Gather

Lincoln Square has a great restaurant scene near the Old Town School of Folk Music and has for many years.  I had heard many good things about Gather, so I decided to visit.  When I went, I discovered that I had been here in a previous incarnation as French Restaurant, LM.  Like LM, the exterior was still Forest Green.  The interior still has green accents, and was open, but felt smaller.  It still has a large front window which provides a lot of the light and still feels nice and homey.

I was seated at a banquette table by the window and started perusing the menu.  The menu, both food and cocktail, seem very seasonal and Farm to Table.  I decided to start, while I was looking, with the Bartender's Seasonal Harvest with Laird's Applejack Brandy, Egg White, Allspice Dram, Apple and Persimmon, and Fresh Leaves.  This was really good and very much reminded me of fall.  The top was fluffy and with the leaves, apple, and spices really reminded me of a Spiced Cider in front of a camp fire.  It also reminded of a Pisco Sour.

My first food course was very much a fall vegetable, Grilled Carrots with Korean Barbecue, Pickled Daikon, Kimchi, Carrot Ginger PurItee, a Coriander Crisp, and Sesame.  This was very good.  The carrots were tender and I really liked the Asian flavors and spice.  The Carrot Ginger Puree added some spice, sweetness, and additional carrot flavor. 

For my next course, I went with more fall vegetables, Beets.  The Beets were both Red and Gold, Roasted, and served with a pairing commonly served with beets, Goat Cheese, which, in this dish, was Whipped Feta Cheese.  In addition, there were Balsamic Cipollini Onions,  Barley, Mustard Vinaigrette, Beet Chips, and Smoked Honey.  I really like beets and goat cheese and this was a good version of that.

For my entree, I had Pork.  It was a Grilled Pork Chop with Roasted Sweet Potato, Grilled Heart of Palm, Coconut + Lime Puree, Pate a' Choux (a light pastry shell), and Ginger Jus.  It was very good, having a wide variety of flavors and textures.

Then came dessert.  It was simple, seasonal, and I was very full when I finished.  It started with Apple Fritters, Vanilla Ice Cream, Caramel, and Powdered Sugar.  It was a great finish to a great dinner and I would very much enjoy returning.

Candide - Montreal

 

One of the things that I make sure to do before I go on a trip is to try to find out what the notable restaurants are in the area.  Before I went to Montreal last month, I looked at several lists to try to find out where to eat and Candide kept on coming up.  I noticed that it was in the Little Burgundy neighborhood and was actually located in the basement of an old church.  While they did have a menu, it was simply the menu of what they would be serving on that given night.  Every night, they served a 4 course seasonal menu based on what they could find in the markets.  The only choice that you had to make was whether you would also be doing the wine pairing.  This sounded very much like the thing that I am very much into, so I made sure to make a reservation.  The place was a 40 minute walk from where I was staying and when I got there, I found that not only is it located in an old church, but the church was located in the middle of a park.  While there was an address, the road on the block where the restaurant is located is pedestrian only, so even if I were to have taken a cab to get there, there would have been at least some walking.  The entrance had a large covered porch with strung white Christmas style lights, but it was not yet being used.  I walked in and found a ramp that led (slightly) down to the host station.  The dining room was small, seating about 30 people in total between tables and the counter overlooking the kitchen, where I was seated.  I really enjoyed the counter seat because the chef and his two sous chefs were literally across the counter so I could both watch what was being done and ask questions.  Shortly after I was seated, the Sommelier came by and asked if I would like bubbles.  It is very much both a French and Fine Dining tradition to start things off with a sparkling wine because it opens up your taste buds and allows you to be better taste what you are about to eat.  I said yes and was served a Cava which was dry, very sparkling, and very good.  I also said yes to the wine pairing.

For my first course, which was actually kind of a pre-appetizer, we started with  a simple dish of Asparagus wrapped in Greens and topped with Seaweed Butter.  It tasted very fresh and green and while the butter did add an element of savoriness, the seaweed that it was infused with added to the green flavor.  It was very good and almost as if I was eating directly from a garden.  In addition to the Asparagus, I was served a bowl of Housemade Bread and Whipped Butter which was very good.  I did eat all of the bread and I was offered more, it was just sitting on the other side of the counter,but I waved it off because, while it was very good, I didn't want to fill up on bread.

 

The actual first course was also vegetable based.  I was served Red Romaine Lettuce with Bottarga  Sauce (a sauce made with tuna roe), Pickled Blueberries, and Farmers Cheese.  It was crunchy, creamy, briny, and a little bitter.  It really didn't look like much, but it did have a wealth of flavor and I really liked it.  It was paired with a local white wine called Nibiru Alte Reben, which, while I have never heard of, I liked and thought it went well with the lettuce.

