February 2012
2 posts
13 tags
Flower Pots and Deceptive Moscato: Dinner at...
From the outside, Letizia’s Fiore in Logan Square screams everything but Fine Italian Dining with its tacky Christmas lights and flashing “COFFEE” sign. If — despite this — you decide to drop in anyway for a quick drink and snack at the front of house cafe, your worst fears seem confirmed with average coffee and a typically empty front cafe.
Who could blame us for...
10 tags
Jam Restaurant
In a city already awash with brunch spots, do we need another? How about in Logan Square, a neighborhood already at the critical “hipster”-to-“chicken and waffle” ratio of 2-to-1?
Maybe we don’t need one,… but our recent positive experience at Jam seems to point that another one can’t hurt. And hey, waiting an hour for a table at one of the other spots on...
January 2012
2 posts
15 tags
Laughing and Crying at the Kids Table: Childhood...
What do you say about a restaurant that has already had so much written in its honor?
Next was Chicago’s most-buzzed about and most-loved restaurant in 2011 and shows little sign of giving up that reign in 2012. A meal there ends up the perfect blend of upscale dining with down-to-earth fun, serving exceptional food, but in an environment that places you at ease. Through the course of the...
14 tags
A healthy dinner of cheese, meat, wine and butter:...
Have you ever been to a restaurant and ordered the butter plate? Do you even realize how awesome a butter plate is? On a recent Saturday, we stopped into 694 Wine and Spirits in Chicago’s River West neighborhood and found out for ourselves.
694 is a wine bar with a well curated and manageable list featuring a dozen or so styles by the glass and a deep selection of bottles. We like variety,...
December 2011
3 posts
8 tags
Drinking it all in: In Fine Spirits
Like our New York post, this is another preposterously late review. Where does the time go?
Sometime this fall, we popped up to Andersonville to catch dinner and drinks with another couple at In Fine Spirits. These guys do AMAZING things with cocktails, but we found the food menu to be a little behind by comparison.
(source)
On the drinks side, our group found winners in the Blood and Sand,...
7 tags
Butter Smeared on Old Money
Two of our favorite things here at Table for Two are whisky and infographics and we wish we could talk about them at the same time more often.
We recently spied a cheeky illustration on the blog of the great whisky website Whisky For Everyone done by Jessica Hagy of Indexed. (Hagy is also an alumna of the Ohio University Honors Tutorial College just like the Fellow. Go Bobcats!)
Hagy, a whisky...
9 tags
"Drink three to five of these slowly:" Death & Co.
Eeek! It’s been over a month since we visited friends in Brooklyn to celebrate their wedding, but a late review is better than no review at all, right? Our weekend in NYC this fall was a whirlwind, but we did try to maximize our dining plans while still staying on budget.
We had real bagels at Murray’s in Chelsea — which we miss already — and fantastic french toast and...
November 2011
2 posts
13 tags
Great wine on the wire: Telegraph Wine Bar
On our walk home, we talked about how neither of us really understands wine. Sure, we know the basics and we can pick a few bottles to enjoy at home, but when we go out and taste that perfect glass, we’re humbled again.
Telegraph gave us that experience.
This new Logan Square wine bar sets a high standard for drinks. The by-the-glass selection is carefully curated but large enough, and the...
4 tags
Autumn Needs More Apple Brandy
There are few compounds that are more sinful than the applejack of New Jersey. The name has a homely, innocent appearance, but in reality applejack is a particularly powerful and evil spirit. The man who intoxicates himself on bad whisky is sometimes moved to kill his wife and set his house on fire, but the victim of applejack is capable of blowing up a whole town with dynamite and of reciting...
September 2011
4 posts
24 tags
2,500 Miles on a Full Stomach
We recently packed up the car and took the scenic route from Chicago to the Outer Banks, North Carolina via Kentucky and the Smoky Mountains. Along the way, we stopped by the Four Roses Distillery for some quick breakfast bourbon, took in an unexpected night at a horse ranch after a power outage and wrestled back a stolen pair of glasses from the Atlantic.
Oh, and we ate. A lot.
The Tail of the...
15 tags
A New Rock Bottom at Bottom Lounge
Groupons tend to be offered by restaurants and businesses that are in trouble. If you’ve got a lot of customers paying full price, there’s no reason to add a lot of customers who aren’t. If only we had remembered this sooner…
Several months ago, one of us picked up a $25 dining Groupon to Bottom Lounge, the West Loop music venue with a full kitchen and bar. The place has...
