Root's Pizza - Chicago, IL

When I heard a Quad City style pizza place was opening near my old neighborhood in Chicago I knew I had to go.  For those unfamiliar, Quad Cities refers to the five cities on the Mississippi River—Rock Island, Moline and East Moline in Illinois, and Davenport and Bettendorf in Iowa.  A particular style of pizza is home to that area and it's known for their hand-tossed malt crust pizzas that are scissor cut into strips, not slices.  

For a city that deeply prides itself on deep dish pizzas, you would think a Quad City style pizza place would not flourish here but from the looks of it, it's been doing pretty well.  For those that aren't into pizza, they also have hot dogs, sausages, bratwurst, sandwiches and pasta options on their menu.  

Caroline and I chose for our pizza the garden pizza which came with roasted mushroom, diced green peppers, roasted red peppers, kalamata and green onion mix and Quad Cities Mozzarella Blend.  The crust was definitely chewier and a tad on the sweet side.

Purple Pig - Chicago, IL

Sniffle sniffle, this is one of my meals that I had with Aleen when I was still in Chicago.  It feels so long ago now.  

In case you guys didn't know, I made the move out west to San Francisco a few months ago.  I had such an amazing time in Chicago and have such fond memories, especially of food.  I feel like I literally ate my way through Chicago in the short time I was there and I'm so thankful for it.  My friends even asked me before I left if there was anywhere I had to go before I left and I really felt like there was nothing that I missed out on.  

Plus I have to leave some places for my visit next time, right?  :)

Purple Pig was one of Chicago's hot new restaurants when I was there.  It's a sister restaurant to one of my favs, Davanti Enoteca.  As you can guess from the name, they feature and highlight the other white meat.  

It's tapas style so we ordered several dishes to share.  

This was the asparagus & hazelnuts with arugula salad with treviso or radicchio.  One of my favorite dishes at Davanti is their truffle egg toast with asparagus and this salad is also a creative and delicious use of asparagus.   

Sable Kitchen & Bar - Chicago, IL

If you haven't been watching Season 9 of Top Chef, you will notice several Chicago chefs competing for the grand prize.  One of the chefs, Heather Terhune, is executive chef of Sable Kitchen & Bar, which is in the Palomar Hotel in the River North area of Chicago. 

Sunda - Chicago, IL

Andrew has been telling us about the industry discount at Sunda that he gets for some time but we never managed to go.  I realized if I plan it, they will come, so I made reservations for us for Sunday evening.  Here's a sampling of the yummy things we ate.  

For appetizers we ordered the “toast and jam” which consisted of crispy shrimp “toast” and spicy tuna “jam.”  A bit difficult to spread the jam unto the bread, but it was fun to eat.

Sprout - Chicago, IL

One of the Sundays when Mary and Jeanie were still in town, we went to Sprout for brunch.  If you are top chef fans, the names Dale Levitski and Sarah Nguyen may ring a bell.  They joined forces after the show ended and opened Sprout in the fall of 2009.  Sprout has a three course prix-fixe dinner menu, which looks really interesting, but sad to say, it never made it to the top of my list when picking a place to eat amongst friends since not everyone wants to do a prix-fixe.  But when they started serving brunch on Sundays earlier this year I knew that would be more conducive to me visiting.   

Chicago Pizza & Oven Grinder Co - Chicago, IL and a few other pizza joints

Aleen!  This is for you.  I am sooo behind on my posts, but I will try to catch up one post at a time.  

When my friends Mary and Jeanie were in town this summer, I wanted to take them to eat Chicago style pizza but knowing they wouldn't be fans of deep dish, we tried Chicago Pizza & Oven Grinder Co.  

Graham Elliott - Chicago, IL

We celebrated our friend Gook's birthday at Graham Elliot months ago.  We happened to go when they were revealing their spring menu, so that just goes to show how long ago this was.  Sorry guys!  

I've always wanted to try Graham Elliott, but I had heard some mixed reviews.  I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised and ended up leaving the place a bigger fan of Graham Elliot than before (if that's even possible).  Everything was so whimsical yet at the same time delicious. 

