted butter.  It was also a lot bigger than I expected.  I did eat it all, but at this point, I knew that dessert was going to be an effort.

 Frequently with dessert, if a restaurant has a good Amaro list, I will frequently order an Amaro as a digestif.  As Amaro are Italian, it shouldn't be a surprise that they have a good Amaro list.  I decided to go with Averna.  It is sweet, thick, and has a gently herbal bitterness, with a caramel finish.  It went down very smoothly and went well with dessert.

While most people think of Tiramisu or Cannoli when they think of Italian desserts, and these were on the menu, the dessert that I chose was a classic in it's own right.  I went with Profiteroles which were filled with Housemade Vanilla Ice Cream, topped with Hot Fudge, and sprinkled with Powdered Sugar.  Profiteroles are basically cream puffs.  The pastry was light and airy, the ice cream was sweet, with a good vanilla flavor, and what more can be said about hot fudge.  I finished very full and satisfied.  I enjoyed my meal here and would definitely keep it in mind for classic Italian fare. 

Vinci

There are a lot of Italian restaurants in Chicago and while it may not be obvious if you look at my blog, I love Italian food.   There is an Italian restaurant in Lincoln Park that I have had my eyes on for years called Vinci, and recently things fell together in such away that it was to my advantage to go for dinner.  Vinci is located down the street from Steppenwolf Theater and are a pretty good choice for a pre-theater meal.  It very much has an old school look with hanging lights, candles, and walls that appear water stained (they aren't, it just seems that a lot of Italian restaurants go for a look that is very weathered and worn).  The menu is divided into Antipasti, Pizza, Pasta, Secondi, and Dolci.  If yoou tried to order something from every section though, you would be beyond stuffed.  For drinks, they have a nice selection of Italian Wines, as well as beer and cocktails.  I started things off with a pasta that was actually listed in the Antipasti section, Baked "Roman Style" Gnocchi with Wild Mushrooms, Shallots, Cream, and White Truffle Oil.  Unlike regular gnocchi, which is made from potato, Gnocchi alla Romana is an earlier style which was made with semolina flour, butter, egg, and Parmesan Cheese.  It is much lighter and fluffier than the gnocchi that I am used to and it had a light cheese crust.  The mushrooms had a hearty flavor which was added to with the truffle oil, with the gnocchi though, it was lighter and very good.

Because I ordered a pasta as my antipasto, I thought that ordering more pasta would be both redundant and heavy, so I looked at the secondi and chose the duck.  When I am eating out, I try to order dishes that pair well with each other.  I wasn't seeing fish and seafood as going well with the gnocchi, and I generally don't order chicken when I eat out because I eat it so often at home.  That left duck, lamb, and pork.  While I am sure thaey all would have been good, duck was the first one that I noticed and besides, it's my favorite.  The Duck was grilled and served with Tuscan Kale, Polenta, Oyster Mushrooms, and a Balsamic reduction.  The duck was cooked medium rare and was very good,  I am not a huge fan of kale, but I will eat it despite its reminding me of stiff spinach.  The polenta and the mushrooms kind of reminded me of the first dish, and the balsamic reduction added a sweet and tart flavor to everything and capped off a very good dish.

There were some nice looking things on the dessert menu even if it was mostly occupied by the classics of Tiramisu, Panna Cotta, Gelato, and Cheesecake.  I would have been happy with any of these, but when the dessert special was described to me, it wasn't on the menu, I knew what I had to have.  It was an Amaro-Soaked Almond Cake with Honey Vanilla Gelato and garnished with a Mint Leaf.  The cake was as moist as a tres leches cake with a lot of almonds and a slightly bittersweet flavor provided by the amaro (I neglected to ask what they used).  The honey vanilla gelato was sweet and simple and a great ending.  I really enjoyed my meal here and would happily include it as a choice if I'm looking for old school Italian food.  The food was very good, the service friendly and helpful, and the space had a nice design including the fake wear.         

