Sixteen

Pretzel bread

Right after Christmas we went to lunch at Sixteen in the Trump Hotel to celebrate Natalie's parent's 40th wedding anniversary. There were six of us and we were seated at a round table overlooking a magnificent view of Chicago (since the restaurant is on the sixteenth floor of the building).  We have been to the top of the Sears Tower and the John Hancock Tower but this offers a very unique view of the city.

View of the top of the Tribune Tower & the Wrigley Building

Pumpkin Soup

Burrata and Beet Salad

Pumpkin soup - with Parmesan, balsamic and pepita.  This cream based soup was super indulgent.  In addition to the pepitas (pumpkin seeds), there were very small chunks of pumpkin in the soup.



Burrata and Beet salad - with walnuts and arugula.  Nick was hoping for more beets than burrata.  But Natalie loves the Burrata (soft cheese).

Maine Lobster Roll and Waffle Fries

Maine Lobster Roll - with lemon mayo, romaine and New England bun.  The lobster roll had a crisp and clean taste, not fishy or slathered in mayo.  Each flavor had its time to shine.

Venison Ragout - with red cabbage and root vegetable.  This dish was tender and not gamey. The potatoes were served almost like spaetzle would be served at a German restaurant.  The dish was also served presented in a pot.


We shared a bouche de noel - cake roll with chocolate and cherries.  It was good but Nick was hoping for more sweet flavors.  The tart cherry flavor was more dominant.

Non-alcoholic cocktails

We also had non-alcoholic cocktails with our meals.
Mango Refresher - mango and ginger puree, lime juice and soda.  The drink was sweet and tasted like smoothie without that consistency.
The Lemon Basil Soul Cleanser was very aromatic (like a good kick to the senses).  The basil cut the tartness of the lemon.

Venison Ragout

Final thoughts on Sixteen:
Food - We enjoyed our food and even got to try a few tastes of other plates on the table.  It seems like the dinner menu is quite different with a fixed price meal.  We were happy with the choices but it certainly does have a limited menu. 
Service - really excellent, the waiter was super patient in taking pictures of all of us from all angles to get the amazing view. They did a great job of making the wedding anniversary special, including a special dessert.

Atmosphere - this is definitely one of the nicest setting for a restaurant.  It is located on the 16th floor of the Trump hotel so it has great views of city, especially close views of the clock on the Wrigley building and the top of the Tribune building with its flying buttresses.  It would be a great place for a romantic dinner as well and we went at lunch but if would be fun to see it at night with all of the buildings lit up. Also all of the Christmas decorations were still up in the hotel lobby and one of the elevators up to Sixteen was decorated as the Gingerbread Express which was a lot of fun.

Bouche de Noel



Train in the Gingerbread themed elevator

Cured salmon and beets

Salmon Tartar

Duck Confit

Fake fireplace in the elevator

Condiment platter that came with lunch



Las Tablas

We went to dinner at Las Tablas, a Columbian restaurant in Chicago.  It has been featured on both Check Please and Chicago's Best.

Empanadas

Empanada combination - 2 of each type of empanada, cheese, beef and chicken.  The beef empanada had potato in it as well.  The dough was crispy and warm and the fillings were tender with a splash of chimichurri sauce.  The empanadas were very pleasing to the palate.



Appetizer with plaintains, guava paste and cheese; really different combination but was fun.  With the firm plaintain and the sweet guava it almost could be a desert; add in a lot of melted cheese and how can you go wrong?

Plantain, guava and cheese

Entrana - skirt steak, with potato, plaintain and yucca.  The steak was nice and tender which is rare for a skirt steak.  The nice thing about skirt steak is that is it is thin and soaks up the flavor really well.  It was super tasty.

Entrana Skirt Steak

Final thoughts on Las Tablas:
Food - really good food; we don't often go to "Columbian" restaurants but the flavors were similar to those of other Latine cuisines.
Service - pretty good and quick service.  But we were there very early for dinner so there were only 3 tables of customers in the restaurant. So who knows what it would be like at a busier time.
Atmosphere -  the restaurant (we went to the Irving Park location) was a lot bigger than we thought.  We went right before Christmas and they had a large Nativity display set up against a wall as well as other decorations.

