What's Cooking at Soomeenshee's: The Bristol

Sunday, April 29, 2012

The Bristol - Chicago, IL

I brought Jeanie and Mary to Bristol for dinner when they visited me last summer. I had heard great things about it but it's one of those places that was on my radar for a bit but never became realized. Thankfully I used their visit as an excuse to come.

We were a bit early for our reservations so we went up to the bar and had some drinks. I'd like to point out that they have a special brew from Goose Island called "A beer named Sue." It's an American black ale and it's quite good.

By the time we got our drinks, our table was ready so we headed downstairs. We ordered the raviolo as our starter. It's a big ravioli filled with ricotta, egg yolk and brown butter. Sorry for the grainy pictures, it's pretty dark inside the restaurant.

You would think the combo of ricotta, egg yolk and brown butter would be too heavy but it just works.

We also got the roasted bone marrow with shallot jam and sea salt. Most places cut the bone marrow into round cylinders and it's so hard to scoop out the marrow but this was so much easier to eat.

For our entrees we shared the pork belly with some yogurt sauce. It was highly recommended and it did not disappoint.

Mary loves chicken so we had to try the roasted chicken, which was really moist and quite delicious. I'm always hesitant to order chicken because most often than not it ends up rubbery, but this was really good.

For dessert, Bristol is known for their basque cake. It's basically a buttery cake that's crispy on the outside and soft in the middle. It's a bit dense for my taste, but I can see why people love it. They do different variations on the fruit depending on the season so when we were there, it came with strawberries, balsamic and champagne sabayon.