Monthly Archives: July 2018

Chicago, Fusion, Restaurant Reviews

Fat Rice

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NOTE: THIS FUCKIN’ PLACE IS FUCKIN’ CLOSED!

Fat Rice is a trendy spot in Chicago that serves up some interesting and unique Asian inspired dishes, as you can see by the various menus.

We started with the special octopus salad appetizer. This was really delicious and refreshing. Beautiful plate too, I might add.

Next up was their big boy, the “Fat Rice” namesake dish (Arroz Gordo). This is like an Asian paella: a cross between a hot clay pot bibimbap and traditional Spanish paella, with both European and Asian toppers like grilled head on shrimp, char siu pork belly, molasses and fish sauce seasoned boiled egg, curry chicken thighs, languinica sausage and wood roasted beef (like BBQ).

It was delicious. A few spots could have used some improvement though. For example, the pork belly could have rendered out a bit more, and the beef could have been less dry. But over all it was a really nice dish, and I’d order it again in a heartbeat.

This place has a bakery connected to it as well, so The Cake Dealer and I tried out a bunch of their stuff.

I won’t highlight them all, but we tried an interesting tea and spice flavored snickerdoodle cookie, a very unique marshmallow and seaweed rice crispy treat thing, and a purple potato cake. In addition to sweets and interesting coffee and tea concoctions, they also serve savory baked goods, like this Chicago style hot dog pastry, which was my favorite of the bunch.

I highly recommend this spot if you’re in Chicago. They serve great food and really inventive cocktails.

FAT RICE
2957 W Diversey Ave
Chicago, IL 60647

American, Chicago, Restaurant Reviews

Mr. Beef

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My wife and I hit this joint on the way home from a speakeasy next door called The Drifter. I couldn’t resist with a name like Mr. Beef.

With a no-frills interior and a simple flat top griddle in back, this was a no brainer joint that I had to try.

We took a sandwich to go, with the dip sauce on the side.

Not too bad, but I would have liked a better giardiniera with more than just celery. The spicy peppers were nice though.

Meat quality wasn’t as good as Portillo’s, but it’ll do the job if you’re in a bind.

MR. BEEF
666 N Orleans St
Chicago, IL 60654

Chicago, Other Cuts, Rib Eye, Steakhouse Reviews

Gibson’s

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Gibson’s overall score: 87

On my first trip to Chicago, I made it a point to hit as many of the old classic steakhouses that I could. Naturally, Gibson’s was my first stop on that list.

Flavor: 7

W.R. Chicago Cut: 8

The WR Chicago Cut is a bone-in wet-aged rib eye. They nailed the medium rare cook temp, and the texture was tender and juicy. It had a great broiled crust as well. The only thing missing was that punch of flavor that I’ve come to love with dry-aging. Otherwise this was a great steak.

Prime Rib: 6

Unfortunately a big portion of this was chewy and not the greatest quality. The cap, however, was incredible. Despite the lighting here, the roast was pretty accurate to medium rare, with some edges coming closer to medium.

Choice of Cuts & Quality Available: 8

Everything here is the proprietary Gibson’s brand of Angus beef, which they farm out of several ranches nearby. Everything is wet-aged, with the exception of the dry-aged tomahawk. They offer all of the basic four cuts in various sizes and preparations, and they are presented nicely by the waiter before you order.

Portion Size & Plating: 9

Portions are pretty good here. The side of broccolini was three huge bunches. The slice of lemon meringue pie was cartoon sized. Plating is fairly basic, but they did a beautiful job with the beef carpaccio.

Price: 9

We had a lot of food for the price here, and it was pretty refreshing to see that some cuts were even under $40.

Bar: 10

This place has a gorgeous, big bar room and lounge beside the main entrance. A perfect place to have a drink. And, of course, they mix a nice Gibson as well.

Specials and Other Meats: 8

The waiter read off a few specials but I didn’t really pay attention, as I was LASER focused on the steaks. Their dry-aged tomahawk is considered a regular special, it seems. Nothing else was offered in the realm of meat cuts. Lamb, pork and chicken are available for alternative proteins.

Apps, Sides & Desserts: 8

One of the cool things about this place is that they give you a soup or house salad with your entree. This is probably common outside of the NYC steakhouse scene, but I thought it was pretty nice. Anyway, the beef carpaccio was our favorite of the accompaniments. It was beautiful and delicious. One of the best I’ve had.

House salad with blue cheese.

Soup of the day – lobster bisque.

Side of spicy roasted broccolini (this was lacking in spice and flavor, and had some unappealing lemon seeds on it).

Massive lemon meringue pie.

