{"id":1495,"date":"2013-06-21T12:54:31","date_gmt":"2013-06-21T17:54:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hillaryproctor.com\/?p=1495"},"modified":"2017-06-17T21:06:40","modified_gmt":"2017-06-18T02:06:40","slug":"this-weeks-best-bite-beet-salad-rice-cake-and-more-at-perennial-virant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/21\/this-weeks-best-bite-beet-salad-rice-cake-and-more-at-perennial-virant\/","title":{"rendered":"This week’s Best Bite: Roasted beet salad and more, Perennial Virant"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Roasted<\/a>
Roasted beet salad with strawberries, grilled onions, ricotta, black walnut butter, and black garlic<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Why it’s this week’s Best Bite:<\/strong> This was technically my second visit to Perennial Virant \u2013 the first was on opening night a couple years ago, but I’d been looking for an opportunity to go back ever since. It’s on the first floor of Hotel Lincoln, right across the street from where the Green City Market is held every Wednesday and Saturday in Lincoln Park, and so it’s easy to understand the inspiration for the heavily seasonal menu. Of all the dishes we tasted, I was most blown away by the roasted beet salad. I’m not a huge beet person, but I was practically obsessed with the combination of beets and strawberries. Joined by the creamy ricotta, mellow garlic, and balsamic, it hit every note and felt exceedingly fresh. I also loved the crispy rice cake, nicely contrasted by the smoky vinaigrette. <\/p>\n

To make the evening extra-special, our meal concluded with a tour of the kitchen (let’s just say it helps to know people!), which was a surprise to my three girlfriends and me. Once we weaved downstairs, through cooking and dishwashing areas, we reached the real highlight of the tour: the wall-to-wall shelves of the pickles and preserves for which Chef Paul Virant is best known. Every kind of produce you could imagine was meticulously jarred and labeled, ready to be judiciously incorporated into dishes in the weeks and months to come.<\/p>\n

\"All<\/a>
All kinds of pickles in the pantry
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And in the summer, it’s almost impossible to leave the building without hopping an elevator to the roof and emerging in what is probably my favorite rooftop bar in the city, the J. Parker. Between the meal itself and the incredible post-meal view, it was hard to stop oohing and aahing.<\/p>\n

\"Crispy<\/a>
Crispy carnaroli rice cake with brunkow cheese curds, pea shoots, smoked spring onion vinaigrette, and pickled summer beans<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Sundae<\/a>
Sundae with Hazzard Free Farm oatmeal cookie, rum ice cream, and rum raisin caramel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The Lay Up, with Russian Standard, rhubarb, yellow chartreuse, maraschino, and lemon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The details:<\/strong> Perennial Virant<\/a>, 1800 N Lincoln Ave., Chicago.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why it’s this week’s Best Bite: This was technically my second visit to Perennial Virant \u2013 the first was on opening night a couple years ago, but I’d been looking for an opportunity to go back ever since. It’s on the first floor of Hotel Lincoln, right across the street from where the Green City […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,2179],"tags":[108,109,269,282,298,695,697,854,873,977,989],"class_list":["post-1495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-bites-2","category-chicago","tag-beet-pairings","tag-beet-salad","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-dining","tag-chicago-restaurants","tag-lincoln-park","tag-lincoln-park-dining","tag-paul-virant","tag-perennial-virant","tag-rice-cake","tag-roasted-beets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1495"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4694,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1495\/revisions\/4694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}