I go to Wicker Park Fitness on Division. It's good for what I wanted a year and a half ago, but I just really want a bigger/nicer gym with a nice locker room now.

Ha, I've walked by Bucktown Fitness. From what I've heard it's very cheap, but yea, not exactly the nicest place.

I checked online for some info/reviews of the Bally's downtown (25 E Washington). The yelp reviews are lolbad, it's in a basement and supposedly the locker rooms are crap.

Anyone ever been to Sepia? Any thoughts? I may head there tonight.

I did just go to Avec finally, which I thought was great. Very affordable and the dishes were delicious. The same people own Publican and Blackbird, both of which I think are also fantastic. Recommend all three.

Oh yeah, also went to Sunda finally, which I also thought was pretty good, though a bit pretentious. On the plus side, the bar was stacked with beautiful people, which provided some nice scenery

terra,

sepia is one of my favorite restaurants in chicago.
i liked it better before the chef change fairly recently, but the current chef didn't change things too much. contemporary american grill food is what you should be expecting. ie, modern takes/twists on pretty classic things (like say a pork chop) in general, but not "modern" like we cut it in to cubes and freeze dried it.

along with great food, the atmosphere is fantastic, and the cocktail program is one of, if not the, best amongst restaurants in chicago. i could continue i guess, but i think it suffices to say i like the place? go hungry, so you can get flatbread, appetizer, main, dessert. the only real downside to the place in my mind is that it's definitely become a bit of a scene in the last year or so, but it's not so much that it distracts from the overall quality of the place.

Alright cool, didn't get a chance to head there last night, but will go soon.

Ok I have been given a bunch of restaurant reco's over the past few months, and since I usually travel, haven't been able to go to most. I'm just going to list out a bunch, and if people have any input on it, please go ahead and respond. If nothing else, it should start some good discussion on some of these restaurants (none of which have been mentioned so far i believe)

- Moto
- Onesixty Blue
- MK
- Between
- Nomi
- L20
- Naha
- Takashi
- Bonsoiree


Ok fire away if you have any thoughts on any of these...thanks!

what day(s) do you plan on going to any of those?

Bonsoiree is insanely tough to get into on weekends as they do special themes that only get offered to those on their mailing list


OneSixtyBlue is very good. Not special, but is reasonable for the price. I was there over the summer with some friends and it ended up being around $55 a head.

L2O is great, but you need to plan ahead with a reservation

several of those places have been talked about in this thread.
i'll write more on those i have opinions on later that i haven't talked about already.
just wanted to say that if you've been considering going to Naha, you should check out the upcoming 5+ course with paired cocktails they're doing with Peter Vestinos on cocktails duty, for i think $125.

Pretty embarrassed to say that I tried Smokedaddy for the first time last night. I've lived within 6 blocks of it for a year and a half. Don't know what I was thinking.

Got the pork bbq sandwich, side of mac n cheese and split the bbq potato chips. Absolutely delicious. If you like bbq and haven't been, do yourself a favor and go.

cosines, how does it stack up to smoque? have you been to brand bbq yet?


well, since I just mentioned it, I was at Brand BBQ about a week and a half ago. My friends and I did the food in more of a family style where we were trying as much from the menu as we could. The venison sausage was really good and had some gorgonzola mixed in with it that added some good flavor to it. We also did the baby back sampler where they then had all of their sauces out to try on each rib. TBH it came off as a bit of a cluster**** since they had like 7 or 8 sauces that one could put on each rib, but it was a bit too much and would've been a bit better if they more concentrated on 3 or 4 sauces

For the entree I got the smoked pulled duck sandwich. Well, that was pretty damn good and was helped by the classic sauce that they had. I'm generally a sucker for duck, so I was most likely gonna be a fan anyway

At the end we still had a bunch of wine in front of us and wanted to gorge some more, so we ordered up some of the burnt ends Mac n Cheese as well as a burnt ends burger. Both were pretty rockin and the burger was really good

I think what they should do is focus in on an identity on the bbq that they are serving. They have a mix of KC, Texas, and Eastern NC bbq and it'd probably help if they put the focus into one of the regions instead of trying to be something for everyone. Still, the price was right with all of the food we had (it cost like $40 including tip and we ate a lot) and they've only been open for a couple of months so some growing pains will naturally happen. I'd definitely go back and if I'm ever in their delivery zone, I wouldn't hesitate to order from them if I was craving some BBQ

Of these I've only been to a few enough to have any real opinion:
Onesixty blue -
I found the food to be good, but nothing shocking or all that interesting. Just well executed and not unreasonably priced. There's also frequent deals for things like 3 course meals there if you keep your eyes open. I found the decor to be kind of meh. Personally I wouldn't go there if I were looking for the type of food they produce, but I definitely don't think it's a poor restaurant, just not a great value and nothing surprising.

