Daisies Visited 3/16/2018 3.5 Forks

Daises  2523 N Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL 60647

I try to go to Chicago at least once a year to see my best friends but I also love going there because they have a wonderful food scene.  Daises is in the hip area of Logan Square and I've always had great meals there.   Our introduction to Daises was a bit of a weird one - they have a separate entrance that's like you're entering into a nightclub and then once the host/bouncer checks you in, you enter into the actual restaurant.  Based on that you'd think it was some stuffy place but once you walk inside it's fairly laid back - although the decor is a bit stark and cold. 

I'm not quite sure what the genre of food is here but pasta is the star of the entree section.  But first we ordered fried mushrooms and cheese curds ($11) to start and I got the pappardelle ($17) pasta.  The fried mushrooms and cheese curds were an interesting dish - it was oyster-like mushrooms and cheese curd that were lightly battered (tempura-style) and fried and served with a buttermilk tarragon dipping sauce.  They were easy to pop in your mouth and a good snack although to this day I'm still not sure what a cheese curd really is.  As for the pasta, it was tasty and felt like it was homemade which is always a plus.  It was cooked al dente and the serving size was just right.  I can see why they are known of their pastas but it wasn't wasn't a dish that blew my mind away either.  They had a pretty light dessert menu and weirdly they had an oat bar for $1.   We got the kahula cake ($7) which was essentially a small bundt rum cake.  It wasn't anything super creative but it did satisfy my sweet craving. 

While I enjoyed my meal at the time, now that I've been back in NYC for over 4 weeks since my trip, it wasn't necessarily a place that stuck out in my head as a must visit when in Chicago.  I could see that if you lived in Chicago and especially if you lived in Logan Square, you would go there to check out all the pastas but I wouldn't categorize it as a destination dining experience.  Total bill:  $60/pp with tax, tip and some drinks

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Publican Anker Visited 9/4/2017 4 Forks

Publican Anker  1576 N Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL 60622

It seems like brunch in any city is always a shit show.  It becomes much more of an ordeal than it needs to be and factoring in that I had a flight to catch right afterwards didn't help either. Luckily, Publican Anker was right next to the El train and we got there right as it opened so there was no wait. So if you are trying to hit up Ohare to catch a 2pm flight, this is a perfect option.

Even though I don't live in Chicago, I've been there long enough to see this space turn over a few times.  The last time I was here it was an Italian restaurant and now it's sort of a gastropub type place. The brunch menu is much more of a lunch menu - no eggs or other breakfast type food, more along the lines of burgers and sandwiches.  Since we were hungry, Deanna and I split the heirloom tomato salad ($13) and garlic aioli fries ($6) while I got the turkey sandwich ($12).  There weren't a whole lot of veggie entree options and I can't remember the details now but there was some confusion on what Deanna could get but it all worked out in the end as she got some kind of yummy mushroom dish.

The heirloom tomato salad was delicious but you would be hard pressed to find any heirloom tomato salad that sucked.  This one had avocado, arugula and fried shallots and a buttermilk dressing.  I could have done without the fried shallots - I mean I was trying to be healthy so throwing in fried shallots doesn't really help the cause. Next came the turkey sandwich - at first glance it sounded like it would be kind of boring but in reality it was really creative and tasty.  It reminded me of something Danny Meyer would make.  The turkey was juicy and a thick cut from the breast and paired with roasted broccoli, avocado, smoked cheddar and dill havarti on a multigrain bread.  Yum!  The flavor combination of the turkey, broccoli, cheddar and dill was fantastic.  My only complaint was that the bread wasn't strong enough to hold all of these ingredients and the sandwich fell apart quickly.  It's definitely a messy lunch but worth it as long as you're not on a date.  The one small service hiccup was that they forgot our fries and we had to remind them but they were apologetic about it and it came out quickly.  They were thick, salty deliciousness and there's no better dipping sauce than garlic aioli.

Since we were in right when it opened (11:30am), we were able to get in and out with plenty of time for me to get to the airport.  By the time we left the place, it was buzzing with people so I would recommend trying to get there early.  Even though it wasn't brunch food, the overall experience and food was satisfying and pleasant.  Hopefully this one sticks around longer than some of its other predecessors.  Total bill: $33/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Parachute Visited 9/2/2017 3.5 Forks

Parachute 3500 N Elston Ave., Chicago, IL 60618

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

Cozy Corner Visited 9/2/2017 3.5 Forks

Cozy Corner  2294 N Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL 60647

Who doesn't love a good diner?  While I don't go to them that often, I've always had a soft spot for them and every now and then crave a good diner omelet.  I was in Chicago for my annual visit there and since I had been there so many times, it becomes hard to find new cool places to go.  Deanna really wanted a Belgian waffle, so we opted for the Cozy Corner, which I actually hadn't ever been to before. 

