El Tapeo

We went to dinner at El Tapeo in Oakbrook at Le Meridien hotel. This restaurant opened about 6 months ago and we had heard good things about it.  It is mostly a tapas restaurant but does have some entree size dishes as well.  We decided to go with a bunch of small plates so we could try a bunch of stuff.

Pan con Tomate - spanish style toast with tomato jam and spanich olive oil, with manchego cheese. There were a few pieces of toast with the tomato jam on top.  It was sweeter  than we thought but good.  We wish there had been a little more grated manchego cheese on top because there was an up charge for this.

Pan con Tomate

Pimientos - blistered shishito peppers, with lemon zest and sea salt.  This was definitely the best deal of the bunch. When it came to the table it seemed like a very large amount of peppers. We were thinking there would only be about half as many.  Nick liked the peppers but thought they would be a bit more charred given the description.  Natalie thought there should have been a sauce to go with them.  She ended up dipping them in the leftover sauces from the other dishes.

Mushroom Fritters

Datiles - bacon wrapped medjool dates stuffed with marcona almonds.  This was Nick's favorite dish.  He is a sucker for bacon wrapped dates. They satisfied his need for both a sweet and savory bite.

Croquetas de Setas - cremini mushroom fritters and cilantro yogurt.  This was Natalie's favorite dish - little mushroom bundles that had a lot of flavor to them.

Pimientos

Patatas Bravas - fingerling potatoes with a spicy tomato sauce, creme fraiche and scallions. Nick just thought this dish was okay but Natalie liked it.  These were served warm and the sauce wasn't too spicy. Because this was a potato dish it made us think of one of our favorite potato tapas dishes - the garlic potato salad served at both Meson Sabika and Emilio's. No potato dish will ever compare to that one.

Bacon wrapped dates

Sopa de Calabasa - roasted butternut squash bisuqe with granny smith apples, serrano ham and mahon cheese.  This is the only soup on their menu.  It was a nice and creamy soup.  The apples, ham and cheese were cut into little cubes and were sitting on a floating crouton in the middle of the dish.  We wish there could have been a bit more of those cubes or bigger pieces of them.

Patatas Bravas

Salpicon Cangrejo de Mar - lump crab salad, avocado and blood orange gelle over toast points.  The presentation was interesting - the crab salad was topped with a layer of avocado and then a circular layer of the orange jelle.  Combined it tasted very interesting.  We wish there had been a couple more pieces of the toast so we didn't have to pile so much on the toast we had.

Final thoughts on El Tapeo:

Butternut Squash Bisque

Food - the food was good.  Certainly the small plates sounded a bit more interesting to us than the entrees and that way we got to try a little more of the menu options. Maybe because we are so used to the tapas options at other tapas restaurants we probably would choose those places over El Tapeo.  But that isn't to say this food wasn't good just that maybe we have just had those so often we are more familiar and comfortable with those options.

Lump Crab Salad

Service - there weren't that many customers there on a weeknight.  The service was good but there were a couple of times when we thought the server could have gotten to us a little quicker. We ordered the food in 2 batches, but maybe we should have less in more batches because 5 small plates came to us at once. Luckily there were small and could fit on the table but maybe that could have been paced better.

Atmosphere - El Tapeo is located on the 9th floor of Le Meridien Hotel, so it is a neat setting. It is located near most of the other restaurants at Oak Brook Mall, so probably most of the other patrons were staying at the hotel.

Wildfire

 We went dinner at Wildfire in Oakbrook.  This was our first Restaurant week dinner for the year.  We had been to this restaurant before but it had been a few years. For their restaurant week option Wildfire offered both a $33 and a $44 dollar dinner option and we chose one of each.

House Salad

$33
House Salad - slightly fancier than the typical house salad as it had hard boiled eggs and artichokes, it was presented kind of like a cobb salad with all of the ingredients in their own sections
Bourbon Tenderloin tips with broccoli - this was a much larger dish than we were anticipating so we were so full that we had to take 2/3 of this home with us

Shrimp and Crab Bisque

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie - because we were on the full side we took a lot of this home as well, This was really good with chocolate and peanut butter combined in a graham cracker crust.

$44
Shrimp and Crab Bisque - good soup

Petite Filet

Petit Filet Mignon with Mushroom Crust and Au Gratin Potatoes - the steak was great and the mushrooms on top made it even better
Chocolate Cream Pie - we might not have chosen this selection given the other options but this seemed to be their main dessert.  As expected it was a rich pie - super cholateley.  We finished this at the restaurant because it was way to delicate to be transporting home.

Final thoughts on Wildfire:

Tenderloin

Food - overall there was a lot more food than we would expect from a fixed course/price meal. Probably the cuts of meat offered were not as high quality as from a regular meal served there, but we liked the options we had.  We really loved the chocolate peanut butter pie and wish it had been an option for both meals.

