Volare

We went to dinner at Volare in Oakbrook Terrace after seeing the Chicago location featured on Chicago's Best.

Rolled Eggplant

Rolled Eggplant - this is the dish that was featured on Chicago's Best, thinly sliced eggplant and stuffed with ricotta.  We both really enjoy eggplant so it was nice to have it served in a different way (not just as eggplant parmesan). This would be a fun dish to try at home as well.

Warm Kale Salad

Warm Kale Salad - the name is a little weird but this was a great salad with lots of stuff in it - garbanzo beans, prosciutto, pancetta, brussel sprout leaves, red onions, white beans, shaved parmesan; this is normally an entree sized salad but they were able to make a half size order so we wouldn't get too full on it. For not being kale lovers it was smoky and crisp but still salad-esqe.

Black Pasta with Seafood

The pasta dishes were huge and we probably were only able to eat about 1/3 of the dishes at the restaurant and then took the rest as lunch for the next day.

Fussilloni al Ragu di Vitello - pasta with ragu of veal, porcini mushrooms and peas (lots of peas). This was a very hearty dish with lots of veal.  The peas were a bit excessive.

Spaghetti Neri al Pesce - black spaghetti with shrimp, scallop and lump crab meat, lots of seafood. This was tasty.  It was a bit over-sauced as you couldn't really see the black pasta underneath.

Pasta with veal and peas

Dessert - We weren't going to order a dessert but we found out they have several small desserts (kind of like Season's 52) and that was good because we didn't have much room.  But they had a cannoli cream dessert that we split, basically cannolis that we stuffed ourselves.  It was a small but good end to the meal.

Cannoli

Final thoughts on Volare:
Food - tasty and we would go back since they are close to us. But we would keep in mind that the pasta entrees are massive and therefore maybe only order one and a full size kale salad.
Service - not memorable. We were there on a weeknight without a lot of other customers so we weren't ignored but they seemed to be setting up for a larger party coming later.
Atmosphere - typical Italian restaurant look. We didn't get too much of a sense of it because there weren't that many people there.

Mecenat Bistro

We went to dinner at Mecenat Bistro in Western Springs.  It was recently featured on Chicago's Best and we wanted to try it out since we live close by. As we will explain more later, this became a 2 part/2 day meal.

Bruschetta Platter

Bruschetta platter with 3 different types of bruschetta.  The first type had smoked salmon and dill cream cheese on it so it was kind of like lox and bagels.  The second type was the closest to traditional bruschetta (but it wasn't traditional). It had prosciutto, roasted red pepper, pesto, goat cheese and balsamic vinegar.  The third type had wild mushrooms and blue cheese.  The cheese was a mild blue cheese so it didn't over power the mushrooms.  We enjoyed all 3 of these "bruschettas" and would order them again. It was a great dish for 2 people since their were 2 of each type of bruschetta.

$5 Burger

We were there on a Tuesday night which is $5 burger night.  Since this was such a deal we decided to get a burger. It was a fairly simple burger with cheddar cheese, red onion, and pickles on a pretzel roll. Good quality burger, nice and tasty and quite large for $5.  We had to wait quite a bit to get our meal (we heard this was because it was busier due to burger night) so we probably wouldn't come back on a Tuesday night just for this.

Duck Confit Eggrolls

Instead of ordering another entree we ordered 2 more appetizers because they sounded more fun.  We got Duck Confit Eggrolls with chili sauce and Corn and Avocado Fritters with mango salsa. Nick really enjoyed the eggrolls, Natalie thought they were just okay. There was a good balance of duck, spiciness and crunchiness.  Natalie enjoyed the fritters although there wasn't much avocado in them so they should of just been called corn fritters.  The mango sauce they came with was like a tropical apple sauce with that type of consistency.

Corn Fritter

At this point in the meal we kind of wanted to order the chocolate lava cake dessert because that is what had been featured on Chicago's Best. But quite honestly all of our food took such a long time to get out to our table that we couldn't stay there any longer, especially knowing it would take at least 15 minutes to bake the cake.  We were disappointed because we wanted the service to be better.  From the way Nick was faced he felt we were being ignored as he saw the wait staff helping other tables a lot more.