Presidio

Several years ago, I went to Bluebird, a gastropub located run by the folks behind Webster's Wine Bar which was located next to Mindy's Hot Chocolate.  I remember that while I liked the space, it was narrow with brick walls on both sides with a few abstract paintings, a long bar on one side, and unfinished ceilings, and the beer list was very good, I was really unimpressed with the food and didn't see a point to making a return.  Last year, Webster's downsized and closed several of their venues including Bluebird.  The space was bought and reopened as Presidio, a California-focused gastrolounge featuring fresh seasonal cuisine and classic cocktails.  The description intrigued me and since it was no longer Bluebird, I decided to check it out.  The geometry of the space was not going to change, so it is still narrow and deep.  Many of the design elements remain the same as well, it still has a lot of raw brick walls and an unfinished ceiling, but shelves for the liquor were improved.  They are wood and display the bottles well.  At the time that I came, it was relatively early and the front window was open, letting in a lot of natural light.  I sat at the bar, and enjoyed a nice conversation with the bartender.  I started things off with a gin-based cocktail as is my wont.  It was called a Flash in the Pan, and with the gin, it also contained Grapefruit, Lime, Tart Cherry, Black Pepper, and Mint.  This was really surprising.  It was very tart from the lime and tart cherry juice and the grapefruit brought the bitter which brought out the flavor of the gin.  What was surprising was the spice of the pepper and how well it paired with the cherry and the lime.  The mint was presented as a garnish and it was a good finish to the drink.

 

For my first food course, I ordered the Polenta which was baked crispy on the outside with a very fluffy center.  It was served with a Wild Mushroom Ragout, Fresh Oregano, and Ricotta Salata, a type of ricotta cheese that has been pressed and aged and is frequently used in salads.  While the polenta was good, what made this dish was the mushrooms.  The oregano and the ricotta brought a freshness of flavor, but the mushrooms brought a bold earthy flavor and a chewy textural contrast to the polenta.

Looking at the main courses, I was a little unimpressed because all of the choices looked pretty mainstream.  The thing about that though is that mainstream can be some of the most difficult food to prepare and to stand out above the crowd, it has to be really good.  I ordered Twin Bone-In Berkshire Pork Chops with Peaches, Tarragon, Baby Kale, and Smoked Balsamic.  I am generally not a huge fan of peaches, I find them too sweet, but they paired well with the pork chops, bringing out their sweetness and were toned down by the tarragon.  The kale was crisp and prepared well, but felt like kind of an afterthought.  The smoked balsamic though, did help to bring things together.  Overall, they were some good pork chops and and it was constructed in a way that tied the accompaniments together.

For dessert, I went with the Chocolate Hazelnut Cake with Pretzel, Magic Shell, and Housemade Vanilla Ice Cream.  This dish just screamed comfort food and did it extremely well.  The cake was moist and chocolaty with a nice hazelnut flavor.  The ice cream was soft and creamy with an excellent vanilla flavor and the Magic Shell, which brings back many memories of childhood, topped it off.  The pretzels were crushed and acted as a garnish with hot fudge and caramel.  The pretzels added a salty element to a largely sweet dish and was a great finish to a good meal.

I really enjoyed my dinner here.  I liked the space in it's previous incarnation, but the food here was very good and the staff were very friendly and willing to answer questions.  It will definitely be on my list of places to go when I am in the area.  

Celeste

There are many places in Chicago where you can get a good cocktail.  Many are lounges, but there are several that are restaurants that serve good food.  Among those is Celeste, which I visited for Chicago Restaurant Week This year.  Located in a high traffic area in River North, it isn't exactly obvious.  It is located across the street from Epic and Slurping Turtle.  There is a small sign in the window by the entrance, but in the wintertime, the door is covered by a shelter which also blocks the sign.  The restaurant has three floors with three different drink menus.  The food menu is served on the the first two floors.  On the first floor is the bar, where is served beer, wine, and classic cocktails.  The second floor, where we were seated, was called The Deco Room, has an Art Deco design which aims for a 1920's era Supper Club with an extensive cocktail list.  The third floor is the rooftop bar (which is open seasonally) and serves beer, wine, punches, and different cocktails than those served in the bar or deco room.  I started my evening there with a classic cocktail called The Last Word which is a Prohibition era cocktail invented at The Detroit Athletic Club which includes Gin, Marashino Liqueur, Green Chartreuse, and Lime Juice.  It is shaken in ice and then filtered and served straight up.  The drink was very good.  It was sweet, sour and pungent and served as a very good palate cleanser (which admittedly, wasn't really necessary at the beginning of the meal, but was nice as the meal continued).

