Sepia
Late lunch at Sepia. Woke early, and after walking for 4 hours, we developed quite an appetite.
Cocktails:
Vanilla Bean Old Fashioned
vanilla infused and coriander infused woodford reserve bourbon, cocoa nib bitters, sugar, muddled orange
Dark n' Stormy
bacardi 8 yr rum, rosemary infused brown sugar syrup, fresh lime juice, ginger beer, ruby port float
Cocktails here were simply amazing - hand crafted, play well off the speakeasy persona of the restaurant, and borderline perfect in every respect.
Quite possibly the best old fashioned i've had.
Pork Rillettes with fig preserve and pistachio
The rillettes were served in a hinged lid glass jar (think canning jar) beautifully preserved in their own fat with grilled bread and mesclun. The fig preserve was a quenelle of a nice jammy fig compote that balanced out the richness of the pork and pork fat. The pistachios were absent (?), instead toasted pecan pieces... a minor detail since they seemed to only play a minor role as a functional garnish and for added texture. Regardless, a nice simple, tasty light starter.
Steak tartare with raw farm egg yolk and duck fat potatoes
Picture perfect tartare with plenty of toast points. The duck fat potatoes were basically home-fries, fried in duck fat. Delicious, though the side of ketchup seemed out of place, i'd have preferred an aioli of some sort in it's place.
Grilled Amish chicken breast with apples and arugula
I can't stop raving about the simplicity of this dish. Perfectly cooked airline breast, simply seasoned with salt and pepper. Super moist, no sauce... in all truth, any sauce would probably take away from the flavor of the Amish chicken. The apples and arugula were lightly tossed with cassis vinegar and that was it. Simplicity at it's finest. Seriously, 3 things on the plate, not including seasoning (and needed nothing else), and it's one of the best chicken dishes i've had in my life. Just perfectly prepared and seasoned simple food.
A pour of a very "figgy" sherry on the house, followed by desserts on the house as well.
Disclosure: An old friend of mine; who was sous chef at Winston's (when i interned there) tracked me down randomly a week before we left, and turned out he's working in the kitchen at Sepia.
Toffee bread pudding with caramel pineapple ice cream
A large crock of bread pudding, with both liquified and crunchy toffee mixed throughout. Gooey inside and crisp on top. Simple perfection. The acidity of the ice cream was a perfect foil to the sweetness of the bread pudding.
Bittersweet chocolate crepes with blood oranges and chocolate sorbet
The crepes were served with a Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream in lieu of the chocolate sorbet, but it seemed to be more in place anyway. The intensity of the chocolate in the crepes was outstanding, and the vanilla offered a perfect contrast to chocolate overload.
Sepia was by far the best lunch I've ever had, and shines in it's simplicity. The restaurant itself is gorgeous, wood everywhere and has a nice rustic feel in general (the space was formerly an 1890 print shop). Top notch cocktails and superb food; prepared simply but even more important - to perfection.
approximately $80 after generous tipping, not including free desserts and sherry.
TRU
Desserts at TRU.
Cocktails to start:
Cucumber and Sake Martini
Light and refreshing, with specks of black lava salt, and little leaf shaped cucumber pieces pressed onto the sides of the glass (half filled, and the remainder poured tableside)
Chocolate Martini
Tasted like liquid chocolate. the entire top surface was covered in super finely grated milk chocolate.
Roasted Pineapple
Coconut Sorbet, Cashew Frangipane, Sourwood Honey
I could not help from ordering this dish. It was like finding the holy grail. Gale Gand has always had numerous roasted pineapple dishes over the years on the menu, and it was the version in the TRU cookbook that has probably inspired me with more variants that i keep coming back to over the years. I ran one version as a special at Asiatique, another on my first menu at the Oakroom, and another i wrote last fall that i've got scribbled away for this coming summer.
Perfectly diced roasted and fresh pineapple atop a bed of lightly candied cashews. A perfectly creamy coconut sorbet, and sourwood honey foam over the cashew frangipane.
Each component by itself was so intensely flavored, and incredible on it's own... but get a little of everything on your spoon in one bite? Pure heaven.
Chocolate Ribbon
Orange, Smoked Chocolate Ice Cream, Chestnuts, Stout
We read the description of this dish and just looked at each other... we laughed and i said, "what do you think this looks like?" she nodded and said "i know." and we decided we had to have it (my girlfriend and i are both pastry chefs). The chocolate ribbon was exactly as we thought it'd be: a twisted thin rectangle of soft chocolate. Alex Stupak of WD~50 in NYC (formerly the pastry chef at Alinea) has had this type of chocolate as a menu staple for years. Regardless of the obvious imitation, it was nice to be able to finely taste it.
