Sable is part of this new trend of American/gastro-pub tapas style food and in past reviews I haven't really been a huge fan of this concept, mostly because most places charge the same prices as main entrees but give you half the size. I guess since I was in Chicago, a city that's not shy about fattening you up, the "tapas" at Sable were pretty much the same size as entrees you'd find in NYC. That still didn't make me fall head over heals for the concept here, it just made me a lot less hungry.
Sable is inside the trendy Palomar Hotel in downtown Chicago and it was totally hopping when we got there on a Thursday night. The menu does state that almost everything is available in half or full size, so you could share everything or just order for yourself. Deanna and I opted to go the sharing route and luckily the menu here is very vegetarian friendly, in fact there is a whole "Farm and Garden" section. We started with the Brussels sprouts and apple salad ($10), the root vegetable gratin ($8), and to satiate my meat loving side, I got the mini lamb burgers ($12). The Brussels Sprout salad was served essentially raw and my main issue with the dish was that if you are going to serve raw Brussels sprouts, it needs to have more shaved leaves (insert dirty joke here). There were too many hard crunchy chunks with not enough vinaigrette on it, that it kind of left too much of an earthy taste in your mouth. I should note that this salad is supposed to come with pork belly croutons on top of it, but we got it on the side for me to eat. Umm - it was literally large fatty chunks of pork belly deep fried. Don't get me wrong, it was all sorts of delicious but after eating the whole plate I thought my veins were going to explode with fat. I do think the fat and moisture from those croutons would have made a difference if they were actually on the salad and eaten together. The root vegetable gratin dish consisted of crispy sunchokes smothered in cheese. It was good but since I was the only one eating the full fat croutons, I was having a hard time eating something that was so heavy. Meanwhile, I had the entire half plate of lamb sliders waiting for me. They really hit it out of the park with these burgers. They were served with feta cheese, red onion and mint yogurt on top of it. They were juicy, flavorful and completely addictive. I had no problems eating both of them in record time. I'm not sure why we thought we needed more food, but somehow we ended up ordering more another dish. We opted for the South Indian vegetable curry ($10) which was served with sweet potato, basmati rice and cilantro. The first couple of bites were flavorful with a nice sweet curry touch (it was not spicy at all) and if I hadn't just eaten so much food, I probably would have enjoyed it more. You'd think we'd stop there. But no, we had to look at the dessert menu. One of my favorite dessert flavors is butterscotch and I rarely see it on a menu so when I noticed that they had a butterscotch pot de creme ($9), I had to get it. It was one of the "lighter" desserts on the menu and it was heavenly. It was a butterscotch pudding served with a side kumquat compote and butter pecan shortbread cookies. It was a great way to end the night.
All in all, it was really the lamb burger and butterscotch pudding that pushed this place from a 3 to a 3.5 fork rating. I appreciated that the half sizes were legitimate sized dishes but they were just so much food that instructing us to order 4 plates was a bit too much. The place has a slight sleeker feel than your typical Chicago restaurant, which isn't a bad thing but I still have a soft spot for the more Midwestern type places in neighboring 'hoods (I'm looking at you Longman and Eagle). Total bill: $51/pp with tax, tip and drinks.
Photo Credit: Yelp
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