Antique Taco

We saw Antique Taco recently mentioned on Check Please.  It looked fun and interesting and we wanted to try it.  We heard it can get crowded at night so we were able to get there for a super early dinner to avoid the crowds.

Pork Carnitas Tacos

Pork Carnitas Tacos with adobo rub and tamarind glaze, bacon, spinach, onion, avocado and queso fresco
Nice sauce and glaze on the pork.  Very good but a typical taco offering at these modern Mexican restaurants.

Garlic Shrimp Tacos with purple potato, black bean and edamame

Shrimp Tacos

We wish there could have been a few more shrimp in the tacos.  Halfway through eating the taco, Natalie had to check to make sure it was the shrimp taco because the 2 shrimp were located on the other half of the taco.  It had a surprisingly spicy flavor and was hearty with all of the vegetables.

Chili Cheese curds with chorizo chili, crema fresca and scallions
These were great.  Out of all of the dishes this was the most unique and fun.  If we were in the area we would definite go back for this dish for a good snack.  It elevated the concept of cheese curds  (kind of like the cheese curd version of poutine).

Chili Cheese Curds

Horchata milkshake - interesting concept but not quite thick like a milkshake would be .  It was runnier than we thought (therefore easier to drink and we drank it faster than a normal milkshake - so it didn't last very long).

Horchata Milkshake

Poptart - ice cream and chocolate and marshmallow, kind of like a dessert empanada/s'more.  Oeey gooey goodness but a little difficult to eat. (also did not last very long).

Final thoughts on Antique Taco:
Food - good and tasty not sure we would go out of way to go there again.  Like most places we eat at that are further away, we wish they were closer so we could go more often.
Service - you order your food at a counter and then it is brought out to your table.  They were observant and made sure to wait until we finished the tacos and cheese curds before bringing out the poptart which had ice cream in it.

Poptart

Atmosphere - lots of reclaimed wood and vintage signage throughout. Surprisingly they had real cloth napkins despite being a more casual and fast food type of place. There weren't that many people there at the time we were but they were all younger and probably from the neighborhood.

Athenian Room

We heard about the Athenian Room a few weeks ago on Check Please and wanted to try it out, especially after we heard that it was Tina Fey's favorite when she lived in Chicago. It is located in Lincoln Park just off of Halsted.

Spanakopita - nice and fresh, Nick loves these.  Despite the fact that we had some at home he said it is not the same and he had to have fresh spinach pie.

Spanakopita

Feta Cheese - we ordered a side of feta cheese to go with the gyros dinner later

Gyros dinner - a huge amount of gyro meat and fries.  We wish there were a couple more pitas that came with it (it only comes with one). Fairly typical of a gyros platter but a super generous portion of meat.

Kalamata Chicken

Kalamata chicken, with fries and a salad

Feta Cheese

- This was why we came here.  The chicken was cooked and drenched in a buttery vinegar sauce which is unlike sauces we have had before.  The fries stay surprisingly firm with all of the sauce drenched over them. Nick thought it was an awesome dish and Natalie liked it despite that fact that she doesn't usually like chicken too much.

Greek Salad

Final thoughts on Athenian Room:
Food - large portions of food for a great price. We were stuffed when we left. The chicken was amazing - go for that and other casual Greek fare.

Gyro

Service - there weren't that many people in the restaurant when we got there.  The service was okay, nothing spectacular but it is are more casual establishment.
Atmosphere - casual, smaller interior than we imagined, it is a little tricky to get parking since all of the side/residential streets are by permit only but the restaurant does offer valet service if you can't find anything else.

Restaurant Week 2014 Wrap Up

We went to 8 restaurants in a 2 week time frame and had lots of good meals.

None of them necessarily stand out as the best because all of the food was great.  Also the food at 4 of them were pretty similar (Modern American) so it is hard to call any of those the best. The Pump Room, Sepia, Naha and Vie all kind of have a similar type of Modern American cuisine. The other 4 stand out a little more - Capital Grille is a steakhouse, Nacional 27 is Latin American, Nana is organic farm to table and more casual than the Modern American restaurants, and Tortoise Club is a supper club with elements of classic American dishes.

But the one that does stand out as a place we will not return to is the Pump Room. Yes the food was good but they really didn't embrace the Restaurant week concept of a value priced 3 or 4 course meal.  The portions were so small that we really did leave feeling a bit hungry.  The funny thing is that this could have been partially solved by just bringing out a bread basket.  Most of the other restaurants brought bread out before the appetizers so by the end of the meal we felt full (at the super generous places) or at least satisfied.

This restaurant week concept is supposed to hook you into liking a place so that you would return.  The other 7 restaurants were good enough that we would do that. Albeit we don't often repeat restaurants so it might be a long time before we return. There are just a lot of restaurants around here and we keep learning about more that sound fun to try.

Tortoise Club

A few weeks before restaurant week started, we saw Tortoise Club featured on Check Please. It is a newer restaurant that only opened in 2012 in River North. They serve American food but it kind of has a kind of old school steakhouse/supper club feel to it. We were glad it was a little different than the 4 modern American restaurants we had just eaten at.

Steak Tartare with pretzel toast

Appetizers
- Steak Tartare, with tabasco, worcestershire, quail egg and pretzel toast
Nice taste; a little scary to Nick with the coddled egg.  But if you tried not to think about the dish too much (raw meat and raw eggs and all) and just ate it all on top of the toast it was really good.
- Butternut Squash Risotto.  The risotto was creamy and cheesy and not scary like the tartare was.

