A Taste of Peru

I was going through my twitter time line when I came across a tweet from Andrea declaring her love for a Peruvian restaurant located on the North side of Chicago. Having never had peruvian food, my interest was piqued. My only hesitation was that going alone would cause me to be overwhelmed by all the food choices and I wouldn't know where to start.  So Andrea graciously agreed to accompany on my introductory meeting with the cuisine of Peru at Ay Ay Picante (http://ayaypicante.com/).  It's an adorable restaurant that seemed to be appropriate for family, groups, or even one on one dining. Andrea informed me that there was a nice patio area in the back for dining during the warmer months, which of course was not ideal for Chicago weather in March.  

Upon seating, bread and a green sauce were brought to the table while I waited for the arrival of Andrea.  Usually I would be extra cautious about trying new things without asking, but I figured this is my personal food adventure so I'd be daring and have a taste.  The sauce was spicy, but not overwhelming and I loved the overall flavor.  So much that I asked the server what it was in it.  He informed me that it was garlic, jalapeño, and salt. Here's a snipped from a Chicago Tribune review from 2009, just to confirm my opinion of the awesomness of this sauce:  

This creamy, hot sauce arrives on many local Peruvian tables with a basket of sliced French bread. The fiery, garlicky sauce ignites just about anything it touches, warning you to stay away just as it beckons you to taste it again. Owner Jaime Bardales says the sauce blends jalapenos (a substitute for Peruvian aji peppers), garlic, onions and oil. The finished product may look green and as harmless as Kermit the frog, but it bites. It bites hard.  (for full review: http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/dining/chi-sauces-photo-gallery,0,60314.photogallery)

The menu consists of small plates (similar to Spanish restaurants), soups, and entrees broken down by seafood, meat, and vegetarian.  We started off with a small plate of Papa Rellena, which is described as a twice cooked mashed potato (deep fried), stuffed with seasoned leaned beef. It is served with lettuce and thin cut onions, which I heartily avoided.  There is rarely a potato dish you can put before me that I would turn down and this was no exception.  Creamy potato mixed with small bits of meat, definitely a win for me.

As an entree I ordered Sudado de Camarones (steamed jumbo shrimp) and Andrea ordered Seco de Cordero (lamb cooked w/ chicha de jora).  I must admit I took the safe way out, but I enjoyed the lightness of the shrimp which was cooked in a simple sauce of white wine, tomatoes, & onions. In the battle of seafood verus meat entree, seafood won so the Sudado de Camarones more than fit the bill.  It was served with white rice and came with a side of a boiled, halved potato.  The potato itself was kind of bland unless I ate it along with some of the sauce from the shrimp. 

I tasted a piece of the Seco de Cordero and while I enjoyed the flavors, I'm still weary of lamb dishes.  Maybe because it brings up images of Mary Had a Little Lamb, but seeing as the likelihood of me becoming a vegetarian in the near future is pretty much nonexistent I'll have to overcome this imagery.  But I also think it is a cultural issue, lamb was never prepared as a dish at home when I was growing up so incorporating it into my choice of meals is a small battle for me.

I adored the atmosphere and there is so much food on the menu that I want to try so I will be making a return trip in the near future.  It is also BYOB, so I will make sure it is after Easter so I can enjoy a nice wine with my future meal!

What do you like on your Pizza?

Ideas are like pizza dough, made to be tossed around.
Anna Quindlen

After work I grabbed a quick slice of pizza from Ian's Pizza (http://www.ianspizza.com/) in Wrigleville with a friend.  I recently mentioned to a coworker that I'd heard about a pizza place that serves macaroni and cheese pizza and he knew right away that I was talking about Ian's.  It's a pretty straightforward pizza joint with many different combinations of pizza toppings.  Though the decor looks like your average slice to go pizza place, the choice of toppings make this place far from the norm.  The options for toppings range from pasta covered to marshmallow and chocolate covered pizzas.  Of course, there are the typical choices that could be made for those who'd rather not stray from mainstream pizza.  There are so many types that I'll definitely be back to try more.  And the Wrigleyville location makes it a great place to grab a snack before or after drinking in the many bars that fill the strip.

