Restaurant Roundup

Hi friends, it's been a while, forgive me. Figured that it would be a little easier to do a little roundup of the recent restaurants that I've visited. Ok, so I'm a little short on time with my crazy work schedule, so this is actually out of some laziness, er necessity. Now where to start.

Nellcote: Another Randolph St. win. I went to Nellcote a few weeks ago and made the mistake of agreeing that I would be present at a reservation that occurred right when I landed at the airport. Sooooo I was an hour late, but just as I was arriving the food came out. Lucky me. I was a little frazzled coming in, but as soon as I sat down I noticed how adorable the decor was. Very romantic with a touch of modern. The similarities in decor vs. the owners' other restaurant, Old Town Social, were minimal at best, but you could tell that it was catered for the Randolph Street foodies. The food was your trendy standard small New American cuisine plates, but nonetheless impressed. My favorite was the lobster strozzapreti (for sure googled that at the table), flavored with pesto, which I don't usually even like, pine nuts and onions. Talk about melts. in. your. mouth. 






Mexique: I've been to Mexique many a times before as it's a less crowded restaurant that's in our West Town neighborhood. So 1. walking distance 2. no reservations needed (usually) and 3. bomb.com oh, and 4. we had a $10 off coupon to take care of the tip overage. I usually order the tortilla soup dish with some sort of meat, but this time I went with the beet salad and pork belly risotto. Oh wait, that's still meat. 





Lula Cafe: Another locale that isn't new to me, but one that is absolutely worth frequenting. I love how Logan Square is the new uppity hipster neighborhood and there are definitely restaurants to complement. Me and Sean woke up one early weekend day and decided it was early enough to beat the typical brunch rush. So we waited 20 minutes, even though we got there at 10am and they open at 9am, but the food is for sure, worth the wait. I think since we have been last they have expanded their restaurant, so goody about that as well. I had the french toast, and as boring of a brunch item that might be, I just love when french toast is made with the thickest of thick bread and the act of smearing it with a huge hunk of butter and syrup, just melts my heart to pieces. Although Sean ordered the Pulled Pork Pozole that was on special for the day and I was jealous for a second, I am always happy with a safe choice. This is why you never dine alone =)

Asparagus and Shrimp with Hollandaise

Sean subscribes to the Wall Street Journal and as much as I love to read about the stock market, S&P zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, ok fine, it puts me to sleep. One section that I do love is the weekend Life and Culture section and this weekend Sean Brock's "Butter-Braised Asparagus with Shrimp and Lemon Hollandaise" recipe caught my eye. Sean Brock is a chef at Husk and McCrady's, both in Charleston, S.C., and is well known for his Southern, new American fare. I can't wait to make a trip down south for a visit to one of his restaurants!

I have never made Hollandaise sauce, but after viewing several youtube videos (how did anybody ever learn to cook on their own without them?), one failed try, a few eggs and sticks of butter, I had some creamy goodness on my hands. This is quite an easy recipe, because after I jumped the Hollandaise hurdle all I did was boil the broth mixture, braise the asparagus and poach the shrimp and voila! Sunday dinner. Definitely adding this one to the dinner rotation.

Neon

I can't get enough of neon these days. I know, it's all over every magazine as the trend of the season blah blah blah, but I feel like it's one of those 80s trends that should have never gone away. Like this neon green necklace that I bought from F21 for a whopping $14.99. It's jazzed up so many outfits that would have been so boring otherwise. Some other bright lovelies that I've also picked up are a hot pink chain necklace that was on sale at JCrew, also only $14, and the softest neon green tshirt from JCrew, also 50% off right now, and currently in stores.

Yea or Nay for neon?

Shamrock

I ran the Shamrock Shuffle this past weekend, which is the largest 8k in the world and brought about 40,000 runners to the city from in and around Chicago and the world. My coworkers asked me how I did and I told them, I don't know, maybe 30,000th place? I'll shoot for 25,000th place next year.

It was a super fun way to run around the streets of the city, even though, I always forget when I sign up for these things that I HATE RUNNING. Of course I don' realize this until a few miles in and then once I got to join the drinking party after the fact, forget the pain of running again. Sooooo I'll probably sign up for another one of these things again. Good times!

As for St Patty's Day-all I need to say is that the actual day fell on a Saturday this year, so you can probably guess what happened to all the 20 year old ish folks in the city.

Good Food Festival

The Good Food Festival and conference is a yearly, three day, event that brings together businesses, policy drivers, and pretty much anyone else who is interested in the "locally-driven Good Food Movement." Me, me me!! Sean bought tickets for us to attend the party portion of the event called localicious and I honestly had no idea what to expect. Out of ignorance, I expected the farms to each have a booth where they served rabbit food and honestly, I expected to leave hungry. Um, excuse me localicious, how rude am I?!