Takashi -
I think that probably the best thing I've had from Takashi is their weekend noodle brunch. A friend tells me that you can get something approaching an omakase style tasting menu there, but I've never really figured out how. The food is good, but not mind blowing. The space is small and loud. In general I kind of think that it's a little more expensive than it should be. It's also possible that I'm kind of bitter toward Takashi because I really loved the restaurant that used to be in the same space.

Ones I haven't eaten at myself:
L20: see GPs review "if you hate money and like fish..." The only real complaints I've heard have been that they like salt too much in some dishes.

moto: "playful" molecular gastronomy stuff. It's supposed to taste good too, while being way cheaper and easier to get in to than alinea. Everyone I know who's been has liked it.

Nomi: I haven't been with the current chef, but it's supposed to be all around good. I don't think I'd go if I weren't going out on a date or a business meal or something, because of the price/surprise ratio of the place, but their actual ability to execute dishes that taste good has always been good.

Naha: Everyone says it's tasty, and like I said, this upcoming prix fixe with paired cocktails and rare teas sounds great.

KDawg. Haven't been to Smoque yet either, but have heard good things. Never heard of Brand BBQ but that is fairly close to me as well. I'll have to order it sometime soon.

+1 to Smoque....wish it was a little closer to where I live

Anyone ever been to Tango Sur? A girl I was dating a couple of months ago loved that place and begged me to take her there for her birthday. It's an Argentinian steak restaurant located at Southport and Grace. I thoroughly enjoyed the place. The portions were HUGE (we split a meal and we each still had leftovers -- unreal -- and I'm a huge eater) and the prices very reasonable (a theme in all of my recommendations).

I'm not longer dating said girl but this is now my go to place for dates.

Tango Sur is good - not the highest quality food, but they give you a ton of it. The wait sucks sometimes - if I'm waiting that long for a table, I'd rather be eating better food - but it's a place I go every couple of months.

when I go to tango sur, I try to either go on thursdays or early on fridays or saturdays. The waits are awful on friday and saturday nights, but other then that, I love the place. Good food at a good price. Its not a high end restaurant, and it doesn't aim to be, which is perfectly fine by me


another good date place is semiramis. Quality lebanese food and its $4 corkage. Caro Mio is another place that would work well. I would note with Caro Mio that the portions are pretty big, so either doggy bag it or share the plate

love tango sur. used to live a block from it, which was bad for the waistline. don't expect fantastic quality beef, but expect the flavors and price to be great. it's byo, and there's a nice little wine shop basically directly across the street with a decent selection of non-****ty wine.

the experience is nicest when the weather is nice and they have patio seating, but simultaneously there's basically no night when the weather is nice that the line isn't absurd.

Got a March 6 Alinea res. and can't wait. Haven't ever liked a wine with alcohol >5% so going to skip the pairings but the 2 others I'm going with are going to get them. Will that be fine?

Any good family restaurant ideas for next weekend? Doesn't have to be in Chicago- Evanston/Skokie/Northbrook fine as well. Couple picky-ish eaters so not too wild of a menu and probably about a $15-30 entree level

chis,

iirc, what alinea requests is that all diners get the same length of menu so that serving times aren't ridiculous. with respect to wine, i think that you will be fine not getting pairings if you don't want to. shouldn't be a problem. i'd want to say that if you liked something someone got brought you could probably ask for a glass, but i honestly don't know. lots of stuff available in pairings aren't available by the glass, so i don't know where the intersection of good service and "we aren't selling that by the glass" winds up. idk which wines have high alcohol %s or whatever (and think that's a kind of weird thing to have an issue with, but whatever) but probably with their current emphasis on pairing things like liquors/liqueurs going on you're safest to just get out of the way of the pairings.

the place i'm looking forward to trying with a family type group that's not in chicago is "burt's place," the pizza place in morton's grove, but probably you're asking about places with like, food, not pizza?

i had a really good time at nightwood
link: http://www.nightwoodrestaurant.com/about.html
which has a lot of very straight forward, but good, food.
very american type food that most people wouldn't be scared of, i would think, nice atmosphere, not super expensive (or super cheap), and good/decent wine/beer/cockails choices.

also been hearing great things about kith & kin, which i guess is right in your neighborhood, iirc?
http://chicago.metromix.com/restaura...640668/content
might be a little more adventurous, but not hugely so.
then again, if you're a fan of kith & kin already, you might also just want the info that they're opening a new place soon in andersonville. pretty quick for a 2nd place, but i'm excited since it'll be like a block and a half from me.

important, i guess: will there be little kids with you or just family? i guess that makes a pretty big difference.

another good (but not good for little kids) option is cafe spiaggia.
http://www.spiaggiarestaurant.com/#/cafe/general-info/

if there are kids (and even if there aren't) you might want to consider osteria via stato:
http://www.osteriaviastato.com/

Went to HB Home Bistro last night:

I went here last night with a few friends. The setting was warm and inviting as was the staff.