Seafood Selection: 9

There were five different seafood entrees on the menu, which makes for a wide variety. They offered salmon, white fish, lobster, bass and halibut.

Service: 9

Our waiter was awesome, knowledgeable and friendly. The bread selection was nice and warm, and the butter was soft.

Ambiance: 10

This place is gorgeous, so no wonder it’s a Chicago icon. There is ample seating indoors and outdoors, lots of elbow room and space, really beautiful and classic fixtures, and  old school decor. I love it.

GIBSON’S
1028 N Rush St
Chicago, IL 60611

American, Chicago, Restaurant Reviews

Portillo’s

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Portillo’s is a Chicago mainstay, so it was only natural that it was our very first stop on a trip to Chicago last weekend.

We ordered two Chicago classics, the Chicago style hot dog (poppy seed bun, sport pepper, yellow mustard, relish, pickle, etc), and the Italian beef sandwich (shaved beef with giardiniera).

The dog was pretty much perfect. I would have liked more sport peppers, but hey. No complaints otherwise.

This was my first time having a proper Chicago Italian beef sandwich, and I was blown away. The dip into Italian herb infused gravy is the perfect way to finish this sandwich, and the spicy giardiniera is the perfect way to get pickled flavors into it. I added some shredded mozzarella for good measure. This is different from a Philly cheesesteak for sure, but I like it much better. It’s more about the beef!

We also tried the chocolate cake shake and the frozen custard, both of which were great desserts.

On a second trip, we did the Polish sausage. Excellent.

PORTILLO’S
100 W Ontario St
Chicago, IL 60654

Lower East Side/Chinatown, Other Cuts, Porterhouse, Rib Eye, Steakhouse Reviews

Char House

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Char House overall score: 74

NOTE: THIS PLACE IS CLOSED!

Char House is a new Chinese style steakhouse on Mott Street in Chinatown. I tried a nice variety of stuff here, so I think I got a good sense of the restaurant’s capabilities. Check it out:

Flavor: 8

Wagyu Sirloin: 8/10

This baby had a nice char on the outside, it was well seasoned and was perfectly cooked to medium rare inside. The cut itself was a little chewy, but for the price this wasn’t too bad.

Porterhouse: 7/10

This lacked a little seasoning, and didn’t have too great of a char. It did pack some nice dry-aged flavor though. Another miss here was that the filet side was overcooked.

Frenched Rib Eye: 8/10

This had a nice sized cap that packed a good amount of dry aged flavor. The steak had a nice char and it was pretty much cooked correctly – perhaps a bit on the rare side.

Choice of Cuts & Quality Available: 9

The beef here comes from DeBragga, so you know you’re getting good quality. Char House does some additional aging in-house as well, and they develop some really nice flavors. As far as cuts go, they offer two large format rib eyes, a single cut rib eye, a strip, a porterhouse, the wagyu sirloin and a filet. That’s an impressive selection for a small steak joint.

Portion Size & Plating: 8

Portions here are pretty good. The large format cuts that I tried clocked in at 36oz each. Each were meaty enough to feed two, although the filet side of the porterhouse was a bit on the small size. Sized and apps were nicely portioned.

Price: 8

The porterhouse and rib eye came out to $114 each (they charge by the ounce), which was a fair price, though a bit high compared to other small mom and pop style steakhouses. One item that stuck out as a bit pricey was the XO shrimp ($14 for three shrimp).

Bar: 3

This joint doesn’t have a bar. They offer some wine and sake selections, and I think some loose beer selections on ice in the front near the host station, but there are no seats at that area (which looks like a bar). I was hoping for some interesting Asian inspired cocktails. Oh well. Maybe in time they will build the bar out.

Specials and Other Meats: 7

I don’t recall our waiter or the host telling us about any specials, but they do offer roast chicken and pork ribs. I was hoping for some duck, being this is a Chinese joint, but no luck.

Apps, Sides & Desserts: 8

Crab Cake

I really enjoyed this. It was reminiscent of the classic Chinese shrimp toast dish, only with crab instead.

XO Shrimp

These were nicely cooked and prepared, but I feel like $14 is too much for just three shrimp.

7 Spice Corn Brulee

This was really tasty. Creamy corn pudding, in a sense, with a great spice profile.

Sweet Soy Glaze Bacon

This was nice as well. Not in my top five, but definitely something I would order again if I came back. It had good sweetness to balance the savory.

Sesame Mashed Potatoes

This was a nice take on mashed potatoes. The toasted sesame flavors definitely bring you into the wheelhouse of Asian flavors.

Skillet Brownie a la Mode

This was a nice dessert. Not too sweet, as the chocolate was nicely balanced with dark bittersweet as well as melty milk chocolate.