Redd - Yountville, CA

There are so many great lunch options in Yountville ... Bouchon, Ad Hoc and you can't forget the French Laundry.  The French Laundry was completely booked.  I was looking at the menu at Bouchon and didn't think my friend Jules, who is a raw vegan, would find anything she'd be able to eat and Ad Hoc's menu for the day, although it sounded delicious, was a pork cutlet, so that wouldn't work either.  I looked up some other restaurants nearby and saw that Redd had gotten some good reviews and that their chef could accommodate vegan or vegetarian requests. 

So we decided to meet here for lunch. 

Mercat a la Planxa - Chicago, IL

I've been a fan of  Jose Garces on Iron Chef and especially from his food demonstration at the Chicago Gourmet this past summer. He was very approachable and down to earth. I've been itching to try his Chicago restaurant, Mercat a la Planxa, but for one reason or another, it kept eluding me.  

So number two on my list for Restaurant Week was Garces' Mercat.  I got a bunch of us together on a Friday night for some tapas.  It's a beautiful space right on Michigan Ave near the Art Institute.  Here was what was great and not so great about Mercat for Restaurant Week.

The good news: the food is excellent, it's so flavorful and everything we had was delicious

The bad news: you do not get your money's worth if you come in a big group for Restaurant Week.  Typically for Restaurant Week, you get a choice of three items as a three course meal, which usually ends up being more than enough food.  I thought it was a bit odd that the waiter encouraged us to order additional plates on top of the restaurant week menu.  We thought a few additional tapas would be enough, but even with those additions, we totally felt stiffed.  We got some items taken off the final bill, but it didn't leave us with a good impression.  


Because everything is served family style, the portions weren't adequately thought out.  We were often times presented with one dish to share among the six of us, even though we were each paying a prix fixe price.  Tables of two next to us were getting the same exact dish that we were, except they were only sharing amongst the two of them.  


I do think it's worth it if you come in pairs.  If you do decide to come with a bigger group, you're better off ordering off the regular menu instead of doing the set menu.  

Our waiter highly recommended the bacon wrapped dates stuffed with almonds.  Each order comes with 2 skewers so for the five of us, we ordered 2.5 orders.  These were amazing. If you've never had bacon wrapped dates before, you need to get on it.  

Publican - Chicago, IL

I've been to Publican before but didn't feel like it lived up to all the hype.  Their spicy pork rinds are famous, but I much prefer Chizakaya's puffed pork ears.  But Yeena hadn't been yet so when we were thinking of some brunch options, we contemplated Publican for Sunday brunch.  They only have brunch on Sundays and it's from 10 am to 2 pm. 

I wasn't sure how difficult it would be to get reservations, but it wasn't too bad actually.  Because of the communal seating, you can definitely fit a lot more people in there than you would expect. 

We started off with some dishes to share, namely the banana bread and ricotta cheese and the maple syrup braised publican bacon that they are also notorious for.  

The banana bread was toasted, placed on top of a mound of ricotta, drizzled with honey, walnuts and pieces of dried fruit.  I need to make this at home, it was so simple, but just a great mixture of textures and flavors. 

Nightwood - Chicago, IL

My old roommate first introduced me to Nightwood last year.  We drove down to Pilsen to have dinner on night but were heartbroken to find that they were closed that night.  I love the Pilsen area but for a girl without a car, it can be a pain to get to sometimes.  Nightwood is owned by the same people as Lula's Cafe, which I also adore, so I've been wanting to check it out for some time.

When an old college friend came to town, a group of us decided to have dinner here.  It's on the corner of Halsted and 21st in Pilsen.  Here's a pic of their unassuming sign. 

Sweet & Savories - Chicago, IL

A friend of mine recommended Sweets & Savories to me awhile back for the Sunday prix fixe menu.  For $14, you get a two course meal that comes with coffee or tea and a plate of baked goods.  It sounded like a great bargain to me so a few of my girlfriends and I planned a Sunday Brunch there recently.  

It's on Fullerton, but the front is very unassuming so it's pretty easy to completely miss it.  I ended up having to drive past it a few times.  

