A progressive dinner

To try and fit in as many traditional Chicago food items into Nick's parent's visit as possible, we went to 2 restaurants for dinner on their last night in town.  Neither of these are considered gourmet, but are tasty none the less.

For our first stop, we went to Superdawg located at 6363 N Milwaukee Ave in Chicago.  It is located at the far northwest edge of Chicago, almost to the suburbs. It is throwback to a different era as it is a drive in where you can order your food from your parked care and it is delivered to you.  The only time we have experienced this kind of service is from A&W Rootbeer locations many years ago. We all ordered Superdawgs, which are Chicago Style hot dogs that come served in a box cushioned on a bed of french fries.  Make sure to call them Superdawgs instead of hot dogs when you order them or else they may get angry.  Also do not ask for ketchup on the dog itself.  Ketchup will come with your meal for the fries but not for a traditional Chicago style hot dog.

We had been to Superdawg a few years ago and don't remember being "super" impressed with it at the time. However this second visit was a much more positive experience.  The hot dog was much more plump and juicy.  Also we were able to get a parking spot to take advantage of the drive in nature of the restaurant.  The first time we went to Superdawg it was a summer evening and it was so crowded that we had to park across the street at a forest preserve and walk up.

Superdawg has been mentioned on numerous TV shows - from PBS, to the Food Network to the Travel Channel.  Now having a second experience, we would go back again.  However it is difficult to get there from where we live so maybe only when visitors are in town again.

Final thoughts on Superdawg:
Food - better than average Chicago style hot dog
Service - fun to experience a drive in setting
Atmosphere - super casual, cash only, don't be afraid to eat in your car, look for the hot dog characters on top of the building








As if hot dogs weren't enough for an evening, the second half of our meal was having Italian beef sandwiches at Buona Beef.  There are several locations of Buona Beef throughout Chicago and the suburbs so found one on the way home from Superdawg.  Although Buona Beef may not be as we recognized nationally as Al's or Portillo's, it has a good quality Italian Beef Sandwich. We ordered our sandwiches with sweet peppers and mozzarella cheese.  Nick's dad thought they were on par with Portillo's and less salty than Als'.  He still likes that Al's dips all of their beef sandwiches in a jus. Nick found that their meat was juicier than Portillo's, but he prefers Portillo's for some of the other things they offer on their menu (i.e chocolate cake shake).

Final thoughts on Buona Beef:
Food - good Italian Beef sandwiches, cannot speak much to the rest of the menu
Service - counter service where you order and they bring your food out to your table
Atmosphere - casual fast food

Erie Cafe



View of city from the restaurant

With Nick's parents still in town, we went to another restaurant that they heard about, Erie Cafe - an Italian Steakhouse located at 536 W Erie Street in Chicago .  We are not exactly sure how they heard about this restaurant, but we heard about it from an episode of Check Please.

We loved the location right by the Chicago river and we found free parking just steps away from the building.  We wished we could have gone there in the summer time to enjoy their outdoor dining overlooking the river.

It seems like a lot of regulars frequent this restaurant as the wait staff greeted and hugged many people as they came in. For a weekend evening we were seated quickly, but this may have been because we went there the day after Thanksgiving.

All entrees come with a salad and cottage fries.  Amongst the 4 of us we ordered 2 lasagnas, prime rib and veal Marsala for dinner. The prime rib was massive, about 26 ounces - enough for several meals.  We didn't taste it but Nick's parents said it was very tasty. The lasagna was good and filling but nothing out of the ordinary. In our opinion, the veal was the best presented and tastiest of the evening.  It was smothered in mushrooms which Nick enjoyed.

For dessert we ordered key lime pie and chocolate lava cake, both of which were very good  - so make sure to save room for dessert.  The lava cake was probably the second best lava cake Nick has ever had; second only to the chocolate lava souffle at Roy's.  It had warm gooey cake and a thick molten center which was very decadent. The key lime pie was better than average - there was a perfect balance of tartness of the lime and sweetness.

Final thoughts on Erie Cafe:
Food - better than average, good range of prices on the Italian dishes if you don't want to eat the more expensive steak dishes
Service - super attentive, the water glasses kept getting refilled when they were still more than half full
Atmosphere - great location, we tried to dress more business casual but we could have gotten away with a little more casual

Gino's East

Nick's parents were in town and wanted to try a true Chicago tradition. So we went to Gino's East for deep dish pizza. We've been to the original locations downtown, but in order to save some time we went to the location near O'Hare airport. The location was fairly quiet compared to downtown, but that might have been because we went there on the night before Thanksgiving.

