Macellaio, AKA That Italian place I can’t pronounce.

Guys, I really like this place. Apart from the loos, which could use a refresh. One side of the space is a restaurant, the other a small bar. The menu is a relatively good value. Beef carpaccio for £5! The staff is pretty nice if a little disorganized, and well, I just like it here. But there’s never anyone here when I visit which is a little weird, although I’ve only been at lunch. (Compare their emptiness with the hopping yet supremely average Santore down the strip.)

Macellaio bills themselves as an Italian butcher and maybe that’s the thing — Italian and butchery don’t fit together in my American head. That’s fine though — you can get used to anything right? (There are a very small number of pasta dishes on the menu — 3? 4?) Apparently, this is a chain — I had no idea.

Each time I’ve been, I’ve had the same thing — the £5 beef carpaccio and the maccheroni with meat sauce. They really specialize in steaks so I know I should try one but I just haven’t gotten around to that yet. Sometimes (most of the times?), I just want some CARBS for lunch. (Never been much of a steak person.)

Note with their wine list — half the wines come from their own winery, which I think is kinda cool.

Don’t bring your vegetarian friends here though because there are VERY LARGE hunks of meat on display. Like very large.

The Verdict: I like it here. Maybe you will too. Marina did.

The post Macellaio, Exmouth Market first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

View of Vesuvius from the Grand Hotel Parker

I don’t know what I was expecting in Naples, but Naples wasn’t it. The city is vibrant and teeming with people. Everyone has a small dog, and day and night, you see families strolling the streets together, window shopping (or just plain ole shopping), eating, drinking, and having that all important coffee. There are hills in Naples — steep ones! And it’s a city on the sea! And looming in the distance, there’s a VOLCANO! But most importantly, there is pizza and lots and lots of it. Excellent, excellent pizza, created carefully and with love by pizzaiolos who are often not the first person in their generation to knead the dough and make the sauce. I sort of fell in love — with the pizza AND Naples. And uh, the handsome pizzaiolos.

How did I find myself in Naples? I knew that Daniel Young, the former food critic of the New York Daily News, runs an occasional pizza tour to Naples. I also vaguely knew that he had written a book about pizza called, simply, Where to Eat Pizza. (I know now that this book is the BIBLE of pizza and both Daniel and his book are revered in pizza circles everywhere.) During a brief respite from work, I saw that Daniel had a few spaces free on an upcoming tour and before you know it, I had booked a place and my flight and I was GOING. Done!

I met up with the Daniel and the rest of the group at the Grand Hotel Parker’s, a grande dame of a hotel, towering on a hill above Naples and with a lovely terrace overlooking the sea. The hotel is set to be renovated soon, but I hope they don’t change the marble floors in the public spaces or the crystal chandeliers in the hotel rooms because hotels like this don’t exist anymore.

Enzo Coccia, outside La Notizia, pretending to deliver pizza old school style

We taxied over to our first stop, La Notizia, run by the intensely intense Enzo Coccia, who talked us through the history of pizza and Naples, fed us what felt like 20 pizzas, and then put us to work kneading dough. Kneading dough is not easy, trust me. It requires a tremendous amount of upper body strength and forearm power. Let’s just say I quickly decided that I enjoy eating pizza more than making it myself, but it gave me a new appreciation for pizzaiolos everywhere.

Pizza at La Notizia, Naples

I liked the vibe at La Notizia. It felt like a neighborhood restaurant that would be happy to see you, whenever you walked through the door. This was confirmed by one of our taxi drivers, who explained that he often makes a special trip to La Notizia, just to eat the pizza.

Pizza at 50 Kalo in Naples

Later that evening, once we had digested a bit, we headed over to 50 Kalo, a pizza joint with a more modern interior design scheme — it was almost as if they were trying to say “This is not a pizza joint.” Even though it is. Here we tried the standard Naples pizza configurations and then a few more creative options. (50 Kalo probably served us the most creative options of our tour, but this may have been more about how they treated our group than the menus at any of the places.)

Ciro Salvo at 50 Kalo

The restaurant was empty when we entered at 7 pm but there was a queue out the door by the time we left — a queue of all generations, a testament to the popularity of pizza AND 50 Kalo. 50 Kalo’s owner and pizzaiolo, the movie star handsome Ciro Salvo is, well, movie star handsome and a third generation pizzaiolo. Let’s just say that he can make me pizza anytime.