It's exactly what you would think of when you say diner and even though it wasn't in the suburbs, it had a cozy suburban feel to it (pun intended).  As expected the menu is enormous, with everything you can think of from a breakfast and lunch perspective.  It's quite overwhelming especially when you're already hungry.    I went diner classic and got a 3 egg omelet with veggies and cheese with a side of fruit and a single pancake.  I love it when you get the single pancake option because sometimes all you want is a bite of pancake but not an entire stack and you don't want a piece of freakin dry toast.  The service here was swift and friendly - our food came out in less than 15 minutes.  The omelet is what you would expected from a place called the Cozy Corner - it was huge and very hearty.  It was stuffed full with the veggie and cheese and really hit the spot.  The single pancake was nice and fluffy and paired with gooey table syrup, I was in heaven.  The only let down was the fruit as it looked kind of old and some of the grapes looked like they've seen better days 

This isn't a place for some culinary revelation nor do is the food life changing but it is perfect for when you're looking for hang over food or no nonsense American breakfast/lunch food. Although they did have Heuvos Rancheros on the menu, so I guess you can get some Mexican style breakfast food too.  There usually is a wait but they turn tables over pretty quickly so don't let the lines deter you.  While diner food probably isn't good for your health, it's worth the visit at least once a year.

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Au Cheval Visited 2/1/2016 4.5 Forks

Au Cheval  800 W Randolph S., Chicago, IL 60607

Fuuuck me.  Do you want a heart attack?  Do you want to literally feel full for days on end?  But do you also have a god damn delicious burger?  Then get your ass to Au Cheval.  This place has been on my list for a while and after my umpteenth trip to Chicago for work, I finally made it.  I "dragged" Eric here on a cold Monday night thinking there wouldn't a a long wait but even then it was an hour wait.  Luckily there are tons of nearby bars to duck into for a drink.  They will text you when your table is ready which is perfect in this "I don't like to talk on the phone" age. 

The decor is straight up, old school wooden panels, kind of like a old time-y saloon - it's super dark in there which is actually a good thing because no one should see what you look like when you're elbow deep in egg and meat juice.  While there actually several items on the menu to choose from, just do yourself a favor and order the cheeseburger - the single will be just fine because it's practically the size of a double and get it with the fried egg ($12.95).  Eric took it one step further and got bacon with it and we also decided to really do some damage to our health and got the crispy fries with mornay sauce, garlic aioli and another fried egg ($9.95).  Yes, the place reeks of burger but it really doesn't matter.  The yolk is perfect - super runny and delicious, the meat is super juicy and well seasoned and the bun was soft but not too chewy.  To me, it's right up there with Black Tap Burger as a really solid, gourmet yet not gourmet burger.  I really didn't want to eat all of it because I truly did think my heart would stop working at some point, but it was too good to stop.  It is a bite of a messy meal with the runny yolk and burger juice, so be prepared to go through a lot of napkins and to look like a hot mess if you're on a date (luckily, I wasn't).  On top of all that, the fries with the egg and mornay sauce was just so unnecessarily necessary to the meal.  The bacon on Eric's burger had the thickness of a small encyclopedia - I can't even imagine eating it everything else that was going on.   

I rolled out of this place slightly buzzed, very full and super happy.  It's definitely not a place I would go to often purely for health purposes but if you are in the mood for a really spot-on, non-fast food but not snotty burger, make this your first and only stop.  Total bill:  $60 for 2 with tax, tip and drinks

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Serai Visited 1/30/2016 3.5 Forks

Serai  2169 N Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL 60647

When you think about SE Asian food, most people are familiar with Thai and Vietnamese food. Very few think of Malaysian or Indonesian food and there are even fewer of those types of restaurants around.  While I haven't been to Malaysia before, I can say that the food in Indonesia is good but definitely not as delicious as its more famous sibling countries. But when Deanna mentioned that this new Malaysian place opened up in her hood, it was definitely worth a try.

We had called earlier in the day to try to make reservations and they seemed to have taken our name, but when we called back later to confirm, the person on the line sounded confused and said that they didn't have our name anywhere and that the wait would be an hour.  We decided to wing it and go anyways. Strangely, as soon as we walk in, they seated us immediately.  WTF - what happened to the 1 hour wait?

My first impression was that this place was bi-polar.  It's split up into 2 rooms, one room is decorated with traditional SE Asian decor, while the other room is this weird modern set-up with terrible dressing room lighting.  Of course, we ended up sitting on the modern decor side next to the kitchen.

The menu has a nice array SE Asian food that you normally don't see:  curry laksa, mee goreng, and Hainanese chicken to name a few.  But it also has the usual suspects of pad thai, fried rice, claypot noodles, and chicken and broccoli.  We started with the gado-gado salad ($7.95) and I got the Nyonya curry chicken ($13.95) and Deanna got the mee goreng ($10.95).  The gado-gado salad is a Indonesian style "salad" which consisted of bean sprouts, jicama, cucumber, tofu, boiled egg, and a very heavy helping of peanut sauce.  Ok, it was basically just a giant plate of peanut sauce with some other stuff in it.  While I do love peanut sauce, I can't really say that this was any kind of healthy salad but it was unique and tasty.  After we got our salad, we then had to wait and wait and wait for our entrees.  Maybe this is what the guy on the phone meant when he said it was an hour wait - it wasn't to get seated but to get your food.  Luckily we weren't starving so when the food finally arrived we weren't hangry and crazed.  This curry is definitely different than a traditional Indian or Thai curry - it's got a sweetness to it that's probably from the coconut milk and cinnamon.  It was quite tasty and there was a nice mix of chicken breast and thigh as well as potatoes in there.  What I also like about food from this region is the inclusion of a fried egg and cucumber with the rice.  Such a delicious combination.  I have been trying to avoid white rice but when I do have it, it's like eating ice cream to me and then putting a fried egg on top of it?  Yum.