We were at Celeste for Chicago Restaurant Week so we were going to be choosing from a Prix Fixe menu for our Appetizer, Entree, and Dessert, but we decided to amend our menus with a couple of additional courses to share.  We started with a Charcuterie Plate which was pretty good.  There were three meats served, and while I can guess pretty closely what they were, they were not listed on the menu.  There was a dried ham like a Prosciutto, a lean and thinly sliced meat like a Bresaola, and a hard sausage like a Soppressata.  It was served with some Country Mustard and some hard bread.

For my appetizer, I had Grilled Baby Octopus with Romesco sauce, Crispy Chickpeas, Shaved Radish, Blood Orange, and Cilantro.  This was a very good dish with a wide variety of textures and flavors.  The Romesco Sauce was tangy and spicy, the octopus was meaty with a nice grilled flavor, the radishes were very fresh and crisp even as they were thinly sliced, the chickpeas had a Corn Nut crunch, and the blood oranges provided a sweet finish.

We then received our second extra dish, Roasted Brussels Sprouts in Miso Sauce.  The brussels sprouts were caramelized, which brought out the sweetness and the miso sauce added some savoriness to the dish.  The sprouts were tender and good and while caramelized, still had a little cabbage funk.

My entree had more brussels sprouts, but they were prepared differently, and it wasn't a major part.  It was a Saffron Fettucine with a Vegetarian Ragu, which included more Brussels Sprouts, Pine Nuts, and was topped with Chives and Parmigiano-Reggiano Cheese.  This was a very good dish with a lot of flavor and it was one of those vegetarian dishes that is so flavorful that you don't really notice that there is no meat.

 

Dessert was essentially a deconstructed candy bar.  It was Arguani Dark Chocolate Ganache with Salted Caramel, Orange Crumble, and a Coconut Nib Tuile.  It was sweet, salty, bitter with a few different textures.  It was very good and if I thought I could lick the plate I might have. 

Dinner was very good with good service in a nice space.  While the food is very good and I would come back for dinner here, the stars of the show are the cocktails, and I will definitely have to return to explore more of them.

     

Cafe Absinthe

I first noticed the sign for Cafe Absinthe shortly after I moved to Chicago.  It was a few years after I noticed it, that I went for the first time.  It was a good thing though, that I had heard beforehand that the entrance was kind of secret because I may have never figured out how to enter.  While there is a sign for the restaurant on the road where it has its address, and there is actually a door there, it isn't a door that you can actually enter.  There is also a sign for the restaurant on a side street on the side of the building and the entrance is in the alley that runs behind the building that empties onto the side street.  There is a tavern that is on the corner that is actually connected to Cafe Absinthe through three doors inside, but they are employee doors and you cannot go from the tavern to the restaurant or vice versa.  Even though it is located in a high traffic area, it is actually kind of quiet and low key.  The alley entrance may very well be a part of that.  Inside, the space is very open with a high unfinished ceiling, brick walls (one with a faded wall ad for Pernod), candle light, and an open kitchen.  The tables are not squeezed together, so you can have your own conversation and move around the room if you need to.  They also no longer have their own web presence (There is no website for the restaurant although they do exist on sites such as yelp and menupages and you can make a reservation with OpenTable).  As the restaurant is French, the featured beverage is wine and while they don't have a long wine list, it does a good job at covering many bases.  The menu is a fairly standard French bistro menu.  There aren't really any surprises here, but what they do, they do well.  I started out with the Cheese Plate.  I was very surprised at how big it was.  It came with three goat cheeses: a ricotta style, a semi-soft , and a washed Cheddar style.  I unfortunately do not remember the names of the cheeses but they were all very good.  Also on the plate were a pile of Cornichons and Olives (Green and Kalamata), a thinly sliced Granny Smith Apple, Quince Paste, Date Apricot Chutney, and enough Grilled Bread to enjoy with everything.  Everything was very good and it was kind of fun trying the different elements of the dish together to see what I liked best (The semi-soft cheese with the quince paste on the grilled bread and a cornichon to finish).

For my entree, I went with the Grilled Halibut in a Velouté Sauce with Tomatoes and Greens.  The fish was tender and perfectly cooked, the greens (and tomatoes) were fresh and flavorful, and the sauce was light and buttery and complemented the fish very well.  The only complaint was my own fault, I chose my wine before I really knew what I was going to order and I ordered a red burgundy (bourgogne) that while it tasted good, didn't really go with the food that I had ordered.

