Night 2 in Chicago for work and this time it was my turn to pick a place. A food loving co-worker of mine had sent me a list of recommendations she got from Food and Wine magazine and The Purple Pig was the only one within walking distance from the hotel, so Eric and I decided to give it a shot. The "entrance" is very hidden, so you really have to look for it, but it's right near the river across from the Tribune building. Heads up that it's one of the narrowest restaurants I've been to in a while, so be prepared to be standing on top of each other. The wait we were quoted was 45 mins to an hour, but the bar was first come first serve, so we stayed close to the bar in case two seats came up. Luckily, within 20 minutes, two seats at the bar came up, otherwise, I could have totally seen us waiting at least an hour to sit down.
The menu here is Spanish/Mediterranean style tapas - there are a bunch of antipasti dishes, a whole section on fried plates, paninis, meat and cheese boards, and then larger sized tapas plates. The waitress told us that about 4 plates were enough for 2 people, so we started with the fried chorizo stuffed olives (that was for Eric since I really don't like olives that much), shaved brussels sprouts, milk braised pork shoulder in mashed potatoes, and the prosciutto stuffed squid (that was mostly for me). The fried olives came out first and I was willing to give it a shot since my taste buds have changed a lot over the years and well, it was fried, so how can you not like it? Yeah - it still wasn't my thing. I don't think it was a bad dish, but I just don't like olives so I let Eric basically eat the entire dish of 5-6 olives. The shaved brussels sprouts was a raw sprout dish with pecorino and parmigiano cheese grated on top of it. It was a nicely done dish but very similar to most other brussels sprout dishes I've had in a lot of places these days. Next came the star of the night, the milk braised pork shoulder smothered in mashed potatoes and gravy. The dish looks pretty small but it is super filling and rich, so don't let the size of it fool you. The pork is super juicy and delicious and the fact that it's covered in a smooth creamy coating of mashed potatoes and a layer of gravy only makes it even better. It is a very heavy dish that melts in your mouth, but totally worth the calories. If there's anything you must get here, it's this dish. Full fat heaven and is really the reason why I gave this place 4 forks. Next came the prosciutto and breadcrumbs stuffed squid. There are about 3-4 body sections of the squid stuffed with the mixture. It was nicely grilled but I didn't think it really needed the stuffing. It would have been totally fine on it's own and the stuffing kind of overkilled the dish a bit, but I wolfed down 3 of the 4 pieces (with some of the stuffing still left on my plate). Even though I was pretty full, we had to give dessert a shot. I usually split a dessert for the table, but since we were expensing this, we both ended up getting our own desserts (bad idea). Eric got the fried donuts with cinnamon and sugar on it and I got the apple crisp. I'm honestly not even sure why I got it because I could totally been ok with just having 1 of the donuts and been fine with ending my evening that way. So I really can't do the apple crisp a just review since i had about 2-3 bites, except for the fact that it was warm, the ice cream was good and there were a lot of oats/grains in it to kind of fool you into thinking it's mildly healthy for you.
This place was a nice reprieve from all the cheesy tourist spots in the city (although the place does have its fair share of tourists given its location). But it's a tiny space that makes it really hard for one to have patience and wait for a table to open up. As with any smallish restaurant, it's really loud and noisy, so if you want to have a quiet night out, this is not the place for you. Again, as with all my usual tapas reviews, it is hard to properly evaluate the full tapas menu when it's only 2 people, but I think we got a good representation of the menu there and there were a few star dishes making it worth the trek. Total bill with tax, tip and drinks: $120 for 2
Photo Credit: Yelp
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