Service - good service; even though it was quite a busy weekend evening.

Atmosphere - nice steak house feel. Good thing we had a reservation because it was very busy and there was a large private party.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

Chocolate Creme Pie

Devon

For Natalie's Birthday we went to a seafood restaurant called Devon in Oakbrook Terrace with Natalie's parents.  Devon used to be called Braxton's Seafood and was located in the Oak Brook mall but due to a leasing dispute had to leave and relinquish the name.

Shrimp Cocktail

Shrimp cocktail - jumbo shrimp cocktail, with Creole remoulade sauce and cocktail sauce.  Nice standard shrimp cocktail but kind of interesting that it is also served with a remoulade sauce.

Spring roll

Vietnamese crab spring rolls - with daikon, avocado, mint, basil, pea greens, carrots, sweet and sour dipping sauce. These were good but we only got a small bite of them so we wish we could have more.  Natalie's bit didn't have any avocado in it but it was still good and fresh.

Smoked Salmon Flatbread - garlic white sauce, red onion and watercress. Nick's favorite appetizer - crunchy, a little salty, good flavors.

Smoked Salmon Flatbread

Lobster Bisque - tasty, on par with other good lobster bisque we have eaten.

Lobster Bisque

Georges Bank scallops - with sweet potato corn hash, bacon, corn butter sauce. Good scallops with nice accompaniments that accentuated their flavor. The scallops were large and firm, but still tender.

Georges Bank Scallops

Monchong - wood grilled Hawaiian fish, with lobster mac n cheese, and whipped potatoes. Nick would have preferred it with a different preparation with a sauce on it (he felt it was a bit dry).  Otherwise the fish itself was good and a very large portion.  Natalie liked the smoky flavor.  The lobster mac was good but we almost always want more lobster.

Vanilla Creme Brulee - this was large serving of creme brulee (probably a little larger than normal due to the birthday celebration). A nice way to end the meal.

Final thoughts on Devon:

Monchong

Food - Nick was more impressed by the appetizers. He prefers Parker's Ocean Grille in Downers Grove or Catch 35 in Naperville.  He seems to remember liking Braxton's a little more so maybe there is a different chef than before.





Service - very good service.  They were super attentive to our needs with refilling drinks to making sure everything was just right.
Atmosphere - a little dark inside but a nice/fancy environment inside.  The new location isn't as nice as the mall and it is a bit difficult to find parking as a lot of the parking nearby is reserved specifically for the hotel next door.

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.

Gibson's

We went to a rare lunch out together at Gibson's in Oak Brook.  Since we have eaten at a lot of steak houses, we just wanted to try a simpler lunch meal. We have been to Hugo's Frog Bar before and they are part of the Gibson's restaurant group and they use Gibson's steaks.

Steak Salad

Steak Tenderloin salad - we ordered a small salad to share but it would have been large enough to be an entree on its own.  There were 2 steak medallions cooked to order with greens, red onions, tomatoes, cucumber and blue cheese.  It was a nice salad and good value (but we are still in search of a steak salad that can rival Weber Grill's old steak salad).

Gibson's Prime Angus Sliced skirt steak with mashed potatoes and corn - nice and tender.  Nick's definition of Medium is a little different than their definition. The corn had some peppers in it to make it spicy and more exciting.

Skirt Steak

Crab mac n cheese with andouille sausage and bacon.  This was a nice creamy dish.  It had good noodles to hold the sauce and the andouille provided good flavor.  There could have been a bit more crab, but maybe the price would have been a lot higher.

Final thoughts on Gibson's:
Food - good steak.  Lots of options, large and small for lunch.
Service - quick lunch service, the food came out right away.  If you worked nearby you could get in and out within the lunch hour
Atmosphere - lots of business people there on lunch.  There seemed to only be valet parking nearby so we parked across the street at the Oak Brook mall for free.

Crab Mac N Cheese

Weber Grill Restaurant

The giant grill is really cool!

We went to dinner at the Weber Grill Restaurant in Lombard.  There are 4 locations - here, Chicago, Schaumburg, IL and Indianapolis. We haven't been here to eat in over 4 years - it was one of the first restaurants we went to when we moved here.

Pretzel rolls (probably from Labriola across the street)

What we ate:
Bruschetta - Nick felt like having bruschetta; the bread was grilled so that is why it was on the menu. The bread wasn't as crispy as typical bruschetta - but it was novel that it was grilled.