The dessert that Cafe is known for is a Chocolate Lava Cake with a Grand Marnier Sauce.  I have had that before and really liked it but one of my fellow diners was ordering it so I decided to try something else.  I got a Rum-Soaked Brioche Bread Pudding with White Chocolate and Coconut Ice Cream, Cocoa Nibs, Caramel, Raspberries, and Mint. This was also very good.  The bread pudding was a little more dense than other bread puddings I have had and it had a sweet and slightly boozy flavor.  The white chocolate and coconut ice cream went well with the bread pudding and kind of gave it a tropical drink flavor.  The cocoa nibs added some bitterness, the raspberries added a little tart, and the mint added mint.

It had been a while since I had been to Cafe Absinthe and it was somewhat comforting to see that things had remained largely the same.  I enjoyed my meal here.  The food and service were good and I really like the space.  I hope that I can return in the future and be comforted again.   

Gilt Bar

My birthday was recently and it has become a tradition for me to treat myself to something special for my birthday (if not precisely on my birthday).  This year, I went to Gilt Bar.  Located across the street from Merchandise Mart and located by Chicago's first bike lane, it still doesn't appear to be in an area with a lot of foot traffic.  Having said that, it still seems to be enormously popular.  I went during the week at an early time and it was still pretty busy.  I walked into a very dark room which shouldn't have surprised me because the exterior is black.  The interior was lit by Edison lamps and the walls, chairs,  and banquettes were mostly black.  Looking at the walls and ceiling, it appeared that they were weathered and some of the black was faded.  The menu consisted of classic dishes and cocktails so I'm going to guess that they were going for a vintage feel in a vintage space.  I decided to start things off with a classic cocktail, a Gin Daisy.  This drink is floral, sour, and an early incarnation of the Cosmopolitan.  I do however think that I like this better than a Cosmo.  There was a lot on the menu that looked interesting, ordering the drink first gave me time to decide what I wanted to eat. 

 I started my meal off with Steak Tenderloin Tartare with Poached Egg Yolk, Mustard, and Toast Points.  The meat was ground coarsely and well-peppered.  With many steak tartares, the yolk is raw.  While this makes it easy to spread the yolk through the ground steak,  it also can be a little on the slimy side.  I preferred the poached yolk which while not hard, was definitely harder than it normal.  The toast was slightly charred and was good to eat with the steak tartare and egg.  I like steak tartare and this was a very good version.

My next course, a vegetable course, was Roasted Broccoli with Pecorino Cheese, Red Pepper, and Lemon.  This was very good.  The broccoli was very fresh and crisp, with a little char on the florets.  It was also very lemony with a lemon wedge included to add more lemon juice it desired and the Pecorino added a cheesy flavor that tied everything together.

For my entree, I went with Roasted Pork Belly, Pickled Shallots, and Lentils.  The pork belly was fatty as might be expected and really, really good.  It was all very good and flavorful and I really enjoyed it.

With the size of the courses, I was slightly full when I got to dessert.  I still wanted dessert, but I decided to stay a little on the lighter side (if not necessarily light).  I went with an Apple Cake with Caramel, Short Bread, and Vanilla Ice Cream.  It was simple, classic, sweet, and a nice finish to a very good dinner.  I enjoyed my dinner there, and the service was good, although I might have  preferred a seat where I didn't have the possibility of becoming involved in someone else's life.   

Bistronomic

I have blogged about Bistronomic before when I came here for brunch.  A restaurant's look isn't going to change based on meal service but it's vibe certainly can and the menu will certainly be different.  Bistronomic is a modern bistro located in the Gold Coast of Chicago.  It's Executive Chef  Martial Noguier who was the first chef at the late, lamented one sixty blue, and later at Cafe des Architectes focuses on French seasonal cooking and during dining hours, he can be frequently seen in the dining room talking up the patrons and ensuring that they are having a good dinner.  I came for a dinner here where they were featuring the dishes of the famed French chef, Auguste Escoffier, who is known as the father of modern French cooking.  Many of the dishes offered were well known classics and it was actually a little difficult to choose what I was going to have because everything sounded good.  I finally did decide though and looked forward to my dinner.  For my appetizer, I started with a Bouillabaisse with Diver Scallops, Potatoes, Saffron Aioli, and Pernod and garnished with a Baguette Slice and Dill.  This was amazing!  The scallops were tender as were the potatoes, and the saffron and dill provided the dish with a lot of flavor complementary to the scallops.  While I did try to soak up as much broth as I could with the baguette, I had more broth than baguette.  If I thought I could have gotten away with licking the bowl, I would have readily.  I eagerly awaited my entree.

