Knights to Remember

This weekend we celebrated my 30th birthday, planned thoroughly & thoughtfully by my loving husband, Dave. On Friday, he surprised me with dinner reservations at Table Fifty-Two along with two extra dinner guests, both of my sisters Jill & Jessica.

The company was great and the feast was scrumptious including southern specialties such as goat cheese biscuits, deviled eggs, fried green tomatoes, mac n cheese and collard greens... and those were just the sides!

If you are not familiar with Table Fifty-Two, Co-owner & Chef Art Smith is the personal chef to Oprah and he was also featured on the first season of Top Chef Masters. Reservations generally need to be made months in advance so I was blown away by this thoughtful dinner :-)

The next "knight" we had a truly unique experience where about 15 of us headed out to Medieval Times for dinner and a tournament. We took a limo just to "class" it up a bit and dined (with our hands) on dragon blood soup (tomato bisque), baby dragon (roasted chicken), dragon ribs (spare rib) and potatoes. I also had the largest glass chalice of virgin daiquiri on earth.

Sadly, our Blue Knight lost his duel...

...but the night was definitely a winner!

Revolution Brewing Co.

Yet another review of another great Chicago food and drink experience... I'm realizing we must really like beer. And eating :-)

We went to Revolution Brewing Co. in Logan Square last night and had a terrific experience, even with an hour + wait.

They were really thinking when they built the waiting/cocktail area. It sure beats getting bumped into for an hour while crowding around a bar and interrupting those eating there to get the bartenders attention.

On the contrary, we had an excellent cocktail waitress, who kept our beer glasses full and made the wait enjoyable. It also didn't hurt that the weather was finally nice, so they had the wall of windows open to the sidewalk which made it bright and breezy. I also loved the lighting fixtures and ceiling:

Revolution has a nice selection of their own brews, but I stuck to the Bottom Up Wit which I thoroughly enjoyed. Dave had the Cross of Gold & the Logan Pride and both were quite nice.

Now on to the food. As an appetizer we had the sweet potato cakes, which are served with a red pepper & curry yogurt. These were quite good. Very sweet, could have used a touch of salt, but very good none-the-less.

My favorite of the night though was the pizza special, a Spring Pea & Bacon Pizza served with a pea puree as the sauce, fontina cheese, halved grape tomatoes and an organic fried egg on top. TO. DIE. FOR.

If you like more meat on your pie though, try the Smoke House Pizza with pulled pork, bacon, and smoked tomato sauce.

This was our first visit, but it will not be our last. It's so nice to have a walkable option like this in the hood. I am also excited that they are now offering free brewery tours every Saturday at noon. Tours last about 45 minutes and include a free sample.

Check it out this summer :-)

Holy Mole, Rick Bayless!

I know I promised a review of my dinner at Topolobampo and luckily it was all it was cracked up to be!

Dave took me here a week or so ago for my birthday dinner, after making reservations months in advance, and we were not disappointed. The drink menu is to-die-for and I had a very unique Autumn Margarita which included ingredients such as cinnamon giving it a warmer feeling than it's limey, summery sister cocktail.

For dinner, I opted for the whole mole tasting menu (it was my birthday after all) and it was amazing! It included five mole dishes...

Tamal estilo Misantla, Mole Verde Oaxaqueno (Creamy polenta-style corn masa tamal with herby Oaxacan green mole):

Conejo Almendrado (Roasted rack of Gunthorp rabbit and almond milk-braised leg in Oaxacan estofado almendrado -- my FIRST rabbit experience):

Pescado en Mole Amarillo (Brown butter-poached Lake Superior walleye in Oaxacan yellow mole infused with hoja santa):

Puerco en Clemole (Roasted "Pata Negra" pork in old-fashioned clemole castellano -- dark dried chiles, pecans, pinenuts, hazelnuts, avocado leaf):

AND lastly,
An AMAZING Chocolate Mole with chocolate cake balls, coconut ice cream, etc. (sorry no pics)

My husband is a bit of a pickier eater so he decided against having one of the chef's whole tasting menus and got just the Sopa Azteca to start (best soup we have ever tasted) and the Puerco en Clemole (pork mole) entree instead, which was my favorite of all the moles. I will say though that Dave's full dish of the pork mole was cooked superbly yet, my smaller portion was overdone... their one and only strike against them of the night. The rest of that mole dish though, including the pumpkin bread pudding, was so amazing that the pork was more of a sideshow anyway.

The complexity of flavors in both the soup and each of the moles was indescribable. I have never had such layered and sophisticated flavors in a Mexican meal in my life, and probably never will again since I'm unsure of the next we'll splurge to go back. I will however, try the more affordable and casual Frontera Grill in the future. They share a kitchen and a drink menu.

Overall, I'd highly recommend a visit to Topolobampo next time your are looking for a special night out in the city of Chicago! My compliments to the chef, Rick Bayless!

Topolobampo, Turning 29 & Eleven Eleven Mississippi

Today is my 29th birthday (yes, the last year in my twenties) and my wonderful husband Dave is taking me to eat tonight at Topolobampo!

If any of you are Top Chef Masters fans, you probably know that this is one of winner Rick Bayless' signature restaurants in Chicago -- one of the only fine-dining Mexican restaurants in the country.

Ever since his big win, reservations are virtually impossible to get at his restaurants without a few months wait. Dave tried in October to get reservations for our November wedding anniversary and was told the first open reservation was in JANUARY! So he decided to make them for my birthday instead and surprise me with his ability to plan way ahead ;-)

Here is this month's menu and it all looks amazing! I'll write a full report about what we order and what we think in the days to come.

I also took off work tomorrow so that I could thoroughly enjoy some cocktails tonight and also have a nice 4-day birthday weekend, since Monday we are off for work for MLK day.

With the extended time of off work, I am heading home to Saint Louis Friday to celebrate my birthday with family & friends there and also to celebrate my grandpa's 90th birthday on Saturday! Yes, 90. Much more impressive than 29.

My Saint Louis birthday dinner with my immediate family will be at Eleven Eleven Mississippi. Here is their menu, and once you take a gander I'm sure you'll see why I am really excited to eat there as well. Creamy aged goat cheese polenta? Yes, please!

Happy Birthday to Me!