Seafood Selection: 8

There’s a whole fish as well as “Lobster Dynamite” on the menu here for entrees. Again I was hoping to see a bit more variety from a Chinatown steak joint, but I bet that whole fish is great. I’d like to try that if I go back.

Service: 7

The service was awkward. It was a Friday night at 7pm, and the restaurant was only half full at best, so I would have expected a bit more “on top of things” service. There seemed to just be one waiter, and the hostess ended up being our server for half of the meal. It also took a while to get the check, but everyone was super friendly and hospitable, and they even threw in some complimentary apps and sides. No bad attitudes or anything like that – very nice people, and everything on the menu was explained to us perfectly.

One thing to note here is the awesome bread basket. It comes with a variety of chips: sweet potato, taro, shrimp and regular potato. I particularly liked the inclusion of the shrimp chips. And the bread was super hot and fresh. Lovely.

Ambiance: 8

They did a great job with the space here. It feels both like a steakhouse and like a downtown Chinese restaurant. The music selection was a chill mix of electronic lounge type music and hip hop, and the lighting wasn’t too dim, but wasn’t too bright either.

CHAR HOUSE
43 Mott St
New York, NY 10013

Italian, Midtown West, Parms, Restaurant Reviews

Trattoria Dell’Arte

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This fucker is going to be short and sweet. A friend of mine alerted me to an interesting dish here that I just had to try. Chicken or veal parm with pepperoni on top like a fucking pizza:

Yup. That’s the veal. Those white blobs are extra burrata. Fuck yes. I always thought this place was a shit hole tourist trap, but apparently they’re slinging some good shit. Needless to say, I’ll be back for the chicken version, and possibly their Italian rib eye. Take another look at this thing, you savages:

Not quite as good as Tuscany Steakhouse nearby, which happens to be $6 cheaper as well (without the pepperoni). This was a whopping $56, but probably big enough to split with another person if you’re a raging pussy lip.

I went back for a full meal with my wife just a two months later. Here’s what we had:

Fried Artichoke:

Calamari and Braised Octopus:

Chicken Parmigiana Pepperoni:

That was fucking KILLER. Go get it.

Lemon Pie Brûlée:

Like a cross between key lime pie and creme brûlée. Very good.

TRATTORIA DELL’ARTE
900 7th Ave
New York, NY 10106

Italian, Midtown West, Parms, Restaurant Reviews

Patsy’s

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Patsy’s is a NYC institution for Italian food in the Times Square and Hell’s Kitchen north area.

This joint has been around since 1944. I’m a sucker for old restaurants like this, so I had to give it a shot. Plus, they serve some really interesting dishes that I’ve only ever had at home growing up.

For example, I rarely see escarole served anywhere, and I love it. They do it a bit differently here than the traditional “escarole and beans” soupy stew. Here, its sautéed with garlic, olives, capers, pine nuts and raisins:

It was delicious. It reminded me of the stuffing my grandmother used to make for her artichokes. And speaking of which, they had stuffed artichokes on the menu too. I hardly ever see these anywhere except for at home either:

This was okay, but very pricey at $17. Honestly, my mother makes a much better one. This was stuffed with bread crumbs, olives, capers, anchovies, cheese and pine nuts. Very similar to how my grandmother used to stuff them, and similarly a bit dry like hers often were, since they are baked (usually for too long) after steaming. My mother steams and sautés instead of bakes, and stuffs them with breadcrumbs, cheese and sauce. A bit simpler, but it tastes way better.

My grandmother on the other side used to make stuffed squid for part of our massive Christmas Eve seafood feast. She stuffed them with cheese, anchovies, moistened Italian bread and egg. Then she would stitch them closed and they were cooked in a big bubbling pot of seafood sauce that contained blue claw crabs, shrimp, scallops, scungilli (conch) and more squid. It was amazing.

Anyway I see that dish even less frequently than the others above, so I had to order it when I saw it on the menu here.

These babies are stuffed with squid and shrimp, among other things. This was a pretty nice dish, especially the sauce, although a bit pricey at $36.

The last thing we tried was the veal parm. I pretty much have to order this whenever I see it on the menu, anywhere.

This one, however, was a bit of a let down. The breading fell off almost instantly upon cutting, and was just overall a bit soggy and not up to par. The potato croquette that came with it was just okay as well. The bar, however, was a nice little stretch of mid century modern goodness where I’d love to have a martini:

To sum up, nothing tastes as good as mom’s and grandma’s cooking, but when you need a fix away from home, Patsy’s might be the right spot to get it.

PATSY’S
236 W 56th St
New York, NY 10019