They don't have much in terms of dessert but I do want to give a shout out to their iced coffee ($3.25) - it was close to a Vietnamese style coffee (but served without the coffee infuser) and it was sweet and delicious.  Overall, it was a fine meal and I could see as a nice neighborhood hang, but the wait was a bit ridiculous and they should just knock down the wall that joins the 2 rooms together to make it one larger and cohesive space.   Total bill:  $23/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Whisk Visited 1/30/2016 3 Forks

Whisk  2018 W Chicago Ave., Chicago, IL 60622

I came across Whisk when it was mentioned in the Chicago edition of The Infatuation and was kind of a sucker for the name - I mean, how can a place called Whisk not be great for brunch?  Although I did think it was a bit strange that the menu had more of a Mexican flare than an American comfort food, it was totally ok - it seems like Mexican breakfasts are becoming all the rage now anyways.

Deanna and I headed over to Whisk right at prime brunch time and we were immediately told that it was 1 1/2 hour wait.  WTF? We decided to put our name down (or Diane as they spelled it) while we waited.  Unfortunately it was raining that day, so no one really wanted to wait outside and there weren't a whole lot of other brunch places close by (except for a diner next door which I was actually totally prepared to go to if the wait was really 1 1/2 hours).  We noticed that a lot of people started to leave, probably driven out by the rain and the wait.  We told ourselves we would wait up to 30 mins and see where we were on the list.  By the time 20 mins passed, they had blitzed through at least 10 names of people who weren't there.  We were finally seated around 40 mins at a 4 top (poor logistics in my opinion).  As I mentioned, the menu has a Mexican slant:  Mexican scramble, breakfast burrito, chilaquiles, huevos rancheros but they also have "regular" brunch items like biscuits and gravy, veggie omelets, a LOT of pancake options, hash options and several benedict options.  I was super torn but of course, I opted for the crab cake benedict ($13) because benedicts were only offered on the weekends.  Deanna got the veggie croissant ($12), which turned out to be the star of the show.

The restaurant was very crowded and the wait for the food was a bit long.  I know I keep telling myself that I should limit my crab cake intake to when I'm only in MD but there's just something about it that I can't say no to when I see it.  This one looked fine at first glance.  It was 2 spicy crab cakes served on English muffins, poached eggs and red pepper hollandaise sauce and a side of cheesy grits.  Of course I instantly cut through the egg to test the runny-ness of the yolk.  It was meh - overdone for me but it wasn't exactly a hard boiled egg, so not a total disaster.  The crab cake itself was also ok - there was definitely filler but it paired nicely with the red pepper sauce - but I've definitely had better. My big problem was with the dish was strangely the English muffin.  It was thin and hard and didn't have the soft nooks and crannies that I love from a Thomas' muffin.  The grits were also good but definitely not as cheesy as I've had at other places.  Another HUGE pet peeve I had was that their utensils sucked.  The knife was one of the dullest knives I've ever encountered that it was practically impossible to cut through the muffin...maybe it was the knife and not the muffin that sucked?  If I were judging this review on just my meal, I might have gone 2.5 folks because it was really meh.

However, Deanna's sandwich looked and tasted amazing.  It was a beautiful large buttery toasted croissant with American cheese, spinach, tomatoes, cucumber, avocado and garlic aioli with 2 eggs inside the sandwich.  Classic delicious breakfast croissant.  The only thing it's missing is sprouts.  I had one look at it and wished I had gotten the version with meat in it.  It also came with a side of house potatoes that were fantastic - they tasted more like tater tots than roasted potatoes because they had a nice crunch on the outside.

Overall, this place was middle of the pack.  It's cute, the menu is solid and it's in a great neighborhood (Ukrainian Village) but I guess I just ordered the wrong thing.  Apparently they are pretty well known for their burgers, so it sounds like I should have gotten that or some kind of sandwich instead.   I should mention that it's BYOB here, so lots of people brought full bottles of champagne to make mimosas, which was neat and fun to watch.  Total bill:  $21.29/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Cai Visited 1/30/2016 4 Forks

Cai  2100 S Archer Ave., Ste 2F, Chicago, IL 60616

I've been to Chicago so many times in the past 15 years that there are hardly any neighborhood or touristy things left to do.  But somehow, Chinatown has alluded me all these years (although Deanna did remind me that apparently we did go together once in college with our moms - clearly I blocked that out of my head). 

