My expensive wine? a $24 buck GLASS of Domaine William Fevre Fourchaume Chablis, 1er Cru. $24 bucks for a freaking GLASS. I used the very excellent Wine Search app created by my London blogger pal Andy Hayler and learned that this stuff retails for $40 a BOTTLE. Now that’s depressing. (It was a large class though. 250 ml.)

We also split a caesar salad. And a margherita flatbread. There were tomatoes in the caesar salad (???) and the margherita was just okay. Not great. Certainly not worth the exorbitant price tags.

If I ever return — really just because the view is nice — I’ll order the cheap wine ($16 a glass) and just eat the complimentary nuts and the olives.

The Verdict: If you’re a kajillionaire.

P.S. I stole Destri’s photo. This is hers, not mine.

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Right. So this post won’t make me any friends. Because here you have two guys who have done the hard thing…not only have the opened up a restaurant, but they’ve opened up a restaurant in a RECESSION. And it’s not a small restaurant. It’s a big one.

The guys behind Union Sushi & BBQ run a fun and popular blog, detailing the whole process. They’re great on Twitter. You want to love them. You do love them, because you feel like you know them. In fact, everyone does love them! You can see post after post on Twitter of people going to Union Sushi & BBQ over and over again.

But I don’t really know the guys behind Union. I’ve never met them before today. I’m not a professional restaurant critic. And I’ve only eaten three things on the menu, so it’s tough to argue my experience is representative of the menu as a whole. What I’m saying is…no one should really take me seriously, and never *overestimate* the power of this blog.

I order a salad to start because I’m trying to be good these days, really. It has frisee lettuce in it. This is totally my problem but I just can’t get down with frisee. It’s not my thing. It’s also totally my problem because the menu states very clearly…

baby arugula, tomato, frisée, red onion, yuba, tofu crouton, micro-greens + yuzu dressing

Let’s talk about the tofu crouton. I am a lover of all things tofu. But this tasted like it has been prepared ages ago and left to dry. In my opinion, this wasn’t freshly fried (or baked? I couldn’t quite tell) tofu. It seemed old. Stale-ish. The rest of the salad was fine though.

Then the skewers from the BBQ, which reportedly cooks at 600 degrees. Which I had to question because both skewers (beef tongue on the left, alligator on the right) were served lukewarm at best. So maybe they had been cooked at 600 degrees, but then they’d sat and sat and sat, waiting to be expressed to our table. The beef tongue was really very tender and flavorful. Only problem? The little crispy rice balls seemed stale to me. The alligator was less memorable…tastes like chicken, you know? And at $4 for the alligator skewer…the portion seemed small.

The chef brought us out some complimentary Spanish mackerel — normally something I die over. It looked beautiful. But it tasted like smoke and char, and the mackerel itself seemed oddly undercooked. All of this, of course, is in my opinion.

The decor in Union is young and fun. To my eye, it looked inexpensive, but like they were trying. I don’t know.

All that being said, I did like the tilework in the bathroom. This was very nice. Very nice indeed.

The Verdict: My one visit — exactly the reason why I’m not a professional food critic, people — was not too impressive. I want to love it here and I do love what they’re trying to accomplish but…it’s just not for me. There are some that will argue that I should go back and try more things. But there’s nothing really compelling me to do that.

The post Union Sushi & BBQ, Near North first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

I want to love Baba Palace because they were so sweet to me. I dropped in on my walk home from work one evening — I really do need to walk home more — knowing there was no food at home and I really should feed myself. I knew Baba’s was an Indian and Pakistani place, and I am a fan of all things Indian and Pakistani. But there on the menu — all over the menu — is falafel and stuff. And you might know I like my falafel too. So I was a little confused and conflicted, but after talking it over with the guys at the counter, they suggested a chicken dish from the Indian/Pakistani menu. Honestly, I have no idea what sort of chicken dish it was. I thought they said Chicken Masala, but it was like no Chicken Masala I’ve ever had so maybe my memory is out of whack.

While I was waiting for my meal, I soaked in the atmosphere.

That’s a joke, by the way.

And then it was time for me to go and get my food. (Baba’s offers counter-service only, apparently.) I must apologize to my nail technician who was on the other end of my garlic naan bread breath approximately 45 minutes after my visit to Baba’s. Sorry! The chicken was good. It wasn’t bad. It was like eating someone’s grandmother’s food. You just can’t say no to it, you know? It’s hard to point at faults because the guy behind the counter — Baba himself?? — was just so darned sweet and wanted me to like my food so badly.

The Verdict. Sigh.

The post Baba Palace, Near North first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

Date of Last Visit: Wednesday, January 12

The Victim: Mark

The Damage: $15 + tax for me, $18 + tax for Mark. Not cheap.

