I don't often get excited about new places in Chicago, not because it's not a city full of amazing restaurants but I've been there so many times before in my life that I know that I'll usually get an opportunity to cross many of them off my list at some point. But Parachute had continued to allude me for almost a year. It's been one of the most buzzed about restaurants in the city for a while and it was even awarded a Michelin Star recently. Deanna and I had tried to go several times but it either never seemed to work out or there wasn't a reservation available.
This time we were determined to go and made a 6pm reservation. Eating this early usually doesn't bother me but this time around it kind of backfired on us. We got a late start on lunch and it was so filling that by the time 6pm rolled around we were so not hungry. We tried to move it but it wasn't possible so we decided to power through it anyways.
You wouldn't have guessed it but the cuisine here is Korean fusion. It's definitely not your mom and pop Korean place but it's got strong elements of Korean food complete with banchan. It was our mistake to come here on a full stomach so I would say if you come and check it out, come on an empty stomach and get the tasting menu for $68. The couple next to us got it and it looked awesome. We tried to order a few dishes to make it worth our while here. We got the bing bread (half order $7), vegetable tempura ($6), broccoli ($15) and a vegetable bi bim bop ($22). There were tons of other things on the menu that sounded great - but they also had meat in it so it was hard for me to order 5 plates to eat on my own (not that I haven't done that before).
They are famous for their bing bread and I can see why. It's warm baked potato bread with bits of bacon in it and it's delicious. Since it had bacon it it, I had to eat the entire half portion myself (I took some home later) which was A-ok by me. The vegetable tempura was also great - not greasy and served with a mayo dipping sauce. The only issue is that the mayo had some kind of fish sauce in it, so Deanna asked for some other kind of dipping sauce - something basic like soy would be ok but they were like "we don't have anything else". How does an Asian restaurant NOT have soy sauce or some kind of other dipping sauce?!? It was so weird. Next came the broccoli which was super finely chopped up broccoli with pistachios and dates. It was basically broccoli rice, which was good but it wasn't something that I felt was very Asian or super interesting. Next came the vegetable bi bim bop - I'll be honest, I don't remember much about this dish since it was over a month ago at this point but that can't really be a good sign right?
Two other things of note. One, the majority of the space is taken up by a long communal table. I've never been a huge fan of communal tables and this place reminded me why. I could hear every single word of every conversation around us - so clearly they could hear us. It was just too close for comfort for me. Two, the soundtrack in there is AWESOME. It's all old-school hip hop and it did make up for the slightly annoying set-up.
Overall, I wished I had come here under better circumstances and able to order more food. I really didn't take took full advantage of my time there and would definitely be open to going back. Total bill: $35/pp with tax and tip
Photo Credit: Yelp
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