So finally we decided to cross this off both of our Chicago to-do lists on a nice Saturday afternoon. The Chinatown in Chicago is kind of out of the way and not near much - it's also waaay smaller than most urban Chinatowns but it's kind of nice to not have it be an overflowing chaotic mess like it is in NYC (although I do have a soft spot for the craziness of it all).  The Chinatown here is very manageable and you can probably get through all of it in an hour if you aren't doing too much window shopping.   But of course, no trip to Chinatown is complete without a dim sum outing.  Cai has been a few Chicago Chinatown lists, so this was our first stop. 

Like any typical dim sum restaurant, this one is a large, tacky, banquet hall with large tables.  Usually I would expect a dim sum place at noon on Saturday to be a complete mob scene, but it wasn't too bad here with only about a 15 minute wait.  It was nice that we didn't have to share a large communal table with others.  What's different about the service here is that instead of the usual push carts that come around most traditional dim sum places, here you order from a picture menu and then they bring it out to you.  While it kind of diminishes the fun and feel of dim sum, it's also kind of genius too.  There's no fighting over carts, you can get exactly what you want without waiting around for it and since it's not circling around on a cart for hours, the food comes out pipping hot.  The menu here was typical, it has everything you would normally get at a dim sum place.  Small dishes are $2.99, Medium $3.79,  Large $3.99, XL $4.00 and Special $5.25.  Most items on the menu are in the medium to large range. We ordered the har-gow, sticky rice in lotus leaf, pork and shrimp shumai, tapioca custard, pan fried bean curd with mixed vegetable, vegetable with tofu, golden corn pie, baked green chive puffs, and turnip cake.  Obviously the first 3 items were for me since they all had either pork or shrimp in it.  I gotta say, they were all quite delicious and tasted like they were just made in the kitchen.  I was very impressed with the quality of the food - none of it was anything particularly unique or sophisticated but just really solid.  Unfortunately a few of the dishes that we got that we thought were veggie friendly (corn pie and green chive puff) turned out to have shrimp in them.  The restaurant was very nice in taking them back and not charging us for it - which I greatly appreciated.   Of the veggie dishes, the vegetable with tofu was most definitely the best because it was wrapped in large broad rice noodles. It's the veggie version of my all time favorite dim sum dish: the shrimp roll (I didn't order it here because this one apparently had celery in it which I hate). 

Since we had to send 2 of the veggie dishes back, Deanna also ordered the mushroom and corn congee.  I should have known that the serving was be huge.  Unfortunately, by the time we got it, we were so full with our other dishes that we didn't really need to order it at all so we ended up taking home a lot of food.  The one dish that was kind of weird was the tapioca custard.  Neither of us have had it before and it was basically a giant gelatinous ball with a sweet custard center - it was kind of like eating a giant bland clear mochi ball.  It wasn't terrible but not particularly great either. 

Overall, I was fairly impressed with my experience here.  I can't say the service was super attentive but that's to be expected.  It was definitely a very pleasant and calm dim sum experience - which I know is a bit of the opposite of what you might actually want from dim sum - but the food was quality and worth the trek.  Total bill:  $21/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Izakaya Mita Visited 1/29/2016 4 Forks

Izakaya Mita  1960 N Damen Ave., Chicago, IL 60647

My 800th review - Good grief!  I honestly can't believe I've lasted this long writing about every single new restaurant that I've been to around the globe.  I'm not sure how much longer I'll keep it up but it's definitely been a fun ride so far. 

Luckily, for my 800th review, I'm writing a positive one!  I was back in Chicago for work and landed just in time for dinner on Friday.  Deanna and I decided to keep it local to Bucktown and I've always wanted to try this place that was right around the corner from her.   We walked in around 8ish, which I know is prime dinner time but apparently it was also Restaurant Week in Chicago and the place was packed.  The hostess told us there were no available seats all night because of Restaurant Week (no offense but I actually think the whole concept of Restaurant Week is kind of lame) but that we could fight it out for any seats at the bar.  While we were contemplating where to go next, 2 seats at the bar magically appeared.  Phew. 

As you can tell by the name, the menu here is Japanese small plates.  They have a fantastic menu with truly every kind of Japanese comfort food you can imagine.  We started the meal with:  sashimi salad ($12.50), kinoko itame ($8.50), yu dofu ($7.50), shishito peppers ($5.50), and assorted vegetable tempura ($5).  God, I really miss eating in Chicago when you see prices like this.  Yes, it's small plates but they are priced as they should be whereas in NYC, each of these plates could be over $10. Obviously the sashimi salad was just for me and I gotta say it was fucking amazing and I'm glad I didn't have to share it (sorry D!).  It was 6 really fresh and large cuts of tuna, yellowtail and salmon on a bed of mixed greens and a light vinaigrette dressing.  Clean, simple and a must-have in my book (if you eat fish).  Based on that, I was really excited for the rest of my meal.  The kinoko itame was warm mushrooms dish sauteed in butter and soy citrus sauce - essentially it's really just oyster mushroom drowning in butter - it was good but almost too heavy handed on the butter for me.  The shishito peppers were your typical salted blistered peppers - crunchy, peppery but not spicy at all. Next we tried the assorted vegetable tempura (there's actually an entire tempura section if you want to mix and match your own).  This veggie mix came with onion, kabocha squash, green beans, carrot and mushroom.  For $5, it was a LOT of veggies.  They were lightly battered and the right level of crispness and weren't soggy at all when you dipped it in the dipping sauce.  Lastly, we had the yu dofu, which was our least favorite dish of the night.  We had asked the waitress to recommend a good tofu dish and this was the one she pointed us too.  Unfortunately, it was pretty blah.  It was just pieces of firm tofu soaking in hot water and ponzu served with mushroom and scallion.  While I don't mind tofu, serving it in a literal hot water bath doesn't really do it any favors in terms of flavor.  I'll give it points for being a very clean dish but it kind of missed the mark for me. 