Emilio's Tapas

We went to dinner at Emilio's Tapas in Hillside.  We had been here to eat before, but not since we started this blog.  (It also has been recently featured on Chicago's Best.)  Nick's parents were in town and they recently went on a trip to Spain so we thought we would share in the tapas with them so they could reminisce about their trip.  We tried some new dishes and also had some of the same dishes we have formerly experienced (at Meson Sabika or Cafe Iberico).

Here's a list of the dishes we've had before; obviously we love them otherwise we wouldn't keep ordering them:

Garlic Potato Salad

Patatas con Alioli - garlic potato salad, Natalie's favorite

Pan con tomate, jamon y queso - bread with Serrano ham, Manchego cheese & tomatoes, drizzled with olive oil - lately we have really been into Serrano ham and Manchego cheese

Bread with Serrano ham, Manchego cheese and tomatoes

Sauteed Escargot on Toast points

Caracoles Emilio - sauteed escargot served on croutons.  Nick doesn't like escargot so he won 't eat these, but Natalie loves them (and Nick's dad really loved them)

Bacon wrapped dates

Datiles con Tocino - dates wrapped with bacon, served with a red pepper butter sauce, Nick's favorite

Queso de Cabra al Horno - goat cheese baked in tomato sauce; good because we love goat cheese

Baked Goat Cheese

New tapas we experienced this time:

Crab Claws

Special - crab claws, good but nothing spectacular. The claws themselves were a bit small and came served on a bed of salad.  The salad was good but we didn't order the dish for the salad.

Asparagus with shrimp




Special - asparagus with shrimp, some of us liked this, some didn't. But it was a nice contrast in flavors compared to the heavy starches of the other tapas.

Chicken stuffed with Chorizo and mushrooms

Special - chicken stuffed with chorizo and mushrooms.  We all really liked this dish.  But since it was a special it won't always be on the menu.

Stuffed Mushrooms

Champinones Rellenos - mushroom caps stuffed with spinach, onions, and mozzarella.  This sounded good from the description but it was just ok.  We wouldn't order it again.

Also before any of the other tapas came out they brough a complimentary Amuse Bouche - a toast point with spinach and cheese.  We each got a bite.  It tasted pretty good and was unexpected.

Amuse Bouche

We were pretty full after ordering all of these tapas so we certainly weren't planning on getting any dessert. But then something unusual happened to Nick.  At the table next to us the waiter or busboy was gather their dessert plates.  Apparently he slipped and one of the plates with ice cream on it went flying.  We saw that this happened behind Nick's back, but couldn't see anything else.  Then Nick stood up and turned around and he had a lot of ice cream on the back of his sweater. We did our best to clean up what we could and fortunately he had another shirt on underneath so he just took the sweater off and they washed it up. Then they apologized profusely and brought out 2 free desserts. Fortunately it wasn't an expensive sweater that could only be laundered in expensive ways.

It's a bit hard to see, but there is a mural on the wall of Emilio and
off to the right ist he actual Emilio near another table

So they brought out a Caramel Flan and a Tiramisu.  We didn't get pictures due to all of the hubbub  The flan was great.  We really don't love Tiramisu so we would have preferred something else.  Later we looked online at their dessert menu and Tiramisu isn't even one of the regular dessert items (isn't it Italian?) All in all we crammed in more food than originally planned.

Final thoughts on Emilio's Tapas:
Food - The key seems to be to definitely stick with our favorites and then maybe try a couple new items. It's hard not to order our favorites. It's really nice to try out lots of little things though.  This is definitely Natalie's preferred way of eating - she always enjoys appetizers more than entrees at most restaurants.
Service - Pretty good.  The whole ice cream incident was a bit bizarre.  But part of the reason that happened was because all of the tables are really close to each other.  Another few inches and this wouldn't have happened at all.