I probably ate more pizza this day than I have in the past three year combined — always watching the carbs, my friends — but I didn’t feel that heavy fullness that I get from a New York pizza or (certainly) a Chicago pizza. Pizza in Naples is lighter and airier. The goal seems to be “How can we make this crust as thin as possible, but still hold all this cheese and sauce?” This is the type of goal that we all should have! I have since been applying this mentality to my personal and professional life…a la…”How can I make as much money as possible, but work as little as possible?” I’ll keep you posted on how that’s going.

I slipped into bed that evening completely sated and completely copacetic with Naples and pizza and life in general. There really is no better way to spend a day than by eating pizza ALL DAY. You should try it some time. It’s good for you.

Stay tuned for even more pizza on Day 2, along with some other tips on Naples restaurants and things to do and see.

Buy: Where to Eat Pizza by Daniel Young

Go: Daniel’s Pizza Tours of Naples

You Might Enjoy My Other Posts

• Where to Eat in Naples
• My Pizza Tour of Naples Part II

Book a Naples Tour

The post Eating Pizza in Naples with Daniel Young, Part One first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

Guys, why didn’t we buy flats in Elephant & Castle years ago? We’ve been mocking it all these years BUT…have you been there lately? I think I want to move there. I mean, convenient transport links, a great name, AND a new awesome Italian supermarket with a mostly Italian food court that’s open every day but Monday! Oh, for it to be 2010 again…or maybe 2008 during the financial crisis. Why didn’t I buy property then?? Why???

So yeah, if I lived in Elephant & Castle, I would live at Mercato Metropolitano. It’s like Eataly, but without the bad typography (seriously awful use of white space) and stacks and stacks of panettone.  I was about to ask when London was getting its Eataly when I found this article, that says that Mercato Metropolitano was started by one of the founders of Eataly. Oh, and that the Eataly/Selfridges deal has fallen through. So yey for Mercato Metropolitano! Long may it prosper. Maybe if we go there enough, Eataly will finally open a central London foodhall.

After a short walk from Elephant & Castle tube, I entered through MM’s grocery store, which is a long, narrowish space with seemingly no real place to check out except at the entrance. It’s like they really don’t want to take your money! Very odd. I thought for a moment that this was all Mercato Metropolitano had to offer until I made my way to the back yard and into the warehouse behind it. Oddly, a vegetarian stand, a Vietnamese stand, and an Argentinian grill greeted me. This was not what I expected. And there was no coffee…very very odd. (Although there was a little stand with a guy selling Sicilian pastries.)

I turn the corner again, and there it all it. Aha! Now I get it! There is wine and beer and fried things and cheese and more wine and paninis and all sorts of great things. There’s a stand with nothing but tuna! And they have a fat fresh big tuna with eyes so clear he (or she) must have just been plucked out of the Atlantic that morning. (Or well, have been frozen immediately two weeks ago.) They are sawing the tuna open and I peruse the menu while I watch and well, I want to eat everything but I can’t really so now I have to go back.

I order a pizza because…pizza. It’s the Pizza Fresca, which very clearly says that it has salume on it, but yet is also very clearly labeled as vegetarian. The pizza is a hot, bubbly delight although perhaps a little too much crust for my liking. I wish I had some olive oil or something because crust is just a little bleh otherwise. Also, I can confirm that pizza was definitely not vegetarian, unless laboratories worldwide have made amazingly meaty strides with tofu and seitan. It’s a very good pizza though.

I order a wondrously well-priced (5 quid) glass of white in the Enoteca, and snuggle in for a bit in the wooded Tirolean space. The seat covers are sort of like like those wooly rugs you buy at Ikea, but they will look dank and gray and matted in another three months so please, Enoteca, replace them regularly.

I take another wander around Mercato Metropolitano. I love it here. I want to come back. I will come back. It’s a great addition to London.

The Verdict: Go early and go often!

The post Mercato Metropolitano, Elephant & Castle first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

After a summer of working, working, working — where do the days go, my friends? — I am finally free for a bit. Hence my trips to Thailand and Venice, and hence my leisurely lunch with my friend John last Friday at Ristorante Frescobaldi off of Regent Street. Because you know, I haven’t eaten enough Italian food lately. Oh my goodness, the carbs.