At this point, we're both 1 bottle of sake and beer in, so of course that lends to us ordering more food (which in hindsight was totally unnecessary).  I opted for the kara age ($7) and Deanna got the mushroom tempura ($5).  Kara age are bites of deep fried ginger marinated chicken - basically it's freaking chicken nuggets fried Asian style.  In true Asian form, they use dark meat, which is so juicy and delicious to me.  These bites were salty goodness and totally addictive.  I could see myself coming back here and ordering this with a cold beer and being really really happy.  The mushroom tempura was also a huge order of very large pieces of oyster mushrooms.  The caps on these mushrooms were kind of ridiculous - they were the size of the entire plate but it looked great none the less.   

Overall, I left happy, full and slightly tipsy - which are all good things on a brisk Chicago night. Deanna mentioned that it's normally not spilling over with people - so I guess Restaurant Week really does bring in a crowd?  If I lived near here, I could totally see myself coming back as a regular and sitting at the bar while I nibble on a bunch of affordable and tasty bites, but sadly I'll just have to wait for the next time I'm back in town.  Total bill for 2 people:  $128 with tax, tip and drinks

Photo Credit:  Yelp 

The Pasta Bowl Visited 8/29/2015 3 Forks

The Pasta Bowl  1852 W North Ave., Chicago, IL 60622

With a name like The Pasta Bowl, you can only expect one thing on the menu: Pasta.  This is a dieters nightmare as not only is there only pasta on the menu but the portions were huge and 80% of the sauces had cream in it.  So definitely don't come here when you're on a diet.  Unfortunately, I was recovering from a nasty bout of food poisoning, so I wasn't really in the mood to go for a heavy meal but I still got the appeal of a place like The Pasta Bowl.  Even though I'm trying to cut out carbs, there's just nothing more comforting than a nice big bowl of pasta to coat your stomach. 

The decor and setting is very casual and family friendly.  It's definitely not a high-end Italian place like L'Artusi or Babbo where you would expect fresh homemade pasta - actually I'm 100% sure the pasta is not freshly made and came from a box, so just be prepared for that.  But in any case, it was still a very hard decision what to go with.  Since I was trying to be mindful of my sensitive stomach, I chose one of the few pastas that didn't have a heavy cream sauce:  capellini pomodoro with sliced chicken and Deanna, Soph and I split the spinach salad.   Deanna got the pesto pasta and Soph got the lobster ravioli.  The spinach salad was your standard run of the mill version with mushrooms, tomatoes, red onion and goat cheese topped with balsamic vinaigrette.  It was a bit too heavily dressed for me even with my sensitive stomach.  The pasta dishes are what you expect from the Midwest,  unnecessarily giant bowls of food.  My pasta came with a basic tomato sauce, basil, parmesan cheese, and mozzarella cheese.  The chicken was cut up into small pieces versus large slices and cooked together with everything.  It was a perfectly fine basic pasta dish but it was definitely something I could have totally made at home by myself and this is generally why I don't go for low-medium end Italian food when I eat out.   I will note that Soph's dish had a lot of pieces of ravioli - generally when you order ravioli you get like 3 pieces max but here she must have had at least 5-6 very large pieces.  

This is the kind of place where you come if you are too lazy to make food at home and you want something soothing and comforting.  If you're looking for high-end Italian food, this is not your place.  But if you looking for something casual, low key and will completely stuff you to the brim, then this is your place.  I should mention that this place is BYOB, so don't forget to bring something with you or there are a few places down the block that sell wine and beer.  Total bill:  Unknown, Deanna kindly paid for my birthday

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Kingsbury Street Cafe Visited 8/28/2015 4 Forks

Kingsburg Street Cafe  1523 N Kingsbury St., Chicago, IL 60642

When someone mentions the word "brunch", most people think of a lazy Saturday or Sunday.  I was in town for an extended period of time and met up with Nima on a lazy Friday and was craving brunch-y food.  I had read about this place in a Chicago Magazine and they had mentioned that their lemon pancake was one of the top 50 things to eat in Chicago and the pictures looked amazing.

