Found Kitchen and Social House 631 Chicago Ave., (between Davis St & Church St), Evanston, IL 60201
I'm totally going to sound like an old lady when I say this but back in the day when I went to school at Northwestern and lived in Evanston, there were like 4-5 decent restaurants and there were definitely no high end/fancy places. Fast forward over 10 years later after I've graduated (gulp!), Evanston has totally exploded into a town that I barely recognize. The place is crawling with tons of restaurants/bars and shops. Since I was visiting Soph in the 'burbs, we decided to check out Found Kitchen in our old stomping ground. Apparently it's been written up in a lot of Chicago articles as being one of the best new restaurants in all of Chicago, so it sounded worth checking out.
When we get there, I was shocked at how upscale/trendy it was for a restaurant in a college town. It had this gastropub feel and it was packed to the gills on a Friday night. Given the price point, the clientele was not a lot of college kids (although there are your fair share of rich kids at NU) but mostly professors, locals and probably some B-school/grad students. Also, strangely there were TONS of cougars - I realize I'm not spring chicken but these women were clearly in their 40's and all wearing skin tight dresses and/or sequenced tank tops when it was like 20 degrees outside. It was really bizarre. They told us it would be about 30-40 minutes, so we tried to squeeze our way to the bar but it was equally crowded and retreated to this back room.
We were finally seated after about 45 minutes in the front of the restaurant. I didn't realize that the style of food here is also American small plates/tapas. WTF?! How is this style of food everywhere? I guess the only difference between small plates in NYC vs. Chicago is that in Chicago they are actually all closer to regular size entrees, so you are definitely getting full off of 2 plates/per person. The three of us split the apple and beet salad ($13), polenta ($14) and Soph and I split the flat iron steak entree ($26). The apple and beet salad was served with walnuts and goat cheese. It was your typical beet and goat cheese salad - it was good, but it's hard to get the combination of beets and goat cheese wrong. The polenta was with parsnips, shiitake mushrooms, parmesan cheese, and a poached egg on top. This egg was nicely poached and had a super runny yolk. Again, it was a good dish but it's hard to get polenta with tons of butter and cheese to taste bad although I will give them props for the well poached egg. On to the steak. I felt a bit bad because Soph had wanted it to be medium and I asked for medium rare and when it came out it was most definitely closer to the rare side - almost bordering on too rare. We both love meat, so neither of us really complained when we saw it but it was definitely visibly super pink. I usually love rare meat but as Soph mentioned, this was a bit too chewy. It was didn't have that melt in your mouth texture to it that a good steak needs to have. It also came with sunchokes which were undercooked and just weren't my favorite part of the dish. Meanwhile, for some reason we were still hungry so we got an order of fries ($5) and the roasted squash and brussels sprouts ($9). They called the fries "frites" on the menu but let's be honest, they were just fries with a side of aioli mayo and sweet chili ketchup. This definitely helped to fill us up. By the time the squash dish came out, I wasn't really that hungry anymore. It wasn't a particularly memorable dish but at least the brussels sprouts here were cooked and more easily edible than the ones at Sable. Even though we were full, we of course had to order dessert. We opted for the chocolate pot de creme ($7) - I really seem to be replicating my meal from Sable with such a similar line up of food. Similar to how I felt about everything else I ate, the dessert was good but it's a dish that's really hard to really f*ck up - I mean it's essentially chocolate pudding but I did appreciate the sprinkling of sea salt on top to give it that nice contrast of sweet and salty.
All in all, the meal was fine but I didn't find any of the dishes challenging to the palate or too memorable. I do think it's a nice addition to a college/suburban town but I don't think I would necessarily make a special trek to come back out here again. And for those of you who do end up there, yes, the jellyfish in the aquarium is fake. Total bill: $47/pp with tax and tip
Photo Credit: Yelp
Hash 1357 N Western Ave (between Potomac Ave & Hirsch St), Chicago, IL 60622
Hash isn't in the greatest of neighborhoods (you do have to drive through some pretty sketchy parts of Chicago) but it's a really solid cafe with food that has a slight Mexican twist. It's more of a casual eats place since there is no waitstaff, but that was totally ok since I was really looking for something pretty low key that day anyways.