John and I both made the same mistake at Frescobaldi — we tried to enter the restaurant from a corner of the building that is definitely not the entrance. So scan carefully as you approach. The entrance doesn’t seem to be where you might think it is. But once inside, everything is exactly where you’d expect it to be and THE CHAIRS. The chairs are amazing. I am immediately distracted by the chairs, they are so beautiful. Tables are spaced, well, spaciously, and you really get to see the chairs, which look Danish in their form. I spent a lot of time eyeing the chairs at Frescobaldi.

While I waited for John, I tried to order tap water. I tried three times before they actually brought me tap water and not bottled still water. I’m not into the miles or the price on bottled water when London tap water is totally a-ok.

The lunch special! That’s why we’re here. 25 quid for two courses from the very succinct lunch menu. Some lovely, lovely beef carpaccio for me to start…soft and delicious. And then the autumnal tagliatelle with mushrooms which I swear got more autumnal with every bite. Every bite. Many carbs were consumed — i.e., the entire bread basket — in making sure that tagliatelle plate was clean before it was returned to the kitchen. This was all washed down with a very affordable bottle of Frescobaldi’s own attractively-priced Chardonnay, a bottle that never seemed to end. Either that, or I am losing my ability to make half a bottle of Chardonnay magically disappear.

For a Friday afternoon, Frescobaldi was strangely empty during our visit. With the exception of the “Tap Water Incident,” service was prompt and friendly, although don’t mention Monica Lewinsky to them. (I, for one, am a fan of her anti-bullying agenda.) Ah…strangely amazing was the array of candy that was delivered to our table at the end of our meal. It’s like someone had run down to Sainsbury’s and picked up all the Halloween Candy they could. We ate it all, plus the homemade mini meringues and biscotti. I stumbled out of Frescobaldi in a glassy-eyed sugar coma. (John’s words, not mine.) Fascinating.

The Verdict: I like it here. I like the space, I like the chairs, I like the food, I like the wine, and I like the service. I don’t understand why there weren’t more people there. You should go.

The post Ristorante Frescobaldi, Mayfair first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

I never thought I’d say this but guys, I’m ADDICTED to Snapchat. I experimented with it last summer and never quite figured it out. That’s because I didn’t follow anyone who was doing cool stuff. Then I saw an article somewhere about Adventurous Kate and how you should follow her on Snapchat and I did and now I totally get it! And I love it. In university, I used to do radio and I loved putting together my shows. Snapchat can be sort of like that, which I love. And it’s one of the reasons why I like Adventurous Kate’s use of Snapchat so much. It’s almost like she makes little news reels of her travels and adventures. She did a great series on her visit to Savannah Georgia the other week. Now I just have to get over my fear of selfies. (So so so not into the selfie or lecturing the camera.)

Anyhow, I say all this because I’ve been snapchatting a lot of my meals and adventures these days. If you want to follow me, find me on @kristainlondon. (Surprise.) Or do the whole Snapchat scan thing by scanning my Snapchat thingy over in the right sidebar.

I don’t have a cat (many of the people I follow on Snapchat seem to have cats) and I don’t do a lot of (any?) talking TO the camera though, just so you know. So I guess what I’m saying is that Snapchat is the most instantaneous way to know what I am up to. (I find with Instagram, I string out my photos over time rather than posting them in the moment.) The other night, while I was at Pizza Buzz with May from Eat Cook Explore, I Snapchatted the interior of the restaurant, but oddly not the food. I was too focused on EATING the pizza. Here’s the interior…

I was also focused on Atila, the uber-charming pizza maker. Guess where Atila is from?? HUNGARY. Atila the Hun, get it?? Love it. Love Atila. And I love his pizzas.

Although if you go to Pizza Buzz, I wouldn’t recommend the odd combinations they offer on the chalkboard. We tried one of them — veal meatballs and caramelized onions — but the onions made the pizza too sweet and who wants a sweet pizza? Not this New Yorker. There was also some sort of Irish pizza with potatoes that I just didn’t even want to imagine.

We did admire the crispy, slightly charred crust of  both our pizzas though. Only 2 minutes in the pizza oven, flaming away at the back of the restaurant! 2 minutes! The miracle of pizza, my friends. Of the three combinations of pizza we tried — May wisely went for a half/half — we liked her spicy pizza with nduja sausage the best.