The next course kind of skirted the line between a vegetable dish and an entree.  Also simple (and actually a favorite), it was Crab, Carrots, and Yogurt.  It was very fresh, sweet, tart, and sour, and both creamy and crunchy.  The wine served was another white, Stefan Vetter Sylvaner (shown on the right in the picture below) which was crisp with a very minerally flavor.

The main course also very seasonal.  The star was the Guinea Fowl which was set on a Parasol Mushroom Puree and served with Fiddlehead Ferns and Local Greens.  It was savory, salty, and tasted very fresh.  The mushrooms added a savoriness to the already savoriness of the Guinea Hen and the fiddlehead ferns contrasted that with a green flavor.  The wine pairing was a Methode Sauvage Syrah which was both very rich and savory and very floral.

Dessert, while it was seasonal and fruit forward was kind of unexpected.  Dried Plums (Prunes) were rehydrated with Strawberry Juice and served over Malted Wheat with Sweet Bread.  It was sweet, fruity, and a little tart with the richness of the malted wheat.  The sweet bread was sweet and crunchey and paired well with the malted wheat.  I was actually surprised that the plum, which had started as a prune had not retained any of the bitterness of a prune.  The fruit went well with the dessert pairing, which was a Sauternes.  It was sweet and slightly syrupy and gained from the tartness of the strawberry juice rehydrated plum.

Many fine dining places will finish things off with Mignardises when the check is brought.  While I was served a sweet surprise, it was actually Linden Honey with Honeycomb.  The check was also served with a little toy hippo which was cute.

Dinner was very good and the experience was great because I had the chefs there to answer my many questions.  It was a lot of fun and I would highly recommend it to any friends who decide to visit Montreal.                    

The Bristol - Tasting Collective Dinner

It's funny, while I have been to The Bristol several times, I've never written about their dinner.  I've been here and written about Brunch and events, but never their dinner menu.  While this dinner with Tasting Collective was a group dinner, it did feature kind of a greatest hits selection from their dinner menu.  The plates at The Bristol are meant to be shared anyway, so other than having to serve everything at once, it shouldn't have been a huge difference for the kitchen.  We were seated upstairs in a room that used to be a bar area that served no food, but is now a private dining room and event space (with it's own bar).  For the dinner, there was one long communal table set up and we shared plates with three people sitting close to us.  I started things off with an Old Fashioned, made with Very Old Barton Bourbon, Demerara Sugar (raw sugar from sugar cane), Bitters, and an Orange Rind garnish.  An Old Fashioned, as the name implies, has been around for a long time.  It isn't difficult to make, but the ingredients used make an enormous difference.  This was a very good Old Fashioned that was sweet, bitter, and very smooth.  I am generally not a bourbon drinker, but this was very good.

Our First Course was very much a pre-dinner, cocktail hour-style appetizer.  It was Smoked Catfish Dip, topped with Trout Roe, and served with Housemade Potato Chips.  The catfish dip was ver flavorful and topped with a lot of roe.  It was very good, though the one complaint that I might have had was that we could have used more potato chips which were very crisp and salty and very good themselves.

After our appetizer, we had a classic salad combination:  Roasted Beets with Feta Cheese.  To add to this, there were Honey Roasted Cashews and Persillade (a parsley and garlic sauce).  The beets were tender and had a sweet and bitter flavor, the goat cheese brings a slightly sour creamy flavor, the cashews added a honey, nutty crunch, and the persillade added a green and garlicky flavor.  It all came together in a wild and yet familiar combination of flavors and textures.

After the salad began our savory courses with one of my favorites, Fried Pork Rillettes with Pepper Jam.  Served on a wood board, it was a very simple presentation, but it made it easy for the four of us to easily get one rillette.  They were like breaded meatballs with a very tender interior and a sweet and spicy Pepper Jam that the rillettes were both topped with and sat in.

Our second savory course was a Duck Confit Cavatelli with Shiitake Mushrooms and Mint.  Many might think that this would be my favorite dish.  It had many things going for it, the duck confit, which was plentiful, the mushrooms, which added texture and a nice earthy flavor, and the mint.  It was very good, but I liked the Pork Rillettes better.

Our final savory course was brisket, which I also love, though not as much as the pork rillettes.  The Brisket was Miso Smoked, which added an extra savory flavor and served with Pickled Turnips, Mashed Potatoes, and Mustard Greens.  I loved the brisket part of this and the potatoes and the mustard greens were fine, but I was not excited about the turnips.  They weren't bad, they just didn't get it for me.