They started us off right away with bread and we had a pate going around as well that was very good. We also had a cesare salad with the sauce having a strong anchovy kick to it. I had the brisket for the entree and was also able to taste one of their lamb sausages. The brisket was excellent and very tender. The lamb sausage was delicious and was a bit spicy. We then had an assortment of bread puddings and brownies for dessert. I had some of a brownie that was awesome

It was a real great time and I will certainly go back again

Heading up next Saturday to see some friends from school who are working up there. I've kept up with the thread but am going to re-read this week in hopes for some ideas. Have a free room at one of the Marriott's downtown so possibly staying there or girlfriends apartment (girl I semi-dated over the summer but nothing transpired bc she moved up there and we didn't want to start off with the distance thing)

We are going to Giordano's Saturday afternoon bc she has never been (gasp) and then probably going out Saturday night. I'm sure we will just hit up some bars and we had talked about Brew View at the Vic, but nothing is concrete yet. Any suggestions for a group of mid 20 somethings would be appreciated.

TR to follow.

Last night went to Ceres' Table, at basically Argyle and Clark.

Food was excellent. I had country pate, and a venison ragu, with a blue cheese gratin on the side. GF had a romaine salad and whitefish. We split a cinnamon rice pudding for dessert. Decent wine list, oddly they have $20 corkage, but if you buy a bottle from them they waive the 2nd corkage. My pate was a little dry and uninteresting, but it was what I was in the mood for so whatever. All the rest of the food was exceptionally good. Cocktail list was like 1/2 ridiculous thick godiva/frangelico based things, 1/2 reasonable, but creative, cocktails. Total bill was like $120 including tip for 2 apps, 2 entrees, a side, a dessert, and 4 drinks. Place is loud, but they're going to be putting in soundproofing/dampening soon. Definitely will go again, and would suggest to anyone.

Well Street popcorn at Clark and Diversey makes me urinate in my pants

couple cool alinea videos here: http://www.alineamosaic.com/news/

they have a designated job for an "expediter" who times things to the minute to make sure everything gets out properly


cit: thanks for the recs. foodie friend of mine also suggested kith and kin and osteria. we decided to stay in lincoln park and the kith and kin menu looked a lot worse (for my taste) than it had when i had first seen it.

so we ended up at sapori trattoria on halsted near diversey. it was PACKED (saturday night) and not very roomy, mainly a problem for the waitstaff trying to move around. ordered "Salmone alle Erbe Aromatica" with a side of pasta. the vegetables it came with weren't to my liking- thin sweet potato fries and other thing i wasn't able to identify, but my sister ate it.

someone on yelp said all their pasta is house made, which is cool. it tasted a bit different than normal but was quite good. i'd probably rank maggiano's slightly higher due to every bite seeming to have better consistency.

salmon was superb. i eat salmon nearly every night so it's one of few foods i'm qualified to judge. tasted different, in a good way, to most places, and i didn't even remember to use the side sauce.

they gave us a delicious complimentary tiramisu for dessert because my uncle knows them (he owns fur store on corner of halsted/diversey). bill was around $130 for 5 (only 1 drink and no appetizers). definitely a great italian option in lp.


hoping to get to the publican this week

I'm taking my daughter to Chicago next week (Northwestern audition/visit). Currently on the restaurant list are Frontera Grill and Lou Malnati's for pizza but I'm looking for one real blowout restaurant to end the trip. Any thoughts on Alinea vs. L2O vs. Charlie Trotter's? A look at the menus seems to indicate that L2O may be the most conventional with Alinea at the other end, but all look amazing.

Any suggestions for Sunday brunch would also be appreciated.

Lastly, how easy is it to get from Evanston (we are staying right next to Northwestern) to downtown Chicago on the train? My thought is to not rent a car, especially if the train is easy/fast.

Analyst - Have a great trip to Northwestern. It's a beautiful campus, even in the Winter.

As far as transportation goes, the Purple line runs from Evanston (Linden Street/Central/Noyes) down to Howard. From there you transfer to the Red Line and take that down the lake line to the city.

http://www.transitchicago.com/assets...tatrainmap.png

I'm guessing Alinea would be tough to get a res. this late

Pete Miller's is also good in Evanston

The 3 you list are pretty extravagant. Maybe check the top 50ish on the Yelp Chicago American (New) category for some different options. I've enjoyed Custom House, The Bristol, Perennial, and I'm sure others here have had many others. http://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc...38926a12e1989#