With our pizzas, we enjoyed a very good version of a Caesar salad, with nice creamy, garlicky dressing. We also had some burrata with rocket; the burrata could have been a bit creamier but one really cannot complain about burrata because, well, it’s burrata. And to top it all off, I had GOAT MILK MINT CHOCOLATE CHIP ICE CREAM. Like I had died and gone to heaven. (I really really like mint chocolate chip.)

The Verdict: Pizza Buzz is fun and friendly. Pizzas start at about £7 and go up from there, depending on what toppings you order. You can see the full menu over here. Note that things look like they could quickly add up…

The Fine Print: I was a guest of May’s during our visit to Pizza Buzz. She was invited to try Pizza Buzz out so we did not pay for our meal. 

The post Pizza Buzz, Shoreditch first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

I’m sorry about the super close-up of my pizza.

One day, I will leave EC1, I swear. BUT EVERYTHING I NEED IS RIGHT HERE. So why go far? And look, there’s a new pizza place. Did you know that pizza is the #1 most ordered item on JustEat? Oddly, for the UK at least, pizza is about the last thing I ever order as takeaway.  I much prefer an in-person pizza. Maybe it’s the way bridge & tunnel people in New York are raised. We eat pizza IN PERSON.

So The Wedge Issue. Relatively new to the ‘hood — oh how I wish their was a neighborhood Facebook group to discuss these new local things — and I was hungry and maybe the tiniest bit hungover so I made the slog and was one of the maybe four people in the place. After placing my order relatively quickly — I had sussed out my order in advance — the smoke detector went off multiple times . Surprise surprise, the restaurant filled with smoke. Doors and windows were opened so instead we shivered as we sat waiting, eventually smoke free. Then they were out of the IPA I wanted, and then my replacement beer order took ages to arrive because they were letting the foam settle. (Communication, people.) My Soho pizza — N’duja sausage, peppers, chilli, mozzarella, San Marzano tomato sauce — was tasty but a little soggy in the middle which made me sad. The husband-wife team that run the place seem very sweet, albeit a bit distracted. (American? Canadian? I’m not sure.) But hmmm. Too many questions. Most specifically, who were ALL THE PEOPLE that came out of the basement???

The Verdict: Maybe I caught them on an off day. I’d give them another shot. Good for groups and for one of those lunches where you have to please a lot of people with different tastes.

The post Wedge Issue, Clerkenwell first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

Pizza Vesuvio

The Kings X entrance I have never been to before!

Inside Pizza Union Kings X

Pizza Stagione

Dolce

Corn Nuts!

Dolce

The Superfast Oven

I have been eating a lot of pizza lately. Maybe it’s because of my recent New York trip. (More about that soon, I promise.) I ate a lot of pizza in New York and well, I came back to London and was still in the zone and just couldn’t stop eating anything sauce-y and cheese-y.

Pizza Union totally delivers. On a crazily rainy afternoon the other week, we scarfed down two piping hot pizzas — one Vesuvio (pepperoni, green chillies, cracked chillies) and one Stagioni (cotto ham, pepperoni, mushrooms, artichokes, black olives) — in the blink of an eye. And I mean blink because Pizza Union is not kidding when they say these are “superfast” pizzas. There were pretty much no minutes between placing our order and being served. Maybe five minutes, max?? We washed our delight down with the house red wine that we affectionately called “pizza wine” because, well, it was a very good pizza wine.

Americans amongst you will laugh when you are handed one of those “Your table is ready” devices which will blink and buzz when it’s your turn to head up to the front and pick up your pizza. That’s part of how Pizza Union does this so fast. You place your order at the till, get your device and find a seat. (When we were there at lunchtime on a Friday, the place was PACKED. By 2:30 pm, it had emptied out.) The staff are seriously cranking out pizzas like there is no tomorrow so it won’t be long before your buzzer is a-blinkin’.

A Pizza Margherita at Pizza Union goes for an astonishing value price of £3.95. The Vesuvio, £5.50 and the Stagione £6.50. How they keep prices so low, I don’t understand!! Either rent is cheap or they do so much in volume that it all sort of works itself out.

During our stay, we also enjoyed some corn nuts, a verdura salad and some crazy delicious desserts that I cannot even explain. Deep fried rings of deliciousness stuffed with caramel and nutella, covered in cocoa. Messy but delicious.