Interior with lots of items from Spain

Atmosphere - we were there on a Saturday night and it was very busy.  Good thing we made reservations.  We have been there before at other times and it isn't as busy. It was fun to go with other people.  But once you get over a certain size group you have to order more than one of every dish if everyone wants to try it.

Smashburger

We went to eat dinner at Smashburger - a new location for this franchise opened near where we live.

Mushroom and Swiss Burger

Mushroom and Swiss burger - The burger patties here were just right; thick but not too thick and filled the bun. It would be hard to go wrong with a mushroom and Swiss and they didn't.  The cheese was nice and melted into the patty and mushrooms gave it that juicy pop of flavor.
As a side with this burger we got Onion petals with sauce. Well when we hear petals, we think of something like a flower that you can grab onto and hold a dip of sauce. We were hoping for something like onion rings, but they need to rename these and call them Onion strings because that is what they were. They were fresh fried onions, kind of like what you get for a green bean casserole topping. These onion petals would make a great burger topping but at as side they didn't cut it. They were hard to pick up with your fingers and even harder with a fork because they were so small that once dipped in to the sauce they either broke or didn't hold the dipping sauce. SKIP this as a side. 

Spicy Baja Burger

Spicy Baja burger - yum! Nick had been gradually increasing his spice tolerance and this was definitely helping that tolerance.  It had a healthy topping of Jalapenos, pepper Jack cheese, spicy chipotle mayo and a chipotle bun.  Nick thought it was a great combo with the coolness of the avocado and the zing of the everything else. We go the signature Smash fries with this order - they were coated in olive oil, rosemary and sea salt. They were very good fries and we would recommend this side for sure. Nick liked these fries a lot more then the over-hyped Truffle fries that every one is pushing these days. The fries were long and slender and crisp. We got a generous portion and liked them much more then the fried onions.

Final thoughts on Smashburger:
Food - good burgers.  We chose burgers off the menu but you can customize your own burger with the toppings you like.  Stay away from the onion side.
Service - You order your food at the counter and the food is brought to you at your table.  All of the staff were almost too friendly. Maybe we got there at a shift change.  We were sitting in a direct path where all the servers came in and out of the kitchen so we were often asked by multiple servers if every thing was ok, which is nice but too much of a good thing can even be bad.
Atmosphere - the restaurant is clean, neat and new.  It will be interesting to see how they fare against home town faves such as Palmer Place and Back alley burger in La Grange. We do like that there is close parking; something that isn't always possible in La Grange.

Yuzu Sushi & Robata Grill

We saw Yuzu Sushi & Robata Grill on Check Please about 1 month ago. We were in the mood for sushi so we decided to give it a try - despite the recent feature (and popularity).

Robata Grill Items

Robata grill items (robata means "by the fireside" and refers to old style cooking of norther Japanese fisherman).  They are appetizer size and there is one skewer per order.

We picked 3 different robata items.  We ordered 1 of each of the vegetables and 2 chicken satays
Nasu (japanese eggplant) - served with teriyaki sauce
Eryngii (king oyseter mushroom) - served with peanut sauce
Chicken Satay - marinated chicken in light curry and basted with peanut sauce

Unagi roll (L) My favorite Midwest roll (R)

The chicken was pretty standard for satay but the eggplant and mushroom were really great - maybe because they were a bit different. We would definitely try those veggies again.

Sushi Rolls:
My favorite Midwest roll - there was no rice, ahi tuna, avocado, cream cheese, jalapeno, scallin, masago, spicy mayo, lighted battered tempura - served warm with pepper yuzu sauce - not a traditional sushi roll, more like a Japanese style jalapeno popper

South Beach Roll

South beach - white tuna, spicy tuna, mango, japanese pepper, sesame oil, masago, mayo, red and black tobiko, lime. Got this partially because it had mango in it, but really couldn't taste the mango; it was spicy - due to the spicy tuna and peppers. This (and the dragon roll) had beautiful sauce "art" accompanying it.  They put a few different flavors and colors of sauces on the sushi board and then use a small wood stick point to swirl the colors.