Cafe Iberico - Chicago, IL

Cafe Iberico holds a special place in my heart ... and stomach, of course.  My law school friends and I used to come here all the time, but I haven't had a chance to come back since I moved back to Chicago.  I was pleading with Jung to eat something besides Italian Beef so when he said he was up for tapas, I knew it was my chance!

RoliRoti Gourmet Rotisserie - San Francisco, CA

One of my closest friends from college got married in a tiny little town near San Francisco a few weeks ago and it was a blast. It was a fun filled weekend, but a definite highlight was our dinner prepared by RoliRoti, a rotisserie food truck. She had originally planned on having dinner at the only restaurant in town, but they were charging exorbitant prices for fish and chips, so she asked the wonderful people at RoliRoti if they wouldn't mind driving an hour up from San Francisco to cater a dinner for her wedding party.

For those that have never heard of RoliRoti, it's a rotisserie food truck based in San Francisco that serves free-range chicken, Heritage pork and local lamb, prepared by owner Thomas Odermatt, a Swiss former organic farming student whose business card reads “Rotisseur.” You can read up on Mr. Rotisseur himself here.

I've heard so much about RoliRoti so I was so excited when they pulled up to our house. From the side, it looks like a regular van, but prop open the back and you see a built in rotisserie grill. Where can I get one of those?

Here is a close up.

On top of the rotisserie was the Porchetta (por-KET-ta). My friend described it to me as basically a pork roll, a free range pork loin that is wrapped in a layer of pork belly. Thomas takes the pork loin and loads on the garlic, fresh herbs like rosemary, marjoram, cracked black pepper and fennel seeds. He then wraps a pork belly and skin on top, ties a nice bow around it and skewers it on a rotisserie for four hours until the skin is crispy brown on the outside, and the meat is succulent on the inside. Thomas typically uses the Porchetta and serves it in a sandwich at his food truck stop at the Ferry Building Farmer's Market every Thursdays and Saturdays. I hear the waits can go for hours. We were so thrilled knowing that we'd have all of the Porchetta to ourselves that night.

Below the perfectly packaged Porchetta were the Gourmet Rotisserie Chickens. Thomas grills only the freshest corn-fed chicken from Sonoma County, which he sprinkles with herbs and spices. And don't forget that it's also getting bathed by the Porchetta drippings from above. Have mercy.

As if that was not enough, at the bottom of the rotisserie was a layer of halved french fingerling potatoes that had been tossed with fresh rosemary and unpeeled pieces of garlic. These potatoes were just hanging loose, getting a nice sun tan and catching every juice from the chicken and porchetta morsels above. We all know that there's nothing better than golden brown roasted potatoes cooked in chicken and pork fat renderings, right?

The caterer said that he had started cooking this on his drive up. The drive up to Bolinas is quite windy and treacherous so thank goodness these chickens were skewered on tight. He said he had about an hour or so more of cooking left so we waited. The truck was stationed outside and every 10 to 15 minutes, a few of us would venture outside to check on our dinner and just stare glassy eyed into these skewered meats being rotated round and round. You could tell that dinner was almost ready when you heard the pork skin start to crackle and the birds were getting nice and golden as well.

A close up of the triplets.

When the food was all ready, he laid out all the other dishes that accompanied this glorious feast.

We had some Heirloom Tomato Salad with crispy shallot vinaigrette and fresh basil. Oh my lord, these were so good!! Anyone that has tried heirloom tomatoes knows they are the real deal. Crazy expensive anywhere you can get your hands on them, but so full of flavor.

At the bottom of the picture, you'll see Summer Corn Salad, which consisted of charred corn and fresh avocados tossed in lime-jalapeño vinaigrette, garnished with cilantro.

Here is our dear friend untying our present and preparing to slice up pieces of that infamous Porchetta. We had a delicious onion marmalade, some French sea salt and rolls from Acme Bread Company to round out our meal.

Here's a picture of our plate. Every single thing on that plate was heavenly and quickly devoured.

