A girl, a goat, an amazing meal.

Cuisine: Goat (for lack of a better descriptor)

Location: 809 W Randolph St., Chicago, IL

Price: $$$

Food: 4.5*

Service: ****

Overall: 4.5*

Website: http://www.girlandthegoat.com/

Three months. That’s how long the wait is for a reservation at Girl & The Goat. And that’s only if you’re dining at off hours (Sunday night, first and last seating, etc.). Otherwise the very instant seats are released on OpenTable, there’s a long list of people waiting to try the food at Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard’s restaurant who will snatch them up in a heartbeat.

In June, on an impulse, I decided the time was right to make a reservation at Girl & The Goat, for some far off date that might never come about, at least not before the Mayans predicted the end of the world or the rapture befell us yet again. For the duration of summer the thought of dining there was constantly in the back of my mind, a subtle reminder that the days were ticking off before I would be seated at one of the most talked-about, well-hyped, and adoringly-reviewed restaurants in all of Chicago.

Sustainable fine dining in Lakeview: Browntrout, Labor Day Weekend Part I

Cuisine: Contemporary American/ Seafood

Location: 4111 N Lincoln Ave., Chicago, IL

Price: $$ - $$$

Food: ****

Service: 3.5*

Overall: ****

Website: http://www.browntroutchicago.com

The father was in town recently to help me move into my new digs in Lakeview (conveniently located within walking distance of DMK Burger Bar!), and as per the norm I was given the task of planning all our meals for the weekend. The full weekend lineup was as follows:

Friday Dinner: Browntrout in Lakeview

Saturday Dinner: Fogo de Chao in River North (Brazilian steakhouse for my inner glutton)

Sunday Brunch: Publican in Fulton Market (Paul Kahan’s casual-dining locale known best for its pork, shellfish, and beer selection)

Sunday Dinner: Riccardo Trattoria in Lincoln Park (Italian, a must for my dad’s Chicago visits every time)

Let’s just say I finished the weekend very full and sated, with a promise to myself to eat a steady diet of greens for the next few weeks to compensate for the gastronomic whirlwind I had just been through.

Onwards to my review of Browntrout:

Thai Food in Chicago's Meatpacking District: Next Restaurant

Cuisine: Thai (Until the end of September)

Location: 953 W Fulton Market, Chicago, IL

Price: $$$$

Food: ****

Service: *****

Overall: **** (These ratings reflect the Tour of Thailand menu only)

At the James Beard Award ceremony in May 2010, Grant Achatz announced that he would be opening his second restaurant, after the critically acclaimed Alinea – Next, a restaurant that would change cuisines, time periods, and menu every three months, so drastically that he would essentially run four completely different restaurants a year with no common thread between each, except perhaps for the staff and the brick and mortar that housed this radical concept. Over the next few months, the hype built up to unimaginable proportions – before it had even officially opened its doors to the public, Next was preemptively named one of the best dining locales in Chicago by some publications. As soon as the ticketing system was revealed and the tickets released in April for Paris 1906, Next’s inaugural menu, Next immediately shot to the top of the list for places where reservations (or tickets, here) were both coveted and considered unattainable for the mere mortal¹.

If doubters wondered whether Next could meet these wholly unrealistic expectations, they were silenced when Paris 1906 opened. Chicago Tribune food critic Phil Vettel gave it four stars (the highest accolade possible), heaping layers of praise on the restaurant. My taste buds would soon verify the truckloads of positive reviews from diners – each dish left me with a lasting impression, from the simple but elegant Salade Irma to the fatty, buttery, cheesy Gratin de Pommes de Terre a la Dauphinoise paired with the Caneton Rouennais a la Presse². Starting with the hors d’ oeuvres and closing with the mignardises, there wasn’t a single dish or wine pairing that disappointed. Each dish I had opened my eyes to a new level of refinement when it came to French classical cooking, and it instantaneously became one of the best meals I have ever had in my life.

The success of Paris 1906, of course, only caused foodies to clamor for more and expect even greater things for the next menu. When Tour of Thailand was announced, people began to speculate how Achatz would put his own unique spin on Thai food, a culture steeped in the ways of street food and cheap eats now being transformed into $150 haute cuisine.

I have always considered myself to be well versed in Thai food – for a more detailed discussion of Thai food as I saw it growing up, you can read my review of Sukhothai here. So for this menu to impress me, it would have to be far and beyond the best Thai food I had ever set eyes upon in order to match the standard that Paris 1906 had set.

And so it was, armed with an empty stomach and high expectations, I found myself dining at Next once again a few weeks ago.