We chose to have a family style salad and a deep dish supreme pizza with a sausage patty layer.  For the non-Chicagoans, the sausage patty is layer of sausage spread over the entire crust so that you get sausage in every bite, instead of crumbled sausage.

Final thoughts on Gino's East:
Food - tasty, always want more and very filling
Service - attentive service as it was a slow night at the restaurant; they kept the drinks full and kept us informed on how long the deep dish pizza would take to make (about 40 minutes)

Atmosphere - casual, although sad we couldn't draw on the walls like in downtown Chicago

Publican

Inside Publican - communal dining tables

We went with some friends to a restaurant called Publican.  It is located at 837 W Fulton Market in Chicago's West Loop. We've heard about this restaurant from many sources - word of mouth from friends, from Check Please, the Food Network show The Best Thing I Ever Ate, and from the Travel Channel Show No Reservations.

Pork rinds

Pickle plate

We didn't realize this before going, but the waiter mentioned that they liked to serve the items family style so that everyone could try all the dishes.  We tried to do this on most of the dishes but not all.  There are no defined appetizers or entrees, but the menu does have smaller size items and larger size items. As some of the smaller dishes we had pork rinds (mentioned on the Best Thing I Ever Ate program), a pickle plate, albacore tuna fritters, Serrano ham, and raclette.  The pork rinds were the best pork rinds we have ever eaten - they were served warm and nicely seasoned with a spicy vinegar.  We didn't get to taste too much of the pickle plate or raclette, but our dinner companions thoroughly enjoyed them.  The tuna fritters themselves were average, but they came with a remoulade sauce which elevated the dish. The Serrano ham was sourced from Salamanca Spain and was the best item we ate that night. Like prosciutto, Serrano ham is served raw in thin slices. We only ordered a half order of the ham and it was a generous portion, enough for 4 of us to share.

Serrano ham

Raclette

Tuna fritters

For larger dishes we ordered 2 orders of suckling pig, country ribs and potee. The suckling pig came with collard greens and persimmons. The pig itself was rather salty, but the greens and the persimmons rounded out the dish and cut the salt.  We all agreed that there could have been more persimmons. The country ribs were served with broccoli and chestnuts.  The term ribs is a bit misleading because it seemed more like a pork chop. Whatever the term, it was rubbed with a chili spice and grilled.  It tasted good - but by that point we had eaten an awful lot of pork products (which this restaurant is known for).  We did not get to try the potee - which included pork tenderloin, sausage and pork confit.  However, our guests gave it rave reviews!

Potee - tenderloin, sausage & confit

Suckling pig with collard greens & persimmons

Country ribs with broccoli & chestnuts

Final thoughts on Publican:
Food - excellent, there are some more ambitious pork dishes and there is also an extensive oyster menu that we did not try
Service - the wait staff was very attentive in refilling water and bringing out fresh plates for the family style service. The waiter was knowledgeable and willing to give recommendations but did not seem overly friendly, almost confusing at times.
Atmosphere - in keeping with the Renaissance definition of a publican as a tavernkeeper, this restaurant has a very loud and pub type casual feel to it.  Most of the tables are set up as communal dining - meaning the person sitting next to you may not be part of your dinner party.  We were fortunate to sit at one of the few booths to have a little more private experience. However the booths are little odd as well because there are doors you have to open to step into them.

Booths with "doors"

Hugo's Frog Bar

Natalie's aunt and uncle had a layover at O'Hare airport.  So we had lunch with them and Natalie's parents at Hugo's Frog Bar since it is one of Natalie's mom's favorite places to eat. It is located inside the River's Casino at 3000 S River Road in Des Plaines.

We ordered the big bowl of Lobster Bisque so we could share. It tasted good but wasn't the best lobster bisque soup ever - it didn't have any chunks of lobster in it and wasn't as creamy as it should be.  Also the size seemed like an average size soup bowl and not a "big bowl".

