NAHA

After trying NAHA for the first time during restaurant week last year, I bought the Groupon for NAHA ($40 for an $80 credit). Boy, did time fly! The last day to use the Groupon was last Tuesday, September 7th. Fortunately, an amazing friend was on top of her game and scored some last-minute reservations – 9:30 pm on a Tuesday! Apparently, a lot of Groupon owners were in the same spot because the lounge was packed with people waiting to be seated. We agreed to take two tables right by the entrance rather than wait another 20 minutes for a table.

My dinner date and I shared the scallops to start things off.

To be honest, ordering scallops makes me nervous. I feel like they are a high-risk, high-reward menu item. I should be able to trust nice restaurants to cook their scallops properly, but I must have had a horrible experience with rubbery, fishy tasting scallops because I still approach that first bite with apprehension. After that dramatic intro, these were quite delicious. As you can see from the photo, they were draped in prosciutto, adding the perfect amount of salty flavor. As they should be, the scallops were cooked perfectly – the knife easily sliced through the crisp outer layer to reveal the icicle-like meat within. The little cubes on the plate were something like yellow watermelon. I did not really see how these added to the dish, but they were interesting nonetheless.

If I added something more to the title of this blog entry, it would be “NAHA: Where Adjectives are in Quotations”*. Exhibit A: the descriptor for the entrée I ordered: A Farm Plate of Roasted Quail, Crisp Kurobuta Pork Belly and a Coddled Duck Egg “enrobed” in La Quercia Prosciutto with Scallion Jam, Lacinato Kale, “Duck Fat” Fried Rose Finn Potatoes and Thyme. Who knows why these things are in quotations, but it works – I mean, who wouldn’t order something described as “enrobed in La Quercia Prosciutto” or “duck fat fried”. Hello?!

If I did not have a photo to show you, I would have described this dish as though a farmer painstakingly assembled his pride and joy on a plate to create a “find the pork scavenger hunt” just for me, and me alone. Fortunately, I also have a photo:

So you’re probably thinking, “The meat is right there, you idiot! Why the ‘scavenger hunt’?” Yes, you can see the lovely quail and the coddled egg in the prosciutto, but on the other side of that, there is a hash of purple potatoes. Along with that, there are thick pieces of pancetta that conveniently look just like the potatoes. Between the salty pancetta and the soft potatoes, you just never know what you’re going to get. Either way, it’s a marvelous surprise. Aside from the “pancetta surprise”, the egg “enrobed” in prosciutto was my favorite part of this dish. Salty, gooey, warm perfection. I have trouble making my way through meat on the bone, so the quail was a struggle for me to eat gracefully, but it was very good. There was also pork belly on the plate which was salty and rich but a little too fatty for me. I know that pork belly is fatty by its very nature, but I don’t think the fat was cooked down enough to be a cohesive element of the meat.

If you’ve read my reviews of Blackbird and Girl and The Goat, you’ve come along with me on my journey exploring cream corn desserts.  Welp, the third time is not a charm, folks. We ordered the pave of almonds and blueberries with white corn ice cream and kettle corn.

It was pretty good, but not great. The ice cream, which was the corn component of the dessert, was deliciously creamy and rich. However, the “accessories” of this dish that you see floating around – the blueberries, the kettle corn and the candied almonds – were just strange. The blueberries are juicy and tart and burst in your mouth, the kettle corn is dry and light and melts in your mouth and the almonds are salty and sweet and crunch in your mouth. Three tastes and textures don’t compliment each other like they should. Oh well, I’ve had fun exploring corn-themed desserts, but I think I’m ready to move on. Sigh… 

After the second time around, I can safely say that I am very happy with NAHA. The service is good, the food is delicious and I think their semi-steep prices are justified by the quality of what they serve. The ambiance is nothing unique, but it is a classy restaurant perfect for a special occasion (wouldn’t recommend sitting by the door).

Stay tuned for a review of The Purple Pig!

*This phrase was coined by the lovely Katie L.

Girl and The Goat

I am always looking for the restaurant.

I talk about food like proud mothers talk about their honor students, so when people come to Chicago to visit, I feel the pressure to take them to the one restaurant that they have to try before they leave.  This isn’t as easy as you would think, considering how different people’s preferences and expectations can be. Pretentious, fine dining establishments don’t scare me one bit if it means amazing food, but white gloves and 4 forks may induce nausea in others.