Bruschetta

Korean BBQ steak salad - so the last time we were here (4 years ago) we ordered a steak salad and it was amazing.  But since it has been so long since we have been to this restaurant of course the menu has changed and it is now a Korean BBQ steak salad.  The flavors were good but not as great as the salad from 4 years ago.  It was a little weird but the steak came out sizzling on a griddle (like fajitas would be served).  So it was odd to be putting really hot steak on colder salad greens. The steak had a kimchi flavor to it (hence Korean steak). Korean flavors are "in" right now, but we missed the old, more traditional (but gourmet) steak salad.

BBQ combo

Salad with sizzling steak behind it

BBQ combo with pulled pork, brisket, mac n cheese and sweet potatoes.  The meats were great, especially the brisket - it was so tender you could cut it just with a fork.  But this is a "grill" restaurant so we would expect the meat to be great.  The mac n cheese was good, not great and the sweet potatoes were a bit disappointing.

Final thoughts on Weber Grill Restaurant:
Food - the food was good but we would probably return and get more traditional steak fare than bbq as we have some other bbq joints we prefer.
Service - good service; our waiter was friendly.  The location of our table seemed to be near where a lot of waiters were milling about so it was a little distracting.
Atmosphere - when we drove up to the parking lot we were worried because it was quite full looking.  But there didn't seem to be that many people in the restaurant itself.  Maybe they were in a back private room or in the large bar area where we couldn't see them. It was a little busier when we left. They do carry out and one odd thing we saw in the parking lot when we left was people "tailgating" - literally they had the tailgate of their SUV open and they had put up a card table with chairs.  It looked like they had gotten food from a couple of different nearby restaurants as PF Changs, Uncle Julios, Champs and DMK Burger are right there (we've never seen that before - maybe it was an unique date night).

Redstone

We went to dinner at Redstone in Oak Brook Terrace.  We had passed by this restaurant several times and wanted to give it a try.  It is tucked a little out of the way compared to restaurants at the nearby malls.  We also bought some gift cards at the nearby Costco which saved us 20% on our meal.

Buffalo Shrimp

Buffalo Shrimp - with buffalo sauce and blue cheese dressing.  Our waitress advised us to order an extra shrimp (for a total of 6 shrimp) so we wouldn't fight over who got the last one and she was right. These were jumbo butterflied shrimp slathered in buffalo sauce and swimming in blue cheese dressing. We were a little doubtful of this combo but we were wrong; the heat in the sauce brought out the sweetness of the shrimp.

Lodge cornbread

Lodge Cornbread with maple butter.  It came served in a large skillet which was cut into 6 pieces. Between this and the shrimp we could have been done for the night.  The cornbread was also tasty but what knocked it out of the park was the maple butter. The cornbread was thick and moist. It was deliciously dense and not grainy. The busboy was a little ambitious and cleared out our bread plates before we got to have seconds and it was just taunting us while we waited for our dinner.  Maybe it was for the best; otherwise we may have filled up on the bread and not had room for the entrees at all.



Halibut with potatoes and asparagus

Parmesan crusted halibut - with garlic mashed potatoes, grilled asparagus, tomato marmalade and caper beurre blanc. It was a light and flaky crust nestled on a bed of mashed potatoes.  The sauce made this dish even better than expected.

Braised beef short rib - with garlic mashed potatoes and root vegetables.  The tender fall apart meat soaked up all the favors. The root vegetables were roasted and sweet and filled us up quickly.



Braised short ribs with potatoes and vegetables

Final thoughts on Redstone:
Food - All of the food was good and the portions were huge.  We had to take home cornbread and half of our entrees. The waitress told us their specialty was their rotisserie items.  We're not sure that any of the food we ordered was actually prepared that way.
Service - we had a friendly and helpful waitress. She thoroughly explained the menu to us since it was our first time there.

Atmosphere - the restaurant had a cozy lodge-like setting.  It had a very large bar in the middle. There was dim lighting and dark woods.  For dining in the summer, there is a large patio area that looks like it would be a lot of fun on summer nights.



Wedge of cornbread

Reza's




Awesome bread served throughout meal

We went out to dinner at Reza's in Oak Brook (there are also 3 locations in Chicago) for a bit of Middle Eastern food with a Persian flare. We didn't know too much about the restaurant except we pass it a lot when driving around Oak Brook.



Vegetarian Combo Entree

We just ordered entrees but they were really large and came with a lot so we still had food to take home.  We ordered a vegetarian combo and a kabob dish.  The vegetarian combo is an entree but because you get to create your own combo from lots of choices we chose items that would typically be appetizers on their own. We were able to choose 5 items for the combo and it came with rice.