The final dish, dessert, is a dessert for which they are fairly well known for, the Basque Cake.  Again served on a board, the cakes were sized for individual consumption and topped with Chantlly Cream as is traditional for a Basque Cake.  It also had a Seasonal Jam, in this case, Blackberry, and a large Pecan.  I have had several Basque Cakes recently and this one still remains at the top.  I really enjoyed dinner hear again.  The food is very high quality and I like the seasonality of it.  The service is also very good and I got to meet the chef.  I have enjoyed it every time I have come here, and I am sure I will enjoy it again when I return.     

Crosby's Kitchen

 

While I do go out to a lot of group dinners that already have set menus, I do occasionally like to go out to a simpler place and dine a la carte.  To this end, I decided to go to Crosby's Kitchen recently.  Located in Lakeview, it is part of the same group that runs Smoke Daddy, Ella Elli, Frasca's Pizzeria and Wine Bar, and Tuco and Blondie.  In fact, it shares a wall with Ella Elli.  This location seems to be very family friendly and there were many families there when I went.  It is on a corner on the Southport Corridor with a patio along Southport and the entrance on the corner of the building.  While the patio was set up when I went and it did have large gas torches, it was dark and cold and the torches were unlit, so the patio was unoccupied.  The dining room is large and open with windows looking out to the street on both sides, shaped vaguely like an L with the main leg pretty wide, and a narrower side that was parallel to Southport with a small fireplace at the end.  I was seated in a booth in the smaller section (all of the seating is booth seating) and got to watch the fire in the fireplace.  There is a bar on the back wall with TVs playing sports behind it.  While I could see the TVs from where I was sitting, I was more interested in the far.  The drink menu features beer, wine, spirits, and cocktails.  The wine list is the most extensive, though nothing was extensively challenging.  I was not feeling like wine, so I went with a cocktail.  Admittedly wine is generally not my go to unless it seems to fit the menu.  I will not order wine unless I am at a French or Italian restaurant or a wine bar.  All of the cocktails seemed to veer to the sweet side, I tried to pick one that was more than just sweet.  Called a Cherry Limeade, the cocktail that I ordered had Montelobos Mezcal, Cherry Sour (I imagine it was a shrub), and Lime.  The drink was still sweeter than something that I would normally go for, but it was more than just sweet.  The mezcal provided a little smoke, the lime added tartness, and the cherry sour added a sweet and sour cherry flavor.  If not for the smoke flavor from the mezcal, it could have very well passed for the cherry limeade that a kid might drink.

Like the drink menu, the food menu was also pretty simple, though it did have some finer dining spins to the various dishes.  I imagine the simplicity is what draws the families.  I started my meal out with an anchor of family cuisine, Deviled Eggs.  These deviled eggs, though, included Lobster.  There were three deviled eggs served.  As one deviled egg is half an egg, I was served an egg and a half.  I humorously wondered what happened to the other half.  The eggs were fixed to the plate with the whipped yolk that filled the hard boiled egg whites.  While deviled eggs are one of those things that are simple to make and everyone likes, elevating them with lots of lobster and some cayenne to give it some spice improved it a lot.

For my entree I went with something that is a regular special (regularly served a couple of days a week), the Wood Grilled Filet of Beef, served with seasonal vegetables, which in this case was Grilled Cauliflower with Pesto.  The filet was served medium rare with a well seared outside and a nicely pink interior.  It was very tender, juicy, and very good, but the star of the course was actually the Cauliflower and Pesto.  It was very tender with a little char and well covered with very flavorful pesto.

Dessert was also very much a comfort food thing and it was absolutely ridiculous.  Several restaurants in the Four Star Group, which Crosby's Kitchen is a part of, have a Skillet Chocolate Chip Cookie.  This iteration was served hot, of course, and was topped with Vanilla Ice Cream and Caramel.  I love chocolate chip cookies, in general.  This one was very good with a crisp exterior and a soft interior.  The ice cream went well with the warm cookie as did the caramel and the entire thing provided a satisfying finish.

While nothing here was ground breaking, it isn't what they are about.  They focus on comfort food and they do it well.  It isn't a place I will go to stretch my palate, but if I'm looking for something that is simply satisfying, it's a good place to consider.     

