Eating in Chicago

That dark picture over there is Sepia, the restaurant we ate at last night. Despite being about 8 minutes late for our reservation, we still had to wait a bit for the table. We went to the small lounge/bar area. My mom ordered some drink with ginger beer in it, and my dad got a pink concoction with gin in it somewhere. I stuck with a glass of Syrah.

After about 10 min, our table was ready and we got seated in a nice cozy little corner. we were eating fairly late (8:30) but the noise level was still pretty high. Sepia is obviously a fairly "hip" place. The cuisine is, well, I guess gourmet Bavarian about covers it. For starters, we had salad (me), housemade sausage with lentils (Dad), and white bean soup with pork (Mom). The lentils were cooked with bacon and the soup had a pile of shaved marrow on it. Verrrrry rich. The bread was multi-grain rolls that had an unfortunate resemblance to poos. Tasted fine.

For the main course, we had short ribs with red cabbage and spatzle (me), flat iron steak with bone marrow beignets (Dad), and a beautiful pork chop with arugula and peaches (Mom). After sharing tastes, we agreed that I had made the best choice, but that bone marrow beignets are awesome. My mom was unable to finish off her chop (it was massive).

Aside from the noise level, which did drop as it got later, my biggest complaint would be the saltiness of the food. Yes, I know I'm Ms Anti-salt, but both my parents agreed. Otherwise, the service was super friendly and efficient and I would recommend Sepia to anyone with a slightly adventurous palate.

Lunch today was Topolobampo, one of Rick Bayless's restaurants. It shares a (noisy) bar with Frontera Grill, Bayless's other restaurant. The cuisine is Mexican/South American.

Starters: Tortilla soup with chicken, housemade sour cream and cheese for me and mom, the half-size Grand plate for my dad. The Grand plate came with half-a-dozen oysters and 2 different ceviches. One was tuna and apricot, the other was Hawaiian sunfish. Both were delicious. The soup was perfect as the nice weather of Wednesday abandoned us and it was rainy and gray and windy. Y'know, Chicago.

That dish over to the left is the seafood and black rice dish my mom ordered for her entree. I didn't have any, but she ate every last scrap, so I would assume it was full of yum. My dad got a potato dish with three different types of taters; yukon, fingerling, and purple. The was smoked and mashed, crunchy chips, and tiny purple potatoes scattered around. It was served with a nice roasted tomato sauce and a creamy cheesy sauce. I had Chichurron de Queso, which is basically a giant fried cheese wafer that was served with a mixed greens salad (tasty lime-serrano dressing) and chicken, avocado, and some bit that I'm fairly certain were peppers. Here a picture of my meal, with my dad's potatoes in the background:

I also had agua de jamaica, which was a beautiful magenta color and was sweetly fruity with a good tea taste to it. My dad had another pink concoction, this time with hibiscus. The server said it was rust-colored. I would have tipped extra just for that.

Tonight is dinner at Blackbird, so I'm gonna go get dressed. If I'm not stuffed into stuperousness, I'll write about it tonight.