Burt's Place Pizza

So we finally made it to Burt's Place Pizza in Morton Grove.  This restaurant has been featured on everything (Check Please, Chicago's Best, No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain).  Lots of people really love this pizza so we wanted to for check it out. 

Super Salad

There are some rules that have to be followed (think soup nazi but nicer).  Burt buys all of the ingredients fresh every day so you have to make a phone reservation (where you state the size and toppings on the pizza) at least one day before. The time you pick as your reservation time is the time the pizza will be ready and out at your table.  So don't get there late. Also order your appetizers ahead on the phone as well. They do carry out pizzas as well but you have to abide by the call ahead policy also.  So we did see a few parties try and walk in to be told they couldn't be accomodated.  The funny thing is when you look inside the restaurant it may look like there are tables available.  However, a few of the tables are used as staging areas where the pizzas sit to be served to you. And one last thing is that they are cash only.

Garlic Bread

So they are very picky but every mention of this place on the internet plus the tv spots have mentioned these "rules" so it really shouldn't come as a surprise to someone who has done their research. Burt's Place doesn't have its own website but we were able to find reviews on yelp plus a photograph of their menu - to give us an idea of the appetizer and pizza toppings options plus how much it would cost since we needed to bring cash.

We phoned in on a Wednesday for Saturday dinner. We ordered a salad, garlic bread and a large pizza with extra cheese, sausage and mushrooms. 

Super Salad - nice salad of romaine greens plus a few toppings.  Nothing spectacular but it is a way to say you are eating healthy at a pizza place.

Garlic Bread - this was really good and fresh.  We knew the pizza would be good once we ate this.

Pizza!

Large Pizza with extra cheese, sausage and mushrooms.  All of the reviews said to get extra cheese so we went with that.  This is literally the best pizza.  NICK SAYS THIS IS THE BEST PIZZA HE HAS EVER EATEN. The crust was perfect - it wasn't too soft or gooey or too crunchy.  It is a pan style pizza. The toppings were fresh and flavorful and the freshness of the ingredients pushed the flavor profile over the top. The extra cheese made for the perfect ratio of cheese, sauce and toppings. You can definitely tell Burt cares about his craft.  At this time in his life he doesn't have to have a restaurant; he does he because he loves it.

Final thoughts on Burt's Place Pizza:
Food - We loved the pizza.  We haven't eaten pizza since and it will be hard once we do. We would skip the salad next time, but do the garlic bread.  We love this place and would like to go very often - if it were just a healthier meal :).
Service - We got there about 1/2 hour ahead of our pizza being done time so there was plenty of time to eat the salad and the garlic bread. Burt cooks all of the food and his wife and another person serve all of the food.  All of the food came out as expected and they were very nice. We did see Burt when we were there.  We wonder what they do if he got sick?
Atmosphere - the restaurant is located in a residential portion of the suburb of Morton Grove - it almost looks like it doesn't belong. The building is very old and there are lots of knick knacks on the walls and shelves.  One critique is that the place doesn't look super clean, but just ignore that and enjoy the pizza.

Mario's Italian Lemonade

On a warmer evening we thought we would try out Mario's Italian Lemonade in University Village (near UIC). We had heard about this place from a Food Network show called $24 in 24.  This is where the host stopped by for a snack of Italian Lemonade - basically lemonade flavored Italian Ice with other flavors that are mixed in. 

Mario's is only open during the summer months - from the beginning of May until mid-September.  It is located in a small "shack" on Taylor street.  They only take cash and appear to always have a bit of a line.  They do not have their own website but we went on the Yelp review site ahead of time to try and figure the situation out.  They offer several different regular flavors and it looks they they sometimes have limited time options as well.

They offer small, medium and large sizes. We didn't really want to commit to a large of anything so we figured we would try several small sizes (costing $1.50 each).  We went with a watermelon, banana, pineapple, cantaloupe and mango (which was just a limited time flavor).  The ices aren't too tart from the lemon flavor.  They contain larger chunks of the other fruits.  Honestly the mango was the best flavor - too bad it isn't a regular option.  There were also a few non-fruit options you could choose and after we ordered we heard someone order a combo of 2 flavors in one cup.

They were quite good and refreshing.  Although we did get brain freeze rather quickly.

Final thoughts on Mario's Italian Lemonade:
Food: good quality treat; great fruit flavors
Service: You walk up to a counter.  Although there was a bit of a line, it moved very quickly.  There are several people taking orders. It is cash only, and the prices are very reasonable.
Atmosphere: It is located on a cute street near the UIC campus. The shack itself stands out a bit and is located right in front of a townhouse. There are no tables located right there so most people just stand nearby and eat the lemonades.  There is an Al's Beef across the street so there are probably a lot of people who have a sort of progressive dinner.

Lucila's Alfajores

After eating dinner in Wicker Park (at Taxim), we decided to stop by the Goddess and Grocer store in Bucktown to see if they had any alfajores.

Traditional Alfajore on the left and chocolate covered on the right

Alfajores are a popular treat in Argentina with dulce de leche between 2 crumbly cookies. Natalie lived in Argentina for a summer and learned to love these wonderful treats.  A little while ago Natalie had seen Lucila's Alfajores listed as one of the 100 best things to eat in Chicago and was intrigued.  Lucila's Alfajarores doesn't have their own retail location but their products are placed in various gourmet grocery stores around the Chicago area.  (Their website is http://www.lucilashomemade.com/). We found out that they have their products at Goddess and Grocer and were very happy to try them out.

The traditional alfajore is just the cookies and the dulce de leche but Lucila's also makes a chocolate covered one as well.  Both of them were amazing and reminded Natalie of her days in Argentina.  It was Nick's first experience with a real alfajore and he was impressed.  But what's not to like - dulce de leche and cookies can only taste amazing. We just thought we would pass along this incredible find!