Marisol - Brunch

 

There is a restaurant in Logan Square, Lula Cafe, that has been enormously influential in the Farm-to-Table movement, and has produced a significant number of good chefs that have moved on and opened other cool and important restaurants.  Through all of this, Chef Jason Hamel has been the owner/chef/restauranteur at Lula Cafe.  While his proteges have expanded his influence, he has remained at Lula Cafe.  He opened another notable restaurant for one of his notable former chefs, Jason Hamel, about 10 years ago, the late lamented Nightwood, and has now opened a new place in coordination with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Marisol.  While you do have to enter the museum building to enter the restaurant, it is independent of the restaurant and can be entered from the ground level theater entrance.  There is a sign on the building for Marisol, but entering on the ground level puts you in an entry hall for the theater.  There is a coat check and a ticket booth near the entrance, Marisol is located toward the rear of the hall on the left side.  There is a coffee bar, running parallel to the length of the hall, that acts as a divider between the hall and the restaurant.  There are a few tables and benches for waiting for a table or for simply enjoying a coffee.  The coffee bar also serves a variety of fresh pastries.  Entering the restaurant, it is fairly narrow with a bar opposite the coffee bar in the front and a few marble communal tables in the middle of the room.  There are also two and four tops on the sides of the room.  There is a very colorful and abstract mural on one side of the room and a mirror on the wall opposite the mural.  We sat at one of the communal tables near the mirror, which had a design etched into it.  The design looked cool, but it was tough to see the overarching design.

When we were seated, I started things off with a cocktail.  I don't remember what it was called, but it had Cocchi Americano, Vermouth, Lime, and Soda.  Served on ice, it was more clear than most cocktails that I typically drink.  It was lightly sparkling from the soda and otherwise had a tart and slightly bitter flavor.  While it wasn't something that I might drink regularly, it was pretty good and I might order it again if I new what it was called.

There was a small selection of pastries offered, with my habit of ordering something sweet and savory for brunch, I ordered a Doughnut for the table.  It was a Cardamom and Ginger Doughnut with Candied Walnuts.  The doughnut was a fry cake style and had a nice icing that seemed to have ginger in it that went well with the ginger and cardamom.  The doughnut was sweet and lightly spicy and the cardamom went well with the candied walnuts.

My main course was labeled a Grilled Ham and Comte with Garlic Aioli, Date Honey and Petite Greens.  While that title is technically correct, it would be more commonly known as a Croque Monsieur with a side salad.  The bread was nicely crisp and the cheese (Comte) was melted just the right amount.  The greens were very fresh and crispand added a crisp and bitter counterpoint to the sweetness of the sandwich.

Brunch was good and fun and the space was beautiful.  It's a nice place for a timeout at the museum, but it is also good enough that it can easily stand on it's own.  I will definitely return whether during a museum visit or even for a visit just on it's own. 

 

Vincent - Tasting Collective Dinner

 

About 8 years ago, a restaurant specializing in Belgian food, Vincent, was born.  When I heard about it, something that was pretty easy because it got a lot of buzz, I thought it was named after Vincent Van Gogh.  This is actually kind of funny, because Van Gogh was Dutch and not Belgian, so there isn't much reason to name a Belgian restaurant after him.  FYI, the restaurant was apparently named after the owner's dog.  After a time, the buzz died down and I actually thought that it closed.  This disappointed me a little because I had actually wanted to go there.  I was surprised, then, to receive an email inviting me to a Tasting Collective Group Dinner at Vincent.  I was excited to see that it was still open and quickly signed up for a dinner.  Located on a side street and not on a corner in Edgewater/Andersonville, it's kind of off the beaten path, but it easy to find.  I discovered quickly that while it is still a bistro, it no longer specializes in Belgian food, though there is a definite northern European spin on what they serve.  The space is small and intimate with hardwood floors and divided into two rooms.  The room in which you walk is dark and very much more old school European.  This room has the host station and the bar in the back and it looks very cozy.  The main dining room, where I dined was also small, with seating for about 60 people.  It was had high ceilings, mismatched hanging lights and some interesting wall art.  One wall was covered in hanging mirrors, but the main event in the room was the wall hanging above the table at which I sat.  There was a sculpture that looks like like a deer head hanging on the wall, except that no animal has anything to do with it.  The form of the head is wrapped in gold foil, the hardwood frame looks like painted cloth, and the large antlers, which take up a large amount of air space are made of flowering tree branches.  The restaurant has a curated list of cocktails and beer, with a slightly longer list of wines.  Because Tasting Collective is a large group, when a dinner is planned, we will take over the restaurant, so the available drinks are curated even more.  While I will generally lean toward gin drinks, I will look to see what drink sounds most interesting to me.  There was a Mezcal drink on the menu that interested me, though it sounded very much like a drink that I had had recently, so I decided to go with the gin drink that they had on the menu.  Called Sneaky Peach it was sweet, had a  strong peach flavor and was made with Broker's Gin, Cynar, Peach, Raw Ginger, Lemon, Mint, and Soda.  While the peach flavor was strong, there was enough cool spice from the ginger and mint to make it more than a one dimensional drink.  It was pretty good despite being a little sweeter than drinks that I normally go for.