Super soft, pudding like texture (despite it's flexible rigidity in appearance), laid among perfectly cut fresh orange supremes. Chestnut pieces that appeared to be braised/caramelized in a dark syrup lined the bottom. The smoked chocolate ice cream was everything it should be. The stout was prepared as a lightly gelled sauce dotted on the plate, that tasted like... well, stout. Delicious.
$100 after $40 tip, for two cocktails and two desserts - all $15 each.
(worth it? absolutely!)
Moto
In all fairness i have to say this before i say anything about Moto:
I've become pretty a good friend/professional acquaintance with Ben Roche - Moto's pastry chef via Myspace/email, after he contacted me and we came to mutual admiration of each others work.
When i mentioned being in Chicago, he told me to come by and have cocktails in the lounge and he'd send up 'samples"
Little did we know what that entailed.
Came for cocktails, had dinner.
Lemon Drop Martini
Liquid-centered Lemon Drop Sphere
A pretty standard lemon drop martini, except with a ping pong ball sized bright yellow sphere at the bottom of it.
Upon breaking it... tastes like more martini.
Chorizo Margarita
Smoky, but not at all over heavy. Tasted like drinking a margarita while standing directly over a smoker with chorizo inside and inhaling deeply.
1) Menu
Edible Menu on Brown butter wafer, champagne gelee, American sturgeon roe, roasted pear, lemon liquid gel.
2) Nitro Sushi Roll
Tuna tartare, nori powder, yuba chip, nitro sesame powder (if you ate the sesame powder quick enough, you'll blow smoke)
3) Greek Salad/Liquified
Intermezzo. A Shooter of a faintly green liquid with a drop of Greek olive oil floating on the surface.
Tasted like Greek salad... super intense flavor.
4) Caramel Apple with Bacon
Poached apple wrapped into a half sphere around pulled applewood smoked bacon, then encased in caramel. Applesauce, nuts, and utensils with fresh sage stuffed in the ends.
5) Grapefruit
Gin and Tonic orb (with a drawing of a grapefruit slice fused to it!), flash chilled celled grapefruit (looks like grapefruit orzo), grapefruit foam, lime meringue sheet.
6) Popcorn Ball
two identical truffles - White chocolate and brown butter shells, liquid crackerjack filling, pop rocks and caramel on top.
7) S'Mores
Chocolate shell, liquid graham craker center, toasted marshmallow, chocolate ice cream disc, graham cracker crumbs
7) Biscotti and Coffee
Freeze dried coffee ice cream (think astronaut ice cream), cut and shaped like biscotti, brown butter and vanilla packing peanuts, hot liquid biscotti.
(course 7 two different dishes were sent out.)
By far the most incredible meal of the trip, we expected 2 or 3 plates, and they kept coming.
A tour of Moto's kitchen - which was a treat and is very unusual. (all employees must sign a non-disclosure agreement to work there, so visitors are very rare)
A very very generous tip in relation to the "total" bill.
Nacional 27
Cockatails and tapas.
Shrimp Adobado Skewer
Pineapple Vanilla Salsa
I'm rarely eat shellfish, and am not a huge fan of seafood in general - but these were the most perfectly cooked and tasty pieces of shrimp i've ever had, and reaffirm my confidence that i can actually enjoy shellfish.
BBQ'd Lamb Tiny Tacos
Avocado Salsa
Delicious. Super intensely flavored, and tiny does describe it properly. (but worth every penny.)
We had 4 cocktails between us here, and it's killing me i can't remember everything in them.
Their website doesn't list the ever changing cocktail menu Adam Seger is behind.
I do recall
a very tasty signature magarita,
a cucumber, gin, and lime mojito
the latin manhattan: Costa Rican cigar infused maker's mark, etc.
the forbidden chadwick: a mojito - rum, tons of lime, mint, lucid absinthe rinse, and lucid sugar rim.
(there are definitely ingredients i left out in these cocktails)
hands down, the best cocktails ever.
Adam Seger is a mixology genius. (and an incredibly nice guy as well)
approximately $80 after tip for 4 perfectly made hand crafted cocktails (average $12-14), and two tapas.
Blackbird
Blackbird was supposed to be our big-ticket blow out meal.
With as much hype and praise we'd heard... our expectations were running super high.
We arrived about 20 minutes before our reservation and were promptly seated.