Nick had a steak sandwich.  The steak was excellent but because of the way it was sliced (very thick) it was difficult to eat as a sandwich.  If it had just been the steak maybe it would have been better because of the thickness of the steak and the bread. FYI - Hugo's is affiliated with Gibson's Steak houses, so they are known for their steaks. There are entree steaks that we could have ordered but because it was lunchtime we stuck with smaller portion items.  Natalie ate the King Crab roll sandwich. The bread was a folded piece of french bread which was very good.  The crab filling could have been a little more flavorful - it was a little bland.

The others ordered various soups and salads as a first course.  The wedge salad seemed like a good hearty portion.  For the second course 3 others ate sandwiches and 1 ate an entree salad. The entree salad was enormous and the slider sandwiches got rave reviews.

Final thoughts:
Food - good overall, but don't necessarily need to go back. Steak was excellent.
Service - excellent, constantly refilling water so it was never more than halfway empty
Atmosphere - nice piano music in the background to try to drown out the noises of the casino.  FYI - you may get carded going in because you have to slightly step through the casino to get to the restaurant. If you don't appreciate a casino atmosphere there are 2 other locations - in Chicago and Naperville.

Sorry we didn't take pictures. We'll get better at this.

Re-creation of Bucktown/Wicker Park Food Tour

We ent on a Near North Food tour with Natalie's parents a few months ago. Natalie's parents tried the Bucktown/Wicker Park food tour back in September and recommended it. Since we were available on a Monday to do this re-creation (and the tour doesn't run on Mondays because one restaurants is closed on Mondays), we decided to re-create the tour ourselves. This way we could save some money and order the food we specifically wanted from the restaurants. The restaurants are all fairly close to the intersection of North Ave, Milwaukee Ave and Damen Ave in Chicago.

George's Hot Dogs

We of course had a Chicago Style hot dog.   It didn't quite have all of the traditional components (i.e. no sport peppers) and actually the french fries were the best part of the experience.  We still prefer Hot Doug's for a Chicago Style Hot Dog or for a totally difference experience with encased meats go to Franks 'n Dawgs.

Hot Chocolate

We didn't actually have the food there on this re-creation day because we have been there 3 times in the past (and because they are not open on Mondays). We highly recommend this restaurant. The dinner food is good but the desserts and hot chocolate are great. This isn't your average hot chocolate - it is super decadent and rich.  So make sure to save room for the desserts/hot chocolate even if you only order an appetizer as a savory dish.  Reservations are recommended as it is a small space.

Goddess & Grocer

We ordered 2 sandwiches - the Portofino Panini and the Caesar the Day wrap (southwest Caesar). The sandwiches were excellent.  They were outstanding because the ingredients were really fresh.  If we hadn't already planned on going to other restaurants that day we would have spent more time and money trying other things on the menu.  In addition to prepared foods to eat immediately (sandwiches, salads, pastries), it is also a high end grocery store.

One of the down sides is that there is not a lot of seating room - there is only one long table that seats 10 people inside.  However, it looks like most people take out their food so this may not always be an issue.  It looks like a busy lunch spot and the locals love to frequent it.  If we lived closer, we would probably visit all the time.  Keep in mind that it takes a little while to get your food, so don't go if you are in a rush.

Piece

Piece is a brewery and pizzeria. The pizza is unique for this area because it is not deep dish or thin crust.  It is considered New Haven style pizza.  We ordered a small pizza with Italian sausage and green peppers.   It tasted good but upon removing slices of pizza many of the toppings seemed to slide off the crust.

The atmosphere was probably the most interesting thing about this place - it is a large space with exposed beams and skylights.  It looks like it would be fun place to hang out for a sporting event with plenty of TV's all around.

Sultan's Market

We didn't actually eat there this time because we had already sampled their falafel sandwich from parent's tour back in September.  It seemed to be standard Middle Eastern fare. We have had enough middle eastern cuisine from living near Dearborn, Michigan that it isn't as unique to us anymore.

iCream

iCream has introduced a super innovative way to make custom ice cream.  We ordered our own unique flavor combinations of cinnamon/white chocolate ice cream with Nutella mixed in and coconut/raspberry ice cream with bananas mixed in.  We arrived right as iCream opened so we didn't have to wait long to get our ice cream. But because the process is fairly labor intensive it looks like on a busy day you would have to wait a while. But we think it is definitely worth the wait. The fun part of the experience is how they instantly create ice cream from jimmy-rigged kitchen aid stand mixers and liquid nitrogen. It is a tasty science experiment.

