Farmhouse Tavern

Fried Cheese Curds

We went to dinner for Restaurant Week at Farmhouse Tavern in Chicago.  We had seen this restaurant featured on Check Please of couple of months ago and decided to go when we saw they were participating in Restaurant Week. They offered a 3 course $33 dinner.

1st course
Fried Cheese Curds with house made catsup and spicy sauce.  These were amazing.  I guess you have to like cheese.

Winter Salad

Winter Salad with endive, bibb lettuce, cranberries, pistachio, mint, white balsamic.  So this salad offset whatever guilt we were feeling about the cheese curds.  It was light and refreshing and tasted great. Definitely one of the better salads we have had recently.

2nd course
Braised Short Ribs with celery root, puffed wild rice and wheat berries.  We enjoyed the short ribs themselves and the whole dish had a lot of flavor.  What we didn't like was that the short rib was presented still attached to the bone.  It was extremely difficult to get the meat off the bone and would have been so much easier to eat if the kitchen had just done that part for us. It probably was part of the presentation to have it arranged this way but was quite challenging.

Pork Loin

Grilled Pork Loin - with cabbage, mushrooms, bacon and peanuts.  So this dish was a lot spicier than we would have ever imagined as there was no indication of this on the menu. The flavors of the pork with the veggies and especially the peanuts was neat. We didn't like the bacon that was part of the meal as it tasted like all fat to us.  Fortunately it was arranged as 2 larger chunks that we could easily avoid eating without mixing with anything else.

Chocolate Budino pudding with toffee and ice cream - the pudding was good and it went down easily as we were starting to get full.

Rice Pudding - milk jam, pistachio and cherry brittle. Very sweet and a little more liquidy than other rice pudding, probably due to the milk jam.

Chocolate Budino

Final thoughts on Farmhouse Tavern:
Food - we didn't know what to expect from the food, but we enjoyed most everything.

Service - pretty good service, but nothing special

Atmosphere - the interior of the restaurant is a bit cramped.  There are 2 levels but both levels have large bar areas so the actual restaurant seating is tight.  We were at a very small table and felt a bit crowded when others were seated at a table next to us.

Rice Pudding