The combo included:

1. Falafel (balls of ground chickpeas and herbs) - we wish we had a few more of these; they were not "mealy" or too hard

2. Hummus (mashed chickpeas with tahini) - this wasn't that exciting but a good standard

3. Baba Ghannouj (mashed roasted eggplant with tahini) - this was tasty but we had better baba ghannouj at Al Bawadi in Bridgeview

Feta cheese and radishes

4. Dohmeh (grape leaves stuffed with rice, yellow peas, caramelized onions and raisins in a tomato sauce) - this was tasty and they were warm grape leaves - which Nick prefers

5. Kashkeh Bodemjan (a Persian specialty; mashed roasted eggplant, caramelized onions, whey, flavored with garlic and mint) - this was even better than the baba ghannouj.  This is now a new favorite for an eggplant dish (right behind Eggplant Parmesan in Nick's mind).  Apparently this is more of a Persian dish so that is why we may not have encountered it at other Middle Eastern restaurants which may have leaned more to Arabic or Palestinian fare.

Barg Kabob

The other entree was called the Barg Kabob.  It was a tenderloin, with cous cous and grilled vegetables. The kabob was very tender and beautifully spiced. There were large chunks of moist beef with enough cous cous to feed 5 people.

Both of the entrees came with soups - we had the choice of tomato lentil or chicken barley and we tried one of each.  The tomato lentil was kind of boring, but the chicken barley was surprisingly tasty with large chunks of vegetables and a large flavor profile.

Also we have to mention that before the soup we were brought a small plate with radishes and feta cheese and a giant plate of baked bread.  The bread was amazing! It was almost the consistency of a pita bread, but since it was served on a large platter it reminded us of the way spongy bread is served in Ethiopian restaurants. We ate with with the radishes, cheese, soup and with the dips in the veggie combo dish.

Chicken Barley soup

Nick was worried about the location; it was a bit out of the way from other places.  It is located in an apartment/condo building and the parking situation is a bit awkward. We were the first ones in the restaurant for dinner. They were blasting Frank Sinatra music which we thought was a bit strange, but then later in the meal they switched to more Mideast/Persian music.

Final thoughts on Reza's:
Food - good filling food that came in super large portions.  We both had enough for leftovers without even ordering a separate appetizer.
Service - the service was really great.  Now granted we were the only ones there for a while.  But the waitress was very helpful in guiding us through the menu.

Atmosphere - really nice interior (this used to be the French restaurant Fond de la Tour many years ago).  They do have a few different dining spaces and in one of them there is buffet set up.  We looked through the reviews before we went and a lot of people didn't seem to like the buffet so we went with the regular menu which worked out well for us.

Maggiano's

We have been to Maggiano's many times in the past (but so far this is the first time since we started the blog).  There are a few Maggiano's locations in the Chicago area, so Natalie has been frequenting them since the early 90's. Nick had never been to one before moving to Illinois. If you don't know what it is - Maggiano's is traditional Italian fare and usually they serve huge portions. We decided to go this time (to the Oak Brook location) because we had a coupon.

Chopped Salad

Maggiano's has a regular deal on their menu where for $12.95 you basically order 2 entrees. You eat one of the entrees at the restaurant and you take the other entree home with you (it is already packaged and labeled for you).  This is available on all of their 8 classic pastas dishes, but not any specialty pastas.  In addition to this deal, our coupon gave us a side salad for just $2 more.

Chopped side salad - iceberg lettuce, diced tomatoes, crumbled bleu cheese, avocado and crispy prosciutto, served with a house dressing. Good chopped salad, nice to have before heavier pasta.

Four Cheese Ravioli

Natalie ordered the Ravioli for the restaurant and the Lasagna to go.  Nick order the Ziti for the restaurant and the Eggplant Parmesan to go.

Four Cheese Ravioli - ravioli stuffed with ricotta cheese, cream cheese, mozzarella and Provolone.  Served in a pesto-alfredo cream sauce with a touch or marinara. Large ravioli with nice combination of cheese.  The pesto-alfredo nice was really nice with the ravioli and it really didn't need the little bit of marinara sauce - probably just there for color.

Baked Ziti

Mom's Lasagna with Italian sausage and meat sauce - good lasagna, it was bit difficult to get the piece heated all the way through in the microwave because it is so sizable.

Taylor Street Baked Ziti with Italian sausage, pomodoro sauce with melted Provolone and Parmesan. Nick felt this was tasty and fulfilling pasta.  It was a huge bowl so he couldn't finish all of it so had the rest wrapped up to go. So he had 2 more meals out of this experience.

Eggplant Parmesan - good eggplant, but not nearly as awesome as the eggplant parm he had at Rosebud a few months ago.

Final thoughts on Maggiano's:

Food - good traditional institutionalized Italian fare.  Great value for the price, got 2 or 3 meals out of this.

Service - pretty good, we were kind of stuck in a corner but that didn't prevent our server from getting to us

Atmosphere - this restaurant is always busy; we actually made a reservation through open table on our drive to the restaurant just to be safe.  It probably saved us about 10-15 minutes by doing this as we were able to walk right in.