This place is a true breakfast/lunch place as it's only open until 3pm, so definitely get there early. Luckily, it was pretty empty on a Friday afternoon.  The space itself is huge, airy with an artistic feel to it as it is apparently also a part-time gallery.  The menu is very brunch friendly with a full breakfast menu as well as a full lunch menu.  It was a true struggle to figure out what to eat because everything sounded great and when I looked around, everyone's dishes looked pretty good.  Ultimately, all 3 of us ended up getting the exact same dish, the Kingsbury Cafe Breakfast  - Deanna got it with vegan patties, Nima got it with bacon and I got it with turkey patties.  The dish itself was 2 eggs your choice, 2 roasted tomatoes, herb potatoes and a cheddar cheese scone - all for $11!  It was a ton of food and everything was fresh and very well made.  I got my eggs soft scrambled and they were delicious but you could tell that they were a lot of butter or cream in it which made it soft.  But regardless, I really enjoyed my eggs.  The roasted tomatoes were an interesting touch to the meal - you don't really see that a lot and to be honest, I prefer raw tomatoes because cooked tomatoes can be too soft and mushy - this one was close but they took it out of the oven right before it got to that point.  The potatoes were fine  - again, they were of the roasted variety.  I didn't really need them as part of the dish but it just seems wrong to not have potatoes with a breakfast dish.  The same can be said for the turkey patties - they were a little bit on the dry side and it could have used a bit more spice and flavor to it, but it would have been weird to not have a meat dish with the eggs.  But the real star of the show was the cheddar cheese scone.  Holy shit.  I actually had really low expectations for this as I'm not a huge scone fan and generally find them to be an uninteresting food item.  But this was less like a scone and more like a buttery, flakey delicious biscuit with cheddar cheese inside of it.  It was served with salty butter which just made the whole thing amazing.  I wasn't planning on eating the whole thing but I just couldn't stop myself and could have easily had another.

Overall, I was really pleased with my breakfast here.  It's a true breakfast joint but the lunch options also looked really good and I would definitely come back to try it out.  It's located in this weird street that has a strip club, a giant Whole Foods and the British School all on one block but if you get get over that, I would definitely recommend you check out their brunch and maybe even get their famous pancakes as I'm sure they would be fantastic.  Total bill:  $20/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Silom 12 Visted 8/27/2015 3 Forks

Silom 12 1846-48 N Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL 60647

For a lot of people their go-to comfort food might be pizza or pasta, but for me it's Thai food.  When I lived in Park Slope, I used to religiously get Thai food for take-out but once I moved to Williamsburg there hasn't been as many good mom and pop take out places.  So it's been a while since I have had a non-frills Thai experience, so when Deanna asked what I wanted to eat while I was in Chicago, I strangely was craving a standard pad thai dish.   Silom 12 was within walking distance from her apartment which was perfect.

The place is a bit bizarre in that the decor is totally mod - it's all white and it's got a large communal table in the middle of the restaurant.  It's a definite departure from your usual local Thai place that usually tries to replicate the feel of the Old World.  The menu here is pretty basic and standard - stir fry, noodles dishes, fried rice and curries - this was exactly what I was in the mood for.  Despite craving pad thai, there's actually nothing I love more than a fried mussel dish in a Thai place so I was excited to see that they offered this dish here.  Sadly when I tried to order it, they were conveniently out of it, despite there be no one in the restaurant besides us.  So I guess they made my decision pretty easy:  chicken pad thai ($9) it is!  Deanna and I also split the Gui Chai ($7) to start while she got the green basil curry with veggies ($10).

They start your meal with these shrimp chips which aren't particularly tasty but yet were addictive for no real good reason - so don't fill up on them.  The Gui Chai came out quickly and it was 3 pan fried chive "dumplings" (I use quotes because they were more like flat baos then dumplings) served with a sweet soy sauce.  It was mostly pan friend dough-y goodness and it was really a vehicle to sop up the sweet soy sauce into your mouth.   I didn't feel super healthy after eating this so I'm glad I split it with Deanna as I probably could have eaten the whole thing myself and then felt completely terrible afterwards.  In true Thai style, my pad thai came out about 5 mins after we got our appetizer.  The pad thai was pretty standard - nice mix of noodles with peanut sauce, tamarind and chicken.  I wouldn't say it was the best pad thai of my life but it did hit the spot.

I can totally see why this would be a solid go-to take out spot for those living in Bucktown.  There's really nothing special about it but there's nothing terribly wrong with it either.  It's probably similar to most other neighborhood mom and pop Thai places near you.  Total bill:  $40 for 2 people with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Pazzo's @ 311 Visited 8/27/2015 3.5 Forks

Pazzo's @ 311 311 S Wacker Dr., Chicago, IL 60606

When I asked a few people for advice on where to eat near the Willis Tower for a work lunch, all 3 of them came back with Pazzo's as their #1 choice.  To me, finding a nice client friendly restaurant near the Willis Tower is like finding a nice client friendly place near any touristy place - it usually means fast food places or other not so great chain restaurants.  Even though Pazzo's is a chain, it was a definitely a very appropriate client facing restaurant in addition to having tasty food. 

