Sepia

We had heard about Sepia a while ago on Check Please, so it had been on our radar. We finally got to try them out during restaurant week. The interesting thing they did was that the restaurant only served the restaurant week offering and nothing else.

They were offering a 3 or 4 course meal, we chose the 3 course option. There were 2 options listed for each course so we decided to try one of everything.

Soy and sesame cured mackerel

Appetizer
- soy and sesame cured mackerel, kale, ginger, gojujang
- pumpkin and coconut tart, pickled pumpkin, fried shallot, walnut, pumpkin seed
These were some unique combinations that we would never have picked from a larger menu. But they tasted great.  The saltiness of the mackerel and the sweetness of the tart worked well together.

Pumpkin and coconut tart

Coalfish

Main
- Coalfish, sunchoke, brown butter, hazelnut
- braised pork collar, apple cider, rutabaga, brussels sprouts
These dishes were good and once again had some interesting combinations.  However, the appetizers stood out a little more because of their uniqueness.

Braised pork collar

Dessert
- lemon ricotta cake, blackberry, honey
- ancho chocolate mousse tart, whiskey caramel, candied bacon
The ancho highlighted the chocolate and the candied bacon was sweet and salty all at once. The lemon ricotta cake made us dream of a warmer summer day.

Lemon Ricotta Cake

Final thoughts on Sepia:
Food - fun and innovative combinations and a seasonal menu
Service - excellent, they had all of the kinks worked out because they were only offering the restaurant week menu.
Atmosphere - definitely a young and hip after work crowd since they are located in the West Loop.  We were there on a Thursday night and everyone else seemed to have come straight from work.  There were lots of young couples at all the tables around us.  We felt a little old overhearing some of the conversations.  As we were leaving there were some more mature parties arriving.

Chocolate mousse tart

Nana (for dinner)

A couple of years ago we went to Nana for breakfast and loved it (see our posting for that here).  So when we saw they were participating in Restaurant Week we wanted to try their dinner fare.

Avocado Fries

Starters
- avocado fries, cilantro, chipotle - lime aioli
- pulled pork tostones, cirispy plantains, cilantro-lime slaw, harissa honey
These were both great.  We would definitely order the avocado fries again. Good flavor combinations for both.

Tostones

Main
- ancho chile braised short ribs, bacon and brie mashed potatoes, leeks, sun-dried tomatoes
- chili rubbed pork tenderloin, squash puree, kale, apples, cider jus
Awesome flavors in both dishes. Unique combinations of ingredients. The short ribs had a bit of heat but that was balanced with the bacon and brie mashed potatoes. The pork was sweet with the squash and apples so getting to try both dishes together was enjoyable.

Short Ribs

Pork Tenderloin

Dessert
- Chocolate Sformato
There were other choices but this sounded the best so we both ordered it.  It was kind of a chocolate mousse and it was VERY rich.  The serving size was pretty large as well so we were more than satisfied when we were done.

Chocolate Sformato

Final thoughts on Nana:
Food - great local food. We enjoyed all of the courses, but especially the appetizers and the dessert.
Service - fast and friendly service.  All the dishes came out more quickly than we expected.
Atmosphere - they have a more casual vibe than the other restaurants we went to during Restaurant week.  It felt cozy.

The Pump Room

Our next Restaurant Week meal was at The Pump Room in the Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago. This restaurant was originally established in 1938 and has served lots of celebrities over the years.  Natalie has heard about it for a while and wanted to try it.

Appetizer
- salmon, crispy sushi rice and chipotle aioli
- roasted carrot and avocado salad, crunch seeds, sour cream and citrus vinaigrette
Both of the options were tasty but we just wish there was more of them.  The salmon (as you can see from the picture) was just two sushi size pieces. Both dishes were inventive and different than the typical sushi or salad.

almon with crispy rice

Roasted Carrot and Avocado Salad

Main

Salmon with Broccoli Rabe

- slowly cooked salmon with broccoli rabe, ginger-chili vinaigrette
- lamb chops, mushroom bolonese, broccoli rabe and chili oil
The main dishes were good; but we enjoyed the appetizers a lot better. Again the salmon was super small, especially since we wanted to split it so we both could try it.


Dessert
- sundae, salted caramel ice cream, candied peanuts and popcorn, whipped cream, chocolate sauce
Nice dessert with a lot things going on with it.  The combo of the ice cream flavor itself with the peanuts and popcorn was unique and now we have new items to add to ice cream sundae bars.

Lamb Chops

Ice Cream Sundae

Final thoughts on The Pump Room:
Food - the food was great and we had lots of unique dishes but the salmon dishes (both appetizer and main) were extremely small considering a restaurant week cost of $44 for the fixed course meal. When we ordered the server kept asking if we wanted to order more food - we understood why when we saw the size of the dishes. We left feeling really hungry. It was just a really low value for the food itself.

