After 10 days of indulgent dining, Chicago Restaurant Week 2013 came to an end on Sunday. While I’m a little forlorn that the week is over, I’m also very grateful for seven excellent meals, and the chance to share them with you here.
My Instagram photo recaps of each meal are shown in the gallery; follow the links below to read more:
This is part of a series of posts about Chicago Restaurant Week, held February 1–10, 2013.
Lunch at Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba
Endive and blue cheese salad with almonds and membrillo, Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba
Best Bite: The generously portioned endive salad was a unique start to our lively meal. Amid the tang of blue cheese and vinaigrette, I especially appreciated the membrillo (sweet quince paste) and marcona almonds. Colorful, too – especially with my pomegranate mimosa as a backdrop. See full menu.
Other notes: Definitely the best value of the week, with soup, bread, cold tapas, warm tapas, and dessert for the $22 lunch price – it was the first time I took home leftovers! Speaking of the soup, it was creamy, comforting mushroom, with a manchego toast that made it feel almost like a Spanish version of french onion soup. Also enjoyed my petite caramelized banana dessert, with lots of crushed pistachios. Cheerful, bustling atmosphere as always.
Mushroom soup with manchego toast, Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba
Miso-bronzed black cod with red curry and glazed eggplant, Sunda
Best Bite: So many fun courses at Sunda, but I couldn’t get enough of this miso-bronzed black cod. Don’t let its plain appearance fool you: the buttery fish was ultra-flavorful from the miso and red curry, and the glazed eggplant underneath was a revelation for this eggplant skeptic. It also served as a nice contrast to pork belly sticks in the previous course, and left enough room for me to enjoy my chocolate mousse for dessert. See full menu.
Other notes: Besides the great food, our group of 8 also thoroughly relished Sunda’s exotic cocktails. Of all the varieties, the Grass Tiger (below) was the clear winner for me. I adored the heat of jalapeño-infused gin with cool ginger beer, mint, lemongrass, and more citrus. You can even check out the restaurant’s Vine video of a bartender mixing this delicious drink.
Grass Tiger cocktail with jalapeño-infused gin and ginger beer, Sunda
Best Bite: When I saw all the game meat featured on Frontier’s gastropub-y menu, I knew I’d go straight for the wild boar chop. I loved the flavors of the meat and sauce, and with the sweet potato puree, toasted marshmallow, and crispy kale, it was basically a hunter’s Thanksgiving. See full menu.
Other notes: Duck tacos and antelope meatballs with gnocchi were both tasty starters, and Frontier pulled off its s’more dessert with just the right level of char and melty chocolate. Great beers and cozy fireplace too.
S’more, Frontier
The details:Frontier, 1072 N Milwaukee Ave., Chicago.
This is part of a series of posts about Chicago Restaurant Week, held February 1–10, 2013.
Dinner at Vermilion
Mango-cardamom flan, Vermilion
Best Bite: I was partial to dessert, a mango-cardamom flan that made for a creamy, aromatic finish to our Latin-Indian fusion meal. The lychee and tart cranberry garnishes set off the flan nicely, though I wish there had been more than one piece of lychee. See full menu.
Other notes: Also enjoyed the caldeirada de peixe (Brazilian seafood stew), loaded with seafood and the right amount of heat, and artichoke pakoras made a nice, street food-inspired starter. Service was a little off, though, and the setup of the menu itself wasn’t the best value – an $11 upgrade to normal entree portions made the tasting almost cost more than the sum of the courses. Liked the lighting and red decor.
Brazilian seafood stew with tomato rice, Vermilion
Best Bite: This one was a tie. My entree’s gnocchi were impossibly fluffy, perhaps the best texture of any gnocchi I’ve tasted, with a meaty ragu that wasn’t too thick. And then there were the bomboloni, a heavenly trio of Italian doughnuts for dessert. Again, I was impressed by the airy texture (they weren’t greasy at all!) and the apple-cinnamon compote and poppyseed sugar recalled all the comfort of cider doughnuts from my local orchard growing up – just in a more refined package. See full menu.
Other notes: Lovely first-course ribollita soup, with tomatoes, kale, and cannellini beans. Excellent service and pleasant view of Michigan Avenue and the lake, even on a gray, slushy day.
Bomboloni with apple-cinnamon compote, Cafe Spiaggia
The details:Cafe Spiaggia, 980 N Michigan Ave., Chicago.
This is part of a series of posts about Chicago Restaurant Week, held February 1–10, 2013.
