An awesome restaurant blog

We can't all live in Chicago. A friend of mine just alerted me to this awesome Seattle blog, Sassy Food. The author blogs about restaurants, but with a twist - she also occasionally approaches fellow diners and asks to taste some of their food. It's a fun blog, with great photos - definitely worth checking out.

Mercat a la Planxa

638 Michigan Ave., Chicago

The boyfriend and I had been here awhile back and liked it, and then when we were in Philadelphia in the Spring our friends took us to Amada, one of the chef's other restaurants, and we loved that, so we were excited to come back to Mercat. My mom was in town, and we'd gone to see The Weir (an amazing play which was done quite well by Seanachai Theatre Company) and we - as per usual! - looking for a place open past 10 on a weeknight, and Mercat was it.

Oh man. The food was phenomenal. Seriously, every single dish - and we got a lot of them - was impeccable. We had the pulpo con patatas, perfectly cooked octopus, oily and lemony and spicy and fabulous; we did the rice with morels and lemon, a rich, densely mushroomy risotto with a hint of truffle (Jose Garces is a fan of the truffles, and I love him for it); the braised rabbit agnolotti with brandied cherries (which rivaled the veal heart papardelle from Schwa in terms of quality - it was absolutely gorgeous); the pork belly with apple cider glaze and green apples oh wow, the sweet cider glaze and the wonderfully creamy yet firm pork belly; the flatbread with shortribs and greens and an intriguing hint of horseradish; some cheeses, a bottle of wine, oh, and the chocolate croquettes for dessert - we didn't think we had room for them but we managed, and it was so worth it.

I can't say enough about how pleased I was with the place. It's a lovely room with classy decor; while the tables are somewhat close together you don't feel cramped at all. The cocktail list is quite appetizing, the prices are high but not totally out of control, and the food. is. fantastic.

Girl and the Goat

809 W Randolph, Chicago

We happened in here at 10pm on a Wednesday and discovered, to our delight, that it's open until 11pm on weekdays. He-llo! Immediate points in my book. Of course we'd been wanting to check out Top Chef champion Stephanie Izard's spot, but we were sort of waiting for the early buzz to fade. But given how delicious our dinner was, I doubt that it will anytime soon.

The room is pleasant but not overly elegant or stuffy - it's somewhat bustling, though you're not in close quarters with people the way you are at Avec or the Publican. The decor is dark but there's plenty of light inside to see your food and your partner, and you can see the line where the food is being prepared, which is kind of fun.

Girl and the Goat is a small plate restaurant, with 10 meat, 10 vegetable, and 10 seafood options. Despite the small menu, we had an unbelievably difficult time making a decision, because everything looked fantastic. We were going to get 4 things - we got 6. And a bread.

The bread came with liver. I'm not sure which creature donated its liver to our meal, but I would like to take this opportunity to thank it for doing so, because it was quite tasty.

Our first vegetable was the pan fried shishito peppers with parmesan and sesame. They turned out to be one of my favorite dishes. The sesame didn't really come out strongly, but the flavors were delicious nonetheless, with just a touch of heat from the peppers. Our other vegetable was the strongly recommended green beans with fish sauce and cashews, which I also loved. The fish sauce was aioli-like, which I didn't expect but didn't mind at all. The green beans were crunchy and delicious.

Our seafood were the scallops with veal stock and almond butter and the softshell crab with sweet corn, lime and chili aioli. The scallops were perfectly cooked and very tasty, beautifully set off by the meatiness of the veal (though I admit that I couldn't much taste the almond butter). The softshell crab (which we couldn't resist getting because, as our server pointed out, the season is almost over!) were breaded and fried, which to me seemed like kind of a pity, because although the breading was light and crispy, it still made the crabs a little heavier and greasier feeling than they would have been otherwise. The lime and chili aioli was a nice compliment, zesty and delicate.

Our meats were the rabbit rillete with crisp rice crepe and ginger giardiniera and... and... another dish that doesn't seem to be in any of the online menus! A combination of meats (I want to say goat, veal and beef?) served over papardelle with a berry... gooseberry? No. I want to say it started with a c. Argh. Well! The rabbit, I have to say, was not that exciting. This may be partly because it was one of the last things we got and I was horrifically stuffed (people! 4-5 dishes is MORE THAN ENOUGH for two people!), but I suspect it was just not as amazing as the other things we had. It was basically a crispy crepe - fine enough, but not especially tasty - rolled around the rillette and floating in a nice sauce. So texture wise, it was kind of odd. The crispy crepe started to go soggy pretty fast, and the flavors didn't really sing together.