Firstly, it's located in a beautiful atrium inside the an office building.  It was bright, airy and almost made me forget that it was only 60 degrees in August in Chicago.  Inside there is a larger extension of the restaurant that's a bit dated compared to the outside decor but it was totally fine for the purposes of having a casual work chat.  The menu here is old school Italian and there was lots to choose from: every kind of pasta dish you can imagine,  nice big salad options, sandwiches, and a nice variety of secondi type dishes.  I was torn between getting pasta vs. an entree but I've always been a sucker for a good tuna steak so I opted for the pan seared tuna dish.  One of my clients got the seafood risotto which looked amazing and the other got a salmon penne pasta which looked rich, creamy and most likely very delicious.  I asked for my tuna to be as close to rare as possible and they did a great job of hitting the mark - it was definitely very pink on the inside but nicely seared on the outside with a good salty crust to it.  It was paired with roasted fingerling potatoes and grilled asparagus.  The asparagus was a bit on the wimpy side - I prefer them to be more al dente with a crunch to it.  These were a bit overcooked and soggy which is easy to do when the asparagus is on the skinny side as these were.  The potatoes were totally fine too, although I would have preferred a mashed version with the dish.  For some reason, I've always liked pairing a tuna steak with mashed potatoes - maybe it's the balance of something creamy with a "tough" steak.  

Overall,  this was a lovely place to have a casual but still work appropriate lunch.  It wasn't stuffy or too corporate feeling which I liked but it was still formal enough that you could still talk shop and not feel like a douche.  A lot of the food is a bit on the heavy side for lunch but you can still chose wisely and get something that won't make you want to take a nap in a few hours.  Total bill:  $65 for 3 people with tax and tip

Photo Credit: Yelp

Mirai Sushi Visited 8/26/2015 4.5 Forks

Mirai Sushi 990 N Mies Van Der Rohe Way, Chicago, IL 60611

Sometimes you go to a place with not a lot of expectations and are pleasantly surprised - which is usually what happens to me.  But sometimes you go and you are like "WTF is happening,  this place is amazing, how the hell did I not know about this before?!!!"   And this is what happened to me with Mirai Sushi.  I was staying downtown in the Gold Coast for work and it's generally tourist central down there, so I wasn't expecting much -  especially when I was craving sushi.  I took a look at my favorite blog, The Infatuation, knowing that they recently launched a Chicago version and wouldn't you know, their highest rated sushi place was literally a 3 minute walk from where I was staying.   I did a quick cross reference on Yelp and while I wasn't 100% sold on it (I'm generally weary of any restaurant attached to a hotel and this one was connected to the Hilton), I was willing to take a gamble on a place that scored an 8.4 on the site.

The place is tiny with only 2-3 main tables that seated no more than 4 or 5 people and then the sushi bar that seated 6 people total.  I got a nice seat at the sushi bar and was ready for have some ok overpriced sushi. But what transpired was much more than ok sushi - it was totally top notch, high quality, almost but not quite Tanoshi level sushi.   The main sushi chef was super sweet and very kind - always an excellent way to start the meal.  The menu is basic and simple - it leans towards the authentic and traditional angle.   They have a few starters, hot plates, chef special rolls, chef specialities, a handful of traditional maki rolls,  and then the usual line up of a la carte sushi and sashimi choices.  I was hoping there would be some sort of sushi or sashimi combination I could order but I was able to cobble together an excellent meal regardless.  I started with the Mirai combination ($22 for sushi or $44 for sashimi), the special salmon roll ($16), and the yellowtail and scallion roll ($7).   The combo was 6 pieces of sushi:  lean tuna, medium fatty tuna, fatty tuna, 2 cuts of white fish and a piece of salmon.  Every bite was heavenly and delicious.   The fish was melt in your mouth and the rice was perfect - just a tad on the warm side but still soft and delicious.  The one terrible thing about eating sushi when you're starving is that it's never enough - you just want more and more.  I practically inhaled all 6 pieces in under 5 minutes which was a bit embarrassing as these are the types of meals you should really be slowly savoring.  Next they brought out the yellowtail and scallion - pretty basic roll but again very high quality fish and the seaweed and rice were the right texture and temperature.   At this point, I was scared that I wasn't ever going to be full from all this yummy food but luckily they brought out the special salmon roll and that ended up really filling me up.  I usually don't love rolls that have shrimp tempura or other cooked bites to it but I took a chance with this roll and I'm glad I did.  The special salmon roll is a panko crusted shrimp roll topped with soy marinated salmon sashimi with creamy wasabi tobiko sauce.  There were 6 fairly large cuts of this roll and it was super satisfying.  The shrimp was perfectly cooked and the creamy wasabi sauce was fantastic.  I should also give a shout out at this point about the actual wasabi - it was spot on and deadly here.  While I was pretty full and happy, I couldn't help but end my meal with my most favorite pieces of sushi:  uni.  It was $4.50 here and based on everything else I had eaten here, I figured it was worth a try and it was.  It was a perfect way to end the meal here.