Lunch at Blackbird
Smoked Arctic char appetizer, Blackbird
Best Bite: While no dish was less than excellent, I was most wowed by the starter, a superbly delicate piece of smoked Arctic char. I loved the crunch from cauliflower and pear, and just enough meatiness from the tiny dollop of ‘nduja, a type of spreadable salami. It set the tone for the other unique flavor combinations to follow. See full menu.
Other notes: Gorgeous plating, quiet space, surprising main course accompaniments (onion noodles and buttermilk sauce to go with grilled sturgeon), and decadent dessert (an elegant Nutella-banana mash-up) with coffee service.
The details:Blackbird, 619 W Randolph St., Chicago.
Dinner at Carriage House
Crispy braised pork shoulder entree, Carriage House
Best Bite: The entree best showed off the restaurant’s upscale take on low-country cuisine. The melt-in-your-mouth pork shoulder came with a host of balanced companions: smoked plums, pickled peppers, and celery hearts, atop grits and pork jus. With prevalent vinegar to cut through the richness, it was a pleasantly refined Southern dish. See full menu.
Other notes: Outstanding side of skillet cornbread, divine coffee-fudge dipping sauce for the beignets at dessert, tasty (and strong) rum punch, colorful ceramic dishware, and a table in the cozy porch area, with plaid flannel blankets over the chairs and plenty of candles.
Skillet cornbread, Carriage House
The details:Carriage House, 1700 W Division St., Chicago.
This is part of a series of posts about Chicago Restaurant Week, which takes place February 1–10, 2013.
Apple pie at Sable, Restaurant Week 2012
It’s finally here! Restaurant Week technically began on Friday, but my first reservation is for lunch tomorrow at a high-profile place that I first tried three years ago, and can’t wait to revisit. Bracing my stomach and wallet, I’ve planned the whole week out – four dinners, three lunches, and a lot more Zumba than usual – and am ready for the delicious onslaught.
But as excited as I am for the food itself, I’m just as eager to share each meal with a different person or group of people, for the second year in a row. This year, I’m proud to say that nearly 20 of my nearest and dearest are participating at least once, many of whom wouldn’t call themselves particularly “into food”. Looking back on last year, the most memorable moments were how my friends engaged with each dish, and collectively delighting in (or, in a few cases, critiquing) our food. In fact, I think you can learn a lot about someone that way.
So, let’s raise a glass to chefs not only showing off their skills, but bringing people together at tables all over the city this week.
I’ll be posting throughout the week (every two meals or so), and would love to hear about your RW experiences too!
This is the first in a series of posts about Chicago Restaurant Week, which takes place February 1–10, 2013.
Banana wonton, my first dessert at last year’s Restaurant Week
As a foodie in Chicago, one of the best moments of every year is the day that Restaurant Week reservations open, usually in early January. Much like a first look at the NCAA bracket or the Lollapalooza lineup, it brings a serious rush of possibility and excitement for how this year’s event could unfold.
For the uninitiated, Restaurant Week is a dining event in which participating restaurants offer special prix-fixe menus for a set price of $22 at lunch and $33 or $44 at dinner, regardless of their normal pricing. At many of the city’s best restaurants, this is not only a great deal, but a fun way to get a more complete taste of what the restaurant offers. It’s also a great excuse to go to new or unfamiliar places and plan food-centric outings with friends. And this isn’t unique to Chicago – New York, Boston, DC, and other major cities also hold their own Restaurant Week once or twice a year.
Anyway, once I see Restaurant Week announcements take over my Twitter feed, it’s go time. In urgent research mode, I first pour over which new restaurants are participating from a lengthy, unfiltered list of more than 250, and then size up their menus one-by-one, strategizing which would be best for lunch and for dinner, and which reservations will fill up the fastest. I also start recruiting dining companions and laying out a potential schedule.
The best way to keep track of all this information? A Google spreadsheet, of course! (Full disclosure: this is coming from the same girl who, as a child, made a Excel file with a full inventory of her Halloween candy; and as a teen, documented online quiz results in PowerPoint for a presentation that would never actually occur.) Call me neurotic, but I’ve found it’s the best way to reference everything at once. Hopefully the Restaurant Week site will build out more customization for individual users in coming years – as in, logging in and creating your own favorites list and schedule, with built-in OpenTable reservation links – but for now, I’m happy to copy and paste.
Last year, I visited five restaurants for Restaurant Week. I’ve made three reservations so far, but am tempted to break my record and go for six. And don’t worry, I’ll be documenting my meals with Evernote Food, one of my favorite iPhone apps, and sharing the highlights here on hillaryproctor.com.
Have you ever participated in Restaurant Week? Have you made any reservations yet for this year?
