I'm struggling with my weight a little bit. I wonder if there is any correlation between that and the number of restaurants I seem to be frequenting these days!
Girls night this past Saturday. We decided to deviate from our normal haunts and try something brand new. Firefly on halsted
We were 6 tonight. One not available due to a wedding, but celebrating the return of one of our long lost travelers who had been in Europe the last 5 months!
I will admit, I am a bit of a homebody. At one point this summer I declared I was only going to eat and shop and socialize within Logan Square. I don't usually go to Boystown or Lakeview any more simply because these neighborhoods are kind of a pain in the ass to get in and out of.
I'm glad my friends are not so close minded as I am! Dinner was great.
First and foremost, the company could not be beat. Just a fabulous evening in a cozy booth catching up on everyone's lives over a few bottles of wine. Our dinner M.O. (modus operandi) os not to each order a meal, but to order a variety of appetizers, salads and entrees for the table.
I'm writing this about a week after the fact, so I can't remember everything we had, but let me try.
For appetizers we started with:
Scallops
Duck Spring Rolls
Baked Brie
Mac & Cheese
What's not to love? The Mac & Cheese was particularly outstanding. Obviously not your run of the mill Kraft product, penne with a blend of white cheeses. Not too gooey or too much. Although, in all honesty, I challenge you to present me with someone who does not like any form of mac & cheese. Out of the box, or made from scratch it's the best thing out there.
For our second round we ordered the 4 specials they were offering last weekend:
Cabbage Salad
Eggplant slices, shaved very thin, stuffed with a cheese (ricotta?) and a slice of prosciutto
Tuna
Veal Medallions
The tuna was forgettable, but the veal was incredible! Most of us aren't big veal eaters. It was served with a venison sauce that was out of this world.
We started off out evening with a bottle of sparkling wine. Trying not to break the bank, we ordered a bottle of the Chandon. Moderately priced in stores, here, of course it was about $30. We followed that up with 2 bottles of red. The first, a Cote Du Rhone. We expected something bigger and a little spicier, more like a syrah. Interestingly enough, it was a pinot noir. The second I can't recall.
DESSERT: I am not a big dessert person. I crave salty, not sweet. Calamari sounds like a good dessert to me. In the last year or so I have come more to appreciate a bite of chocolate after a meal. That craving seems stronger now that I have quit smoking.
Since we were celebrating, we went for dessert. Two desserts to be exact. One, a chocolate lava cake which is probably pretty much as you would imagine it. Dark, decadent and delicious. I love flourless chocolate cake, I know it is not everybody's thing, but for me, the darker the better.
The start of the night though were the cinnamon beignets. Let's start by saying that they are not traditional beignets. For those of you who have eaten at Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans http://www.cafedumonde.com/, please, keep your mind open.
They were fantastic. Tiny little cubes of cinnamon goodness, all stacked up in a cube and topped with a dollop of icecream. I would go back just for the dessert, even if the rest of the meal hadn't been so great!
We finished off the night at Matilda's, an old favorite. I hadn't been to matilda's for years. I have hazy memories of going up and down the steepest staircase in Chicago in order to go to the bathroom. I could never figure out how more people hadn't died in that bar going up and down those stairs. Luckily, I stayed for just one drink and didn't have to even try.
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