My dinner here was such a pleasant and happy surprise although given the high rating it got from the Infatuation, I shouldn't really be surprised.   My only compliant was that the service was a bit confusing - this lovely woman started taking my order but then the sushi chef took another part of my order so I wasn't sure who I was supposed to be talking to.  I also noticed that the party next to me was eating a bunch of yummy looking stuff that wasn't on the menu like fish collar - I would have loved to have eaten that stuff too!  I noticed that they didn't have an omakase on the menu but maybe it's just for special regular customers?  It might be a bit hard for me to become a regular given that I have 700 miles away, but I would be more than happy to try to whenever I come to Chicago.  Total bill: $65 with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Revolution Brewing Visited 8/25/2015 3 Forks

Revolution Brewing 2323 N Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL 60647

I had been wanting to go to Revolution Brewing for the past year since last time Deanna and I tried to go and it was over an hour wait.  Eric and I were in town for yet another client meeting and this seemed like a good place to check out and unwind away from the Downtown Chicago scene.  We were here on a late Tuesday night and we were quoted a 20 minute wait but luckily we were able to get a table relatively quickly.

The menu here is what you would expect from a pub/brewery - rich burgers, pizzas, chicken and steak.   While I've been trying to be good and stick to salads for my impending trip to Croatia, there's just something so wrong about coming to a pub and ordering a salad.  So I went all out and got the Smokehouse Burger ($14) which was a burger with pulled pork on top of it and the blue cheese potato salad while Eric and I also split the calamari ($9) to start since we were both starving and coming straight from the airport.  The calamari was light and crispy - the outside tasted more like it was baked vs. fried with oil which was greatly appreciate.   The burger came out quickly and it was quite the sight.  It was a pretty thick patty topped with pepper jack cheese and then piled on with Kansas City style pulled pork with a thick bun.  Very aggressive move on my part.  I couldn't justify eating the entire thing without feeling like a total glutton, so I took off the bun which honestly didn't look like anything too amazing.  The combination of the burger and pork was exactly what you would imagine - in your face overload of meat.  I ate about half of it before I threw in the towel, but mostly because the meat was incredibly salty.   It was definitely over-seasoned it to the point where I really felt dehydrated during and after the meal.  In the future, I would probably stick to a straight simple burger than to go with one that has a heaping of salty pulled pork on top of it.  The blue cheese potato salad was a nice twist to your typical potato salad but it was a bit too heavy on the mayo and not enough actual potato in it.  

Overall, I wasn't in love with the food but I did really enjoy their beer, especially the Rosa.  The place definitely has a nice neighborhood vibe and I can see how if you had a few more beers in there, that the food was really be super appealing.  It's the right menu for this type of place.  I guess I shouldn't have been so aggressive in my ordering when I had only had 1 beer in me.  Total bill:  $60 for 2 people with tip, tax and beers

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Turquoise Restaurant Visited 3/8/2015 4 Forks

Turquoise Restaurant 2147 W Roscoe St., Chicago, IL 60618

If you had asked me to review this place after the first 30 minutes of sitting down, I might have given it 2 Forks because the service was horrible in the beginning, but after spending some time and re-thinking my entire experience, I have to say the food was good enough and the experience unique enough that I'm willing to go with 4 Forks (maybe closer to 3.75 Forks).  As long as you know what to expect with this place, you'll have a great time.

Nima, Deanna and I came for brunch on a Sunday morning and originally we didn't think anyone would be here.  But the place was actually packed and it took a while to get the host (I'm not sure if there really was a host, I think everyone who worked there had 5 different jobs) to seat us.  We sat all the way in the back and we could see how hurried and rushed all the waiter/waitresses were.  It's a pre-fixe meal of about 9 courses, but it was hard to really figure that out because they don't tell you anything or come to take your order.  We waited forever to flag someone down to ask what the deal was and they said the food just comes out. Ok, we must have waited 20 minutes before any food came out but when it did, boy did we get a lot of food.  In one fell swoop, 5 plates of food came out at once.  All the dishes are made for sharing and there's plenty of food on each dish for everyone.  We started with warm freshly baked bread with butter and honey and then there was also a green salad with a giant delicious piece of feta cheese, feta cheese pie, Turkish hash browns, a cheese plate with 4 different cheeses and olives, tomatoes, and cucumbers.  I really enjoyed the hash browns as they were jammed packed with flavor from the onion, peppers, and parsley.  Then came another round of food - gooey cheese omelet, sweet crepes with fruit, giant pieces of salami with sunny side eggs, and then these meatloaf balls with gravy and vegetables.   At this point, we were all so full but couldn't stop trying everything that was put in front of us.  The omelet and crepes were the big winners of this round of food.  At this point, we were all completely stuffed and couldn't eat anymore food.  They did bring out a fruit plate which was a nice refreshing finisher.

Despite this place starting off on the wrong foot service-wise, they did make up for it with the quality and quantity of food.  The waitress was very nice while were were being served and you could tell that they were just crazy busy and not intentionally ignoring you.  Serving a 9 course meal to a packed house all at once is not a fun job.  What's even more amazing about this place is that all this food was only $15.95 - a great deal, just don't come here if you are in a hurry!  Total bill:  $23 with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp