Hi! It’s Justin. I’m a Long Time Watcher, First Time Poster (LTWFTP). Grace’s computer is acting up, so I’m helping her out by posting an update from Cali. Here’s the latest:
Happy birthday to ME and my brother (yes we were born on the same day!). I just wanted to make some quick announcements:
– I safely arrived in SF last night after a bad flight with Virgin. They advertise outlets for every seat, but fail to mention that half of them don’t work.
– I will be “liveblogging” on my tumblr: www.gracenotesnyc.tumblr.com if you’d like to see updates on what I’m doing throughout my culinary adventure.
– Thank you to everyone that wished me a happy birthday – you guys are the best!
One great thing about being back in Chicago for work is the chance to see all of my friends that live in the Windy City. On Tuesday, I had the opportunity to meet up with my friend, Jack, who recently graduated from college and is starting his career in banking this July. To celebrate, we headed to Il Mulino Chicago, which is the only Il Mulino to change their name (all of the other Il Mulino’s are known as Il Mulino New York, even though they’re in different locations). Il Mulino is in the Biggs Mansion (most people will probably recognize it from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) and is absolutely beautiful inside. When we sat down, the waiters immediately came over and brought us a ton of free goodies:
They also serve bruschetta tableside (my favorite out of all of the freebies). None of the free things were that good (the breads were all too hard) and the zucchini was too oily (although it was Jack’s favorite dish).
Since the portions at Il Mulino are pretty large, the waiter suggested we get a half portion of pasta and a main course. We decided to split an order of porcini ravioli in a black truffle/champagne sauce:
I didn’t know there were only four pieces in a half order (it seemed like so little!) but the sauce is really rich and two pieces really is enough (especially since there is so much cream in the sauce). Jack really liked the porcini filling of the ravioli since there was a lot of flavor in the filling (especially since the taste is usually overpowered with the sauce and pasta):
After the porcini ravioli, we had a serving of osso bucco with risotto:
Jack thought the osso bucco tasted like it was drenched in A-1 sauce/came from a can, which I totally agreed with, and the risotti was a little too mushy. The veal was definitely very tender and cooked well (Jack mentions that it falls right off the bone in the video review), but the sauce basically ruined the veal.
For dessert, we ordered tiramisu:
The best thing of the night – I really didn’t plan on eating the whole thing, but somehow it was gone in about 3 minutes. (oops!) Il Mulino finishes off every meal with grappa (a very strong Italian brandy) – they infuse the grappa and change the flavors on a daily basis (we had a sampling of green apple).
Il Mulino Chicago would be a great meal for a winter night (when you don’t feel bad about having an extremely heavy meal), but I practically had to be rolled out of the restaurant after we finished our meal. I might try Il Mulino in New York, but I’ll wait until the winter time when I don’t have to worry about eating a little extra! 馃檪
Since I landed in Chicago, I’ve been seriously craving sushi. I had sushi with my college roommates the first night I got here (some place in Evanston that was pretty good) and I made reservations for Kaze Sushi for Wednesday night with another friend. We were deciding between two sushi restaurants but people said Kaze Sushi was some of the best sushi they’d had in Chicago, so my friend and I decided to go to Kaze. We arrived a bit early (around 6pm) and the restaurant was completely empty. After being seated and looking through our menus, our waiter gave us a rundown of all of the specials and things that are really great on the menu. I decided to order the duck entree and six different types of rolls. The duck entree was brought out first:
The duck was surprisingly tender and well cooked in a white wine reduction with apples and raisins. At first I was a little iffy on the sauce because I’m not a fan of raisins in food, but then I realized it was actually really delicious with the duck (I even ate the sauce after the duck was finished!). The tempura shiitake mushrooms reminded me of carnival fries (same oily smell and a little tastier) and the sweet potato fries on top of the duck were crunchy but good. The boiled spinach was cold on one side and slightly warm on the other (the duck was keeping it warm), but overall, the dish wasn’t very hot/felt like it sat out a while before it was brought over to us. There were too many different temperatures in the food that it was kind of hard to stomach. My friend (who shall not be named for privacy reasons), was finishing up the meal when he thought he ate a hard piece of duck, but when he took it out of his mouth, he saw that it was a broken piece of plastic! Isn’t that absolutely TERRIBLE?!