Service - we felt like we could have had things explained a little better.  Instead of the server prodding to see if we wanted to order more, she could have explained that the courses were small.

Atmosphere - the space itself is very interesting, lots of orb lights floating above.  The Pump Room is attached to to a hotel.  The hotel changed management a few years ago and the Pump Room changed a bit at that time. Overall it is a bit pretentious feeling though. Maybe for us it that whole feeling started with where this is located.  The neighborhood is mostly residential and therefore all of the street parking is by local permit only.  So really it is only valet parking only in the few blocks surrounding the restaurant.  If it had been summer we would have found another parking place a few blocks away that didn't have to be valet.  So this combined with the low food value ratio just caused us to be disappointed. We wanted to enjoy this experience but were left feeling bad about "wasting" a Restaurant Week dining experience here.

Nacional 27

Nacional 27 was the first new restaurant of Restaurant Week that we visited.

Tapas Course

Nacional 27 is part of the Lettuce entertain you enterprises.  Natalie has actually been there a few times but it had been about 14 or 15 years. 

They have Latin American fare and the restaurant itself has the look of a nightclub / fun scene from Miami

We ate from the restaurant week menu. The way it was written didn't elaborate too much about the food so we didn't know exactly what to expect but ended up with a lot of food that was all very tasty.

They brought us chips and salsa to start and we probably ate way too many.

Tapas course - there were 3 different tapas, chorizo empanadas, chimicurrri chicken tacos and Argentinian beef skewers.  Nick loved all of them and even remarked that he wanted to return and just try a bunch of the tapas and appetizers.

Latin Skirt Steak

Platter - This course was listed 2nd on the menu and we got to choose 2 items. We chose suckling pig and latin skirt steak (the other choices were chicken enchiladas, mahi mahi tacos and salmon with salsa verde), We were a little confused because instead of this being served after the tapas and before the entree it was served to the table right after the "entree" had been set down.  It is not like these were side dishes to the entree (they were independent dishes) so that was a little odd.  Both the steak and the suckling pig were nice but we would have liked them even more if they had been brought out earlier so we could have enjoyed them on their own.

Suckling Pig

Gaucho course - skewer of grilled shrimp and scallops (Brazilian type of skewer like at a Brazilian steak house).  The skewer came with rice and beans and a cactus dish.  It was very impressive looking as it was served to each table (the full skewer was presented at the table and food was removed onto a plate table side).

Final thoughts on Nacional 27:
Food - All of the food was very good.  Nick wants to return just to have more of the tapas/small plates.

Shrimp & Scallops

Service - the service was a bit weird.  We waited a while for our tapas plate, good thing we had the chips and salsa to tide us over a bit.  Then right after we were finished with the tapas another tapas plate was about to be dropped off at our table but we told them we had eaten that course already.
Then we waited a long time (long long time) and the skewer came out. We were really confused wondering if they had forgotten our second course but then they came out with those items right away. But it was weird that the pig and steak didn't come out sooner because so much time had elapsed.  We would have thought that due to restaurant week these dishes would have been a bit more streamlined (and quicker) in coming out to the tables.

Atmosphere - We had a reservation at 7 pm on a Saturday and were surprised that they were able to seat us immediately (since we got there a bit early).  Half of the tables didn't have anyone seated at them at that point.  But by the time we left (after 8) the place was hopping so people just get there a little later to have a crazy night out. Nacional 27 has a nightclub vibe and fun atmosphere.

Restaurant Week 2014 Preview

Chicago Restaurant week was 2 weeks this year, from January 24 to February 6.  A record 301 restaurants in Chicago and the suburbs participated.  The way it works is that these restaurants offer a 3 course meal and it is priced at $22 for lunch and $33 or $44 for dinner. The menus are posted online ahead of time so you can see what is being planned.

This year we went a little crazy and ended up going to 8 restaurants - we will write up 7 of them (one was an exact repeat from last year - the Capital Grille).  Since we went to so many places in a short period of time we might not go into elaborate descriptions of everything.

Overall there was a great level of food, service and value (with one exception). See our future posts for the restaurants we visited as part of 2014 Restaurant Week.

Bella Bacinos

Cauliflower Soup

We went to dinner at Bella Bacino's in La Grange.  A few years ago we went to its sister restaurant in Lincoln Park on a food tour and had a spinach deep dish pizza.  We were hoping to re-create that here and we wanted pizza because it was national pizza week.  But when we got there we realized they didn't have deep dish only thin crust cooked in brick ovens (so slightly different concept). We wish it were deep dish because there are a few other brick oven thin crust pizza places in the area already.



