We arrived at our smartly appointed and located B&B in anticipation
of dinner at the world heralded Alinea…but
that’s tomorrow night and our race against the predicted arrival
time on the GPS has been fueled by pretzels and peanut M&M’s. Time
to eat. Over a bottle of wine we decided to push Chicago deep dish
pizza to lunch tomorrow and take advantage of one of the four
options within 100 feet, oysters, tacos, pizza or California
cuisine. As we sat on the third floor patio enjoying the second to
last warm day of the year, I felt pretty sure the smells that were
driving me animalistic were coming from the Summer House Santa
Monica and I picked. Whoops. |
|
|
It is a slick and finely executed concept…a
night out at the summer home in Santa Monica. California cuisine.
Local. Fresh. The service started above average with low key but
continual attention. It’s a nice night in Chi-town and even though
the garage door opens into a busy Halsted Street, the fact that it's
open enhances the summery feel of the interior. All of that was well
done.
Then the food started to arrive.
We started with toasted cauliflower, guacamole and fire baked beets.
The guac was probably the best of the bunch…nothing extraordinary
like the regally adorned avocado at Xoco, but
tasty with well-done chips and fair salsa. We love some roasted
cauliflower but I found the jalapeño pesto, parmesan, candied
lemon, and bread crumbs too complicated, completely overpowering the
veg. It could have been packing peanuts. I’ll take a little lemon
and dusting of grated parm over this any day. |
||
The beets were very nicely plated but ended up being middling on the taste front; even staked with goat cheese, hass avocado, red apple, watercress, and dribbled with a splash of mustard vinaigrette. Not really beety…not really much of anything else…it just all sorta disappeared into far less than stunning. |
Too Little Of Too Much...Was There Really Cauliflower Under There? California Cuisine Huh? |
Fashion Subverts Function, Now THAT's California Cuisine! |
||
From best to worst, the entrées started with the spice rubbed bigeye
tuna taco platter served with slow-cooked black beans, cumin-scented
rice, guacamole, charred tomato salsa, tomatillo salsa and fresh
corn tortillas. You couldn’t really taste the tuna if you piled it
into the tortilla but at least it tasted of something. We also tried
a quinoa & forbidden black rice bowl with green curry sauce and
local vegetables. The mushy veg didn’t do anything to help the
quinoa and rice. I did very much enjoy the lightly sweet, warmly
spiced, and super green curry. I’ll take the curry and the roasted
cauliflower without the other stuff. |
|
Sauce Helped Lackluster Rice & Quinoa Dish |
||
After a meandering presentation on California
cuisine we were told the special of the day is a copy of a dish from
New York in which there are no Chinese ingredients but somehow,
“presto”, turns out to taste like Chinese food. The braised shortrib
ended up being more like chewy leather than Chinese, but the al
dente Isrealei cous cous wasn’t bad. So average, saved only by sauce
and pasta pearls, what ends up at the bottom? |
|||
Braised Dry & Chewy |
I Would Say Hot Garbage...But Cold Reheated Garbage Is More Apt |
||
We were treated to a couple of desserts as we
were celebrating recent nuptials. The flat flaky salt crystals atop
the chocolate chip cookie offered a wee bit of redemption. The huge
square of brown butter rice crispy treat needed a fair bit more
nuttiness to call it brown butter. Our first meal in Chicago was by
far our weakest…which means good things are to come! |
|||
Salt Helped The Cookie |
Not Enough Brown In The Butter To Make This Stand Out |
Ratings | |||||||
Food |
Service |
Ambiance |
What's Best |
What's Worst |
Overall |
||
D- | C- | B | C | F- | D | ||
Free Cookie | Pasta |