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.
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!
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. 🙂
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