2 Cents about Chicago Restaurant Week
I’m better late than never. I had an opportunity to participate in Chicago’s Restaurant Week, incidentally was more than a week. I enjoy Restaurant Week my first exposure ever was in NYC. I got to dine at restaurants that I would not normally have tried. My reasoning is probably because of atmosphere – too uppity, reputation, and perceived value.
There is a difference between the marketing communication of restaurant week Chicago and NYC. NYC sells restaurant week as an opportunity to try restaurants you probably never tried and giving the restaurant the opportunity to acquire new customers. On the other hand, Chicago sells Restaurant Week as saving opportunity. Lower the perceived value of the restaurant’s brand and in one of my cases lowering the quality of the food.
About 170 restaurants participated in Chicago’s Restaurant Week. What a list to choose from I asked Chicago Bites what I should do. They replied – stay away from the chains.
On of the things I love about Chicago chefs is that they are not afraid to experience with meats and all the various parts of meat. That’s a big difference between NYC and Chicago. My overly homogenized taste buds are slowly coming around to appreciate these delicacies.
I decided to invent my own strategy for tackling Restaurant Week.
My first stop was lunch at Feast. Ok so Feast wasn’t on the list and didn’t even know Chicago’s Restaurant Week was happening. I wanted to try Feast out and this was a place Joe Kutchera recommended…he also joined me there for afternoon lunch.
The Salmon Teriyaki Spinach, orange, cucumber, and red onion salad over soba noodles was very good! I especially liked the flavor to the teriyaki sauce which enhanced the soba noodles and spinach salad.
Joe had Steak Tortilla Salad skirt steak, grilled onions, lettuce, avocado, grape tomatoes, crispy tortilla strips and cilantro herb dressing. I was invited to nibble on some of Joe’s salad which was also very good.
The atmosphere of Feast is excellent for lunch and not over run with business dinners and a nice selection of organic wines. I had the Viognier, Coeur D’Alene, Idaho/Washington, which is a mix of apricot, honeycomb, creamy, and luscious. It speaks of spring!
Feast- Gold Coast
25 E. Delaware
Chicago, IL 60611
312-337-4001
For dinner I went to Wave Restaurant located in the W with Jennifer Nolan. The swanky Wave offered a special prix fix dinner for $32.00. Special it was Jen and I both had the Fattoush salad hearts of romaine, roasted tomatoes, kalamata olives, cucumbers, crispy pita and sumac vinaigrette. The flavors were refreshing. The freshly roasted tomato was surprise that I really enjoyed.
For my entrée the only way I could describe it was an East Asian style lamb with glazed vegetable and almonds. The sauce had a rich plum taste. I really enjoyed tough the lamb was a bit fatty which probably brought more flavor to this dish.
Jen had the grilled pork tenderloin braised savvy cabbage, medjool dates and red wine reduction. The red wine reduction and grilled pork made a perfect combination.
Wave did not want their customers to walk away with just dessert so they provided us with two desserts to taste. The roasted apple almond tart with cinnamon gelato and caramel sauce which the perfect ending to a great meal, but there’s more…we also tried the two combination that I thought would never play nice in the sandbox: dark chocolate Cremeux vanilla-lime tapioca --- opposites do attract is I how I would describe it.
I really enjoyed the atmosphere of Wave as well as the view the Lake. This is a perfect first date place for dinner, dessert or cocktails.
Wave
644 N. Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, IL 60611
312-255-4460
For Saturday night dinner I tried Bice with my friends, Melisa, Jeff and John. I really enjoyed the company and conversation but thought the meal wasn’t there. Bice offered a 3 course dinner for $32.
When I booked Bice, it was because I was intrigued by the menu wanted to really try the salmon. There was a bait and fish switch when we arrived. They probably ran out of salmon and replaced it with sole and keeping the rest of the menu intact.
I was disappointed with sole though the roasted baby artichokes and potatoes were great. I did not understand why there was a roasted pepper sauce it did not go well with the sole.
The dessert Apple tart with crema anglaise was ok.
Perhaps it was busy the Saturday night, salmon was not available, that this portion of my restaurant week experience wasn’t up to my standards.
Bice Restaurant
158 E. Ontario
Chicago IL 60611
312-664-1474
Restaurant Week Chicago should be thought of more for the quality of food and atmosphere rather than a savings in a meal. There was so many other restaurants that I wanted to try I’ll either have to wait until next year or venture in on my own.Labels: bice, feast, fish, pork, restaurant week, salmon, sole, wave
I had a Dream of Halibut by Alphonse vanWoerkom
My friend, artist, Alphonse vanWoerkom, emailed me the other day with this delicious recipe he had a dream about:
It was true, I dreamed this recipe and decided to make it the next day. My friend Anton, he of the silver tongue, called me the" Martin Luther King of the kitchen", due to the fact that "I had a dream".
Halibut is one of the rarer fish, stocks are gone because of overfishing in the areas were it was once plentiful. The recipe did call for Halibut, dream or no dream... Citirella had it at $34 a pound!!! Got it anyway.
I gently soaked inner grape leaves for a minute or two in broth. Then I wrapped the steamed Halibut in grape leaves with a dab of Dijon mustard. Then gently tied the Halibut grape leaf package with strings of leek. I served my dream fish with little red potatoes with rosemary, and Ellen's favorite, sweet peas.
Here is a photo/ Love Alphonse Oh, yes mustard sauce over the Halibut package.
Alphonse this looks amazing! I heard is tastes a great as it looks.
Labels: alphonse vanWoerkom, Citirella, ellen sragow, fish, halibut, mustard, potato
What's Your Last Supper?
Let’s just imagine you know you’re going die and you could have any meal in the world what would that be? This was the most interesting dinner conversation I’ve had in a long time. I was at the Publican. John started it when I asked him what his favorite daily eats is. He replied that would be impossible to answer and a better question is what would my last meal be.
