{"id":861,"date":"2013-02-09T09:46:09","date_gmt":"2013-02-09T15:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hillaryproctor.com\/?p=861"},"modified":"2017-06-17T21:08:23","modified_gmt":"2017-06-18T02:08:23","slug":"restaurant-week-2013-vermilion-and-cafe-spiaggia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/09\/restaurant-week-2013-vermilion-and-cafe-spiaggia\/","title":{"rendered":"Restaurant Week 2013: Vermilion and Cafe Spiaggia"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is part of a series of posts about Chicago Restaurant Week, held February 1\u201310, 2013.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Dinner at Vermilion<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n
\"Mango-cardamom<\/a>
Mango-cardamom flan, Vermilion<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Best Bite:<\/strong> 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.<\/a><\/p>\n

Other notes:<\/strong> 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 \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

\"Brazilian<\/a>
Brazilian seafood stew with tomato rice, Vermilion<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The details:<\/strong> Vermilion<\/a>, 10 W Hubbard St., Chicago.<\/em><\/p>\n

Lunch at Cafe Spiaggia<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n
\"Gnocchi<\/a>
Gnocchi with pork and beef ragu, Cafe Spiaggia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Best Bite:<\/strong> 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<\/a> growing up \u2013 just in a more refined package. See full menu.<\/a><\/p>\n

Other notes:<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n

\"Bomboloni<\/a>
Bomboloni with apple-cinnamon compote, Cafe Spiaggia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The details:<\/strong> Cafe Spiaggia<\/a>, 980 N Michigan Ave., Chicago.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is part of a series of posts about Chicago Restaurant Week, held February 1\u201310, 2013. Dinner at 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 […]<\/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":[2179,7],"tags":[229,269,297,403,536,559,635,679,968,984,1194],"class_list":["post-861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chicago","category-restaurant-week-2","tag-cafe-spiaggia","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-restaurant-week","tag-dining-out","tag-fusion-cuisine","tag-gold-coast","tag-italian-food","tag-latin-indian-food","tag-restaurant-week","tag-river-north","tag-vermilion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861","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=861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4705,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861\/revisions\/4705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}