On The Town: Chicago – Fall 2010

A few months ago I went on a quick trip to Chicago… to see a taping of the Oprah Winfrey Show.  Oddly enough, despite the fact that my sister lives there the last time that I went to Chicago was the year before for a taping of the Oprah Winfrey Show.  I guess my motto for Chicago is “will visit for Oprah”. When I went in 2009 the guest was Mike Tyson and this time around we saw a show about “Miracles”.  It was interesting and I was beyond thrilled to be able to see Oprah in her final season.  I was even able to get front row seats with some careful planning and orchestrating.

Alas a trip to Chicago wouldn’t JUST be about Oprah.  I had a few restaurants that I wanted to hit up.  This time around I’ll just do a quick summary of where and what I ate.

C-House

166 East Superior Street
Chicago, IL 60611
Tel:

I remember reading about a year or so ago that one of my food crushes, Marcus Samuelsson had opened a restaurant in Chicago with a focus on seafood. Since I love Marcus and I love seafood I decided to give it a try. When I set out to read up on the place I had a really hard time finding anything about it. There weren’t a lot of blog posts, not a lot of mentions on Chowhound… it was very strange especially since Marcus had recently been on Top Chef Masters and won! Odd.

I decided to check out C-House for lunch because they have a deal where you get a soup or salad, a sandwich (with fries) and a dessert for $15. I kid you not! When I got there the large space was nearly empty except for two or three occupied tables. I figured this was a bad a sign but decided to forge ahead. I ordered the Chopped Salad, the Lobster Club and a Salted Caramel Brownie for dessert. When the food arrived I noticed that the portions were generous especially for $15! The salad was just okay, adequate for it’s purposes. The lettuce was on the wilted side but I loved the generous hunks of bacon and blue cheese throughout. The lobster club (which is listed as $15 à la carte) was FABULOUS!  Nice hunks of fresh lobster meat topped with avocado and bacon.  A really great sandwich and felt like a total lunchtime indulgence.  The fries were also great and were served with a housemade ketchup.  For dessert the brownies was an excellent finish.

I’m not sure why C-House was empty at lunchtime but it shouldn’t be.  This is definitely one of the best kept lunchtime secrets in Chicago.

XOCO

449 North Clark Street
Chicago, IL 60654

XOCO is one of my spots in Chicago. It’s owned by Rick Bayless and is on the corner for his little restaurant row. It’s a super-casual place that focuses on Mexican street food. On previous visits to Chicago I’d only had churros and hot chocolate (both outstanding and habit-forming) but this time around I planned on doing both lunch and breakfast there.

I went for lunch on a Tuesday and had their Torta of the day which was a Carnitas torta with Guacamole (Mexican oregano, roasted garlic), pickled manzano chiles and red onions and black beans Bandera. I’m not even exaggerating when I say that the torta may have been my favourite bite of 2010. Everything about it was perfect. The bread was fresh, the carnitas were moist and properly spiced and all around each layer had it’s own flavour that when layered just contributed to a phenomenal sandwich (and I don’t use that word often. Phenomenal, not sandwich). I get goosebumps just thinking about it. I of course had churros for dessert.

The next day I had my pre-Oprah breakfast at XOCO. I opted for the Chillaquiles, my sister had the Huevos Rancheros and my mom had the Torrejas aka French Toast which was a steal at $4.75. The winner was definitely the Torreja. It was just some really good French toast! My Chillaquiles were also pretty delicious. You get a choice between scrambled eggs or chicken, I chose chicken. Well-spiced, saucy and cheesy, total comfort food. The Huevos Rancheros was a bit different than I was used to seeing. It was more of a casserole than a stack than I’m used to seeing. Also it wasn’t heavy on the beans. It was good but not the highlight. I also started the day off with some churros and an Almendrado (chocolate shot with almond milk). Heaven.

Gilt Bar

230 West Kinzie Street
Chicago, IL 60654

Oh Gilt Bar, you showed so much promise but didn’t quite deliver. I went with my homie Amanda Skrip for a much-needed catch-up session over dinner. When we looked at the menu we weren’t quite sure what to order. I knew that I wanted the pork belly and we wanted to share a few things but the menu was just setup oddly. They don’t do “proper” appetizers, instead they have “things on toast” like liver, cheese, bone marrow, or steak tartare etc. While I enjoy all of those things occasionally I didn’t want a bready appetizer. The menu also had about 4 or 5 salads and about 5 pastas. The 5 pastas struck me as odd considering this wasn’t an Italian restaurant and they just seemed like an odd fit.

Then it was onto the Meat & Seafood portion of the menu. The first item was a fish crudo… in November. Obviously you can have raw fish anytime of year but the menu just felt odd leading with that as a main in November. There were a few other seafood picks like mussels and salmon which didn’t interest us. Other options included roast chicken (which I never order out since I make those all the time), a pot roast and meatballs. We kind of weren’t excited by any of those either and I’m usually over excited when it comes to food.

We settled on a beet salad, pork belly, and meatballs. The salad was pretty good but honestly, not too memorable. The pork belly was really good! Perfectly prepared although I could have used some more grits with it. The meatballs were underwhelming, on the dry side and a bit charred. We probably could have complained but at that point we were kind of done. On the plus side they have $4 table wine and $5 Bougey Coupes. Bring. It. On.

Sprinkles

50 East Walton Street
Chicago, IL

After living through NYC during the first days of the cupcake craze (think Carrie and Miranda eating Magnolia cupcakes) I’ve been kind of over the trend. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE a great cupcake but for me it’s just another dessert. Just because I’m over the trend doesn’t mean I’ll pass up the chance to hit up Sprinkles! I first had Sprinkles when I went to LA back in 2007 and enjoyed it. They have so many flavours and they are pretty delicious. This time around I bought a lemon cupcake and a coconut cupcake and enjoyed them both. I’ve had the Chai one in the past and liked that too.