We really enjoyed our time at Pizza Union. It’s buzzy and fun and well, a terrific good value. Staff during our visit were super friendly and nice. It’s a student-y type of place bound to be popular with the kids. But it will be popular with me as well.

The Verdict: Fun for the entire family.

I was a guest of Pizza Union and invited Denise along.

The post Pizza Union, Kings Cross first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

"Italian Nachos"

Dining room

FRITTO MISTO

Carbonara

Bread plate

Proof of the "Italian Nachos"

Bruschetta caponata

Sausage pappardelle

The new sightly unemployed Krista is the “Say Yes Krista.” Yes, after years of saying NO, I’m saying Yes. Because someone has to. And I’d rather it be me then some of the crazies. (Sorry, crazies.) So when Jamie’s Italian offered me a £50 voucher to eat at one of their restaurants, I said YES and invited the infamous Wine Sleuth along with me to check out Jamie’s Italian Covent Garden.

And you know what? We had a great time. The atmosphere was lively! The food was enjoyable! The wine was in abundance! And even better, our server, Carlos, was pretty much the nicest, best server I’ve ever had in London. When he told us that he helped train new staff in new restaurants, I totally got it. If I ran Jamie’s Italian, I’d want Carlos to train all my staff too. Thank you, Carlos, for a wonderful experience and for making the Fritto Misto happen!!!

In short, my main takeaway after my £50 voucher experience at Jamie’s Italian was that I should SAY YES more often.

Jamie Oliver is a cheeky chappy now isn’t he? And so is his food. He is being funny sometimes with his menu. Me? I would like to have a long talk with the person in marketing who called the fried ravioli “Italian Nachos,” but otherwise, how can one NOT enjoy fried ravioli?? I accidentally ate the entire spicy pepper on our bruschetta which caused some problems for me the next day (!!!) but damn if we still didn’t polish off both the ravioli and the bruschetta starters and a mixed basket of very nice bread as well.

The carbonara was luscious although after discussing it with Carlos, we determined that it was not of the creamless variety. I don’t care! The SAY YES Krista is less of purist than the old fully-employed Krista. The carbonara was still enjoyable! My dad would have loved it! (I’ve learned over the years to never take my father to an Italian restaurant in London. He is always disappointed. I don’t think he would be disappointed at Jamie’s Italian.) The sausage pappardelle was less enticing — lacking a depth of flavor — but we still polished it off.

Carlos had initially suggested that we try the Fritto Misto but then it turned out that they were still waiting for their seafood delivery. 20 minutes became one hour and 20 minutes but Denise and I were catching up on all things social media and drinking all the white wine, so it didn’t matter really. When the huge platter of Fritto Misto finally arrived, the Italians at the table next to us looked on in horror. I don’t know if you know this, but I can totally read people’s minds and I knew exactly what they were thinking.

1. How are those girls eating all of that?
2. We want some.

And while the Fritto Misto was a little short on seasoning, multiple lemon wedges delivered by Carlos on request made up for that. Even my arteries acknowledged that the quality of frying was commendable. Also, a great selection of seafood. Not a one-trick scampi pony. Excellent work, Jamie’s Italian Covent Garden. Excellent work. (But try a little pinch of Old Bay next time.)

In short, we had a good time here. I’d go back and bring my dad. We meant to stop in the front of the restaurant on the way out and check out the books and products on sale, but 1.25 liters of white wine later, we forgot. This means I will have to go back.

The Verdict: Fun for the entire family. Say yes!

Marketing bit: Jamie’s Italian does a Gold Card membership which is free and offers members little treats and promotions whenever they visit any of the restaurants. Join now.

Obligatory disclaimer in a normal font size that humans can read: Jamie’s Italian was kind enough to give me a £50 voucher for lunch at one of their restaurants. We still managed to spend £42 extra pounds AND we still tipped on what would have been the full amount. As you can (I hope) tell, I still wrote whatever I wanted to write, even with the voucher. 

The post Jamie’s Italian, Covent Garden first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

Julie left us here in Chicago and moved to DC. Her boss’ boss’ boss in the President now. That’s pretty cool. So I went out to DC for a visit, hoping for an intro. When I was a kid, we considered everything south of Pennsylvania “The South,”which I think is funny now as a Midwestern transplant. That being said, visiting DC made me miss the East Coast and most notably, the preppiness. I miss preppies…seersucker, boat shoes, Lacoste, belts with boats and whales on them. And I miss the food…clams and clams and more clams. I did NOT have clams when I was in DC but I did eat a Proof, a wine bar full of beautiful people. The gnocchi was beautiful. I would say you should get some,  but it’s not on the menu anymore. Sorry!

