Avec Chicago

Publican was Joe's favorite Chicago restaurant, but mine was Avec.



(Photo from Avec's website.)

Avec is a wine bar serving rustic food influenced by Southern France and the Mediterranean. The wine selection there was lovely. We sat at the bar (highly recommend), and our bartender did a great job suggesting wines and food for our dinner.

Panzanella salad with cherries, roasted vidalias, fennel, pickled feta, mustard greens and balsamic. We loved this salad. So much so, that I barely had time to snap a picture before it was gone.



Chorizo-stuffed Medjool dates with smoked bacon and piquillo pepper-tomato sauce. Avec is known for this dish, and now we know why. It's amazing, and the dates are huge! The perfect sweet-savory dish.



Coffee braised pork ribs with radish, napa cabbage, kohlrabi and horseradish vinaigrette. The ribs were so good. I liked the ribs at Avec more than the ribs we had at Publican the night before. These ribs with slightly sweet with lots of meat on them (wish the picture came out better).



Pan-fried lake trout with pain perdu, lemon aioli, cornichons and watercress. This was our favorite plate. The trout was perfectly cooked, just a bit crispy from being pan fried. The slightly crispy fish and the peppery watercress balance the soft savory french toast beautifully. For all of it's fattening qualities (crispy, aioli and custard), this dish was amazingly light.



Another amazing meal in Chicago.

Publican Chicago

Our second restaurant stop in Chicago was Publican for dinner. The restaurant focuses on simple dishes containing mainly pork, fish and vegetables. Clean, simple food. They also have an amazing beer list, and a great wine list as well.

We knew our night would be great when our waiter asked if we had been there before. After hearing we hadn't; he gave us a quick breakdown of the restaurant and offered to come back with beer samples. Yes, please! Within a couple minutes we had two local beers in front of us, and we were ready to order.

Before we begin some of these pictures are lack luster. For more beautiful pictures please go to Publican's website. I try to be as inconspicuous as possible when I take pictures at restaurants; because of that they often don't come out great!

First out came bread with bright flavorful butter. Nice crisp, chewy crust. Tried not to fill up on it, but that buttered bread was hard to resist.



Chefs selection of three hams. Serrano, La Quercia rossa ham and Prosciutto. Our favorite was the Serrano. This was a fun plate to share.



Just dug radishes quartered with butter and fleur de sel. Simple, perfect.



Our favorite (how couldn't it be). Frites with Louis's organic egg. I don't know who Louis is, but I would like to shake his hand. Those eggs were outstanding. The frites were fried in both animal and vegetable fat. So good. Our waiter treated us to a side of aioli, which was perfect for dipping. Not diet friendly, but worth every bite.



Next we had the Market salad which was contained onion, cucumber, haricovert, sungolds, ricotta salata & hazelnuts. I forgot to snap a picture of this one, probably because it was a little too salty for us. The veggies were fresh and the hazelnuts added a nice crunch though.

Finally, we had the Potée which was toulouse sausage, pork tenderloin & two ribs with some vegetables. This was lovely, but we were so full when it came to the table, we could barely eat it. My favorite on the plate was the toulouse sausage while Joe's was the tenderloin which was perfectly pink in the middle.



Writing about Publican makes me wish I lived much closer to Chicago. The next day Joe wanted to go back there for dinner because we had so much fun. The restaurant is beautiful. I loved everything there from the bar with the wooden taps, to the long wooden table, to the bathrooms with a communal sink. This place is about great food and socializing.

One last thing about how great this place is. Oftentimes at restaurants we'll want to keep our food and drink menu nearby, but because of space issues we have to give it to the server. Publican solved this problem. Their chairs all have a shelf below them to hold your menu-clever.

Frontera Grill

Joe and I took a mini vacation to Chicago a couple weeks ago. Our goal was simple, eat as much of Chicago as possible.

First stop: Frontera Grill

When I was a student at the CIA I briefly met Rick Bayless at the Worlds of Flavors conference. Upon meeting him, what stood out was his excitement about food and how nice he was to us students. Friendly, respectful, encouraging, etc. The kind of chef I want to work for. I was happy to hear he won the top chefs masters conference.

Before we begin. Some of my menu descriptions might seem a bit vague, and that's because well; they are. We were there in August, and the menu online has changed to September, some of the items we ordered are no longer available. Hopefully the pictures will speak for themselves.

Enough about that. It's really about the food (and one delicious margahrita).

First up (complimentary):

Peanuts, pepitas and sunflowers seeds with chili flakes



Nice nibblers. Very beer/cocktail friendly.

Next:

A baked (fried?) tortilla with black beans, a guacamole-like sauce, frisee, cheese and pork (maybe pork belly?)



For Drinks:

Summer Margaritas and Ayinger beers:



The margarita had a cilantro salt rim and was flavored with cucumber and a lovely tequila.

Entrees:

Tacos al Carbon (description from website: Red chile-marinated Maple Creek pork (pastor style), with charcoaled pineapple, slab bacon and red onion served with two salsas, frijoles charros, guacamole and homemade tortillas.



This was very good. I wished there had been a bit more of the pineapple, bacon, red onion mixture, but other than that it was perfect.

The next item was an enchilada stuffed with braised pork and topped with a sweet mole. Delicious.

(entree picture in back with fork)



Unfortunately we didn't have room for dessert.

Next time we go to Chicago we will go back to Frontera Grill. We had a great experience. Our server and the rest of the wait staff were great. We never felt rushed even though we had a coveted seat on the patio. One of the best lunches I've had.