Coconut Curry Shrimp

Well after this meal we had a somewhat negative view of the restaurant despite eating some good food.  Since it was close by and we are impulsive, we decided to meet there on Natalie's way home from work the next day so it would be slightly earlier and not as busy (and not burger night).  On the weeknights from 4-6pm they have 1/2 price appetizer happy hour specials if you sit in the bar area. We decided we would eat at the bar and order 2 appetizers and the cake all at once so everything could be served quickly.  There was no one else in the restaurant at this point so we experienced something extremely different than the night before.

Grilled Brie

We ordered Coconut Curry Shrimp and Grilled Brie.  The shrimp came with a brown mustard on the side.  They had an unusual but tasty flavor to them and Nick liked the mustard a lot.  The brie came with pesto and a citrus chutney. The pesto and the chutney were great with it and made it even more interesting.

Right after we were done with the appetizer the cake came out - such perfect timing. It was rich and decadent and came with vanilla ice cream and berry sauce. It was definitely a flowing lava cake and was worth waiting a day.

Final thoughts on Mecenat Bistro:

Lava Cake

Food - good food, the appetizers were definitely more intriguing to us than the entrees and our favorite of all of them was the bruschetta platter. The cake was great but not worth a problematic rest of the meal.
Service - the difference in the service between the 2 meals was night and day. They probably thought we were weird eating at the bar and not ordering any drinks but that is the only way to get the 1/2 price appetizers which is definitely worth the price. If the first night had been our only experience we wouldn't be recommending it and it was only because we live close by that we returned.
Atmosphere - definitely a wine bar look to it. There is an outdoor patio area, the bar and a medium sized dining area. We had driven past this location in the past and didn't realize that it was a restaurant.

Sable Kitchen and Bar

Amuse Buche

We went to dinner at Sable Kitchen and Bar in River North. We had first heard about this restaurant because the executive chef was on Top Chef a few years ago. We were going to go here back in February for restaurant week but had to cancel at the last minute.  The interesting thing about Sable is that all of the savory dishes can be ordered as a small or large portion.  We ordered small sizes so we could try more items.

Short Rib Sliders

Short Rib Sliders - with root beer glaze and crispy onions.  These were great - better than juicy burgers.  We just wished there had been more of them - we only got one each.

Lobster Roll

Lobster Roll - Maine lobster and toasted buttered roll.  It had a lemony taste to it and it was "lighter' because of less mayo in dressing.  This was good but rather small for the price.

Fettucini

House made fettucini with ramps, pancetta, peas, artichokes, farm egg yolk.  This came with the egg yolk on top which freaked Nick out but it makes it have a great presentation.  Once we mixed the egg into the pasta Nick was able to enjoy it.  It tasted great and all of the components went well together.

Fixins for the Pozole

Pozole Rojo - smoked pork belly, hominy, avocado, cilantro, tortilla strips, ancho chili broth, radishes.  This was the last of savory dishes we ate.  We were still quite hungry when this came to the table, but this was a fairly substantial and filling portion so it was more than enough.  (We almost thought they had brought us the large instead of small portion but it was the small portion after all.) This was the dish we liked the most. We have had pozole a few times before but never at a restaurant. They brought it out in a bowl and then had a dish with the avocado, tortilla and radishes in it that we could mix into the soup. We enjoyed the hot and cool ingredients as well as the interplay of the tender pork and crispy tortillas and radishes.

Pozole

Chocolate Souffle Cake

Dark Chocolate Souffle Cake with Peanut Butter sauce and salted caramel ice cream.  We couldn't pass this up, especially since Nick loves anything with chocolate and caramel in it. It was decadent and nice to have both the caramel and peanut butter together.

Final thoughts on Sable Kitchen and Bar:
Food - really good food, the sliders and lobster roll were a bit small but it was nice to be able to try more items with half portion sizes and prices. We really enjoyed the pozole and would definitely order it again.

Service - the service was pretty good; Nick felt they were bit slow to fill his water though
Atmosphere - we went on a Saturday night and this place was hopping. It was definitely the place to be.  The restaurant is also connected to a nice hotel.