Butternut Squash risotto

Wild Pheasant Pie with Foie Gras Sauce

Main Entree
- Wild Pheasant Pie, with root vegetables and Foie Gras Sauce
Natalie loved this dish and would enjoy eating it again - but she wants the whole thing for herself next time.
- Veal Tenderloin Medallions, with wild rice and mushroom jus
The veal wasn't that tender, we really should have just had 2 of the pheasant pies and it would have been awesome.  But we didn't know we would love the pheasant pie that much when we ordered everything.

Veal Tenderloin Medallions

Dessert
- Turtle Sundae, with chocolate brick sauce, caramel sauce, pralines and whipped cream
- Warm Chocolate Brownie with valrhona chocolate, Madagascar vanilla ice gream
Super rich brownie. The desserts weren't overly complicated or fancy but they were nice finishes to the meal.

In addition to the 3 course restaurant week menu we also ordered popovers with honey butter.  They were nice additions to the meal.

Popovers

Turtle Sundae

Final thoughts on The Tortoise Club:
Food - this was a good deal for the restaurant week - considering the cost of the entrees and appetizers on their own (it didn't look like they had skimped on the portions for the people who ordered restaurant week). We enjoyed everything except the veal medallions. This was our last restaurant week 2014 dinner so we had eaten at a lot of other places just before this but we enjoyed this meal just as much as everywhere else.

Service - we were planing on sharing all of the items anyway but they servers did mess up in giving the wrong dishes to the person who ordered them.

Atmosphere - supper club feel, new restaurant that opened in 2012. Dark wood finishes and artwork featuring caricatures of notable but not overly famous former Chicago residents. It has the feel over a much older establishment.  There were several business dinner groups there as well as couples.

Chocolate Brownie

Naha

Over the past couple of years we have passed by Naha many times while walking in River North to eat at other restaurants.  When we saw that they were participating in restaurant week we wanted to try them out. Most of the time when we walked by there never seemed to be very busy, despite a good reputation. But we probably were just walking by way too early in the evening before they get going.

Naha offered a 3 course meal for restaurant week:

Tarte tatin of apples and pork belly

1st course
- woodland mushroom soup, sweet garlic custard, chickpea croutons
- tarte tatin of winter harvested apples and pork belly, quince marmalade and shaved fennel
The soup was a little bland but the tarte tatin was an interesting choice as an appetizer - combining both the sweetness of a dessert with salad elements and pork belly.

Woodland mushroom soup

2nd course
- slow roasted veal breat roulade, oyster mushrooms, parsnip puree, maple crusted bacon shards and rich natural jus

Slow Roasted Veal roulade

- braised berkshire pork shank off the bone and organic carnoli risotto with squash, caramelized onions and wilted kale
The risotto with the pork shank was excellent with a wonderful creamy texture. The veal wasn't tender as we hoped it would be - it was a bit dry.



3rd course

Pork shank and risotto

- dark chocolate cheesecake cremeaux, caramel and candied honeybell orange
- almond financier, preserved local blueberries, lemon and vanilla
A financier is a small French cake, similar to a sponge cake.  We had to look this term up before we ordered it because it sounds like a banking (not baking) term. These were both excellent desserts so it was strange to us that Naha also offered a different dessert as an option that had a $10 up-charge from the restaurant week fixed course price.  The table next to us ordered it and we didn't understand why it cost so much.

Final thoughts on Naha:
Food - good modern American fare, for restaurant week it was a good deal but it looked like their regular menu could be a bit pricey. Of the restaurant week places we ate at this was one of 4 restaurants (and the last of the 4 that we ate at) that offered fairly similar fare so by the time we ate here the combinations didn't seem so unique.
Service - there was a long time between courses which we didn't understand.
Atmosphere - the restaurant was more full than we have ever seen it (maybe because we only walk by on weeknights). There was broad clientele with modern decor.

Cheesecake cremeaux

Almond financier

Vie

Roasted chicken sausage

A few years ago we went to Vie in Western Springs for restaurant week and had not been back since so we wanted to try it again.  For restaurant week they offered a 4 course menu with 2 choices per course so we were able to try everything.  They also had a small a la carte menu as a supplement.

1st course
- roasted chicken sausage, sweet corn pudding, chow chow, chicken jus
- mushroom and sunchocke tart, milk jam, pecan vinaigrette, shaved kohlrabi

Mushroom and sunchoke tart

2nd course
- shaved carrot salad, pickled cherry bomb pepper and cara car orange vinaigrette, yogurt, radish, toasted sunflower seeds
- creamy tomato soup, smoked tomatillo puree, cheddar crouton

3rd course
- pan-seared rushing waters trout, roasted fingerling potatoes, slow-cooked kale, house-made salami vinaigrette

Shaved carrot salad

- wood-grilled pork loin, creamy polenta, grilled fennel, arugula, shaved parmesan, pickled ramp pork jus

Wood-grilled pork loin

4th course
- meyer lemon panna cotta, blueberry jam, chomomile
- valrhona chocolate turtle, three sisters pecan butter, salted caramel

Pan seared trout

It's hard to critique each item individually.  Everything was really good on its own but being able to try it all was amazing.  Each of us had our favorites but it was nice to enjoy it all. For us the great thing about Vie is that it is so close to where we live.  To be able to get this caliber of restaurant without driving into the city is wonderful. Since we are so close we probably need to try their other offerings outside of the restaurant week fare.

Final thoughts on Vie:
Food - seasonal award winning menu (James Beard winner)
Service - stellar
Atmosphere - more established with a spa like setting.  It seems very peaceful inside and intimate.

Lemon panna cotta

Chocolate turtle