Dragon Roll

Dragon Roll

Dragon - shrimp tempura, unagi, avocado, cucumber, tempura crumbs, masago, spicy mayo, sweet soy sauce.  Yummy specialty roll with lots of good flavors.

Unagi - fresh water eel, cucumber, sweet soy sauce. This was the simplest of the rolls we got but probably Natalie's favorite because she loves eel and there weren't any competing flavors here so it was highlighted

We figured this restaurant might be a little busy, so we wanted to arrive on the earlier side.  We didn't make reservations because we didn't know exactly what time we would be there. We got there at 5:50 and there were only three tables full (so probably 10 tables open). But they didn't want to seat us at a table because they had a lot of later reservations.  So they had us sit at the sushi bar.  There were 6 chairs there and 2 people already sitting.  This wasn't a huge problem for us, but we had a sneaking suspicion that we would probably be done and gone before all of the open tables were filled.  And we were right; when we left there were still 3 tables that hadn't been filled.  They were so quick about bringing us our food that we were out of there at 6:35 - so we had only been there 45 minutes. (In fact, this would have been even quicker but we ordered 3 sushi rolls at first and then ordered the 4th because we still had a little room left). It was nice to sit at the bar because we got to see all of the sushi being made and that was fun, but the whole thing was just a bit awkward since we knew for sure we wouldn't still be there at 7 - when those last reservations were probably scheduled.  Don't know if this place has always been this busy or if is the Check Please effect. Maybe it was too soon to go there after it being featured on TV

Final thoughts on Yuzu Sushi:
Food - The sushi and chicken satay were good; the Robata veggies were great. Due to the reservation situation and the fact that the sushi rolls were pretty standard we probably won't be back since it is a medium sized hike for us.  The Midwest roll was different, but not really sushi.
Service - the service was very quick and efficient.  The Robata items and the first 3 sushi rolls we ordered came out very quickly.  The 4th sushi roll took a bit longer but at that point there were a few more customers at the restaurant.
Atmosphere - small place, very dark inside, playing really loud music (rap) which didn't always have appropriate lyrics, but I guess this didn't seem to be an issue for the family with 4 small children at the front of the restaurant.  They have a large to go business as well which we could see since we were sitting right int front of the area were everything was boxed up at the sushi bar.

Big Guy's Sausage Stand

We went to lunch at Big Guy's Sausage Stand in Berwyn.  This restaurant has been featured on Chicago's Best and on Three Days to Open on the Food Network with Bobby Flay. They offer traditional Chicago Style hot dogs, sausages and Italian beef.

Crawfish Sausage - crawfish andouille with burlesque sauce.  This was the most unique of the sausages.  It was tasty and different.

Crawfish sausage

Buffalo Chicken Sausage - spicy chicken with buffalo sauce, blue cheese dressing, carrots and celery matchsticks.  This was a spicy sandwich that was fun with the veggies on top.

Hot dog - with everything on it (no picture). A traditional hot dog.  Nothing super special.

All sandwiches come with fries.  You can also get any sandwich with a hot dog "kicker" so you only get the hot dog itself and not extra fries.

Final thoughts on Big Guy's:

Buffalo Chicken sausage

Food - the Crawfish and Buffalo chicken were really good but the hot dog was just ok.  The crawfish and chicken sausages were the most "different" things on the menu.  Most of the rest of the sandwiches were variations on hot dog or Italian Sausage.  But there are so many traditional hot dog places in the area; we're not sure their traditional items would bring us back.

Service - It took a long time for us to get our food.  Obviously the items are cooked to order, but it sure seemed like a long time considering there were only a couple of people in the place at the time.  We weren't there at a peak lunch time so it is hard to tell how they would be able to handle a more rushed pace.

Interior

Atmosphere - the Bobby Flay show 3 days to open made Big Guy's look a lot bigger than it is. There are really only three stools to eat at and a long counter - even our picture makes it look bigger than it is. In reality it is a large indoor hot dog stand. Much like the hundreds of others in the Chicagoland area. It looks like they have totally given up on the idea of a Drive up window which would have made it unique but their slower ordering and cooking process would make it nearly impossible to operate.