The menu has a solid breakfast section as well as many sandwich, soup and salads options. I love a good Mexican breakfast, so I got the chilaquiles with scrambled eggs and added avocado and chorizo for $3 extra. It's a seat-yourself type of place but since we were there on a random Friday afternoon, we had no trouble finding a place to sit. As I mentioned before, it's very low key (you order your food at the counter and grab your own silverware), so if you want something more formal, this isn't the place for you. Deanna got the Humboldt which consisted of black beans, hominy, tomatoes, chihuahua cheese, soyrizo (vegetarian chorizo) with a poached egg. I have to note that they poached the egg perfectly with a nice yolky center (for those of you who read my blog frequently, you know how much of a poached egg freak I am). I had a small bite of the dish and it had a lot of solid flavor to it. As for my chilaquiles, the dish is essentially tortilla with black beans, tomato, jalepeno, chihuahua cheese, sour cream and salsa verde. The salsa was fantastic - not spicy at all but it added a great tang to the dish. I would have poured Deanna's salsa on my dish too but that would have been a bit overkill but it was really a great addition to the plate. The chorizo and avocado were totally worth the extra price as they added some nice saltiness and "healthiness" to the dish. The eggs were scrambled well (I asked for them to be scrambled soft and they were a bit more hard than I would like but it wasn't a dealbreaker) and was a nice breakfast touch to the dish. I was starving because we got a late start to the morning, so this meal totally hit the spot in every way. I ate everything on the plate including the crust on my toast! In the true low key spirit, you do have to bus your own tables, so again, this is much more like a neighborhood cafe than sit down restaurant.
What I love about Chicago is that it's so spread out and in any neighborhood (good or bad) you can always find great places to eat. This place is totally not on the beaten path or near anything remotely exciting, but it's a solid brunch/lunch spot if you're looking for something tasty, filling and no frills. Since most people in Chicago have cars, I would say it's definitely worth checking out if you have a car, but if you don't, then I wouldn't necessarily get on the El or bus to get to this place. Total bill: $13
Photo Credit: Yelp
Sable 505 N State St., Chicago, IL 60654
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
The Purple Pig 500 N Michigan Ave., (between Grand Ave & Illinois St), Chicago, IL 60611
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
Weber Grill Restaurant 539 N State St., Chicago, IL 60654
Although I've been to Chicago hundreds of times, I've never really spent that much time downtown. So when I ended up staying downtown near Michigan Ave. for work, I was actually at a loss of where to go for dinner. My co-worker, Eric, suggested the Weber Grill since it was one of his favorite places to go when he's in town for work. The restaurant is owned by the same family that owns the actual Weber grills that people have in their backyards and in true grill fashion, most everything on this menu is meat related. I'll be honest, when I first walked in, I wasn't sure if I was going to like it or not. It kind of reminded me of the big steak chains and I was expecting the food to be chain level quality.