13 tags
Sangria on a Sunny Day: Mercat a la Planxa
The earliest draft of this post began, “yumyumyumyumyum.” Perhaps that’s all the review we need.
For our second night of dining out with the the Lady’s family (see here and here for night one), we stopped by Mercat a la Planxa, the many-times recommended Spanish tapas restaurant in Chicago’s South Loop. Our heat stoked brains dreamed of gentle Sangria (upper...
15 tags
Black Truffle Dreams: Cocktails at The Aviary
The Aviary is not Next.
Maybe for some this doesn’t have to be said, but it’s hard not to lump the new cocktail lounge from Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas with the sister restaurant that opened the same month. Both claim to be pushing boundaries and carrying on traditions started by the duo at Alinea, — be they service, attention to detail, avant-garde techniques and...
August 2011
1 post
12 tags
The Publican: Of West Winds and Christmas Smelt
The Lady had family in town for the weekend, so we played host by booking some best-of-the-best restaurant reservations. In this crafty little way, we got to showcase the city AND cross a few more restaurants off our “to-do” list. That’s fair, right? And… being the first time this Fellow would be meeting the Lady’s mother, it wouldn’t hurt to pick to impress.
...
July 2011
3 posts
12 tags
Key Ingredient: A Chicago Reader Series
The Chicago Reader has a fantastic little ongoing series called Key Ingredient featuring chefs from around the city challenging each other to cook with unusual ingredients. After completing the challenge, the reigning chef gets to select the next ingredient as the baton is passed. The chefs have created a highly entertaining, somewhat hilarious, and occasionally gross lineage. Pork cheek gives way...
19 tags
Maude's Liquor Bar
This past weekend was the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago’s Union Park. We complained about the beer selection inside, but it was too hot to drink in the midday sun anyway. (Lady: “Is there only Heineken at all the booths?” Beer Guy: “Awww. Is someone a snob?” Lady: “…I hate you.”) After darkness had descended though, we decided we needed a real...
9 tags
Cucumber Rose Hip Sour
The lady stopped by for dinner last week and, with the fellow busy cooking, she helped herself to the liquor cabinet. Luckily, she’s a quick learner and doesn’t need much guidance to gussy up her cucumber lemonade desires.
Cucumber Rose Hip Sour Recipe courtesy of The Lady
-1 1/2 oz gin -1 oz lemon juice -1/2 oz Koval Rose Hip Liqueur -some muddled cucumber chunks Shake the...
June 2011
6 posts
9 tags
This is either halibut or cod... but I'm pretty...
It would be an affront to our journalistic integrity to treat this review any differently than our others. The price may have been right, but the service was spotty, the chef didn’t seem to know what he was doing and not everything we ordered even made it to the table.
We’re talking (quite snarkily) of the meal we prepared at the man of this endeavor’s apartment last Friday. The...
5 tags
Four Eleven
The fellow and his friend run a recurring cocktail party called Four Eleven. The most recent incarnation included a menu of all original drinks and was quite a hit with the guests. Check it out as the two mixologists in charge wax on about their creations over at the fellow’s other blog, bybe.
17 tags
Shhh! Let's Keep This One Just Between Us:...
One of us has been a Midwesterner his whole life, first growing up on the shores of Lake Erie and now living within a stone’s throw of Lake Michigan. The Great Lakes, in fact, have been a part of his life for 22 of his 26 years. The other, an east coast convert, has had only a mere 2 in this neck of the woods. Regardless, we now call this region home and love the sound of the word LOCAL....
15 tags
Dinner and a Show at The Southern
“That is the salmon right there,” the sever said, pointing into our food. “I think you’re really going to enjoy that. And the crab cakes. She got the crab cakes.”
“Oh, is that the mac and cheese?” the women asked, following suit with the pointing.
“No, those are the grits.”
Our recent meal at The Southern in Chicago’s Wicker Park...
10 tags
Violets Past Ten
With a friend of the fellow in town, we enjoyed a nice Sunday evening in Wicker Park. After a feast at… Feast nearby, we wandered over to the prime spot of the evening: The Violet Hour. A certain someone (the fellow, oh course) had been raving about this place for ages, but we’d still yet to fit it in. Friends and a free Sunday evening were the right way to make it happen.
With no...
