Topolobampo

I made lunch reservations at Topolobampo, a Rick Bayless restaurant in River North, when one of my friends visited me in Chicago earlier last week. As a little bit of background, Bayless is a chef/proprietor specializing in tradition, regional Mexican cuisine with a higher end, slightly more modern twist. What not many people know is that Chicago is surprisingly the best (if not almost the best) city in the US for authentic, traditional, and regional Mexican food. Mexican food is a BIG DEAL here, and people will constantly debate who makes the best taco al pastor, and if the meat isn't char grilled, then forget about it. However, Bayless, who has won numerous awards in the last 20 years, has brought regional Mexican cuisine to a new level. Having read a lot about Bayless and Topolobampo, I was really curious to see what it's all about.

So we went for lunch, which is usually not the best way to experience fine dining, but Topolobampo is not cheap, and I really just wanted to see what this place was all about. Needless to say, my friend Vadicel and I were really impressed. From the moment we stepped in, we were immersed in this very warm atmosphere. Everything about the interior of the restaurant was warm and inviting with the walls decorated in Mexican art, as well as ceramics adorning display shelves. Overall, the service was friendly and relaxed, but perhaps slow at times. There were a couple of times when we needed our waiter but couldn't find him, but I usually let things like that slide if the food was good, and in this case it certainly was.

We were first given tortilla chips with housemade guacamole, compliments of the chef. Not too much to say about that except for the fact that it was probably the best tasting guacamole I've had. The ingredients were noticeably fresh, which is something that's extremely important in Bayless' food.


I had the Pato Con Mole Amargo, which was roasted gunthorp duck breast with mole of pasilla and mulato chiles, coffee, chocolate and sesame. The vegetables it came with were "wilted" spinach, pickled chayote, bayless garden microgreens. chilatas and potato budin (a cheesy potato tortilla type of thing). This was a very interesting dish, and while it sounds complex, everything just came together so well. The duck was very tender with just the right amount of fattiness. Thankfully, the coffee and chocolate in the mole sauce did not overpower the dish. Everything was blended perfectly.


My friend had the Trio, Trio, Trio which was a sampling of their three types of ceviches. You can refer here for the details on the ceviches. According to her, it was all really good. I tried the Ceviche Playero from her, and I really liked it. The seafood was very fresh and well prepared.


Probably the highlight for me was dessert. I don't remember the exact name of this dessert (it's not online), but it was essentially a chocolate tart with bacon a la Vosges' bacon-chocolate. And YOU KNOW how much I love that. This dessert was basically perfect. The chocolate tart wasn't too rich nor too sweet, and the bacon was perfectly accounted for. It also came with what I think was vanilla ice cream and some sort of orange petals. Honestly, not sure what the petals were, but we ate them. Awesome dessert - HIGHLY recommended.

So overall, Topolobampo was really good and worth the experience of trying higher end regional Mexican cuisine. I definitely recommend anyone to go here, particularly those who've never had Mexican food of this type.

Topolobampo
445 N. Clark St
Chicago, IL

Renga-Tei

On a weekday for lunch, my mom and I went to Renga-Tei, a no frills Japanese spot in Lincolnwood. Awesome Japanese food tends to be hard to come by In Chicago (in comparison to NY), but chowhounders rave about Renga-Tei. We went close to 2pm, when the kitchen was about to close. (Note: Many suburban restaurants here close for a few hours between lunch and dinner) We were surprised to find that the moderately sized restaurant was packed, which is really surprising for a weekday in the suburbs. Luckily, we were able to snag the last two seats at the bar before they stopped letting people in.

I ordered the Katsu-Don. Simply pork cutlets with egg, shredded dry seaweed, and broth that was lighter than teriyaki. There were also pickled veggies and rice on the side. This portion was HUGE. It ended up feeding me 3 consecutive meals, believe it or not. And I must say that this was the best katsu dish, as well as "don" I've ever had. I found it to be better than the Negi Tori Don at Yakitori Totto, even though those are pretty different dishes, but one can still compare the overall quality and taste of the dishes.

I definitely plan on coming back here and wouldn't mind trying the sushi.

Renga-Tei
3956 W. Touhy Ave
Lincolnwood, IL 60712

Hotate Bacon

Whenever I go to an izakaya place in New York, I always get hotate bacon (bacon-wrapped scallops). Since my yakitori chicken skewers were a hit during Thanksgiving (yes, we grilled on Thanksgiving), I figured I'd try bacon-wrapped scallops for my sister's graduation party at home. Last time I made yakitori, I made my own sauce from scratch using soy sauce, rice wine, and sugar. A couple of weeks ago, I found yakitori marinade or about $2 at HMart and decided to just go easy and do things that way since it's cheaper and easier.

We got about 4 pounds of jumbo scallops for a total of $20, which was ridiculously cheap. Since they were so big, I cut each of them in half and padded each one dry. I then left the scallops in the marinade for about 45 minutes while my brother half-cooked the bacon. Since the scallops would cook faster on the grill than the bacon, we had to pre-cook the bacon. Then we wrapped each scallop half with bacon and put them on the skewers. This takes a little longer than you'd think.

Finally, we grilled the bacon-wrapped scallops for about 3 minutes on each side. Turns out they weren't tasty enough, so we drizzled a little bit of marinade on the finished products. Everyone loved this at my sister's grad party!

Pizza from scratch

I made Pizza Margherita from scratch the other day! It wasn't difficult, but making the dough and letting it rise does take some time. I used this Batali pizza dough recipe, except I accidentally put one cup of water. I realized this before I put the wine, so I opted out of not using wine since I didn't want to make anymore dough than what the recipe called for. I was also too lazy to adjust the measurements of everything else. This dough recipe is enough for two 10" pizzas, so I actually still have another batch of dough left. Next time I need to make more, I'll definitely have to use wine to see how it enhances the taste.