We enjoyed tasting our unique ice cream.  In fact Nick's choice of cinnamon and white chocolate with Nutella epitomizes Nick's favorite flavors.

Bob Chinn's Crab House

Since we were up in the northern suburbs already we stopped by for lunch at Bob Chinn's Crab House.
Natalie had been to this restaurant over 10 years ago, so it was time to go again.  It is known as being one of the largest volume sales restaurants in the United States.  In fact in their lobby they display a 2006 list where they are the #4 restaurant in sales volume. (The funny thing is that we realized we had been to the #1 sales volume restaurant on that list - Zehnder's in Frankenmuth, Michigan).

Bob Chinn's is located at 393 S Milwaukee Ave in Wheeling, IL. We went for lunch because we knew that at dinner it can get pretty busy.  In fact walking in towards our table you are able to see how they corral the huge crowds.  There is a waiting line area that has a label for parties that are 4 or more people and another line for parties of 5 or more.  There are arrows on the floor directing you to different sections of the restaurant.  There is also a separate entrance and exit door area.

Nick ordered a lobster pot pie.  It was good and had some large chucks of lobster meat. Great?  No. Tasty? Yes.  Natalie ordered a crab cake with pasta Alfredo - the crab cake was good but the pasta was just average. As starters the restaurant brought out super messy garlic butter rolls; you could smell the garlic before they even got to the table.  Certainly one way to ward off vampires.  Also before our meal  they brought out some house coleslaw.  It was sweet and creamy, without the super "vinegary" taste that most coleslaw has.  On second thought, maybe we should have ordered crab legs seeing that they are in season and looked great, but they sure do seem like a lot of work.

Final thoughts on Bob Chinn's Crab House:

Food - good, but we probably should have coughed up some more money and ordered their specialties

Service - attentive and well versed in their crab offerings

Atmosphere - fun and playful, not super refined

North Pond

To celebrate our wedding anniversary we decided to go to North Pond in Lincoln Park.  It was definitely a step up from the normal fare we are used to at restaurants, but we wanted to go all out.  We had heard about North Pond because for the past few years it has been nominated for a James Beard Award.  North Pond is located at 2610 N Cannon Drive in Chicago, just north of the Lincoln Park Zoo.  It is in a wonderful setting - all by itself right by a beautiful pond.  It is set away from the taller buildings of Lincoln Park. Throughout dinner we also had a view of the pond and the downtown Chicago skyline.

The service was amazing.  In making the reservation I mentioned that we would be celebrating our anniversary.  When the restaurant called a couple of days in advance to confirm the reservation they asked for our names.  They used our names to create a personalized menu for the night that said "Happy Anniversary Natalie & Nick".  At the end of the meal they gave us the menus to take home.

Here are all the courses we had:

amuse bouche - spoonful of miso soup, nice way to start the meal

course 1, celeriac chevre soup / pan roasted scallop with quince. The soup was well presented - it came out with a strip of toasted flat beards with garnishes of meat and cheese.  It was creamy and smooth with a complex flavor. Scallops are one of Natalie's favorites and this did not disappoint. It was paired with quince, a fruit from Southwest Asia which is related to apples and pears.

Scallop & Quince

Celeriac Soup

course 2, lettuce and crab salad /  beet and pear salad.  The lettuce and crab salad came with avocado, yogurt panna cotta and lime vinaigrette which tied the whole dish together.  The beet salad was a mixture of red and gold beets and was paired with blue cheese, a poached pair, walnuts and a sable cookie.  How bazaar - who knew that a cookie would go well with a salad, but it was amazing!


SORRY NO PICTURES THEY LOOK TOO GOOD SO WE ATE THEM QUICKLY

Snapper

course 3, snapper with pumpkin seed mole /  pork with apple pudding and puree. The only critique we would have for the whole evening would be to have more pumpkin seed mole with the fish.  The snapper was cooked to perfection and the flavors were not overwhelming.  It came with squash and kale which cleansed the palate. The pork was also amazing! Both pork tenderloin and pork belly came with apple pudding, brussel sprouts and a butterscotch apple puree.  What great flavor combinations.  You could taste the essence of fall in the dish. The pork dish was probably our favorite of the night.

