Bop n Grill

Philly Cheese Steak Egg Rolls

We went to dinner at Bop n Grill in Roger's Park.  We have seen it featured on Diners, Drive ins and Dives and Chicago's Best and despite being located on the furthest north part of Chicago (therefore furthest from where we live) we wanted to try it.

What we ordered:

Philly cheese steak egg rolls - this is an appetizer that is only available Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. They limit the amount one can order to 2 egg rolls and once they are gone they don't make any more for the day.  They were cooked to order - served hot and fresh. It is a fun twist on both a cheese steak and egg rolls.  Nick wished there were more cheese.  Maybe it was bit overhyped - it was tasty but we wouldn't need to go there on a weekend specifically for this dish. This is one of the dishes featured on Diners, Drive ins and Dives.



Kimchi fries

Kimchi fries - also featured on DDD. These fries were pretty great. The fries were topped with caramelized kimchi, scallions, bacon, cheese sauce and sesame seeds. We were worried the kimchi might be a bit much for us but it was milder than we thought and gave the whole dish a nice heat. But if you need more heat, they had sriracha sauce on hand. We ate the fries with a fork to get all of the toppings in one bite. These fries were also featured on Chicago's Best.

Umami Burger

Umami burger - also featured on DDD. This is their number one selling burger. Topped with truffled mushroom, sun dried tomato, bacon, smoked gouda and togarashi mayo. Umami is known as the 5th basic taste after sweet, salty, bitter and sour. This was the quntessential umami taste - juicy burger with both salty and sweet components.  Mushrooms are high in the umami taste which is why they were on this burger. It wasn't an overly large burger; we split it in half and each wanted more.

Chicken Katsu- panko crusted chicken served as a dinner platter with rice, kimchi, a side salad and katsu sauce.  This was featured on Chicago's best.  Of the 4 things we ordered this was the least impressive.  It was a nice tasty fried chicken dish but not something we would order again. Not much to say about this compared to the Umami burger and the kimchi fries.

Final thoughts on Bop n grill:

Chicken Katsu

Food - a different way to fuse Korean and American styles.  We really haven't eaten too much kimchi in our lives but this made it more accessible.

Service - there is counter service where you order your meal at a counter and then wait for your number to be called.  It took about 15 minutes for us to get our food which seemed to be the normal wait time because they cook everything to order. We happened to get to the restaurant right at a moment when it was raining pretty hard outside.  This worked to our benefit because it kept some other customers away for a bit longer.  We didn't have to wait to order at all.  But while we were eating (and the rain stopped) many locals walked in.

Atmosphere - Bop n Grill is located right in the middle of the Loyola campus in Rogers Park. So there are a lot of college age customers.  We felt that except for one other party we were the oldest customers there. After the rain stopped we got a sense of the more normal busier atmosphere for dinner. We loved the food but this is literally one of the furthest restaurants from our house so it would be hard to return.