Francesco's Hole in the Wall

My family and I went to Francesco's Hole in the Wall restaurant in Northbrook, IL last night. I've never been too impressed with Italian food in greaterland Chicago, but this place is pretty for real. It's one of the smallest sit-down restaurants I've ever been to, which is quite interesting considering this is in the suburbs. It only has 16 small tables and has a very homey rustic charm. Normally they don't take reservations, but for whatever reason, they allowed my family and I to make a reservation last night. It's a good thing because the wait for everyone else around 7pm was a 45 minute to an hour wait.

To drink, I settled with a glass of Ruffino chianti red wine, which was very smooth and medium-bodied. For my entree, I decided on the osso buco served with a little bit of risotto on the side. As anyone familiar with Italian food knows, osso buco is typically of gigantic portions and is a very heavy and hearty dish. This was no different. I think I would've liked to have more bone marrow in mine, but the meat itself was cooked perfectly tender. The sauce had a natural strong flavor. It may have been on the salty side for me, but definitely not shockingly so.

I didn't get to try a lot of everything else, but the rest of my family ordered chicken vesuvio (supposedly one of their best dishes), linguine with shrimp arrabiata, lamb chops, and fried calamari. The fried calamari was probably among the best and most tender I've ever had, so I would definitely recommend that as an appetizer.

I'd definitely like to return to this restaurant and try one of their pastas. For anyone looking for solid food at a restaurant with character and atmosphere in the suburbs, I would definitely recommend Francesco's Hole in the Wall.

Francesco's Hole in the Wall
254 Skokie Boulevard
(between Frontage Rd & Lake Cook Rd)
Northbrook, IL 60062
(847) 272-0155

Pork Tenderloin with Apples

My dad, brother, and I cooked pork tenderloin with apples for Christmas Eve dinner last night. We marinated the tenderloins in salt, pepper, and olive oil. First, we browned and seared them in a wok. While that was going on, I made the glaze which consisted of dijon mustard, apple cider vinegar, olive oil, and sugar. I honestly don't know what my measurements were. I just kept adding stuff until it tasted well balanced. After the tenderloins were finished being seared, we poured the glaze over them and stuck them in the oven at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. While that was being done, we cooked chopped green apples in the oil left over from when the pork was being seared and half a stick of butter. While the apples softened up, we then added maybe about half a cup of apple cider, about 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, and about 2 tablespoons of heavy whipping cream.

After 20 minutes of the pork being in the oven, we weren't sure if it was really cooked through yet but didn't want to cut it open, so we just poured the apple sauce over the pork tenderloins and left them in the oven with it turned off. We figured that by leaving them in the turned off oven, it would still cook a little bit but not too much.

This was a really great Christmas dish. The pork was very lean, and the apples gave the right amount of sweetness and moistness to the dish. I think it turned out great, and it was a nice change from our usual steak dinner on Christmas Eve. When I make this again, I think the only thing I'll do differently is marinate the pork in the mustard/apple cider vinegar/brown sugar/olive oil glaze so that the flavors will come through more in the pork.

Panini maker!

My mom bought a big panini maker on sale for $60 at William Sonoma. I was really excited about it because I love paninis. The picture above is of a nutella and banana panini. I also made a serrano ham and manchego cheese panini for lunch. I used Pepperidge Farm white bread for both, but I think I need to use a better bread. I didn't realize how flat the bread would get from the panini maker, so I think I'll try a good loaf of Italian bread next time.

Both the jamon serrano and manchego cheese were bought from Costco. And on that note, you can buy the culinary treasure, Iberico de Bellota from Costco too! That's the jamon that comes from pigs that are only fed acorns in Spain. Typically, you can only find this in Spain or France, but I guess it's made its way to Costco in the States. For $29.99 for 4oz, it's defintiely not cheap, but it was certainly delicious with a distinct nutty taste, which I assume is from the acorns.

Mussels with Bacon and Apples

Bacon and apples together is something I've sort of had a fascination with lately even though I don't really recall eating that combination until, well...today. When I searched for bacon and apples on foodnetwork.com, I came across this recipe. I've never been a Bobby Flay fan, but the recipe sounded good, and I'm fairly confident in cooking mussels since I've done it a number of times before.