I wish I lived in SF. I'd gather a bunch of my friends every weekend and have this catered if I could. Everything tasted so fresh and so flavorful. Without a doubt, this was the best food at a wedding ever! Congratulations J & M! Love you guys, and your taste in food trucks! :)

Carrot Ginger Dressing

So we go from cupcakes to carrots! I've been wanting to try this recipe for some time now and I finally got around to it. Have you ever had those orange colored salad dressings at Japanese restaurants and wondered, what is in that tasty concoction? Thanks to Smitten Kitchen and Gwyneth Paltrow, now I have the recipe!

Carrot Ginger Dressing

adapted from Smitten Kitchen

1 large carrot, peeled and roughly chopped

1 small shallot, peeled and roughly chopped

1 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh ginger

2 tablespoons sweet white miso

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

2 tablespoons toasted sesame seed oil

1/4 cup grapeseed or another neutral oil

2 tablespoons water

Grate one large carrot or two medium sized carrots (to help your blender along).

Whiz the carrots, shallot and ginger in a blender or food processor until finely chopped.

Scrape down the sides, then add the miso, vinegar and sesame oil. While the machine is running, slowly drizzle in grapeseed oil and water.

Gwyneth dressed her salad with Bibb lettuce, red onions and avocado. I've been eating this dressing with tofu, arugula, raw corn, tomatoes, sugar snap peas and bell peppers. It's refreshingly delicious and I love that I know what exactly went into this dressing. I've been going through a bottle of this a week. Yikes! It's like crack guys, it's really tasty.

Not My Mom’s Avocado and Orange Salad

This is a recipe from Andrew Carmellini, the chef and owner of Locanda Verde in Manhattan, called Mom's Florida Avocado and Orange Salad recipe. Clearly my Korean mother would never have come up with this concoction. I wonder if she's ever even tried an avocado. I'll have to ask her next time I talk to her. =)

One of the things I really miss about living in LA is the plethora of grocery stores, farmers markets and ethnic markets. Even though I love my neighborhood Dominick's and relish my weekly trips to Trader Joe's, grocery shopping here is just not the same. I miss the fresh fruits and veggies that are available in LA all year round. I think I used to have at least 5 different types of fruit in my fridge at all times when I lived in LA. The only things that are not over the top expensive, still tasty and thus, in heavy rotation at our place these days are oranges, bananas and avocados (yes, an avocado is a fruit). I've been making tons of guacamole lately and was tempted to make yet another batch, but I happened to stumble upon this recipe for an avocado and orange salad and leaped for joy because I happened to have all the ingredients at home. Isn't it the best when that happens?

Not My Mom's Avocado and Orange Salad

adapted from Andrew Carmellini

3 Valencia or navel oranges

1 Haas avocado

Juice of 1 lemon

1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced

1 scant tablespoon dried oregano, preferably Mexican

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus some for sprinkling

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon of your favorite hot sauce

Handful of cilantro leaves

1. Segment the oranges by slicing off the ends with a sharp knife. Put the orange on one end and, with a small, sharp knife, cut around the fruit, slicing off the peel and white pith.

2. Segment the orange by slicing between the membranes. Remove the segments and drop into a bowl. Squeeze the juice out of the remaining membranes into the bowl with the segments. Reserve the juice.

3. Slice the avocado in half and twist off the halves. With a knife, cut each halved avocado half lengthwise into segments, cutting through the meat. The original recipe said to cut around the avocado meat and push the pieces out of the skin with the knife. I tried that and it was more trouble than it's worth.

Personally I think it's easier to either peel the avocado skin off entirely and then cut into slices or cut into slices and scoop out the whole thing with a spoon. Whichever method you decide to employ, place the sliced avocado into the bowl with the oranges.

4. Add the lemon juice, red onion, oregano, olive oil, salt, hot sauce and the reserved orange juice. Using a large spoon, mix all the ingredients together so that everything is coated and well combined.

5. Remove to a serving bowl. Garnish with cilantro leaves and drizzle with more olive oil. Serve as an appetizer or antipasto.

Who knew oranges and avocados complimented each other so well? The sweetness of the oranges highlights the creamy, richness of the avocado and olive oil and the red onions provide the perfect crunch and spice to the whole salad. This would be such a great side dish with grilled fish. Wouldn't that be so good on a warm summer night?

Just remember folks, when your supermarket gives you only avocados and oranges, make this salad!