Back to the point – I think I may have found the restaurant. Behold:

Girl and The Goat opened 7 weeks prior to our trip there. Star chef and winner of the fourth season of Top Chef, Stephanie Izard, is the Executive Chef. Our server informed us that, unfortunately, the night we dined was the FIRST night since they opened that Stephanie wasn’t in the kitchen. Bummer, ’cause we were sitting at one of two communal tables facing the open kitchen.

I made reservations for 2 people on a Sunday night, but had to up it to 3, pushing the reservation to 10pm. To avoid the major shift in schedule, we opted to try our luck at dropping in and were immediately seated at a communal table. (To improve our chances for prompt seating, we went super-duper early at 5pm).  

When you walk in, your sense of smell overrides your 4 other senses and you inhale wafts of slowly cooked pork before your eyes can even register the hip, dimly lit space. Your nose bypasses your brain and makes an agreement with your stomach that you’re going to order whatever that smell is. Once you snap-to, you notice the lounge-y seating area to the left, the bar just beyond that, the subtle, multi-level seating area, the communal tables and the wide, open kitchen.  This space definitely has the elements of something new and trendy, but the attitude of Girl and The Goat (thanks to the passionate, but chill servers) makes you feel like you’re coming back to your favorite, old  place.

Before making any big decisions, we immediately opted for the pretzel bread with gruyere butter and whole grain mustard applesauce.

After testing the waters with a small sampling of each accompaniment, I proceeded to slather both options on every, single bite. Sweet, salty, nutty, creamy – how could you go wrong? It’s almost mathematical, people. We ordered a bottle of Malbec while we attempted to decide what to order.

The menu is split into three sections: vegetables, fish and meat; each of which are composed of a selection of small plates. Think tapas-ish. The server recommended that we select 2 to 3 dishes per person. We decided to go with 2 dishes per person, and we were stuffed! For a good sampling of the menu, we ordered 2 from the veggie section, 2 from the fish and 2 from the meats.

First up, chickpea fritters, heirloom tomatoes and fresh mozzarella.

YUM! Imagine chickpeas dressing up as french fries for Halloween. This is what you’d get. Because they’re made of chickpeas and not potatoes, the inside of the fried square is creamy and light rather than hollow and airy. The heirloom tomatoes offer a great punch of acidity to the rich, fried chickpeas. For the second veggie course, we ordered pan-fried shishito peppers with Parmesan, sesame and miso (not pictured). They had just a little kick (mind you, I have a high tolerance to spicy food) and were quite delicious, but there were just too many. You can only eat so many peppers, ya know?

As for the fish, we started with the hiramasa crudo with crisp pork belly, aji aiolio and caperberries. Hiramasa is a sashimi grade Yellowtail Kingfish. (sashimi grade means that you can safely eat it raw). “Crudo” means that the raw fish is dressed in some sort of acidic liquid, such as citrus juice or vinegar. Paired with the crisp pork belly, this was really delicious. The server raved about the soft shell crab with sweet corn, so we ordered that as well.

Did you know that sweet corn is in season right now? Well after eating this, I knew it had to be! (Hurry though, because the sweet corn season is coming to an end) The corn popped happily as I chewed and bursts of wonderful, sweet, juicy corn abound.

Now for the meat course. Our server also gave us a gushing recommendation for the grilled lamb ribs with a sweet onion bbq, grilled avocado and pistachio picada. I will tell you, I have had more than a few less-than-pleasant encounters with lamb so I am often reluctant to order it. My biggest complaint is that the meat is often tough. These lamb ribs were anything but tough. They were sweet, salty, juicy and succulent. For our last small plate, we had the smoked goat pizza.

As a group, our brains inserted the word “cheese” into that title, leading us to believe we had ordered a “smoked goat cheese pizza”. On the contrary, my friend. Biting into this pizza, there was a little surprise at the lack of goat cheese and a lot of satisfaction with the combination of flavors. When our server returned to check on us, we inquired about the meat – is this what I think it is? Is this – “Yes!” She says, “It’s goat!” Wow, with those crazy eyes that goats have, I never would have expected them to taste so good! Sort of like slow roasted, pulled beef. Our server went on to explain that, if cooked improperly, goat can have a gamey texture. She also explained how Stephanie put a lot of time into visiting all of the farms that were going to supply her restaurant. Almost all of the meat comes from a farm between Chicago and Peoria, IL (except the lamb, that comes from Colorado…they can’t keep up with demand or produce the same quality in Illinois.) This conversation made me fall even further in love with this restaurant. There’s something about that kind of pride in the ingredients and care for the source of the food that makes me a believer.