Luckily, it wasn't the quality of an Outback and I left feeling full and happy. We got there pretty early (around 5:30pm) and the place was still empty but as the night went on, it got really crowded and I noticed that about 85% of the restaurant was older men. So ladies, if you're looking for a guy over 40, this is your place! The menu has about every kind of meat you are looking for: steak, lamb chops, ribs, burgers, brisket, meat loaf, pulled pork, grilled chicken, grilled fish, grilled vegetables, rib eye, along with big salads and grilled fired pizzas. It's really overwhelming. Eric and I were both starving, so we split the onion curls ($6.50) to start and I got the BBQ combo with brisket and pulled pork with my choice of 2 sides of mac and cheese and garlic mashed potatoes ($18), while Eric got the combo with meatloaf and another meat (I think pulled pork? sorry it's been a week since I was there, so I don't really remember!). I also ordered a small green salad ($4) because I felt like I had to eat some kind of greens. The restaurant starts the meal with these yummy warm pretzel buns with whipped butter. They were fantastic and I had to basically stop myself or else I would have ruined my entire meal. The onion curls came out first and while I've never been to Outback, it's essentially what I envision a bloomin onion to be. It's a ginormous plate of fried onions and served with chipotle mayo and BBQ sauce. I had a couple of bites, but it didn't have the crispness or thickness of a real onion ring. It was kind of like a bunch of shredded onion that wasn't really fried well. I wasn't a huge fan so I was starting to get nervous about my main meal. Next came the green salad and it was a totally basic and fine side garden salad. The greens could have been a bit fresher but at this point I wasn't really expecting a farm to table-like experience but it filled my need for fresh vegetables. Next the combo came out and I was really pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. There was a very healthy portion of both the brisket and pork - maybe half a pound of each? The brisket and pulled pork were moist and quite flavorful but not in an over seasoned way. They both had a light coating of sweet BBQ sauce, which was great and it reminded me of how much I do like to have some sweet based BBQ sauce with my grilled meat vs. plain meat or a heavy cream sauce on top of it. Unlike the pulled pork I had at Morgan's, it wasn't overly peppery which was refreshing. While the food isn't like my favorite BBQ in the city, it was actually pretty darn tasty. The mashed potatoes were super buttery and very whipped (isn't that the best kind?). I had only 1-2 bites of the mac and cheese because by the time I got to it, I felt like I was going to burst. There is so much food on that combo platter, it really could be for 2 people instead of one. I was actually really sad that I couldn't bring it back to the hotel and eat it the next day because I had almost half a plate left. But I just couldn't do it.
All in all, I gotta say I was pleasantly surprised at my meal here. Yes - it still wasn't a James Beard Award winning dinning establishment and it does still have a slight big Midwestern chain feel, but you know what? I was in the middle of tourist central in downtown Chicago and having walked past a TGI Friday's on the way here, I was more than happy with where we ended up. Just make sure to go when you're super hungry or have a fridge in your hotel! The price is also totally reasonable - almost scarily so with the 2 meat combo platter at only $18, that is something that I could see restaurants charging at least double in NYC. Total bill: ~$80ish with tax, tip and drinks
Photo Credit: Yelp
Morgan's Barbecue 267 Flatbush Ave, (between Prospect Pl & St Marks Ave), Brooklyn, NY 11217
My love for Fette Sau has been pretty well documented on this blog and although I'm not looking for a new love, I'm always open to trying and discovering new BBQ joints in the city. After hearing that Morgan's was by the same people as the famous Franklin's BBQ in Austin, I was expecting to have a love affair with this place. It turned out it was more of a one-night stand/fling vs. a full blown affair. I enjoyed my meal, especially since it was a beautiful night outside, but I'll still stand by Fette Sau (and even Mighty Quinn's) as better BBQ.
It's a beautiful space right on the corner of 6th Ave and Flatbush, so if you sit outside, you see a lot of car and people traffic. There are a bunch of picnic tables outside, so if it's nice, I would definitely recommend getting a seat there. Like Fette Sau, you order the meat by weight and the prices here are also very reasonable. But unlike Fette Sau, there is table service, so you don't have to wait in an atrocious line and then battle throngs of people for a table. It is a bit more civilized here, which I appreciated. The menu here consists of your typical BBQ offerings: brisket (fatty or lean), pulled pork, beef ribs, pork ribs, turkey, chicken and sausage (beef or pork), plus you can get most of the meats as a sandwich. What I did like about this place more than Fette Sau was the side offerings, they had mac and cheese, collard greens, potato salad, baked potato, chili, green beans, and roasted corn. It's really really hard to find a place that has great meat and great sides. This place has great sides but honestly having great meat trumps that.