We ordered:
Cup of cauliflower soup - this was the soup special of the day.  It was creamy and tangy and reminiscent of a cream of potato soup (but different).

Duck Brown Butter Ravioli

Duck brown butter ravioli (also a special that evening) - Natalie is a sucker for duck entrees.  This dish was really good but the only critique is that there was a little too much butter in the sauce.  Otherwise the flavors of the duck, sun-dried tomatoes and basil were great together and the fresh pasta was scrumptious.

Pizza - Capricciosa - tomatoes, mushrooms, ham, artichoke, olives and mozzarella.  The pizza was a little burned looking on the edges (but that comes with the brick oven concept). We were expecting black olives but they were Mediterranean olives that had a strong flavor.  They kind of overpowered the rest of the pizza so we removed them and it tasted much better (more balanced) and ate the olives separately.

Capricciosa Pizza

Final thoughts on Bella Bacino's:
Food - go for the pasta not the pizza
Service - slow night because lots of snow outside so we were served promptly.
Atmosphere - good for families and wine aficionados.  Local vibe.

Graham Elliott Bistro

We went to dinner at Graham Elliot Bistro in the West Loop. This is not the first time we have tasted GE's food - two years ago we went to Grahamwiches, a Graham Elliot sandwich shop and we enjoyed it, but unfortunately it is now closed. We thought about going to the main Graham Elliot restaurant in River North but around the time we were thinking about it, the executive chef had recently changed and we didn't like the menu as much (and actually the main GE restaurant will be closing at the end of 2013).  So we needed to get to this restaurant before anything happened to it.

Grilled Flatbread

The menu is not that large but there were lots of items that tempted us. It is gourmet American fare and changes seasonally. We ordered lots of smaller dishes so we could try a lot.

Grilled flatbread with ricotta, onions and lardon (pork bits) - this was warm and crunchy and all of the flavors were balanced.

Shaved Asian pear salad with celeriac, puffed greens and shaved sheep's cheese.  This was light and crisp with a smooth finish because of the cheese.  It was a bit of a different salad because there wasn't any type of lettuce in it - but that actually made Natalie like it even more.

Shaved Asian Pear Salad

Chantarelle risotto with truffle, Parmesan reggiano and egg yolk.  Nick was concerned about this dish because of the egg yolk.  He is not a fan of runny egg yolks so we weren't going to order this.  But we were talking to the waiter about liking risotto in general but not the concept of the egg yolk in particular.  The waiter did a great job of explaining the dish and actually alleviated Nick's fears - in fact the dish is kind of like a carbonara pasta dish where the egg gets cooked as it is mixed into the risotto itself.  So by the time it was all mixed in it was rather tasty. The risotto ended up as Natalie's favorite dish of the night.

Chantarelle Risotto (before egg mixing)

Wild Boar Papardelle

Wild boar papardelle with tuscan kale, juniper and maitake mushrooms - this was Nick's favorite dish. He liked the hearty flavors of the boar and vegetables with the fresh pasta.

Cornmeal crusted skate with beluga lentils, leeks and caramelized cauliflower.  Cornmeal crusted must be the way to prepare seafood as we had some other seafood prepared this way a few weeks ago.  The fish was nice and moist and the sauce very tasty.  We appreciated the other savory dishes more than this, but the skate rounded out a good meal.

Skate

We saved room for dessert and sampled both the Smores and the Dreamsicle.  Both came out served in glasses so they had a different sort of presentation.  The smores dessert had a chocolate mousse, graham cracker crumble and burnt meringue layered in the glass. Although tasty this didn't fit Nick's expectations of a smore.  The Dreamsicle was a vanilla panna cotta with orange and lemon layers.  This lived up to its name and fit well within its presentation.

Final thoughts on Graham Elliot Bistro:

Smores (up front) and Dreamsicle (behind)

Food - nice overall meal; we loved some of the dishes.  It is a little pricey for what you get but you are dining at a "celebrity" chef's restaurant.

Dreamsicle

Service - excellent service.  The waiter talked us through the menu which was helpful as the menu isn't that descriptive.  The utensils and plates were changed after every course we had.
Atmosphere - the inside is a bit reminiscent of a church (as its is a described as a church to food). There are saint candles lining the walls but instead of real saints they have pictures of friends and fellow chefs.  (For example there is a candle to Joe Bastianich one of Graham Elliot's co-judges on Master Chef and it says St Joe Bastianich, Patron of Death Stares and has a picture of Joe sitting on a throne like a Sith Emperor from Star Wars.) Guess it is funnier seeing it in person. The interior is not that large, but it looks like there is an outdoor area for the warmer months. The bill came out attached to an old record - an interesting and novel way to display the check with a rock n roll vibe.