The Verdict: A nice meal and a very nice wine list. I’d go back here.

P.S. Julie did not introduce me to the president. She owes me.

The post Proof, Washington DC first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

I did have a very nice morning at the Wicker Park Farmer’s Market last Sunday though, helped by some Divvy bikes and some classical music. (But then…stressful…Divvy didn’t show that I had ever returned my bike. They’ve still got some kinks to work out there, apparently.)

Where I’m going with all this is that for the first time in ages, I did take a bit of a break and finally took advantage of work summer hours on Friday and met @Zimmerino for lunch at Siena Tavern. I was a bit nervous about this lunch because Siena Tavern is one of those cavernous River North places with filament flightbulbs and cheap bathrooms. (Not even a soap dispenser. Seriously. Just a container of Softsoap.)

And I was somewhat right to be nervous. Because here’s how this all went down.

Me: “Hi, I don’t have a reservation but I’d like  table for two if you’ve got one.” (It was 1:30 pm on a Friday, close to the end of the lunch rush.)

Them: “We’re all booked in the restaurant right now, but you can find a table in the bar area. It’s first come first served.” Fine.

Me, sitting at the bar, about 15 minutes later, “Hi, we’re going to move to that table over there that just opened up if you don’t mind.”

Bartender: “I don’t know if you’re allowed to do that. Have you asked anyone if you can do that?”

Me: “Um, I guess I’m sort of asking you. The front desk said it was okay, so maybe we can just close out our tab and move over…”

Bartender: “Well, I don’t know if you’re allowed to do that but if that’s what they told you at the front desk, I guess you can.”

Urrrggghhhh. Thanks.

And then we ordered some food that took ages and ages to arrive. The brussel sprouts salad was rough and dry, and the coccoli, which everyone raves about (dough puffs slightly bigger than golf balls, prosciutto di parma wrapped around stracchino cheese, “drizzled” with truffle honey) was okay, but for me, the honey ruined everything. Too sweet, too cloying. Then the waitstaff disappeared forever and ever. And then we had some gnocchi that I can only describe as overcooked wet blobs of something in a decent cream sauce, and then a prosciutto, pear and arugula pizza where the pears had been “drizzled” with powdered sugar. I don’t want powdered sugar on my pizza. (But the arugula was very good and fresh, and the pizza crust itself was nicely done.) Ah, and then the waitstaff disappeared again and us and the table next to us spent a lot of time trying to flag someone, anybody, down.

Best line? Our waitperson walked by with two very fine looking beers on her tray, stunning in color with fine foamy heads. I had just gotten a beer, but it wasn’t anywhere near as nice looking as the two she had on her tray. “What are those? I asked her.

“Beers,” she answered.

The Verdict: Inconsistent cooking and flavor combos that didn’t work for me particularly well. Too much sweetness. In general, not my scene. But many people will like it here.

P.S. I hate the word drizzle.

The post Siena Tavern, Chicago first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

The more things change, the more things stay the same. Sometimes the simplest explanation IS the explanation. Sometimes, you have to leave to go home. Or come home to leave. Thankfully, the winter of my homecoming last year has not been repeated. Chicago is bright and cool and BRISK. The skies are stunningly, vividly blue. I’ve worn my boots just once. And my down coat — its buttons lost somewhere between last year and this year — also just once. Everything is lovely, but it makes me feel like we are on the cusp of something. On the cusp of something big. Something huge. Something terrible.

I am frightened.

So, um, I’ll just keep going out to eat then. Here’s where I’ve been lately:

Boiler Room, 2210 N California Ave: I loved the vibe of Boiler Room. I loved the loos. (Chicago Transit doors and, even, sound effects.) I loved the beer selection and I thought our service was pretty good too. But the pizza? Undercooked, and while at least the pepperoni had some taste to it, The Purist (mozzarella, basil, balsamic reduction) was pretty tasteless. The Verdict: Meh. So much promise, but not fully realized.