After we alerted our waiter and he profusely apologized, he brought out our rolls – 6 different types of rolls including a dragon roll with salmon, a shrimp tempura roll, a negi hamachi roll, a spicy tuna roll, a spicy salmon roll, and a spicy tuna eel roll. Here’s a picture of three of the rolls:
And the other three:
My biggest complaint, which I mention in the video review, is that there isn’t enough fish in any of the rolls! The hamachi roll had TINY TINY pieces of hamachi (I couldn’t even call it a hamachi roll, I’d call it a ROLL OF RICE). I also had to send back the soft shell crab with salmon because the salmon was seriously rubbery and couldn’t be chewed through. The other rolls were fairly decent, except the shrimp tempura had too much batter on it and I could only taste the tempura, not the shrimp.
For dessert, we decided to share the black sesame flan:
My first question – why is black sesame flan GREEN?! Second question – why does it look like there are spider babies on the plate?! The flan tasted more like peanut butter than black sesame and was very creamy (as a random side note, my mom sometimes mixes black sesame with almonds and soybeans to make soy milk – it’s quite delicious if you drink it cold).
Kazi Sushi had a great open space and lively atmosphere, but it couldn’t make up for the sub-par food.
Four years ago, I spent my summer in Chicago, working for a small paper company as an “interactive marketing associate.” I lived with four other girls (my aunt helped me set up my living situation because I didn’t really know anyone in Chicago) and it was the first time I lived without my family being an arm’s length away. Everyday, I’d walk to the El and do the reverse commute to my office, work for 10 hours, and then head home and place tennis with one of the neighborhood girls. It was a pretty great summer – I had some friends from college living nearby and we would explore Chicago, I was being independent and making money, and I was in really great shape because I played tennis all the time. After long nights of tennis, we would walk to Taylor Street to Mario’s Italian Lemonade stand and pick up large cups of Italian ice – I’m a big fan of Italian ice and Mario’s Italian ice/lemonade is the best I’ve ever had:
I’m not positive what Mario’s background is, but I’ve been told that Mario was just a guy from the city that didn’t graduate high school, but opened up a shop near UIC and has been there for over 50 years. His ingredients are simple but good – fresh fruit, real lemon juice and lemon peel, ice, and sugar. My favorite lemonades are the watermelon and cantaloupe:
They use huge chunks of fruit in all of their Italian lemonades/ices – the fruit is partially frozen and tastes really good with the lemony ice. The only thing Josh didn’t like about the Italian lemonade was that there were huge chunks of lemon peel in the lemonade as well (I like eating it but he wasn’t a fan and spit it out).
Mario’s isn’t open year round – they open in mid-May and close after Labor day (I think). The lines are really long during the summers, but it’s worth the wait!
On Wednesday, John and I went to one of his favorite lunch spots in Chicago – Roti. They’re known for having lots of Mediterranean foods that are healthy and easy on the wallet. John took me there around noon and the line was around the entire restaurant and out the door, but it moved really quickly. John recommended the Athenian Plate – a combo plate with steak roti, couscous, hummus, baba ganoush, and a cucumber and tomato salad (I also ordered a side of falafel):
John thought I might not like the hummus because it was too plain, but I thought it was way too salty. The couscous had dried currants and carrots and something that was sharp because it kind of hurt my mouth when I chewed. The steak roti was tender and flavorful (there was a hint of curry in the marinade), and the cucumber tomato salad was my favorite (because there’s no way you can get that wrong). The falafel wasn’t crispy enough and it didn’t taste like it was fried (it was too doughy for me).
John usually orders the same thing whenever he goes:
Two skewers of chicken, rice, and a tomato and cucumber salad. They also have great sauces, including a yogurt dill sauce that John really likes.