My entree was steak, specifically it was a Beef Tenderloin a la Berrichone with Savoy Cabbage, Chestnuts, and a Caramelized Onion Puree.  The tenderloin was very tender, juicy, and had a great crust.  I assume that it had been marinated in a red wine because it was more red than might have been expected from a rare steak (I ordered medium-rare).  The cabbage was crisp and slightly acidic.  The chestnuts provided crunch and the caramelized onion puree had a nice savoriness that really went well with the steak.

For my dessert, I had an Omelette Norvegienne.  I was unsure of what this might be when I ordered it, but I was curious as to what a Norwegian Omelette might be.  As it turned out, a Norwegian Omelette is the same thing as a Baked Alaska.  This is Meringue powdered with bittersweet cocoa on top of Coffee Ice Cream, Caramel, and Bittersweet Chocolate Sauce, and garnished with Mint Leaves.  The meringue was molded into a crown of delicate points and was lightly sweet.  The ice cream went well with the chocolate and it was an excellent finish to a great meal.

I again enjoyed my meal here and will surely come back for more.  The food was good, the service was friendly and welcoming, and I was able to have a pretty good conversation with Chef Noguier about my upcoming trip to Paris. 

Untitled

It may seem counter-intuitive to give a restaurant a rather ambiguous name and to not label the entrance with anything other than the address number but for the restaurant Untitled, it seems to be working.  Located in the basement below 111 W. Kinzie Ave. in Chicago's, River North neighborhood, Untitled is modeled after an old-time speakeasy.  While you don't need a password to get in, because there is no real sign, it helps to know where you're going.  Once you gain entrance though, it is fairly obvious that you are at the right place.  The front door opens to a landing above a very wide set of stairs leading to the basement.  There is also a haberdasher advertising window inside the building, opposite the front door.  The handrails for the stairs are wrought steel and are rather ornate.  Once you reach the floor, you see that the proprietors are pretty serious about presenting the illusion of a speakeasy.  The floor is painted (and sealed) cement and the walls are mostly curtain covered. In the areas where the walls are not curtain covered, the walls can be seen to be old brick and in several rooms, there are many large Art Deco style paintings. The ceiling is mostly unfinished with hanging lights and chandeliers.  The first room that you enter after reaching the main floor is essentially the entry hall with the captain's station (where you check in for seating), mandatory coat check, and lounge chairs.  There are several rooms off of this room.  One room is essentially a waiting area bar (although you can dine there if you choose) with a bar and several hi-top tables.  The room opposite that is the main dining area which is done in white and has several chandeliers.  The remaining room is a combination bar, lounge, dining area with a very long bar, several 4-top tables and a couple of long communal tables.  This room also has live entertainment on the weekends.  I started in the waiting bar and moved to the room with the live entertainment when my party was complete.  I came to Untitled for Restaurant Week and while most restaurants were doing three and four course meals, they were doing what essentially what worked out to be a tour through the menu with six and eleven course menus.  I figured that in order to get a good idea of what they are like, it would make sense to go for the larger menu.  I also figured that if they were serving more courses, they would cut down on the serving size.  I may have been wrong on that point.  If they didn't cut down on serving size, then their normal serving sizes are enormous.  For the most part, after I ordered, the courses came out rapid fire and there were times where I would have two or three courses in front of me at once.  For my first course, I had the Oyster Rockefeller.  As I was brought only one oyster, it did follow for me that the serving sizes might be smaller than normal.  In most situations, if you order Oysters Rockefeller, you will receive two or three oysters.  The fact that I only received one though did not bother me as I was going to have a lot of food to eat.  The oyster was served in the shell (as would be expected) with Spinach Artichoke Fondue, Bacon Bread Crumbs, and topped with Parmesan Cheese.  While I did receive a fork to eat this with, as it was in the shell, I picked it up and slurped it so I could get all of the juices.  It was a very good oyster and the spinach and cheese just added to it.