11 tags
A Feast
A friend of the fellow was in town last weekend, so we found the time for a relaxing Sunday evening out to catch up with her. The goal of the night was to sample the wares at The Violet Hour, — talked about elsewhere, — but we started off with a bit of food to pad the coming alcohol and popped into nearby Feast.
The space at Feast, looking out toward the patio. (Source)
Feast is a...
May 2011
6 posts
26 tags
Getting Bladdered for a Couple Quid: Owen & Engine
Located somewhere in the aether between “not quite Bucktown” and “not quite Logan Square” is Owen & Engine, a much-buzzed pub serving up English fare. This gastro category usually serves as the butt of a joke, but here shows up as hearty, homey comfort food with elegant, upward twists and the paragon of what a bar program should look like.
Via: owenengine.com
We...
5 tags
Cupcakes for Breakfast
Sometimes the lady is sure that the fellow is out-domesticating her; he not only makes killer cocktails as previously noted, but he also knows how to cook and, apparently, can bake a damn good cupcake. (*FROM SCRATCH!)
Upon her return from her last business trip, he had these delicious treats waiting: cupcakes made with breakfast ingredients like maple syrup, butter, bacon and cream cheese...
10 tags
The Depot, or How we Nearly Lost our Hubcaps in...
By conservative estimate, as we traveled down Roosevelt Road about 30 people jumped out in front of our car (for reasons we never could discern) and we passed at least one red light district XXX-video store. The Depot American Diner, located in this slightly sketchy west-southwest corner of Chicago where the city meets Oak Park and Cicero, is a skinny little spot with just one window facing the...
10 tags
Bobby Keeps it Coming: Sola Restaurant
“You guys know Bobby, huh? I’m sorry…. Right this way.”
So began our recent trip to Sola in the Ravenswood neighborhood of Chicago. A table for three adventure this time, we were joined by one of the lady’s flatmates for a dinner cooked by the other flatmate, Sola’s new Chef de Cuisine, Bob. (Or Bobby, as everyone at the restaurant seemed to call him, much to...
23 tags
I Asked For Water and She Gave Me Gasoline
So while the boy was missing me from Chicago, I split last week between the DC area (my ‘hometown’) and my alma mater stomping grounds of Philadelphia. As usual, the week was a whirlwind of running to and from, catching up with old friends over drinks and long winded conversations in my favorite bars. I made sure to get some quality time in at my old favorites- unwinding in La Colombe...
7 tags
A Valentine’s Day Rose (or Four)
The lady’s out of town again, seeing family and friends and trying not to die from vacation exhaustion, so I thought I’d fill the void by sharing a Table for Two moment from before there was Table for Two.
One of our early dates was to the Chicago bar/restaurant Big Star. The place does a few things, but it does them really well. There are tacos from Chef Paul Kahan (of Avec, Blackbird and The...
April 2011
6 posts
9 tags
Lula Cafe
Lula Café in Logan Square is lauded for its brunch and we definitely agree. (Memories of some delicious ricotta pancakes and thick cut bacon are wafting back right now!) But this weekend when the cupboards were bare, the spring allergies were making the lady miserable, and a general laze had descended upon us, we struck out a few blocks in search of a good meal and decided to hit up Lula for...
17 tags
A Union of Man and Woman, of Whiskey and...
This post originally appeared in bybe. Check it out over there.
Crafting original cocktails is simultaneously the most exciting and the most daunting part of this mixology hobby I’ve adopted. When you create a successful new drink – or even just a clever variation on an existing one – you can taste the synergy and magic almost right away. But, unfortunately, I’m as often (or probably more often)...
3 tags
Extra cheese is not a seasoning. →
14 tags
Next: Paris 1906 - Escoffier at the Ritz
Next, if you somehow haven’t heard, is the new Chicago restaurant from Chef Grant Achatz and Restaurateur Nick Kokonas, both of Alinea fame. The premise is short-lived, but exquisitely executed menus with the food, silverware and focus changing every three months. The opening choice of “Paris 1906: Escoffier at the Ritz” pulls recipes from the French haute cuisine bible Le Guide Culinaire by...
9 tags
An Introduction
Epicure. Gastronome. Foodie. Bon Vivant. Gourmet. Call us whatever you’d like, but we have discerning taste. And we’re hungry. And who do we have to kill to get a drink around here?
One part physicist, one part designer, we’re two starry-eyed twenty-somethings running across Chicago, spending our way to the poorhouse one paycheck and one graduate school stipend at a time. We might take in...