I was a little lazy to make homemade marinara sauce, but since I don't like my pizza really saucy, I just spread a couple of tablespoons of canned tomato sauce on the dough. The next layer was fresh mozzarella that I sliced, then topped with fresh basil which I'm now growing myself. I baked it for about 13 minutes at 400 Fahrenheit. Overall, the pizza turned out decent. I could've kneaded the dough more to make it thinner, and I definitely could have used more fresh mozzarella and basil. My dad really liked the dough/crust though, so at least I have that down now. I'll just have to see how much of a positive difference wine makes.

Yesterday, I used the other half of the dough. I didn't have enough fresh mozzarella left to make a full pizza, but since there's always a steady supply of different cheeses in my house, I picked aged gouda. My crust turned out better this time because I flattened it out a bit more on the pizza pan. Overall, this pizza turned out better. The only thing is that I sprinkled a little bit of salt before baking it which ended up being totally unnecessary since the aged gouda was pretty salty.

I'm glad I now have pizza completely from scratch under my belt. Not that it's difficult, but at least it's a little better and more fun than getting delivery.

Some homecooked meals

Now that I'm home and unemployed in Chicago, living in a house with a nice and newly renovated kitchen, I've been pretty inspired to cook and experiment a bit. Whether on my own or as my dad's sous chef (my dad is the cook in this house), I've built up my repertoire more in the last week than I did in my last 3 months in New York.

The surprising thing about Chicago is that you can find cheaper and fresher fish here than you can in New York. Maybe my mom just knows where to look here and I don't know where to look in New York, but we've been getting lots of very fresh halibut and Chilean sea bass for about $10/lb more or less.


This is some halibut I made last week. I made about 2 pounds worth for dinner. As you know, I don't like measuring stuff when I cook. I kinda just go with it. Ingredients included maybe 4-5 cloves of garlic, tomatoes, shallots, about 3/4-1 cup of white wine, salt and pepper for seasoning, and fresh basil to garnish at the end. Oh, I also added a few threads of saffron from a little jar I had bought in Corfu last year. I added this while the white wine was reducing. Just a few threads REALLY made the saffron taste noticeable. Overall, the fish was pretty good though maybe could have used more salt and pepper.


Another day, my dad and I cooked fresh scallops in a similar manner, but added a bunch of oyster mushrooms. Instead of using white wine, we used red. The flavor was really good, but my dad definitely overcooked the scallops - they ended up being a bit rubbery, which I hate, but since it tasted good, I was able to deal. I wasn't sure if the oyster mushrooms would be good with the scallops, but they actually were!

He and I have made other seafood dishes in the last week, but they're really all pretty similar. It's pretty much always either red or white wine reduction, tomatoes, shallots, sometimes green onions, sometimes either oyster or enoki mushrooms, and always always always some garlic.

My sister is having a graduation party this coming Saturday, so I'm hoping to experiment with other party-appropriate dishes for that too...

Stay tuned!

Caracas Arepa Bar

A long time ago, before I knew anything about the New York food scene, I ate at Caracas Arepa Bar with a group of friends. I randomly felt like trying it again a couple of weeks ago, so I went to the take-out side to grab an arepa as a late afternoon/early evening snack.


I ordered the La Del Gato, which came with fried plantains, avocado slices, and a chunk of guayanes cheese...for a whopping $6. Yeah, that's expensive. The arepa was no bigger than the palm of my hand, and while it was very stuffed, I still don't think it warrants $6. Maybe I'd pay $4 for it, but $6 really seemed overpriced for a little snack. Don't get me wrong. It tasted really good and the arepa was crispy, but...ehhh. I just didn't think it was worth the price.

Basically, only go there if you're willing to cough up $6+ for a little snack that should really be much cheaper than it is.

Caracas Arepa Bar
91 East 7th St
New York, NY

Yummy Noodles

As of now, I'm officially back in Chicago for the next two months. Since I was so busy hanging out with people during my last few weeks in New York, I haven't gotten a chance to update this blog much. I have a lot to catch up on! A couple of weeks ago, Gabe and I were craving some Chinese food, so we went to Yummy Noodles in Chinatown. I had never been there before, but he has with his coworkers. Ugh, why didn't I discover this place before? Everything about it was better than any other similar place in Chinatown. It was cheaper, cleaner, and better.



Gabe ordered the Salt and Pepper Pork Chops. It was perfectly crispy, salty, and flavorful. It was also a massive portion at only maybe $7 or $8. The meat itself was also very tender and not chewy or dry at all, which is a problem I sometimes have with pork chops.


I had the Rice Casserole with Chinese Sausage and Preserved Duck ($5.25). I've never had a Chinese rice casserole, so little did I know that it's like the Chinese version of bibimbop! I always love it when the rice gets burnt and crispy at the bottom, yum. Even though it was a large portion overall, there was still way more rice than Chinese sausage and preserved duck. I hate having a lot of leftover rice because I feel like it's such a waste. But I can't eat rice without meat to accompany it, so unfortunately, I didn't finish all the rice. In any case, this dish was really good and cheap considering the portion.

And perhaps the most charming thing about this Chinese restaurant are the tshirts that the waiters wear. On the front, there's a picture of a diamond, and underneath, it reads, "Noodles & Co." On the back, it says, "Noodles are forever." Get it?! To top it off, the tshirts are black, and the print is in Tiffany's signature greenish color! Seriously, I loved it. I would so totally rock that shirt too, you have no idea.

For a change of scenery, go eat at Yummy Noodles. I like it better than any other standard Chinese place in Chinatown.

Yummy Noodles
48 Bowery
btwn Bayard and Canal