as a new Chicagoan with a mission to enjoy all that this amazing city has to offer, my thirtieth birthday was (shockingly!) centered around food.
we started with lunch at Blackbird, a restaurant that's been perched (see what I did there? perched?! like a bird!??!) near the top of my 'must try' list.
since Rob and I really need no excuse to imbibe, and actually had an excuse, we ordered (left to right):
Something Borrowed and New: XXX Shine (white whiskey), stewed citrus fruit, Bittermans Hellfire Habanero Shrub
Blackbird Orange: Murphy's Law Reisling (wine), Bianco Vermouth, Pharoah's lemon peel, orange-ginger puree
I still don't understand like two-thirds of the ingredients, but the drinks were good. really flavorful, citrusy, and not overly sweet.
I ordered from the lunch prix fixe menu, and got an appetizer, entree and dessert. Rob spotted one thing he wanted and didn't need to look any further...
our appetizer: kombu cured fluke (fish) with spring mojo verde, spruce tips and lardo
the fish was really light and delicate, and a bite with a little of everything was awesome. you can barely see the flakes of salt, which added a ton o' flavor.
my entree: wood-grilled sturgeon (fish, again) with green cabbage (braised), enoki mushrooms (those little fried 'trees'), walnuts and kaffir lime (sauce)
wow - this was super flavorful. a little smoky, with lots of different textures. sturgeon is pretty meaty, so I actually had a difficult time finishing the entire thing. I was a pinch disappointed by how salty it was, but good nonetheless.
Rob's entree: short rib burger with smoked provolone, capers, pommes frites (fries!) and a (pickled) spring squash salad
sweet jeebus, I will never not want this in my mouth. so meaty and tender. those fries...gah. I would go back just for this dish.
our dessert: espresso chiffon (cake cubes) with blood orange segments, honey and turnip ice cream
I tend to gravitate toward the 'odd' when it comes to food. my m.o. is to never order something I can ever make myself. I often ask for the strangest item on the menu, because life is too damn short to eat boring food. so yes, you read that right: turnip ice cream. and did it ever taste turnip-y! the candle was a cute little touch, too. the little white chunks had the shape, size, and texture of a macademia nut, but tasted kinda earthy. odd. and awesome.
after lunch, Rob packed up his work stuff and we headed home for a pre-dinner nap. on our way to dinner, we headed up to the 96th floor of the Hancock building for a drink at the Signature Room. the building is so tall you can actually feel it sway in the breeze. the views are stunning, as expected. the drinks are stronnnnnng. (have I mentioned that one of my fave things about this city is that I never ever ever have to worry about drinking and driving, since we don't even have a car? cabs are cheap enough)
looking North, toward our neighborhood
we actually tried to spot the buildings near our place, but we live a handful o' miles away, so it wasn't easy...besides, we were focused on the beverages (and making our dinner reservation!)...
take a guess as to who ordered what...
Strawberry Mojito: the usual mojito ingredients with muddled strawberries
Lake Shore Martini: Grey Goose vodka, Marquis sparkling wine, raspberry liqueur
my drink bordered on paint-thinner, it was so potent. it was fun to look out over the city and find our fave spots with a drink in hand.
the sun was so bright from the west that half of the pics were silhouettes..whatevah.
a quick cab ride (with an awesome Romanian cabbie...so funny) later, and we pulled up at iNG restaurant (it lives right between Moto and Next...holy shit. the Fulton Market area is a gee-dee food mecca.)
iNG is a tasting restaurant, with a set 6-course menu featuring really cool and creative drink pairings. it's a sister restaurant to Moto, which features waaaaay more courses. to be perfectly honest, I'd never even heard of iNG until Friday. Rob did a ton of research and knew a lot about it, but had suggested that I just go with the flow and do the digging later, so I did. as if I weren't excited enough for a 6-course paired tasting menu (my mouth is watering just typing that.), Chris Jones from Top Chef season nine friggin' greeted us as we walked in. not kidding. what a surprise ... everything Rob had read said that he typically didn't work in both kitchens, so it was such a cool twist.
I watch a ton of Top Chef, and always joke that the appetizers I make at home are amuse bouches. you can probably imagine how stoked I was to have a little bite placed before me (with a glass of champagne, since they discovered it was my birthday!). instant baller status. these little popcorn balls were filled with honey and seasoned with Old Bay seafood seasoning. such a fun, yummy start to the meal.
nothing about this place it typical. the menus were folded up as cubes, and I almost destroyed mine trying to get it open. Rob had no trouble with his, which was pretty ironic. the menu only listed a few key words for each course, to leave a little bit lot of mystery. we were encouraged to go as quickly or as slowly through the courses as we wished, and took full advantage (more on that later...).
we decided to kick off (continue???) the celebration with some fun beverages before diving into dinner. per our server's expert suggestion, we tried (left-right):
my champagne
Domaine du Salvard's Cheverny: Chardonnay/Sauvignon Blanc blend
The Kimura: vodka, St. Germaine (elderflower liqeuer), aperol and grapefruit
that Cheverny was so awesome. it had the perfect blend of Chardonnay's buttah and Sauv Blanc's bright and floraly notes. the Kimura was really complex, despite the simple list of ingredients.
after beverages, we alerted Scott that we were ready to get our show on the road. most of the meal was focused around the South African miracleberry, which affects the tastebuds that pick up sour/bitter notes and makes them register sweetness.
our first course was called strawberry rhubarb, and featured the most melt-in-your-mouth olive-poached salmon. holy crap. the rhubarb element was in the rhubarb-jalapeno vinaigrette served in a little pipette, alongside the ginger-dressed arugula salad and the carbonated orange. we were instructed to try each component individually, then together. next, we should let a little bit of miracleberry dissolve on our tongues, and then repeat the process. it was awesome. sweet stuff was a little sweeter/brighter, and the acid in the vinaigrette and ginger dressing totally changed.