Hanging on to the birthday excuse for a little while longer, we went for dessert. Since we had such a memorable experience with the creamed corn dessert at Blackbird, we went for the creamed corn dessert here as well. It was presented in a rustic mason jar with a single candle burning for the birthday boy.

The creamed corn semifreddo was immensely rich and creamy, exactly what we were hoping for. There was an apricot mixture in the base of the mason jar that was a little too acidic for me. I can see how it should have been complimenting the richness of the semifreddo, but instead, it overpowered the creamy mixture on top and detracted from the overall flavor profile of the dessert.

While the dessert didn’t knock my socks off, I was extremely pleased and impressed with Girl and The Goat. My fiancée has been talking about this place to anyone that will listen for the past week and is already trying to schedule our next trip. The ambiance, the service and the food were wonderful and I think it came at a great value ($7 – $16/per dish). I would highly recommend this restaurant. I think this could be the restaurant in my book. You can expect me to take you here if you come to visit.

Birthday at Blackbird

For my fiancée’s birthday, I decided to make reservations at Blackbird. We have been to Avec and The Publican, sister restaurants to Blackbird, and love them both, so a special occasion seemed to warrant dinner at the fine dining establishment of the group.

The waitress told us that the endive salad had been on the menu since the restaurant’s opening in 1997. I sort of have a weakness for anything with a poached egg on it, so I haaaad to order it. The salad was presented in a delicate basket made of crispy potatoes with endive spears jutting out of the top and - the gem - the lovely poached egg nestled right on top. With a knife and fork, the waitress broke open the egg and cracked the basket, unfolding the picture you see below (and revealing the pancetta!).

The salad was very good, albeit a little difficult to get all of the goodness in one bite. Securing the crispy potatoes, some endive, a little egg and pancetta was a less than graceful act. However, the crunch of the endive and potatoes, the warm liquid from the egg, the punch from the Dijon and the salt from the pancetta  made for a great multi-sensory in-mouth experience.

For my entrée, I went with the Pekin duck. Aesthetically, this dish seemed flat. The meat, the sauce and half of the accompaniments were all brown. There’s some green hidden under there, but the sight of the dish led me to skepticism. Upon first bite, I thought, “Wow!” Upon second, I thought, “Hmm?”

The first bite seemed so full of flavor while the rest seemed lost. There were delicious little churro-like crisps around the plate with a cinnamon flavor that complimented the duck perfectly. However, the duck was sliced so thick and was cooked rare enough that it was difficult to cut through the meat. Unless I cut the duck into very thin slices, it felt like I was chewing a tough, raw piece of meat. Not pleasant. The portion was also very large. I could not make my way through all of the meat and shared two of the pieces with my man.  

Since we were out celebrating a birthday, we decided we had to get dessert! (who am I kidding? we would have gotten it anyway…) We decided to order a pot of french press coffee and the creamed corn ice cream.

Oh. My. God. When you are finished reading this, please immediately proceed to Blackbird and order this! Okay, lemme back up a sec. The french press coffee was notably fantastic. It was Intelligensia coffee and had a wonderful deep note of the perfect marshmallow - I’m talking the kind that you almost, but not quite, catch on fire and then quickly extinguish for the most perfect nutty, sort-of-burnt, marshmallowy flavor. Yes, that.

Okay, as for the dessert. Please know that I cannot do justice to this experience. Take a look at this beauty:

Interesting, right? The moment my spoon began to glide ever so smoothly through this frozen delight, I knew I was in for it. The depth of the creamy, richness of the ice cream was enhanced by the creamed corn flavor to the point of magical, buttery perfection.  To bring you back down to Earth and remind you that there’s more to this dessert than magic corn-butter-cream, there are petite bacon, hush puppy-esque bites alongside the log of ice cream. They offer a wonderful balance of savory flavor and cakey, but slightly crisp texture to – can you believe this – allow you to further appreciate the satiny ribbons of creamed corn iced cream on your tounge. Although, I am describing flavors that you would more readily associate with breakfast or dinner (corn, bacon, hush puppies), this preparation leaves no doubt in your mind that you’ve just had dessert.

Overall, I was disappointed in Blackbird. After visiting Avec and The Publican several times, I had high expectations for the priciest restaurant of the three. However, the dessert certainly blew me away, leaving me with a smile on my face and a generally positive feeling about Blackbird.