Keefer’s, 20 W Kinzie: My NY Strip Steak was good. The creamed spinach was good. The potato croquettes were excellent. But our server took FOREVER to take our order, and then he claimed we didn’t order calamari to start (we did) and then at some point, a fist fight broke out between other tables. ??? Oh, and I should mention that my friend who made the reservation is a very dependable, reliable person and I was there when she called Keefer’s and booked the table. Upon arrival, they had no record of our booking. They worked things out which was good of them, but still all very odd. Oh!! And then, when the bill came, we asked for it to be divided up amongst credit cards and that was one of the most complicated conversations I’ve ever had, for what was a basic math thing. The Verdict: I’d go somewhere else before I went back here, but I did like the vibe of the room with the radios in it.

Nori, 954 W Diversey: I dropped in here for a quick dinner after getting a haircut at Salon Blue on Sheffield, a place I’ve been going to since 1998! (Go see Amy. Tell her Krista sent you. Funnily, Chicago Food Snob has been going to Amy forever too!) Amazing. Anyhow, obviously Penny’s isn’t doing as well as it used to because this used to be part of Penny’s next door. I sat at the bar and had the Red Nori (spicy tuna, spicy shrimp, and avocado covered with tempura crumbs, red tobiko, and unagi sauce) and it was pretty enjoyable. But then I had the Crunchy Spicy Tuna maki and it was so depressing, it made me cry. There was no crunch. It was like they forgot a step. Roll the maki in raw tempura crumbs and…sigh. The Verdict: OK. Not great. I will keep searching.

Roka Akor, 11 W Illinois. I dropped in here for lunch with some colleagues this past Wednesday during Restaurant Week. The restaurant was curiously empty. Apparently, no one in The Loop wants to go north of the river, because Petterino’s is freaking PACKED every single afternoon. And Petterino’s is just good. And not as vibe-y as Roka Akor. Fascinating. Well, I had the restaurant week special and although I thought the Wagyu beef and kimchi dumplings were pretty luscious, the rest of the meal — the butterfish roll and the barbecued pork loin — were uninspiring. At $22 though, this was a very good value. The Verdict: Good. And the bar area seems good for solo dining.

So there we are. Some recent tries in Chicago. Until next time! Let’s hope it doesn’t snow like crazy in between.

The post Eating Out, Chicago Edition first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

Bar Toma, 110 East Pearson. So firstly, I need to give them props because their location is huge (both in size and the perfectness of location) and if I were a tourist and stumbled in here, I would be very very happy. It’s casual. There’s a bar. And look…I ate some vegetables! We LOVED the charred carrots with Capriole goat cheese, almonds, and Acetaia San Giacomo balsamico. Also loved the beets and gorgonzola. Our pizza was just good, but we weren’t very creative. Just a Pizza Margherita. I tried to get my friend Aileen to have some Prosecco and she demurred. Who says no to Prosecco??? I think she’s preggars. The Verdict: Fun. Cheap. Casual.

Lula Cafe, 2357 N Kedzie: I dragged my friend Amy here one afternoon after New Year’s and I think she hates me now. Lula’s was packed. We got two seats at the bar and were promptly ignored by anyone and everyone. We eventually placed our order and we were promptly ignored again. And then we ate our food — my butternut squash soup and salad were good but not swoon-worthy — and we asked for our bill and (surprise!) we were both promptly (or impromptly) ignored again. It was all rather tiresome, and we left very tired and very grouchy. The Verdict: Hard to focus on the food when the service was so terribly terribly terribly abysmal. (You can imagine my Madonna accent — yes the UK one — as I’m saying that.) I liked the decor though.

The Southern Mac & Cheese Store, 60 East Lake Street. Even though my one and only experience at The Southern in Bucktown was nothing to write home about, I really liked my Artichoke Spinach Mac & Cheese at The Southern’s newish retail outlet. Crispy where it needed to be crispy, with plenty of artichoke and spinach, only two of my favorite things. I was surprised the shop wasn’t more crowded on the day we were there. Personally, I think they need to offer half portions because of the perception of mac & cheese alone. A lot of mac & cheese is NOT good for the waistline. Somehow a sandwich of the same caloric value doesn’t have the same perception. The Verdict: I liked this, but I can’t eat like this all the time. I’ll be back once a quarter.

I think I still have more to catch up. The more I eat, the less I write. I’m okay with that.

The post Yes, Occasionally I Do Eat in Chicago first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.