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.

French in Taipei: Abu Authentic

Cuisine: French

Location: Si Wei Rd. No. 28, Taipei, Taiwan

Price: $$$$

Food: ****

Service: ***

Overall: ****

Eating French food always feels like a dining experience fit for a king – filled with extravagant ingredients and flavors, bursting with sauces heavy with cream. How the French have kept this up for more than a century¹ and perfected such a rich, decadent dining experience² is beyond my understanding.

Though my knowledge of the culinary world extends as far as Top Chef and Food Network, it appears to me that most chefs trained in culinary arts will have been versed in traditional French cooking, from making the five mother sauces³ to using French influence in their cooking.

It would seem to me then that a chef that can master French food must not only have the basics of French cooking down pat but also have the ability to give his food an unique spin to keep it modern and unique.

With Abu, this is certainly the case. William Bu, the chef/ owner of Abu Authentic, used to work at Tutto Bello, a small Italian restaurant nestled in one of the millions of alleys of Taipei. Tutto Bello has always been my favorite Italian restaurant in Taipei (and I would compare Tutto Bello to the best that America to offer), so when I read that Abu had moved from Italian to French and opened his own restaurant, I was determined to try it out.

The result? I was blown away by his food, as I once was at Tutto Bello.