BBQ Steak & Fries

Papa Bandit (BBQ sauce, potato, bacon, ranch)

Spring Chicken

Macaroni & Cheese

Chicago Restaurant Week 2011

I had previously heard about this wonderful week of food specials a couple of years ago, but this year was the first I remembered to participate.  Restaurant Week lasts for 10 days with prix fixe lunch menus for $22 and prix fixe dinner menus for $33 ($44 for the premium dinners).  When I first approached the website I was overwhelmed, there are over 50 choices throughout the city.  I had no idea where to begin.  But factoring in menu selections and seating availability I was able to develop an attack plan.  Monica B. and I decided we'd just make a food day out of it, my choice for brunch (lunch price) and her choice for dinner.

Brunch (my choice):

I found this place called Salute Cucina & Wine Bar (http://www.salutewinebars.com/).  It's located in the River North area.  And I'm going to be quite honest, I chose this restaurant initially upon seeing that unlimited mimosas were part of the $22 brunch price.  I figured, if the food wasn't that great, $22 worth of mimosas could definitely be consumed.  Luckily, I was pleased with my unlimited mimosas along with the food that was served.

First Course: Fruit Salad

Second Course: Truffle Potato Soup

My third course

Monica B.'s Third Course: Fritata consisting of eggs, spinach, cheese, and tomatoes.

FYI: It made perfect sense to get the Daily Specials list for future reference and return trips ;-

Overall the food was good, the Truffle Potato soup would not be on my list to order again.  Monica B. found it pleasing to her palate, but I'll just stick with my potatoes mashed or cut into fries for now.  I loved the fruit salad and thought the presentation was adorable.  As far as my main course, I've never had my eggs sunny side up and I hope to never have them prepared that way again.  But the hash browns and bacon were delish. I also liked Monica's main course and I found amazingly easy to avoid the tomatoes, I would order either dish for brunch upon a return visit.

The In Between (shall we call it Dunch?):

Our lunch reservation was at noon and our dinner reservation was at 7pm.  So somehow we found ourselves in Wrigleyville, happy off the endless mimosas but needing more sustenance before our dinner reservation hours later. We happened upon one of my favorite spots when I was a Senior in college due to their $5 martinis on Thursdays, Vines on Clark (http://vineswrigley.com/). Because it was a day of trying new things we decided on the artichoke and goat cheese pizza.  As a disclaimer the only manner in which I had previously consumed artichoke was in a spinach & artichoke dip.  But the pizza was a good change of pace and far from ordering my simple cheese only pizza. 

Artichoke & Goat Cheese Pizza

Dinner! (Monica B's choice):

I am very grateful that when pouring over menus to make her choice Monica B. seriously considered meals which she thought that I would enjoy.  And I'm glad to report she did a great job at picking.  She chose Perennial (http://www.perennialchicago.com/) in Lincoln Park.  I think I ended up liking my meal a lot more than she liked hers.  We tried to order different things for all the courses so that we could try as much as possible, but both of us decided that we did not like her main course of scallops.  It was so funny that we went as far as to attempt to google the correct preparation of scallops to decipher whether or not it was the manner in which they were prepared that was to be blamed for our dislike.  But in the end we just decided it was probably just scallops in general we didn't like.  My dinner was good, but it was the dessert that completely won me over.  I would return again and again for the cheesecake.

My first course: Confit duck c r o q u e t t e s.  I was surprised by how much I loved this dish, they were light and perfect finger food.

Monica B.'s second course: s w e e t p o t a t o s o u p

My main course: Grilled Berkshire p o r k b e l l y

Monica B.'s main course: The nefarious (my word, not theirs) scallops

The "cheesecake": Raspberry custard, cream cheese foam, graham cracker ice cream

The typical menu is a bit pricey, but the duck croquettes and the best.dessert.ever. are definitely reasons to persuade me to make a return trip.  They also have a macaroni and cheese bar that allows you to order a taste of 3 of their various types of macaroni and cheese for $10.  More than enough to win me over.  Mimosas and awesome cheesecake made this day one of my best food days ever :)

Mark your calendars...

Not Your Ordinary Grilled Cheese

My go to food for dinner when I'm lacking an original meal thought is grilled cheese.  Two pieces of white bread with American Cheese.  If I'm feeling really fancy, I might add a couple of slices of swiss cheese.  So yesterday was quite an epiphany for me as to how interesting the concept of "grilled cheese" can be.  I had leftover baked chicken (yes, I baked an entire chicken for myself hoping that I could survive off eating it for a few days) and I had recently purchased fresh mozzarella and prosciutto from the grocery store.  I decided to revamp my traditional concept of grilled cheese by sticking all these items in between two slices of Italian (fancy for white) bread.  And so that I could feel better about the "healthiness" of this meal I decided to add a few leaves of baby spinach.  Most people would then decide that a healthy dosage of tomatoes would be nice, but no, not me.  In lieu of tomatoes I added tomato sauce, for that tomatoey (not really a word) taste.  And voilà I was transformed, I will never be able to look at a simple american cheese only grilled sandwich the same again. For those of you who like pictures, I apologize, I was way too hungry to even think about taking a picture.  Next time..