The Background: On Monday night, I was walking north on State Street after meeting up with some Chicago wine bloggers when I passed Grahamwich and realized that it was super close to the Grand Red Line stop. This makes it more or less convenient to my office, because I can hop on the Red Line from The Loop and be at Grahamwich in minutes. So I organized a little work field trip–or attempted to, because at the end, it was only me and Mark who went.

Grahamwich is small. And popular. So my plan had us leaving the office at 11 to get to Grahamwich around 11:15ish so we could beat the queue. Grahamwich, if you don’t know already, is the brainchild of Graham Elliot, the Chicago chef and Master Chef judge. Also Top Chef contestant.

There was no queue and plenty of seating when we arrived, although a poorly timed photo shoot meant that anyone that came in after us couldn’t find anywhere to sit. (Really–a photo shoot during lunch? Are you silly?) We very quickly and efficently placed our order for two beef shortrib sandwiches ($10 each), one bag of truffle popcorn ($5), and one bag of chips ($5). Oh, and an orange soda for Mark ($3). Grahamwich is NOT cheap.

I slowly opened my sandwich.

Slowly…almost there now…

Voila! There, under that mound of potato sticks, is one of the finest $10 sandwiches I have ever had. Very very tender and nicely seasoned beef. Horseradish! And a great roll. The menu online calls it a pretzel roll, but this was not a Hannah’s Bretzel pretzel roll. I don’t know what they did to this bread, but it was great. And I’m not much one for bread.

What was not so great was the popcorn. The popcorn itself wasn’t very warm, and then it was covered in truffle oil, parmesan, chives, sea salt, and black better. The topping was just a cold mess. It made everything seem damp. And I reeked of truffle oil for hours afterwards. You might think that’s a good thing until you have to smell that way all day.

Better were the chips. Secret ingredient? Ranch dressing powder. Fantastic idea! I hope Mark didn’t mind too much that I kept sneaking his chips. Much better than my popcorn.

You know what I really liked about Grahamwich? The TRAYS. I wanted to steal some. I’m sure I’m not alone. I would be very careful of those trays if I were them. Sooo cute.

I should note that our sandwiches took quite some time to assemble, and there weren’t that many people waiting while we were there. So don’t expect fast food. Also, they are cash only!!

The Verdict: I don’t think I could do a $10 sandwich every day, but for the occasional treat, Grahamwich is a very excellent option. Skip the popcorn. Get the chips. And remember they have jugged tap water in the corner so you can also skip the $3 sodas.

The post Grahamwich, Near North first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

Date of Last Visit: Thursday, December 9

The Victim: Gideon

The Damage: More than it should have been. $220 for two including one bottle of white.

The  Background: One of the guys I work with in Israel (Hi Gideon!) was in Chicago last month and I took him out to Shaw’s. He knows about my restaurant blog and keeps asking me when I’m going to write about our meal or if maybe I wrote about it and he missed it. Honestly, I totally forgot about this meal, that’s how forgettable it was. (I’m talking about the food, not the company!) The one thing I have kept thinking about, however, is how expensive it was for a normal amount of food and a decently priced bottle of white.

We started out with a HALF order of scallops with lemon and garlic butter, rice and spinach. It was all fine really, although I remember that neither of the butters boasted much in the way of flavor. I believe we accidentally ordered the Nantucket Cape scallops because I remember thinking $42.99 for scallops? We’re going to get a half portion.”

One thing I did really like about Shaw’s is they were happy to have me create my own dish. (God bless America, Land of Options huh?) Having split the order of scallops to start, I had no interest in more scallops for my main. So I edited down one of the combo platters and got a 6 oz filet and four garlic shrimp.

I’ve probably been eating too many frozen shrimp from Vietnam lately. In comparison, these buggers just weren’t very hefty. And the rice pilaf that accompanied the dish just seemed like such a cop-out. The filet itself was fine. Nothing spectacular. I liked its cute size though. Very petite.

I neglected to take a picture of the HUGE side of spinach that was delivered to our table. $10 worth of spinach. WOW. I took the leftovers home and enjoyed spinach for lunch and for dinner and for the lunch again over the course of the next 48 hours.

The Service: Our waitress was AWESOME. She was very friendly, very attentive (but not overly so) and offered me options like half portions and creating my own entree when I seemed to be hesitating. The world needs more servers like her.

The Verdict: Shaw’s seems to be doing something right–the place was packed when we where there–so I’d like to give this another shot. If I get around to doing this again, I’ll skip the Nantucket Cape Scallops–even though we SPLIT a half-order, this dish was just to pricey. We were paying for rarity more than anything else.  And I probably would order a crab cake or three instead of the shrimp. You know I like my crab cakes. I hear the oyster bar at Shaw’s is quite good so that alone is reason enough for a second visit.

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