Instead of making 1 pound of mussels, I made 4.41lbs to be exact. Costco sells live mussels, and you have to cook all of them while they're live, so I didn't have much of a choice but to cook all 4.41lbs, but that was just enough for my family. I'm not really one for following recipes but rather just use them as a guide.

I ended up using about 12oz of bacon, 4 shallots (however in varying sizes), 2 Fuji apples, and whatever amount seemed appropriate of dry white wine, apple cider, and apple cider vinegar. I bought heavy cream and ended up forgetting to put it in, but that's ok because the mussels were perfectly fine without the cream.

I definitely want to make this again, possibly with the cream and maybe less bacon.

Little note

As a side note, a lot of people have asked me what I've been eating here in Dominica (the random island in the Caribbean where I go to medical school, for those of you who don't know). There's really nothing interesting to note here about food. There's no variety, and what you could eat could potentially make you sick (though interestingly enough the only time I've gotten sick here was after eating Subway), but there are certainly a few things here and there that I've taken a liking towards. I'll seriously write about the few random things I like here. Hit me up if you'd care to read about it.

Also, look forward to update overload when I'm on my 3 week winter break. I plan on eating out and cooking a lot with my family and Gabe (he's visiting me in Chicago for 5 days!).

Until then, cheers!

Avec

Yes, I'm updating my blog 3 months too late. It's better late than never, right? I'm actually not gonna give the excuse that med school has taken up too much of my time because I definitely have had time to write about my last meals in Chicago and New York. I just never got around to it for some reason.

Anyways, I've chosen to write about Avec tonight because it was my last nice meal before I left for med school. It has a very hip but cool and laidback vibe that's inviting and not pretentious at all. It's very Momofuku-esque, if you will. It's headed by Chef Koren, who if any of you watch Top Chef, was the judge for the beer pairing quickfire last season. She uses inspiration from Spanish and Mediterranean food and puts her own contemporary spin on it without being too out there. Seriously, everything we had absolutely did not fail, and I think this restaurant does an amazing take on tapas slash "small plates." A lot of people call it tapas, but I prefer to just call them small plates because the food is not strictly Spanish by any means.


We started out with the Housemade Baccala, with red and yellow watermelon, cucumber, pickled watermelon rind, mint, aleppo pepper, and olive oil ($11). This was an ABSOLUTE winner. I personally love baccala, but this really was an interesting take on it, and it just worked so well. It was refreshing, and not a single ingredient overpowered another. This stands out in my mind as a perfect summer dish.


Next, we had Avec's oh-so-famous Chorizo-stuffed Medjool Dates, with smoked bacon and piquillo pepper sauce ($9). While Avec changes its menu quite frequently, this is the one item you can count on staying on the menu. It is one of their signature items, and certainly for good reason. Again, every flavor blended together perfectly well, and the strong taste of the chorizo, bacon, and sauce did not overpower the sweetness of the dates.


Next was the Wood-roasted Half Chicken "Panzanella" with bread, heirloom tomatoes, kalamatas, golden raisins and mint ($16). Normally, we probably wouldn't order chicken in a place like this, but my sister wanted chicken, and they didn't have a pork dish on the menu. Surprisingly, this has to have been one of the best non-fried chicken dishes I've ever had, if not the best. Even the white meat was ridiculously moist and tender. I'm usually not a raisins fan, but the raisins went surprisingly well with this dish.


The next "large plate" was the Trofle Puttanesca with albacore, picholine olives, caperberries, and thyme ($16). This was actually a pretty large portion of pasta, which I wasn't expecting. I think I remember being somewhat iffy about this dish. It was certainly good, but it didn't speak to me as well as the other dishes. I think the overall taste of the pasta was pretty strong in a way that wasn't very summer-y like the other dishes.


Our last dish was the Pan-roasted Hanger Steak with rapini, roasted corn, smoked paprika, lima beans, and herbed butter ($12). I actually don't remember too much about this one besides the fact that it was good and perfectly cooked medium rare to our liking.

We did have dessert, but I don't remember what it was. Also, my choice of drink for the evening was a Belgian wheat beer, Blanche de Bruxelles. It was very light and refreshing.

Overall, I HIGHLY recommend Avec. It's definitely one of my favorite restaurants in Chicago in terms of food, service, and atmosphere. We didn't have to wait too long, but we went around 6:30pm on a Wednesday night. Expect longer waits if you go any later than that on any given night, and ESPECIALLY on the weekends.