Butter service was an very attractive perfect disc of butter... seasoned with salt and pepper on top... But ice cold.
There was nothing we could do to even attempt to spread the butter on the (very tasty) bread.
I know that it had to be that cold to achieve the desired presentation effect, but the aesthetics lost to the practicality of use.
Melodious Blackbird
Remy Martin VSOP, Licor 43, Peychaud bitters
(insert cool name for a cocktail here)
Champagne, Orange bitters, sugar cube
soft shell crab, greens, ramps, rhubarb
I don't at all care for crab, so i skipped on this one...
crispy confit of swan creek farm suckling pig with braised endive, crab apples, sweet potato mustard and pork rind
a perfectly cut rectangle of (presumably) sous vide pork - shoulder i think. Everything went wonderfully together, the crab apples made for a nice touch... but i kept thinking the endive was fennel (maybe it was the mustard flavor lingering), though the pork rinds tasted a little stale.
grimaud farms smoked duck breast with braised parsley, marinated white asparagus and graham cracker crumbs
When ordered, our server mentioned they serve this with foie gras. (which i later remembered the foie gras ban... you can "give it away" but can't sell it or list it on the menu).
The duck was one word. Tough. the Foie didn't have that buttery melt in your mouth consistency - i had to chew quite a bit. (I don't care much for foie and i knew the texture was not usual). The graham cracker was a nice touch, it added a sweetness and vanilla-notes.
braised organic pork belly with toasted farro, braised kolrabi greens, hibiscus jus and fried rosemary
A nice play on greens braised with ham hocks... Three thickly cut bacon like pieces of belly. Sous vide, not at all seared and not very fatty at all (the 2 main points of ordering belly!)
The hibiscus jus was a small dribble under it all, and quickly blended it with the juices pouring out of the kolrabi. Fried rosemary? i didn't see or taste any. The toasted farro was an interesting mix of al dente farro grains mixed in a puree of sorts (farro puree i assume?)
roasted pineapple with brioche ice cream, hibiscus and puffed 'cinnamon toast'
Slices of nicely roasted pineapple atop seared brioche. The brioche ice cream tasted more like a slightly salty butter ice cream than brioche, but still good. The hibiscus sauce and the puffed "cinnamon toast" (much like cinnamon toast crunch cereal) were delicious.
bittersweet chocolate pave with caraway ice cream, roasted pears and candied olives
The pave was a delicious rectangle of ganache between two meringue-like wafers, the caraway ice cream was atop a crumble of some sort, yet was super intense and tasted like rye bread. The candied olives were delicious and complimented the dish with a nice sweet/salty brine flavor. The pears were tasty and properly poached, but cut way too thick to cut with the provided fork and spoon. Honestly the dish as a whole tasted like i was eating rye bread with chocolate and pears. I admire the use of and thought behind the flavors but it's lacking. Add some cheese (which i hate, yet i still can envision this...) to the dish and do a play on a cheese course, and the dish could be brilliant.
Mignardises presented with the check, which then we asked for coffee (since no one asked us prior if we needed anything else).
Coffee is by Intelligentisia, which is by far the best coffee i've ever had... (we drove around for 45 minutes on our way out of town trying to remember where the Intelligentsia store we walked by was, to buy 2 bags to bring home.)
To say the least; we were very disappointed.
Everything we ate tasted incredibly under seasoned, if at all.
I seriously could not even pick up the slightest trace hint of salt in anything (even in the pork belly).
The duck was seriously tough, the foie impossible to describe what was wrong with it.
Service was spotty.
Our initial server looked super busy and was tending to tables all across the dining room.
The owner/manager cleared our entrees and took our dessert order in between schmoozing the table next to us.
the assistant manager(?) brought us the check and mignardises, then we mentioned wanting coffee...
then our first server brought us the final real bill.
$200 (post tip) for 2 cocktails, 2 starters, 2 mains, 2 desserts, and 1 coffee.
The entire experience at Blackbird was so disappointing, spotty, etc. that I'm seriously considering writing a letter to the restaurant (which i normally would never even think of doing).
Hot Doug's
Bacon Sausage
Wine-Infused Grainy Dijon Mustard, Herb-Garlic Eurocrème and Caramelized Onions
The Dog- grilled
Chicago-Style Hot Dog with all the trimmings: 'nuff said.
The Salma Hayek
(formerly the Madonna, the Raquel Welch and the Ann-Margret)
Andouille Sausage: Mighty, mighty, mighty hot!
"There are no two finer words in the English language than 'encased meats' my friend'
'nuff said.
