Dining It Up!
On any given day I eat between two and four meals. A few of those have been noteworthy over the past few months.
Cho Sun Ok
With one of my buddies being Korean and a UChicago alum, he has a good pulse on the Asian restaurant scene, and not unsurprisingly the Korean one. We finally took him up on this recommendation, and we weren't disappointed. Apparently there is a difference between between bulgogi and the stuff we had this time. Mostly that this was unmarinated. Sounds non tasty, but that's untrue. There's a few different sauces to dip the beef strips in and per Korean style, an insane number of side dishes come with. The soup I had was pretty ginormous too. Regardless of the place, I've decided pancakes are always a winner and definitely a go-to move.
~$20/person: shared appetizer, no alcohol, no dessert.
Mado
This place has a ridiculously unassuming facade that I've missed quite a few times. But on walking in, it's a cozy, classy, casual place. For the price and type of place, the portions were significantly larger than I was expecting. No complaints there. On top of that, the food was pretty good. I had the pork shoulder, which I motored through in no time - so delicious. Tried out some of their seafood stew which was pretty tasty - both in terms of broth and the shear amount of seafood they put in it. Tried some of the hanger steak, which was good but not nearly as tasty as the pork shoulder. The chocolate cream pie was pretty damn good - and I'm not usually a dessert person.
~$40/person: shared appetizers, dessert, byo w/o corkage fee
One Sixty Blue
Apparently this place has some MJ influence in it and the chef is a Charlie Trotter product. Either way, this West Loop place is pretty fancifully done and almost seems out of place in the neighborhood. But I guess that's true for a lot of stuff in that area. I got the lamb rack - two lamb ribs chilling against a lamb medallion. *So. Damn. Tasty.* However they prepped the lamb was pretty good to begin with. Combine that with the insanely good sauce and couscous - game over. Seriously though. Best lamb I've had. The other stuff doesn't even matter (even if delicious). If you go here, get the lamb.
~$60/person: shared appetizers, dessert, 4 bottles of house wine
We even got the private dinner room at no extra charge - which was pretty cool imo.
Disclaimer: previous opinions come from overworked, underfed med student whose diet consists largely of frozen/prepared food, fast food, and Filipino take-out. That said, I wouldn't exactly call myself a foodie - as much as someone that knows good food when he has it. Also, the places were a little more expensive than the average meal. But they're definitely tastier than the average meal and probably only about once a month.