Fine-dining in a college town; French-American in Evanston: Oceanique

Cuisine: French-American, Seafood

Location: 505 Main Street, Evanston, IL

Price: $$$

Food: ****

Service: 3.5*

Overall: ****
Website: http://www.oceanique.com/

Evanston, for some reason, is home to a litany of fine dining destinations – from the now defunct Trio¹ to the trio of chefs behind Camapgnola², there is no shortage of places to eat, and eat well, when in Evanston. Of course, this hasn’t stopped students from slogging through four years of college at lovely Northwestern subsisting entirely on Rodeo Cheeseburgers and that banana pepper that comes with your weekly Friday 1 am order of Papa John’s large pizza³.

Of course, the budget of your average college student makes it difficult to eat out and eat well on a constant basis. That hasn’t stopped restaurants from making a name for themselves in Evanston, as locations where Evanston locals can get out and have a nice meal or for students to splurge every now and then.

Two of my favorite restaurants in Evanston to date have been Bistro Bordeaux, a traditional French place right off of Church St. that offers amazing French Onion Soup to go with delectable classic entrees⁴,  and Davis Street Fishmarket, which has been serving up fresh seafood of all shapes and forms to doting parents hoping to take their kids out for a nice meal for years now.

Which brings me to my newest find of Evanston – Oceanique, a French-American/ Seafood restaurant down on Main St., a combination of Davis Street Fish Market and Bistro Bordeaux that manages to outdo both by the virtue of being extremely attentive to detail in their dishes and by being creative and inventive with their menu.

This Week in Food Network Star

Quick thoughts on this season: Food Network Star is a totally different animal from Top Chef. For every reason that it is different, I prefer Top Chef way more – its emphasis on cooking, the cutthroat nature of the challenges, the level of difficulty and innovation required, the culinary pedigree of the contestants.

Top Chef is about finding the absolute best chef out of the contestants – Food Network Star is about finding a very good chef who also has an infectious personality and can be relatable to greater America. And since greater America doesn’t emphasize home-cooking like a Michelin three star chef, for practical reasons the food that Food Network Star showcases seems like it’s a cut below what you would expect on Top Chef.

Mexican in SoHo: RANJANI CHAKRABORTY’s 21st @ Dos Caminos

Cuisine: Mexican

Location: 475 West Broadway, New York, NY

Price: $$

Food: 2.5*

Service: ****

Overall: ***

Website: http://www.doscaminos.com/

Have you ever tried to make last minute reservations in New York? It is basically impossible. My dear friend Ranjani, who I visited in New York for her 21^st birthday (betcha didn’t figure that out from the title!) attempted this gargantuan task after realizing at 3 p.m. that her original dining plans were going to fall through. The original plans called for all-you-can-eat sushi and all-you-can-drink sake, which I am 97% sure would have led to an all-you-can-puke for myself.

Instead, after a mad scramble, we ended up with a 10 p.m. reservation at Dos Caminos in SoHo. When we finally show up, a couple of drinks in,¹
we’re attacked by the atmosphere and vibe of the place – at 10 at night, the restaurant is not only packed, the alcohol is clearly also free flowing. And rightly so – the place serves over 100 kinds of tequila.

I will say that, between pre-dinner drinks, margaritas during, and post-midnight birthday celebrations, my memories of the night are a little blurred. I think the same holds true for the rest of us who went out that night. Nonetheless, here’s what I thought of Dos Caminos.

Burgers in Lincoln Park: The Counter

Cuisine: American/ Burgers

Location: 666 W Diversey Parkway, Chicago, IL

Price: $ - $$

Food: 3.5*

Service: ****

Overall: 3.5*

Website: http://www.thecounterburger.com

Excluding my lunchtime sandwich mainstays on Noyes St. in Evanston, The Counter marks my first time going out to eat since returning to Chicago from my trip home to Taiwan. The future roommates-to-be and I go apartment hunting in Lincoln Park and Lakeview on Sunday, where we come to meet a very… peculiar leasing agent¹, but unfortunately fail to find the place of our dreams. As the only one of our trio who is neither working nor studying (read: doing absolutely nothing) at the time, I volunteer to go back out on Monday to continue our apartment search.

By the end of my appointment on Monday, it’s 2 p.m. and I’m exhausted, having not eaten lunch yet. So I decide to venture around Lincoln Park and find somewhere to eat alone.

It’s not long before I run into The Counter – a place that draws me in with its open space and pristine interior². A burger bar that is casual enough that I don’t feel weird eating alone, but the place certainly looks nicer than a Chipotle³.