Taxim

We went to dinner in Wicker Park at a modern Greek restaurant called Taxim.  We had seen Taxim on an episode of Check Please.

We ordered a couple of appetizers and entrees.  The actual names of some of the dishes are a bit complicated themselves so we will explain.

Eggplant Spread

Polítiki melitzanosaláta – wood fire roasted eggplant with sesame and house made pita.  This reminded us a lot of a baba ghanouj (the Greek version). We enjoyed it; but of course we love eggplant.


Kolokithokeftédes – butternut and acorn squash fritters with house made yogurt and cabbage.  These were tasty and the yogurt sauce had a very minty taste and went well with the fritters.

Squash Fritters

Duck gyros with fries - the gyros looked a lot like a southwest egg roll.  Nick is realizing that he just doesn't enjoy duck as much as Natalie. It was a fun play on the gyros concept but we really liked the other 3 dishes better.

Manti - goat cheese and fava bean dumplings with yogurt and roasted red pepper sauce.  The "stuffing" of the dumplings were great and we loved the red pepper sauce with the dumplings themselves. The edges were a little crispy but that didn't take away from the dish at all.

Final thoughts on Taxim:
Food - the food was a bit of different take on traditional Greek dishes.  Unlike traditional Greek foods, the dishes we ordered were light and refreshing.  We realized that except for the duck in the gyros we ordered all vegetarian items - which was great and we would order more vegetarian at other places if we had such great options. We didn't order dessert because the options were quite limited and nothing sounded that appealing from that menu.

Duck Gyros

Service - well we were the only table filled in the restaurant (for the entire time we were eating).  So we got a lot of attention. The server explained the menu to us and gave us some of her favorites as options.
Atmosphere - well we didn't get the full atmosphere because we were the only ones there.  But the Check Please feature showed a full house which probably happens on the weekends; we were there on a Wednesday night close to when they opened.  The interior of the restaurant is quite festive and reminiscent of a bazaar in the Mediterranean.

Goat cheese and fava bean dumplings

Davanti Enoteca

Beet Salad

We went to dinner at Davanti Enoteca in Western Springs.  We had seen it featured on Check Please (but for their Chicago location).  We recently learned they were opening a location in Western Springs so waited until it opened to go.
Davanti Enoteca has been open just over a month now so we figured it would be nice to go after they worked out any kinks.

Tuscan Toast with Ricotta

The restaurant serves food in what they call small plates style, meaning the items are a little smaller and so you should order more than 1 dish each.  We would definitely agree with that for the pasta and the salad we ordered but the other items didn't seem that small. Also for a "small plates" concept restaurant some of the dishes seemed to be priced a little high.

We had looked over the menu ahead of time plus listened to the Check please recommendations and new that we were going to order lots of carb/cheese combinations.

What we ordered:

Beet salad - with cheese and maple butter.  Basically we ordered this just so that everything we ate wouldn't be carbs and cheese.  But this did come with cheese, didn't it? Well it was a nice and refreshing dish; the maple butter was unique and different.

Vasi of ricotta cheese and honeycomb - the cheese mixture was served in a cute mini mason jar over Tuscan Toast.  The toast was awesome; what you would have with bruschetta. We wished there were more honey because that tasted great with the cheese and toast. This would be a fun dish to duplicate at home.

Focaccia

Focaccia bread with cows milk cheese - This is slightly different than the focaccia bread we are used to: it is from the Ligurian region of Italy and bit thinner and crispier.  The cheese was stuffed inside the bread and served warm.  For an extra charge you can get it with honeycomb also. We didn't order it with honey because we were having the honey with the other dish.  But they brought us honey anyway without charging for it.  It really did taste great with it.  (But once again would have liked a little more with it - and it if is so great together why is there a separate charge; just include it all in one price). But overall this dish was really the best of all we ordered and we would order it again.

Focaccia

Cacio e pepe - Spaghetti with pecorino cheese and pepper.  A very simple dish but nicely prepared. Tasty but not remarkable.

Pizza D.O.C. - we don't know what DOC stands for but it was a margherita pizza - with fresh mozzarella and basil.  It was cooked in their wood burning oven. It had a super thin crust.

We did both order dessert also.

Cacio e pepe

Torta Bacio - Chocolate hazelnut mousse with a crunchy crust on the bottom.  It was nice and smooth with a great crunch from the cocoa nibs.

Carrot cake - also served in a mini mason jar with caramel mascarpone "icing" and candied carrots on top. Nick says it was one of the best carrot cakes he has ever had.  The cake was moist and had great spices in it and with the mascarpone, the dish was a bit elevated over other carrot cakes.

Pizza DOC

We somehow survived, even with all of the carb and cheese overload.  Neither of us had eaten much of a lunch so we finished everything off without any leftovers.

Final thoughts on Davanti Enoteca:

Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse

Food - great food.  The focaccia was definitely our favorite. We would return to this establishment for the food, but also because it is so close to us. We already picked out a few items we would like to have for the next time.  There were a lot of people ordering the ragu over polenta so that will be on the list next.
Service - good service.  However, there was a little mixup with the honeycomb.  When they brought out the vasi they didn't have the honeycomb at first and then had to get it.  Then with the focaccia they brought it without us ordering it (maybe due to the previous mixup?).  But for a restaurant that has only been open a month the service was fairly seamless.

Carrot Cake

Atmosphere - the restaurant is located in downtown Western Springs right by the train stop. The interior is very interesting and has different Italian and winery type decore.  There is a large bar area in front with long communal tables.  There were all sorts of people at the restaurant including a lot of parties with small children, including infants.  It wouldn't ordinarily be the sort of place for children but all of the children were well behaved and it was probably a nice outing for the whole family.