As much as we try to not eat out all the time, it is almost impossible with all the different restaurants and food there is to offer in this city. Since it was Father's day, I wanted to get out there and try something different and see some more of the city. I went onto Urban Spoon to see what was popular. I came across this place called Tavernita in the River North area of Chicago...near all the shopping on Michigan Avenue. This restaurant was on the top ten of what is called "Talk of the Town". I sometimes compare our relationship to Carrie and Aidan from Sex and the City. Here I am, wanting to get out, go wait and try to get a reservation at a trendy happening place in the city and Logan would be perfectly ok with a bucket of chicken and finish watching the US open on TV. He is such a creature of habit, but that's one of the reasons I love him. So, he is up for going out to dinner at this trendy restaurant, I wanted to take out the man who is going to be the father of this baby girl come October. Once I get him to try something new, he admits it was a good idea...then I make him admit that I'm right :)
So Tavernita is a tapas bar, so they are like a tasting of different appetizers and they have smaller and larger dishes. It has American & Latin cuisines. I was so full when I left this place and so was Logan, so you can definitely order enough food. Yes, the music is louder and it's all trendy music and the tables are on somewhat on top of each other but the drinks and the food and the decor make it worth it. It seemed like every dish that was put in front of us got better and better. We really enjoyed it. Since the tables were close together, I was stalking out what everyone else was eating and the table next to us was asking what we were eating while they were ordering. We made food buddies! I would definitely add this to the list of restaurants to try in Chicago, of course if this is your sort of thing.
The menus were perfectly folded, it was like a love letter to open to start the love affair with the food. We started off with drinks, I am always looking for a great "mock" tail and they have house made sodas...so I tried a Uva pop- which is white grape, rose water, and golden raisins....it was pretty good! Logan started off with Oysters, too bad I can't eat raw fish right now (I so can not wait to eat sushi again!) He thought they were delicious, I will take his word for it. Then we moved on to little pork belly sandwiches on brioche buns, apple jam, and pickled red onions. I am not a huge fan of pork to begin with but the hubby is, so I decided to try it and it was DELICIOUS! I could go and eat all 4 of them right now thinking about them! The sweetness of the jam with the tart pickled onions and the crispiness of the pork belly was a perfect little bite. Next was the flatbread with mushrooms, caramelized onions, chèvre cheese, and herb salad. Yummy! Then onto the homemade pappardelle with mushroom ragout and manchego cheese. Our favorite of the night was the scallops, they melted in your mouth and came with crispy celery, sweet grapes, almonds, and crunchy olive oil croutons. We thought about ordering more! Lastly (before dessert of course), we had calamari, octopus, peppers with a lime-cilantro aioli.
And to top it off, we had deep fried custard and I think almond ice cream, and a caramel like sauce...SOOOO GOOD, whatever was exactly in it was delicious and even though we were sooo full, we ate the entire thing. Made this prego girl happy!
So the next time you are in Chicago and looking for something a little different that's good and has a great atmosphere, check out Tavernita...you can find their website here : http://www.tavernita.com/
They also have a bar side called Barcito that looked delicious as well, too bad I can't try all the fun rum drinks :(
No comments:
Post a Comment