BUT the papardelle! Oh my goodness! It was incredible! I am generally not that excited about savory things paired with fruits, particularly meat and fruit. But wow, this knocked my socks off. It was so fantastic. I loved it so much that I saved it for last, which, as my boyfriend pointed out, was not a very bright idea, because it wasn't as good cold. But oh man. It was delicious.

We were skimpy on drinks and only got a beer and a glass of wine. But the beer list is impressive for sure, and the wine list certainly seemed fine to me, who is quite ignorant about wine. But I very much enjoyed the glass of riesling I had, and it paired beautifully with the food.

The meal, overall, set us back $120 ($100 without tip). And I'd say that's to be expected for 2 people - while you can certainly get less food than we did (I'd recommend that you do, seriously), you will probably want to get more than 1 drink each. And you might find room for dessert as well.

Anyhow, overall - definitely recommended. It was really delicious.

Hing Kee

2140 S. Archer Ave.

We were on our way to Lao Beijing (my favorite restaurant in Chinatown) when we paused in front of Hing Kee, mesmerized by the site of a man making noodles. We drew our eyes away just long enough to see the sign on the window that pointed out that a bowl of those noodles was only $5.95. 'Nuf said. We went in.

We ordered two bowls of the ramen, one with pork belly and one with szechwan chicken. They arrived almost instantaneously, and they were fantastic. The noodles were fresh and soft and delicious - you really haven't lived life until you've had freshly made ramen. It's just an incredible thing, like nothing you've ever had. The broth was admittedly basic pho broth (they offer a lot of pho options), and not even the best I've had, but flavorful. Both the chicken and pork belly were both out-of-this-world fantastic. Either soup, on its own, would make for a great lunch for one person. And both are reason enough to come to this restaurant.

But there were four of us, so we ate more. Everything else sort of arrived whenever, but we didn't really mind. The scallion pancake was chewy and delicious (though it didn't come with any sauce, which was a bummer. It didn't need it, but nonetheless, I do love that sauce), the peapod tips with garlic were phenomenal, and the salt and pepper beef was way, way better than I've had anywhere else - moist, chewy chunks of beef that were beautifully accented with salt and pepper and a hint of soy. I was not a big fan of the chinese broccoli in oyster sauce, but that's because I don't especially care for chinese broccoli - everyone else loved it. The only blemish on an otherwise outstanding record were the pork dumpling, which were basically potstickers, and not especially good ones at that - the dough was too thick, and the filling wasn't that flavorful. The sauce didn't do much to help. Other than that though, it was a fantastic meal, and clocked in at less than $15 per person, which raised it to the level of "oh hell yes we're coming back here".

The menu features a bunch of pho as well as sushi. For my money though, it's all about that ramen. Definitely check it out.

Adesso

3332 N. Broadway


I wanted to like it, I really did. My boyfriend is quite fond of it, and I really love Italian food, and it's on that charming little stretch of Broadway... but it just disappointed me over and over. I really don't want to dog on this place, so I'll try to keep the negatives to a minimum, but there's no avoiding the fact that the food just wasn't very good (I feel like it's perhaps gone down hill - I went there a few years ago, and I remember it being pretty good, though not amazing). The biggest problem was that someone had a very liberal hand with the salt. I like salt, but wow. This was intense.

The problems started with the rolls - pretty uninteresting bread, but apparently heavily salted on the outside. Served with a trio of butters - the pesto butter was lovely, but the other two tasted like they'd been in a refrigerator for so long that they'd begun to morph with it. Gross. I started to feel a bit deflated.

For appetizers, we did the Polenta Due and the Zuppa di Cippole. The polenta was two polenta cakes, one topped with shrimp scampi, one with mild giardinara. A strange combination, no? Indeed. I thought there must be some method to the madness, that it would surprisingly turn out to be a harmonious melange, but no. The shrimp were fine, the giardinara was fine, but the polenta cakes were pretty bland, and the flavor combinations were schizophrenic. The onion soup was covered in a thick layer of provolone, very nice, and had a strong fennel flavor, which was great. Unfortunately, it was also unbelievably salty - after two or three spoonfuls, I drained my water glass.