Recipe: Dreamsicle Cupcakes

Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.  ~Henry James


Yesterday was the first of March, which has me craving warmth and summer time Chicago.  And as a resident of  Chicago for many years I'm well aware that both might not arrive for quite some time.  So I decided to put my summer in a dessert, thus creating my version of a Dreamsicle in the form of a cupcake.  The recipe is loosely based on a lemon cupcake recipe that I found, replacing the lemon juice and lemon zest with the juice and zest of an orange.  


Ingredients: 

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of orange extract (I only had lemon, so I used this as a substitute for the citrus flavor)½ cup milk
juice of one orange (approx 2/3 cup)
zest of one orange


1. Preheat oven to 350. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.
2. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
4. Measure out milk and vanilla.
5. Add flour mixture and milk alternatively, beginning and ending with flour mixture.
6. Mix in orange juice and orange zest.
7. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.
8. FROST!

The batter with with orange zest.

I added red & yellow food coloring to the batter.  After cooking it came out more pink than the bright orange I wanted so I would definitely add more yellow in the future. 

Frosting:
I used a basic vanilla buttercream recipe frosting like this one.  Set aside about a quarter of the plain vanilla frosting.  Add 3 tablespoons of orange juice and half a teaspoon of orange extract (again, I had to use lemon as a substitute).  After mixing the citrus flavors I added the red and yellow food coloring for the bright orange look of the Dreamsicle. 


The finished product: 

Yum!

Cupcake Exposed.

The finished product was good, very sweet and very citrus.  The orange flavor was not as prominent as I had hoped, but I'm looking forward to trying this recipe again with orange extract and hopefully I'll get the desired orange result.  But it's definitely a cupcake that makes me think of warm summer days :)

New Orleans Fare in the Midwest

The weekend before last I drove to Indianapolis to reunite with several of my sorority sisters for the very happy occasion of preparing to welcome a new baby.  And of course when groups of people get together, conversation around a meal is a must.  My local sorority sister, Courtney, chose a place called Yats(http://www.yatscajuncreole.com/) for just this purpose.  I first heard about Yats , when the Chicago area one on Randolph opened a couple of summers ago.  I stopped by once but none of the menu items for that day seemed appealing to me or the group I was with.  Since the Chicago area location closed shortly after it opened, I was excited to finally have a chance to check out the Yats cuisine, especially since I had recently gained an appreciation for gumbo during my trip to New Orleans.  The Yats menu at all locations is a rotating menu, they don't print menus, they just have a list of specials on the board for patrons to choose. It's a very homey vibe, there are no servers.  You seat yourself and order and pick up your food from the counter.  The menu consisted of various "New Orleans inspired" dishes.  I use the term "New Orleans inspired" because when we questioned the New Orleans native of the group abut the various dishes on the list and how they were prepared, she informed us that she was just as clueless as most of these dishes were similar to her city's cusine, but had just enough twist to make them unique and unkown to her. I, safely, chose the gumbo for my meal but I was able to taste almost every dish on the menu thanks to the diverse ordering of our group. And in the end, I didn't exactly LOVE any of the dishes, but I would have been satisfied had I ordered almost any of the dishes.  Almost--I really wasn't a fan of the spinach and mushroom etoufee, but I thought it was a great option for vegetarians.

The menu was pretty short, so it took some of us longer than normal to order.



I ordered the cup of gumbo, it was pretty decent, but still not on par with the first cup I'd ever tasted.  Every dish comes with bread.  I'm pretty sure the bread was my favorite part, it was served warm and was very delicious.



Chili Cheese Etoufee w/ Crawfish.  I struggled between choosing this dish and the gumbo.  The only thing that made me weary is that mose Chili has beans, which I try to avoid.  It was pretty good, part of me wishes I'd ordered it for my actual meal instead of going the safe route with the gumbo.



Half Spinach & Mushrooms Etoufee and Half Chili Cheese w/ Crawfish Etoufee.  If you were unsure about which one you wanted the choice of half dishes was available for everything except the gumbo.



Chicken Curry Etoufee.  This dish was actually a lot better than I thought it would be.  It was a little spicy, but not enough to overwhelm the flavors of the dish.