We ordered the fatty brisket, pulled pork, pork ribs, pork sausage, mac and cheese and collard greens. The food comes out pretty quickly and we were ready to dive in. I started with the pulled pork first. While the meat itself was moist and juicy it was waaaay too pepper-y. It was almost overwhelming and I had to take each bite with some mac and cheese to counter act the intense black pepper taste. Next I went for the brisket. It was fatty but my issue here was that they only had 1 BBQ sauce on teh table and it was this sour vinegar based kind, so when I was eating the brisket, I really felt like I was missing that element of sauce to it. It wasn't bad but wasn't mind blowing either. The ribs weren't the fall off the bone kind, you did have to work at bit at it but I liked that it was a dry rub and not the super saucy kind that covers your face. The biggest disappointment was probably the sausage. As Cicily said, it reminded her of the Hillshire Farms kind. It wasn't spicy and kind of had this rubbery texture to it. Don't get me wrong, I still ate it, but it didn't taste like a sausage from a BBQ joint but sausage from a diner maybe. Meanwhile, we both really enjoyed the sides. The mac and cheese had the right balance of cheese and pasta (not too gooey or dry) and the collard greens were steamed and sauteed well. There is a small side pop-up store next to Morgan's that's called the Elbow Room that just sold different kinds of mac and cheese and we were super curious to try that.
As for the whisky/bar selection, they don't have the large selection that Fette Sau has and they don't even have a whisky menu. When I asked to see one, she said they didn't have one but they could just bring something out. Ummm - ok, but I'd like to know what I'm ordering first. All in all, this place wasn't bad, in fact, I would come back if I was in the 'hood and have a sandwich and mac and cheese, but my heart and love still goes to Fette Sau first. Cicily's take on this place was 3.5 for the sides and 2.5 for the meat - so we both kind of netted out in the 3 range. Total bill: $41/pp with tax and tip
Photo Credit: Yelp
Ruchi 120 Cedar St., (between Greenwich St & Trinity Pl), New York, NY 10006
My fellow food loving friend Lisa had recommended that we try this place for lunch since it's 50% during lunch time. Perfect. While I do love Indian food, it's usually not a cuisine I eat for lunch during the work week because it's so heavy and would basically put me to sleep. But I was up for taking a risk and lord knows that I needed to have something besides the cafeteria food. The restaurant is tucked away behind the Freedom Tower, so if you don't work in the area it's pretty hard to find.
The menu is pretty expansive and since everything was half off my mind was exploding with options. They have curries, dosas, tandoori dishes, and even idlis! I seriously could have spent all day trying out all the different foods, but since we only had an hour I opted for the chicken madras (regularly $12.95), Lisa got her usual crab curry (regularly $15.95) and we split a side of garlic naan (regularly $3.95) and rice (regularly $2.95). When the food came out, it smelled delicious and I was ready to dive in. The chicken madras is chunks of chicken in a coconut curry. The chicken was very tender and the sauce was jammed packed with Indian spices. My only gripe was that there wasn't enough chicken because by the time I had eaten all the chicken, I still had TONS of curry sauce leftover. I did my best to sop it all up with the garlic naan (which was fantastic - soft but with the right amount of charred crunch) and the rice but it was really just way too much sauce for one person to deal with. It looked like I hadn't even touched the sauce. I had a bite of Lisa's curry and it was great since it was made with fresh crabmeat. They did a good job of getting us in and out of the restaurant quickly as I'm assuming that most people here during lunch work in the neighborhood and they know the drill.
You really can't beat a 50% off deal - especially in a neighborhood surrounded by Goldman Sachs loving places like Beans and Greens (which I love but I'm consistently spending $13-15 on a salad) or North End Grill. While I really did enjoy by lunch, it's hard to eat like this on a regular basis because I was really full and sleepy afterwards. It's definitely a good lunch option if you're in the mood for it, although I'm not sure I would trek all the way down here on a non-work day due to its really out of the way location downtown. Total bill: $10/pp with tax and tip.
Photo Credit: Yelp