The mains were likewise uninspired. My boyfriend had the Fusilli del Boscaiolo - fusilli with fennel sausage, mushrooms, and peas in a light tomato cream sauce. He was pretty happy with it, but not thrilled. I had a few bites - it was fine, but nothing to write home about. I had the Pollo Verguvio - a chicken breast in a white wine sauce with roasted potatoes and sauteed spinach. The white wine sauce was - you guessed it - incredibly salty. And also just not that tasty. The chicken was cooked just fine, maybe a wee bit dry. The potatoes just weren't good to me, maybe because I was just utterly demoralized at that point. The spinach was probably the highlight of the meal, and it was just plain old sauteed spinach.

The final blow, of course, was the check. We had a groupon, which lessened the pang, but seriously, if I had dropped almost $30 on that meal, I would have been vexed. Honestly, I'm sad to say it, but I really would not recommend the place.

Bon Bon Vietnamese Sandwich

2333 W. North Ave.

Oh man. My friend Dustin took me here today, and it was awesome. Dustin is quite knowledgeable when it comes to banh mi, and he says that unless you're heading up to Argyle, this is the place to go. Time Out Chicago seems to agree. I have no idea if there are better banh mi to be had in the city, but I tell you what - I'm perfectly happy to eat these.

It's a small place, maybe 3 or 4 tables and a menu consisting of 8 sammiches, some soups, drinks, and bubble tea, but the prices are killer: $3.95/sammich. The sammiches are served on a delicious crusty baguette, and come with pickled carrot and daikon (which aren't as tangy as you might wish, but competent), cucumber (which I declined, because ugh. Cucumber.), cilantro, and then your choice of filling. I went with the Ginger Chicken, and oh man. It was juicy and tender and marvelous, not overwhelmingly ginger, but with a gorgeous ginger vaguely caramel-like sauce. Dustin had the Char Sui Pork, which was equally delicious, chewy, salty, and overall great. I got a vietnamese coffee to go with it, which is always a mistake for me, because my stomach starts complaining before I'm even halfway through it, but what can I say, it's so creamy and decadent.

Overall: awesome. You should go.

Bolat

3346 North Clark St.

I was going to post something about apologizing for not updating, but then the internet at it, and that's probably a sign that I should stop apologizing and just get back to posting. So I will.

So, Bolat. Last Spring, I taught a lit class that had Wole Soyinka's autobiography, Ake, on the syllabus. Aside from being an interesting book, it was a book that featured quite a few rather tantalizing descriptions of food. So when a groupon for Bolat came up, I pounced.

Now, a word about groupon. I love groupon, I really do. But it's also kind of a mixed blessing. For a lot of restaurants, it means a sudden massive influx of clientele - one that they might not completely prepared for. In other words, your dining experience might not be quite as terrific as you might hope. This is particularly the case when you wait until the very last minute to use it (as my boyfriend as I inevitably seem to do). Because likely as not, there's a horde of people in the same position, all clamouring to get in. And if the restaurant is as tiny as Bolat, this is a recipe for disaster.

So, we ended up waiting 2 hours for a table instead of 45 minutes. All the more frustrating because there were three tables open for a good half hour of that wait. But Bolat has one bartender and one waiter and maybe 3 people in the kitchen, so I understand their desire to slow things down a bit. Especially because the people at the tables were already vociferously complaining about how long the food was taking. So yes, the service was not stellar. But maybe now that the groupon deal has ended, it's calmed down a bit. Also, I should add: the room is lovely. Small but very nicely decorated, and very pleasant.

Now, the food. I am not especially familiar with African cuisine, so I might not be the best source of information about this. We started with the Goat Pepper soup. The broth was good, but the vegetables floating in it seemed to be of the frozen variety, and were not so appealing. I was not wildly impressed, but my boyfriend quite liked it. Next, we got the Braised Oxtails with fried plantains. The plantains were delicious (I LOVE fried plantains) and the oxtails were great too - grilled and coated in a zesty sauce that was similar to barbeque, but more sweet than tangy. Very nice.

I'm really not sure what my boyfriend got as his main course. It was a variety of meats and some fish in a green sauce with rice. It was, in my opinion, not so great. He liked it, but didn't love it. I, on the other hand, was thrilled with my entree - the yamashoma, tender chunks of beef in a wonderful spicy sauce, accompanied by a giant ball of a polenta/cornmeal - just wonderful.

The price is slightly steeper than you might expect - it's not a super cheap meal, but not wildly expensive either - you can expect to spend around $25/person, more if you indulge in alcohol, which I rather regret that we didn't, as it looked intriguing. Overall, we're not in a hurry to go back, but I certainly wouldn't object to doing so.