Thought I'd post a quick synopsis of our recent weekend in Chicago. If someone can punch this into chi.eats I'd appreciate it. I don't have access to it. We stayed downtown (if that's a correct term in Chicago) at the Lenox Suites (sucked) corner of Ontario and Rush. Good locale. Friday afternoon we grabbed a quick appetizer and glass of wine at B Bice. Very awesome tuna and salmon tartare. Excellent- but I don't know if I would recommend the place for first time visitors since it's a chain and they have a little bit of "attitude" I thought. That night our friends took us to Okno on Milwaukee. Read an on-line description of the place at Metromix- I won't try to do it here. It was really cool and funky. Kinda place that exists for a few years for novelty and then goes away when the fad wears off. Except that this place had great food for the most part. We had two great appetizers- smoked trout tamales (spicy) with mushrooms and a spinach salad with wood-roasted tomatoes, truffle oil and a goat cheese fondue on top. I think this salad was the single best thing we ate in Chicago. I will have cravings for it for the rest of my life. For dinner wife unit and I split a whole-day striped bass from Virginia. It was extremely fresh, moist. It was roasted and served with ginger rice, a side of vinegar flavored vegetables- it was huge and yummy. One of our friends had a tuna dish that's always on the menu incredibly good and the other had a pork loin dish that was pretty good. Okno was a good find- very unique in the atmosphere department (a deejay for gawdsakes!) and good food to boot. Wine is a rip-off- but what's new in restaurants? Saturday was walk around sight-seeing. Nice day. We went to lunch at the Berghoff cuz I'd never been there and felt like I should see it. Maybe if you go and have a sammy at the stand up bar it's good- sitting down and ordering off the menu wasn't really that good. It's a great old building- but the food we had was forgettable. Their beer is just so-so too. I think if you hit the Berghoff on a Friday lunch and had the buffet in the bar it would be a better experience. Saturday night we went to Crofton on Wells. Now THIS was a treat. White bean/garlicky soup, vegetable napoleon appetizer, seared Ahi tuna for the wife and I had pan roasted sea scallops on a bed of turnip puree with sage and garlic. Everything we tasted was great, the service was warm and attentive (little slow on the water glass refills) and the wine list was dynamite and very fairly priced. We missed Number 23 from the Bulls being there by 2 nights. Shoot- he probably would have sent us over dessert or something. C on W is one of the better meals Ive had in a restaurant in years. eth
Chicago, IL