the heart shaped box

My restaurant club’s latest outing!

chicagorestaurantclub:

(Pictured above, starting left, going clockwise: Conor, Bethany, Tim, Genevieve, Denes, Robert, Greg, and Dave.)

The Chicago Restaurant Club Gets Sticky

Believe it or not, our lovely little club has amassed more than 30 Facebook members, and you never can tell who is going to commit to show up to the next event. (Except Genevieve and Bethany. They really, really love their food.)

This time, however, no less than eight of our members attended. This might have to do with the fact that the most recent restaurant in question was Sticky Rice, a BYOB, crowd-pleasing Thai restaurant in North Center that serves classic regional fare, as well as fried caterpillars and other varieties of bugs. At 8:30 on a Wednesday night, the place was bustling.

With a menu that has many pages as a children’s book and enough exotic dishes to pique all of our (already adventurous) appetites, deciding what to order was half the fun.

So, we did what any group of people who wanted to try as many different foods as possible, would: we ordered nearly two entrees per person, plus appetizers.

We started out with two orders of grilled squid, which was cooked expertly:

And followed it with some fiery yet refreshing papaya salad (this was quite hot. Greg got a little red in the cheeks):

We passed these dishes ‘round between servings of one of the most anticipated orders of the night, fried worms:

The worms weren’t all that intimidating once you tried them. They were like eating crispy, fried oil. Not a big deal.

The actual big deal was the Northern Thai sausage. Yumminess, encased:

We cleaned up our appetizers pretty quickly, and compared notes as we sipped the wine and beer we had brought. Then, plate after plate, the dinner entrees (some of which we ordered duplicates of, unintentionally) descended upon the table. One of the first we tried was this sweet and also savory lychee “nut” soup that Robert ordered. It was chock full of juicy lychees and flavored with coconut milk:

There was nothing quite like the ladyfish, either, which Denes ordered. This delightful variety of cuttlefish was slightly chewy and fried, and was mouthwatering with the peanut sauce with which it was served:

Two people ordered a mushroom entree, which I can’t recall much about, except that it was spicy and subsequently devoured:

Although they look alike in photos, the mushrooms are not to be confused with the cow intestines, pictured next. Bethany did us the favor of ordering these, and I daresay they were the best thing we ate that night. Rich and even creamy, you could hear people saying “Pass the intestines!” amid the clatter of forks and plates:

Let us not forget the awesome ice bucket with which we were provided:

Denes ordered ribs, which were quite tasty and meant to be eaten with our hands:

Greg didn’t know what to pick, and ended up choosing tilapia. This was the best tilapia I had ever had, and was served with a rich, unusual sauce, rendering it damn fabulous. 

Bethany also ordered the banana blossom chicken salad (which doesn’t taste like banana, but was a brilliant selection). It’s pictured here with a side of jasmine rice in a cute little basket:

We were filling up on the delicious food, and, every five minutes, more would arrive.

Like this chicken and vegetable dish about which I wish I remembered more:

And, gasp—an ant egg omelet! (It was very good. It tasted like an omelet.)

We stuffed ourselves and shared every plate. There was more that we ate that isn’t pictured, such as the frog legs I ordered.

After eating like kings, we got the check, and…

Only paid about $20 each, including the gratuity that was already included in the bill. What a deal!

The verdict: Sticky Rice was exciting, educational and very affordable and tasty. I bet it totally blows that unfortunately-located, name-I-can’t-place Thai place next door to it out of the water.

Check out my restaurant club’s latest misadventure.

chicagorestaurantclub:

The Chicago Restaurant Club Strikes Out at French Brunch, Improvises

Living in this lovely city, we can take for granted the myriad food options readily available to us. We’re especially used to being awash with brunch choices. Mimosas or bloody marys? Ann Sather Rolls or sweet and savory crepes? Two entrees or one?

We sometimes forget that restaurants aren’t always open during brunch hours just because they happen to have brunch menus. We sometimes forget to check and make sure.

Yet when Doug, Bethany, Robert and myself discovered that the door to the French place we’d wanted to try was not, in fact, budging, we knew we’d simply have to walk down the street a short ways to find a suitable alternative. And we did, at Fork, a gastropub and winebar just a few blocks away.

An annoying trend within many bustling restaurants in this city is no matter how long you wait in line, you often will not be seated unless your entire party is waiting with you. Luckily, the hostess at Fork was much more obliging than others of her kind, since one of our members was on his way when we asked about the availability for seating four. The hostess said she could seat us immediately anyway. Dubious, I asked her if she was sure we didn’t need our entire party to be available to get the table. She smiled and said that there wouldn’t be a table for four available for long, and then walked us to our booth. Amazing!

Anyway, on to the food. It was a difficult, difficult choice, but I resisted salmon eggs benedict to get the brioche french toast:

Which I was very happy with, indeed. Fork also had quite a cheese and charcuterie menu, so it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t sample it. I had a side of the Barely Buzzed, a cheddar-like cheese rubbed with coffee and lavendar. And if you could believe it, it tasted like it — in a good way.

Bethany had the fried chicken and waffles with candied bacon and Canadian maple syrup:

Doug had the chorizo scramble with jalapenos, red onions, queso fresco and cilantro. It came with toast and jam, and Doug felt he was obliged to order a side of bacon, since we had been conversing about how delicious bacon was before we ordered (standard pre-meal ChiRestoClub conversation).

Robert had the chilaquiles, with corn tortillas, house-made red salsa, queso fresco, onion, sour cream, cilantro, and scambled eggs.

The brunch was a hit, and easy on the wallet, I might add.

Check out my new club!

chicagorestaurantclub:

Welcome to the Chicago Restaurant Club

Our first outing was at Logan Square’s bustling Longman & Eagle, an American bistro known for its adventurous and polished menu. In anticipation of a long line, Cassandra (a new, non-Facebook addition to the Chicago Restaurant Club) put our names down 45 minutes before our 7:30 meeting time. After a few Black Thorn (gin, chartreuse, lemon oil, etc.) cocktails and whiskey Old Fashions, we were miraculously seated as soon as our entire party arrived.

We split some amazing appetizers, such as roasted marrow bones with red onion jam, shown here in their demolished state:

We also had buffalo frog’s legs with aerated bleu cheese:

And venison pâté:

For dinner, Bethany had the wild boar sloppy joe:

I had the smoked fluke with clams and fingerling potatoes (it tasted like it was roasted on a campfire):

Drew had the venison hanger steak:

And Cassandra and Robert got the tuna, which I failed to capture (but heard was very good).

Robert had warm gruyere donuts with whipped citrus goat cheese for dessert:

And I had syllabub trifle with brown butter cake, eggless saffron lemon curd, gine and honey custard and carbonated saffron cream:

The vibe of the night was lovely. Most of us were relative strangers, and the experience of getting to know each other was made even more fun by the adventure of trying a decadent meal and the glee of enjoying it.