Food,  Rambles

Chicago Food Adventures – Missing California!

I was in Chicago for several nights for work, and it was pretty nice! There was practically no time for me to explore the city on my own since the days were full time work schedule, meetings all day, and then dinners with the teams after work hours. Luckily some of those dinners were off-site, so I got to check out some Chicago food. 

Lil’ Ba-Ba-Reeba!

Chill Spanish tapas place, very highly rated on Yelp. Didn’t have a reservation, so we sat at the bar. I wouldn’t rate it as high as the food was just OK, but my drink was excellent.

I Do Love Tapas

I love trying a bit of everything, and tapas kind of forces you to do that. The person recommended about 2 – 3 small plates per person, so the 2 of us shared the above stuff. The salad and meatballs were pretty good, but the chicken chorizo skewer was soooo try, nothing special. The jamon wasn’t quite right, I suppose we were expecting higher quality for the price and number of slices. 

Travelle Chicago

3 of us dined at Travelle, located at the hotel we stayed at – the Langham. Such a nice hotel, and the atmosphere was great as well. Travelle has a tasting menu, but the people I dined with aren’t really into that stuff, so we split some things from the main menu that sounded really good, and we were surprised. 

 

Cheers! Such a yummy cocktail!

Soup Should be Labeled as Soup

Travelle is definitely more of a fancy spot, and we were super casual! We were trying for a well-rounded order so we got 2 veggies, 2 seafoods, and 2 meats. One veggie was the cream of corn, which we thought was creamed corn or some corn dish we can easily share. It happened to be a soup! Learn something new each day… so we asked for bowls and shared it. Really good! Scallops were raw, which the other people I was with weren’t into, so more for me. The shrooms had good flavor, and the fish was excellent. The meats were just OK. Short ribs were tender, but the Wagyu was a bit dry. Didn’t really like that one as much, but it looked amazing. 

RPM Italian

Big work dinner at RPM Italian! We were seated at various tables, and everything was family style. Our wine kept getting refilled. Yum!

Charred Pepperoni Pizzette - Small pizza! Pretty good.
Whipped Ricotta & Wild Blossom Honey. Very honey-y, but was good. Can’t go wrong with cheese!
RPM Caesar salad. The cheese crisp was really good. I put some of the ricotta cheese on this cheese and got called an evil genius!
Part of the meatballs. Note that these portions are for 8 people, and we got either a big plate or a couple smaller plates depending on the party size. Good meatballs.
Garlic-whipped potatoes and crispy Brussels sprouts. Pretty great sides.
RPM cheesecake. This and the header photo (bomboloni) were the desserts. People tended to enjoy this cheesecake; it was OK to me. I liked the cream on top though.
Cacio e Pepe - toasted pepper, pecorino Romano. Wow, the texture of this simple pasta dish was divine. Really excellent.
Ricotta Cavatelli - pork & beef ragu. This was OK. No one at the table, including myself, enjoyed it much. The meats here felt a bit out of place.
Maine Lobster Ravioli - sweet basil, lobster sauce. Yum, I love ravioli and stuffed pastas in general. This was really good, and others at the table said this was their fave.
Chicken Parmesan - aged parmigiano reggiano. Not bad for chicken parm. Def better than the chicken skewers at the other place.
Roasted Ora King Salmon - fave bean, roasted red pearl onion, burro di cipolla. Didn’t really get the beans or anything, just the salmon here. Pretty good, but parts were a bit over.
Center-cut Filet Mignon - all natural creek stone beef. This was so tender! Pretty good steak. Prob the best beef and steak I’ve had in Chicago.

I Love Family Style / Serve-Yourself

Everyone can try a bit of everything. A bunch of thought we had to pick one thing from each section – appetizer, side, pasta, main, dessert, but it was family style so we were all glad we got to try everything we wanted. The cacio e Pepe and the lobster ravioli were so good and I got my pasta fix that way. The steak was also amazing. Appetizers were all good, and dessert was just alright for me. 

CUT Steakhouse

Final dinner was at CUT Steakhouse, right in the building work was in. Nice, busy, popular spot, but I was a bit disappointed with the steak itself. We were thinking of sharing some starters and some steaks, and the people here would split everything out for each person. Convenient, but what if someone didn’t want the Mac n cheese and someone else wanted more Mac n cheese and less or something else? 

Not the Proper Clientele

I was definitely not the proper clientele for this place. Actually, all of us were here for a quick and convenient, yet tasty meal. We ordered steaks, Mac n cheese, Brussels sprouts, and scalloped potatoes, and they charged us for 2 of some of these orders. Sure, they split the sides out for us, so it might have been more than one order of side, but I wished they let us know how many orders each it was before the surprise on the check. I’m just staff at work, so I don’t make the big bucks as the attorneys, so these things matter to me quite a bit. 

Semi-Food Adventure

A lot of people I was with were more into meat and potatoes. I love sushi, but couldn’t find anyone into the raw stuff like I was. The original Girl & The Goat is in Chicago, but people didn’t seem to into it, especially based on the menu and hearing “goat,” which turned some people off. Next time… if I have spare time and actually plan out a trip, I’d want to check that out as well as other Top Chef restaurants, and Alinea. 🙂