The participating RESTAURANTS, who served the food at localicious, actually partner with family farmers and served up the freshest ingredients of the season. There was lamb, there was chocolate, there was whiskey and of course tons of yummy veggies. My favorites dishes were the Longman and Eagle pork belly dish, Province's Pork Cubano and Revolution Brewery's sausages. I also snuck in a little tastes of sake, vodka, rye and beer....tastes, key word, tastes people.

I even sheepishly asked Ted Brunson, the host of Chicago's Best, for a picture and whom I blogged about just last week! I was like a little school girl when I got the picture and realized that it was an "ok to post" situation.

Definitely a yearly repeated event in my calendar!

<3

Pigalle

I've been going back and forth for quite some time now, trying to figure out which Christian Louboutin style would be the best first pair to purchase. Do I do the open toe, which virtually goes with anything, but is limited to warm weather occasions; or do I do the Hyper heel, and draw a ton of attention to myself; or do I stick to the non-platform, pointy-toe classic? Black, patent leather, embellished or colored? I decided on the timeless Pigalle style in a flat black, which really can be worn with any outfit to class it up. Just think, I can wear it to work with a suit, as a guest to a wedding with a dress, a dinner date night out, or even for a brunch date with a dressed down outfit. This style was available at ONE store in the US in my size, a 35, so really, I thought it was just meant to be. I was literally a little fat kid opening up a king size candy bar when I ripped open the box that came in the mail. I am in LOVE.

I googled "Pigalle" during my search for this shoe and I thought it was funny what Wikipedia has written as a part of the definition of the area in Paris:

"Pigalle is famous for being a tourist district, with many sex shops on Place Pigalle and the main boulevards and prostitutes operating in the side streets."

Chicago's Best

Trying new restaurants and cuisines absolutely tops my favorite things to do and I'll have to say, I am doing a pretty darn good job at it so far in 2012. Of course yelp, urbandaddy, tastingtable, refinery29 and daily candy etc etc do a great job of blasting me with you-have-to-try-this-new-spot emails, but lately my favorite resource for finding new eats in the city is the show Chicago's Best on a little channel we call WGN. Most of the main stream media outlets seem to over look the smaller, non-scenester ish, non ambient music playing, non-River North/Old Town/LP/Wicker town spots...you get the drift...but Chicago's Best does not discriminate. The show is hosted by Brittany Payton, the legendary Walter Payton's kin who is as energetic and cute as can be, and Ted Brunson and I love starting my Sunday mornings watching their suggestions for good eats in and around the city. Some recent themes have been Chicago's Best Late Night, Best Chocolate, Best Comfort Food and even West Suburbs. My yelp "to try" bookmark list keeps expanding and duh, I'm pretty excited about it. Me and Sean have been trying one new place a week, which is completely reasonable and I reeeaaally hope to not let my schedule get in the way of this good streak. Check out our recent visits.

Estrella Negra keywords: BYOB, easy parking, takes reservations, reasonably priced, supports local art, mangoes, shrimp, goat cheese, tamales. I was OFFENDED when I heard a patron sitting next to us asking the waitress "What is a tamale?", but hey, I can appreciate when people go outside their comfort zone, especially to eat at places at delicious as Estrella Negra. And there is something for everyone here from burritos to burgers to tacos to Chocolate chip Tamales. According to the Chicago's Best episode, the owner uses his mama's recipes, and tweaks them to his liking. And I like it. We ordered the traditional Pork Tamales, Shrimp and Goat cheese enchiladas with Mango salsa, a goat cheese salad, and side of bean dip.

Aloha Eats brought me right back to the Hawaii that I love to visit. I first saw an ad in a Japanese newspaper, that I picked up from a Japanese grocery store, and I've been meaning to try this place for months now. I got a reminder when they were part of the "Tropical" episode of Chicago's Best and one day, when I had a spam craving, I got my little butt in the car to get that salty goodness in my belly. Reasonably priced, authentically flavored and the portions are GINORMOUS, so alot of sharing can definitely go on. We ordered the spam musubi, naturally, and chicken katsu, which came with a heaping service of rice and macaroni salad. This was plenty for two people and plenty to satisfy my need for Hawaiian/Asian/Japanese fare. The only downside is that this location is right smack dab in the middle of Lincoln Park, so if you're driving, bring your patience with you. They also take the BellyCard!

Garifuana Flava: Easily one of the best places that I have eaten in recent memory. For real real. This spot is located a tid far from where we live in that there is no easy way to get there as it's not close to a major expressway, but it was well worth the drive. This Carribean Cuisine gem, only three years young, serves food from Belize and not only is the food flavorful like you wouldn't believe hehe or Belize, but the service just makes you feel right at home. We chatted with the head chef's son and he was nice enough to give us a run down of the most popular dishes. We ordered the little meat pie panadas, conch fritters and jerk chicken, which came with some extra yummy fixins' of mixed rice and steamed cabbage. The fritters were deep fried seafood heaven, jerk chicken MOIST (excuse my language) like crazy and even the most simplest of dishes, rice, was flavored with seasonings to make your mouth reach a nirvana. Top this off with a cake with HOT thin layer of carmel. Happy tummy.