Tasting Collective dinners are made slightly easier for the kitchen by being served family style with each plate serving three or four people.  We quickly learned that that the kitchen had gone into "overwhelm" mode as the course sizes were enormous.  For our first course, we were served a heaping salad with Bitter Greens, Pickled Beets, and Apricot Dressing.  It also tasted as if Walnuts were used, though they were not mentioned on the menu and I did not bite into one.  I am generally not a huge salad fan, but the beets and the apricot dressing helped give it some flavor.  While it was just a salad, it was a pretty good salad.

Our next course was a favorite of mine, Blistered Shishito Peppers, which we were again served a large amount.  Shishito Peppers are interesting in that, for the most part, they are very mild, however, about 1 in 10 have enough spice to give you a surprise while eating it.  It doesn't reach any level that you might call hot, but it is a surprise when wolfing down peppers that have no burn at all to encounter one that has a slight burn.  While the majority of the peppers were not hot, I was surprised with two, one of which was the first one that I ate.  The spiciness of the dish was augmented by Togarashi dressing which added a slight bite to everything.  While there was a slight bite from the Togarashi, you could tell when you encountered a spicy pepper, because the togasrashi remained on the outside, and with the pepper, there was a slight delay from the spicy bite.  These were very good and I probably ate more than my fair share, but my dining partners were all slightly spice-phobic, so the fact that I was happy to eat them was fine with them.

Our third course was melon, and while I am a little leery when I see melon on a menu because I dislike cantaloupe, I will still eat it.  This melon was not cantaloupe and I am not actually sure what kind of melon it was, but it was good.  The Fresh Melon was served with Burrata, Chia Seeds, and Edible Flowers.  The fruit of the melon was slightly sweet, but it was seasoned with salt and a something like paprika.  The burrata was light and creamy and the chia seeds interestingly gelled together.  It all provided an interesting combination of flavors and textures and I enjoyed it.

For our next course, I wish I had known ahead of time that I could have asked for a leftover box because we were again overwhelmed.  It was our one pasta course and it was again served in a huge size.  Called Poblanos Pappardelle, it started, obviously with Pappardelle Pasta which was served with Summer Squash, Poblano Peppers, Zucchini, and Tomato Aubergine (Eggplant) Sauce.  It was very fresh,  had a lot of flavor, and we unfortunately sent much of it back because there was a lot left to eat and we were starting to get full.

 

On our menu, the last item, the pappardelle, and the next item, Charcuterie were switched, but the chef made a game day call to switch them because he thought that serving three entrees in a row would overwhelm the diners even more than he was doing with the large serving sizes.  As it was, with the amount and different types of charcuterie we were served, we were still overwhelmed.  We were served Chicken Liver Mouse, Pate, and a Terrine with Tomatillo Jam and a large amount of Toast made from Housemade Bread.  It was all good, though I think that I liked the Terrine on Toast with Tomatillo Dressing best.

And then came the whole fish.  We were served a whole Roasted Branzino which was served with Mussels.  When it came out, many of the diners, myself included, puzzled as to how we would attach the fish.  The Mussels would be very easy, but no one was looking forward to fileting a fish for a group.  Luckily we didn't have to worry about it for long because one of the servers came over with a very sharp knife and removed the head, opened the skin, and removed the bones.  The flesh inside was very tender and flavorful and the mussels and broth complemented it very well.  This whole fish was shared among four of us and while we did eat most of it, there was still a significant portion left over.  While it was good though, I would not take fish home.

With the last savory course, I hit the wall and needed a box.  We were served a Roasted Rack of Lamb with Licorice Gastrique and Roasted Turnips.  It was divided into four, but my dining partners were also feeling pretty full and while I took a few bites, I ended up taking much of the plate home as my dining partners were not interested in taking home a box.  It was tender and very flavorful and the turnips were also very good.  I enjoyed it at the restaurant and then for a later meal.

While I probably could have eaten all of my lamb, when I got to dessert, I would have then been very uncomfortable.  As it was, I ended up full, but I was going to be able to handle dessert without much discomfort.  We were served Panna Cotta with Fresh Cheese and Peaches.  The Panna Cotta was fairly standard and maybe even a little boring, but with the fresh cheese, some salt, and the peaches, it bumped it up and made for a very good finish.  I really liked the food here and will have to return to try more and also to compare to see if their normal serving size is extra.