Pork entree

course 4, chocolate-hazelnut cake with huckleberry sorbet / white chocolate semifreddo with cranberry sorbet.  Nick being the chocolate fiend he is had to order the chocolate cake. It was rich but the huckleberry sorbet balanced it so that it wasn't too sweet. The white chocolate cranberry dish was an interesting combination of semifreddo, cranberries and cranberry sorbet, walnuts meringue and Parmesan.   Natalie was hesitant to order it because it had Parmesan in a dessert, but went with the unusual pairing as the rest of the pairings had been wonderful. It may not have been the best tasting dessert ever but it was a different combination of flavors that we enjoyed.

Semifreddo (on the right of plate)

Chocolate-Hazelnut cake

course 5 was an additional special occasion touch to the evening.  A few petit fours and ginger gummy candy were arranged on personalized plate drizzled in chocolate.  It was a perfect ending to our special night.

Final thoughts on North Pond:
Food - some of the best food in the Midwest.  We forgot to mention specifically, but as you can see from the pictures, all of the dishes are artistically presented which adds to the ambiance.
Service - great service, lots of special touches and attentive to the details
Atmostphere - romantic location, architecture of the building is in a Frank Lloyd Wright style so it is warm and natural woods, business casual attire (no shorts or jeans)

Wildberry

Because the only day we can go out to breakfast together is Saturday we don't often really do it. But we decided to go out for breakfast before a day at the Chicago Botanic Garden.  We went to a place called Wildberry.  We went to the location in Schaumburg at 1383 N Meacham Road.  We found out about this restaurant from a breakfast themed episode of Chicago's Best.

Natalie ordered the tiramisu pancakes - pancakes cinnamon, cocoa, whipped cream and a tiramisu cheese spread in between the pancakes.  Natalie doesn't often like to order pancakes at restaurants because they usually fall short of the taste of the pancakes she can make from scratch at home.  But because there were some extras thrown in with the pancakes she was willing to try it. The pancakes alone were okay but the cheese spread made everthing taste much better. What would have made them a little better was having more of the cheese mixture along with spreading it evenly in between the layers of the pancakes - that way every bite could have some of that flavor.

Nick ordered the Wildberry French Toast - partly because how can you pass up a restaurant's namesake item. It was a large portion so it was very filling. The french toast was supersweet and tasty, but there could have been more mascarpone cheese.  No syrup was needed because of it was so sweet.

Nick also ordered a cup of hot apple cider.  It was good, but he prefers non-pasteurized cider with mulling spices.

Sorry no pictures of the food - we forgot!

Final thoughts on Wildberry:
Food - average breakfast place
Service - slow; we felt like waited a while to get everything
Atmosphere -  good atmosphere, clean, nicer looking than most breakfast spots

Hachi's Kitchen

We had not had sushi in a while so we decided to try Hachi's Kitchen. It is located in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago. The address is 2521 N California Ave, Chicago. We found out about this restaurant from an episode of Check Please. We specifically picked this sushi restaurant because we had recently seen a movie called Hachi (a great movie about a super loyal dog and it is a tearjerker). For appetizers we had baked scallops and tempura tofu.

It was surprising that the scallops came served in a scallop shell. We liked the taste but it kind of looked like a pile of mush. The tofu was crispy on the outside and creamy inside. It came with a great miso sauce.

Although there were other entrees on the menus we chose to only order sushi rolls. We had the bagel maki (roll), unagi maki, a spicy white tuna crunch roll and a volcano roll.

Bagel maki & tuna crunch roll



Unagi Roll

The first 2 rolls were more basic. They tasted good but they were more standard sushi. We enjoyed the other 2 rolls better. The tuna crunch roll was the best one for Natalie because the tempura batter on the tuna gave it a good crunch plus it had the flavors of avocado and scallion. Nick liked the volcano roll the best. It was whimsically served stacked in the shape of a volcano. The entire roll had been tempura battered for more crunchiness and was a little spicier due to wasabi being in the roll itself.

Volcano Roll

Final thoughts on Hachi's kitchen:

Food - interesting but probably not necessary for us to drive that far for sushi. In fact a few months ago we tried a place near us called Ra which had great happy hour sushi deals.

Service - we went on a weekday night so it was pretty quiet in the restaurant and we got great service. It was a little disappointing to see the restaurant so empty but hopefully that is just a weeknight thing. Since there were so few people it was very relaxed and we did not feel rushed.

Atmosphere - very modern and clean looking, well lit, casual attire