Piccolo Sogno - Chicago, IL

As I type this we're getting drenched with rain and thunderstorms, but the weather the previous three days have been amazing, hitting the low 80's with a light breeze. You quickly learn that if you have a nice day, you better enjoy it outside, because you'll never know when you'll get it back. So we decided to hang out at a rooftop bar one day after work. Here's a view of Lake Michigan from downtown.

We went out for yummy Italian food afterwards in River West to a cute little restaurant called Piccolo Sogno. I pass by this place on my commute home and it always looks busy, so we decided to check it out.

You would never know from the outside, but they have a great patio space outdoors. It was such a beautiful night out.

Our bread basket, which we quickly attacked, came with some house extra virgin olive oil from Tuscany and balsamic vinegar.

For our appetizer, we got the Griglia Mista ($14) which had wood grilled calamari, shrimp, and octopus with some lemon and caper infused olive oil over arugula. The grilled calamari and octopus were really tender and had a nice char to them, which Susan really enjoyed.

We shared all of our dishes, one of them being the Funghi Tartufati ($14) a mushroom pizza with herbs and truffle oil. The pizza was paper thin and filled our table with the most wonderful aroma.

We also ordered the Spaghetti Neri "Frutti di Mare" ($17) which had string cut black spaghetti, mussels, clams, shrimp, calamari, San Marzano tomatoes and red chilies. This was definitely one of our favorite dishes of the night. You just can't go wrong with seafood and squid ink spaghetti.

We opted for a secondi of Polletto alla Griglia ($18), which was flattened wood grilled spring chicken and rapini with a side of lemon. The chicken was not as moist as I would have liked, but the skin was perfectly seasoned and grilled. The rapini wasn't very memorable.

We were so full, but so enamored with all of their dishes and our wonderful waiter who had a thick Italian accent, that we ended up sharing a dessert as well. We decided on their Mille Foglie ($7), which has "thousand layers" of crispy pastry dough layered with vanilla custard and chocolate chips. The pastry was flaky and airy and the custard was full of vanilla flavor, the perfect combination.

I think we'll be frequenting this place quite a bit, especially now that we've discovered their outdoor patio and tasty Italian food.

Piccolo Sogno

464 North Halsted Street

Chicago, IL 60642-7687