For my next course, I had a Little Gem Caesar Salad with Smoked Chicken, Brioche Crostini, and Gordal Olives.  I am generally not a big salad eater but I will eat it and I do like Caesars.  This was very good with small and crisp lettuce leaves, a good amount of Parmesan cheese, and enough dressing to lightly coat everything.  The crostini had a nice crunch, and there was enough chicken to provide texture and taste but not enough to make it a chicken dish with lettuce.  The dish provided a nice tang and got me ready for my next plate.

I will admit when the next dish arrived, I was a little overwhelmed.  I like charcuterie and cheese both but the size of the plate for a single person expecting many more dishes was a little overwhelming.  On the plate were samples of three types of charcuterie including a ham and a salami, three types of cheese, a cheddar, a blue, and a goat cheese, gherkins, fig jam, apple jam, and crostini to eat the meat and cheese with.  It was good and it was interesting to try everything by itself and in combinations but it did take a little work to get through.

After the oyster, salad, and charcuterie and cheese, we more or less followed the standard dinner progression with seafood or fish and then meat.  In this case, it was seafood and meat on the same plate.  I was served a Diver Scallop and Short Rib, with Herbed Bread Pudding, over a Kabocha Squash Puree.  While I thought all of the elements sounded good, when it was presented to me, I have to admit that I didn't see how it was going to work together.  After trying it, I saw that the binding part was the squash puree.  The scallop was slightly sweet and had a nice sear, the short rib was extremely tender and had a sweet glaze on it, and the herbed bread pudding had a nice crunch on the outside with a soft interior and an herbaceous flavor.  The squash puree was very creamy and provided the sweetness that tied everything together.

The next course was probably my favorite.  It was the dish that they served at the First Bites Bash and while it sounds kind of simple, there is something about it that just awakens my taste buds.  It was a couple of Grit Cakes topped with Tomato Jam.  The cake was deep fried and crunchy on the outside and very soft on the inside.  The tomato jam provided both a sweetness and brightness to the dish and somewhere, in the jam or the cake, there was a little spiciness.  It was a really good dish and I was glad to see it on this menu as well.

The next course, while also pretty good, went pretty quickly.  The serving size was on the small side which was fine because after all of this food, I was starting to feel a little full.  It was a couple of Slagel Farms Meatballs with Stewed Peppers and Black Garlic Gremolata.  The meatballs were tender and the stewed peppers and gremolata were so flavorful that while they did add to the meatballs, they were good by themselves.

The next dish was Shrimp and Grits and I am sure that it was very good.  I would guess this because all of the dishes up to this point were very good.  I will admit though that it wasn't my favorite dish partially because I was getting full and partially that I have had some really good shrimp and grits elsewhere.  The shrimp was tender and the grits were creamy although the gravy wasn't as dark as I normally like it.  The grits were pretty buttery though so there was that.

The next dish was Cornbread with Maple Bourbon Butter and Bacon.  The cornbread itself was sweet and soft although with a typical cornbread texture.  The bourbon butter provided some moisture and a slightly smoky flavor and everything is better with bacon.  I would really like to say that I enjoyed this but as this was the 9th of an eventual 11 courses.  It tasted good but I was so full that I really couldn't enjoy it and was actually looking forward to the end.

My final savory course was a Slagel Farms Chicken with a Bourbon-Soy Glaze and Braised Tuscan Kale.  The braised kale reminded me of spinach.  The chicken was probably some of the best chicken I have tasted.  It was amazingly tender and flavorful even without the glaze but I was served half a chicken and there was no way I was going to be able to eat half a chicken after all I had previously eaten.

While service up to this point was amazingly good, they found a bar stool for me to sit at the bar in the room with the live entertainment, the flow of the dishes was very good, and the wait staff was very attentive.  However, there was a hiccup in service after my final savory dish and I had to alert one of the bartenders that I had not received my dessert.  I ended up waiting about 15 minutes after my dishes were cleared for my dessert to arrive (delivered by the bartender that I had alerted).  I am not sure if the wait was a good or a bad thing.  I was very full but I had paid for my dessert so I wanted my dessert.  Dessert was a thing of beauty.  It was a Chocolate Mousse with chunks of White Chocolate, Milk Chocolate, Dark Chocolate, and Candied Cashews.  It was sweet, and creamy with a lot of textural and flavor variety.  I really enjoyed it even if I was pretty miserable when I finished it.

The service and design of Untitled are very cool and the food was good even if I was served way too much.  I would recommend the restaurant to others and will return though I will definitely try not to eat so much.