please pardon the dark pics, but that up there is a shot of two test tubes on the rocks. one contains sour ale, and the other holds Lambic vodka, green chartreuse, cherry, and lime. as with the food, we were told to try each part, then mix them up however we liked in the rocks glass, and then try it with the miracleberry. pretty damn cool. the ale was definitely sour, and really played off the ginger in the salad.
our second course was called the thaw, and blew me away. pork belly sat atop a kombu noodle with maitake mushrooms and puffed rice, and was dusted with a 'snow' of ...get this...pulverized packaging peanuts (a.k.a. cornstarch). kombu broth was poured over the top and the snow melted into deliciousness. the pork belly was a little crispy, even after spending some time in the broth. there were so many flavors happening at once that it should have been a disaster, but it just flowed so well. this course was served with a hoppy Belgian pale ale called Atomium by Brouwerij Van Steenberge. we typically don't love Belgian beers, but this one was really tasty and not too 'white'. I'd drink it again...
the third course was baozi gyro, a fusion of Greek and Chinese flavors. each of three jazzed-up Greek flavors was nestled on a tender bao bun. braised lamb and hummus were awesome, I absolutely loved the tzatziki (with fennel, an olive tapenade and crispy parsley!), and Rob's favorite was the tabbouleh. another Belgian ale make this little dish feel like a whole meal (you'd be shocked how filling these seemingly little portions can be!), this time a brown ale from the Abbaye de Leffe. the beer was caramel-y and butterscotch-y and has definitely been added to my list of faves.
up next was april showers, a deconstructed chicken pot pie which looked like bars of sudsy soap! the little dollops of 'shampoo and conditioner' were added at the table from those travel-sized squeezey bottles. such awesome and thoughtful and fun touches. one bar of soap was butter-poached capon (male chicken), and the other was a leek confit. the suds were a pastry cream foam flavored with carrot and celery. the shampoo was actually a spinach and cauliflower puree, and the conditioner was a puree of turnip and garlic. I remember this course being the most filling, and taking a long time to eat...I just kept hopping around from bite to bite, mixing and matching. the wine paired with the dish, a 2010 J. Hofstatter Lagrein from Alto Adige, Italy, was rich and refreshing. I'd never heard of a Lagrein before...it was rad.
look at that teeny tiny carrot!
our fifth course, the first of two desserts (!!), was may flowers: a lime curd layered with andiginous hazelnut and tea cookie, and topped with edible flowers. it was like a new-and-improved version of crushed Oreo + chocolate pudding mud pie, minus the gummy worms. this course was served with a hefty dose of miracleberry and lemon slices. the idea here was to try the potted dessert on its own, which tasted limey and tangy and sweet. the addition of hazelnut was awesome and made it almost a little earthy. then, we let the miracleberry dissolve on our tongues for about 45 seconds before biting into the lemon slice - it totally tasted like a pink lemonade! then, with the berry still coating our tongues, we dug into the dessert again...and it tasted like an orange creamsicle. in.sane. the wine served with this dessert, a (hold on here, this name's a lonnnng one:) a 2009 Reisling Kabinett by Paul Anheuser Schlossbockelheimer Konigsfels was light enough that it didn't overpower the amazing flavors, but could stand on its own.
lastly, we had an easter egg hunt: black forest cake, with brandied cherry nibs, white chocolate shell, liquid-nitrogen-created chocolate drops, with phylo 'grass', a cherry gastrique and cherry dust. so. much. chocolate. the textures really played well together. the cocktail pairing here was a Makers Mark whiskey with a touch of Kirsch, cream and vanilla, and served with a vanilla-chocolate truffle with a Cadbury gel. such a perfectly sweet way to finish off an amazing meal...
after our five-hour dinner (whoopies), a long chat with Chris (sidenote: I joked with him at one point, joking that "sorry by ya'lls food sucks", which he though I meant seriously and resolved to send out course after course until I changed my mind...eeek!), and some quality time getting to know our amazing server-slash-up-and-coming-chef, Scott, we were invited to take a tour of the kitchen! VIP treatment...it was so fun. we chatted with the executive chef, Nate Park, about how their systems worked and how he comes up with the ideas for dishes. after such an tremendous experience upstairs, it was really fun to peek behind the scenes and be able to compliment the team first-hand. after our 6:30pm reservation, we finally left (stuffed, buzzed and really happy!) around midnight...
update/ed note: so I found a video explaining all of the courses in a waaaaaay better manner than I've done above. I'm not going to bother going back to change any of my words above because I prefer to leave this account just as I experienced it, and I do notice a few little tiny differences, but here are the pros themselves explaining what we ate.
*****
the shenanigans continued on Saturday with one of my favorite activities: day drinking. few things top getting buzzed in daylight (paired with snacks, natch), getting to bed at a decent hour, and actually being able to function the next day. boom.
we started with a long and boozy brunch at Stanley's with our friends, Chris and Jen. then we made our way to Big Star, a sister restaurant to Blackbird, for some killer tacos and $1 Schlitzs (I know, right?!?!). we wrapped up the afternoon at Northside Bar & Grill before hitting the couch with a movie and some leftover pizza. perfect. Saturday.
Sunday was for recovery, eating (mostly) healthfully, and scoping out bikes for tooling around our city. between the unreal food options and the fun, friendly people, this place just keeps growing on me...
if you couldn't tell from the post above, Rob absolutely KILLED it with the birthday celebrations...I am so so so appreciative and so very lucky to have him in my life. I couldn't imagine a better way to celebrate my 10,958th day on this planet.