I digress slightly from this dinner conversation to – over the past 6-12 months I’ve been noticing an up tick in tools for longevity online. The preservation of your Facebook or Myspace after you die, Deathswitch notify your family, friends, loved ones of your departure, the future me will send my family/friends an email of my thoughts from the past, the list goes on, and on. This thinking stems from the need for self preservation of your 0s and 1s even after dead. Science has corner the medicine for longevity of life if your life ends what happens to all that makes up your personality?
Elaine Paque mentioned some day science maybe able to save your DNA. If science is able to recreate your physical you will you still have the same personality that was you? My opinion is that I don’t believe so. But what if you were able to save you digital personality and then have it transferred into a new body or a body that is made up of your DNA? This is where I think Kurzweil has it right but wrong. The singularity is going to be man and machine and AI will provide the ability to download our digital bits preserving our personality, thought patterns, desires, education, and experiences. Chew on that was a while.
Back to the last supper discussion…
John said his last supper would be a cheese burger and a Schlitz beer at Charlie Binlich’s. I learned tonight this is the best place for burgers in the Midwest.
Dave had very unusual thought about his last meal, which would be sweet corn and butter. He described with the sensory detail the taste of harvest sweet corn dripping with butter. I can see from his face the joy in eating his last meal.
Elaine Paque wanted a destination meal. This would be Sun Lodge in Sun Valley, Idaho. She would order cream of wheat with brown sugar, raisins, and bananas and wash is down with OJ and coffee.
I opted for the sweet death that would be a tray of the best dark chocolate in the world and a glass of my favorite red wine. For me that would be so long and sweet dreams.
All this discussion made me think of my childhood. Growing up, my siblings and I would often question what would your last meal be if you had so many hours to live. I can’t for the life of me remember why this was a topic of conversation. But I do remember each of my siblings answers. And when it came to the last few days before my brother Tony died I had Maine lobsters and New England clam chowder shipped to his bedside for his last meal request.
Interesting dinner conversation, right?
It could have been the meal at Publican which induced such thought provoking conversation. Or the fact that the meal was high in cholesterol that caused pause and thinking about destiny. The Publican is a gusty eatery in away that brings back memories of my childhood. Yes there were several moments in which I was thinking about childhood tonight. Growing up I ate food which would be considered delicacies for today: cow’s brains, blood pudding, chicken bone marrow and calf’s liver and chocolate covered ants. The Publican is known for pork and oyster dishes and great selection of beer.
One of the dishes served to us during this meal was beef marrow. Beef bone marrow was scrapped out of bone and spread over bread. It was extraordinarily rich tasting I could actually feel my arteries starting to backup. Beef bone marrow was once thought to have nutritious properties.
All served family style, we also enjoyed variety of oysters, Aged ham served with goat butter and peasant bread, Spinach salad, Scallops Nantucket Bay, Massachusets; maitake mushrooms, celery root & grapefruit, Country ribs from Slagel Family Farm, Fairbury, Illinois; kholrabi & pomegranate vinaigrette, Beets from Nichols Farm, Marengo, Illinois; ricotta & hazelnut, and Lamb Milanese. For dessert we shared Waffle with plum jam & honey butter and 7 Dark chocolare cremeux with almonds, passion fruit & jasmine. The menu is exquisite and atmosphere European.
If you visit the Publican you’ll enjoy the magnitude of the menu and hopefully have a stimulating conversation to complement the delicious food.The Publican
837 West Fulton MarketChicago, IL 60607312-733-9555Labels: beef, bone marrow, Chicago, chocolate, fish, spinach, the publican
Bistro 110
I had a lovely afternoon late lunch at the Bistro 110. Nice French cuisine. For something very traditionally French I tried the Cod and potato like a Brandade de Morue, or a cod mousse. It was delicious but as I am quickly learning Chicago restaurants use a lot of salt. I am not sure why there is a need for over salting foods but it could be the need for more sodium in take because environment is so dry. The chocolate mousse cake was divine. I will go back to try some of the beef dishes.
Bistro 110
110 E. Pearson Street between Michigan Avenue and Rush Street
Chicago, IL
phone: 312-266-3110
Labels: Brandade de Moru, cod, fish, french food
Let Her Eat Chocolate Cake!
I went to Market Café for the first time. I read about the quality of food from this Hell’s Kitchen eatery. I also heard about the service. Despite the pros and cons I wanted to experience this for myself, this is my neighborhood after all.
First Market Café is all about the food and the food is awesome. I had the fresh fish of the day which was Tilapia with golden potatoes and green beans. It was great!
Since this is a neighborhood place the service is the same service you expect from a “hometown” diner, waiter tries to make small talk and has to manage all the tables in the restaurant.
But Daniel was full of surprises. When I ordered the chocolate cake I was expecting “just” a slice of chocolate cake nothing exceptional. When Daniel finally brought me the chocolate cake, suspected they were still baking the cake when I ordered it, I gasped, it was the biggest slice of chocolate cake I’ve ever seen. So big even I was embarrassed.
The table next to mine sat four, one of the gentlemen, Richard Schoeller, offered to help with the cake if I joined his table. It was all kind of magical. There is something about chocolate cake which makes most people smile and something about a big slice of chocolate cake which makes most people want to help dig in. I loved to offer to share.
The chocolate cake lived up to my expectations of delicious cake. Go to Market Café go there to relax and enjoy the food, remember relax and enjoy! And try the chocolate cake with a friend or two.Market Cafe496 9th AveNew York, NY 10018
(212) 967-3892Labels: chocolate, chocolate cake, fish, market cafe, Richard Schoeller, tery spataro, tilapia
