Category Archives: Seafood

The Grill On The Alley

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Crab shrimp and lobster louie

Tuna sashimi

Caesar salad

Exterior

Interior

*** (3 stars)

If you like old-school places, you’ll probably like The Grill on the Alley. It’s pretty much unchanged since it opened in the 80s, and it was designed to be retro even back then. It’s a bit like more recent retro steakhouse concepts such as the Palm or Mortons, but somehow lacks the upscale feeling of those.

I didn’t find much that was remarkable on our visit. The best thing I had was a shrimp, crab and lobster Louie salad, which was very generous in its seafood portion, as it should have been for almost $50.

The service was–and I’m being charitable here-uneven, to say the least. We seemed to be handed off through a succession of at least four servers, and the people delivering the plates and bussing the table were all in rotation, too, so it wasn’t exactly conducive to feeling like a guest–more like part of an assembly line.

The clientele here is even older than the restaurant — by about forty years, I’d guess, and seems to be devoted, so perhaps they see something in it that I didn’t.

The Grill On The Alley
9560 Dayton Way
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
(310) 276-0615
https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-grill-on-the-alley-beverly-hills

Quay Restaurant

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Dulcey

Strawberry

Duck

Lamb

Smoked pig jowl and razor clam

Uni

Smoked wagyu

Carrots

View

**** (4 stars)

Usually restaurants with great views are on the top of tall buildings, but Quay is in the middle of its view of the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge. And usually restaurants with great views don’t strive to provide particularly great food. Quay does try hard, though, and sometimes succeeds.

Every course is certainly beautiful, but not everything tastes quite as good as it looks. The tasting menu is the way to go, because its many courses offer the best shot at finding something delicious. Our favorites were the smoked pork jowl, the lamb, and an amazing strawberry snow egg.

The wine list is extensive, and although the markups are pretty high, it’s a brilliantly constructed list, divided up by wine styles, varietals and regions in the most organized fashion I’ve ever encountered. The Champagne section even has two-page spreads that lists winemakers, grape percentages, and other vital statistics. I wish all wine lists were like this.

Quay Restaurant
Overseas Passenger Terminal
Level 4
Sydney, New South Wales 2000
+61 2 9251 5600
https://www.yelp.com/biz/quay-restaurant-sydney-4

Portsmith

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Exterior

Interior

Parker House roll and sourdough

Fancy oysters

Fried oysters

Octopus

Cacio e pepe

Charred shrimp cocktail

Foie gras donut

Chocolate, tobacco and black rice ice creams

**** (4 stars)

It’s always amazing to me when a restaurant that has only been open a few days is running smoothly, because it’s such a huge task to get the food, service, and ambiance right. But that was the case when we visited Portsmith during its first week.

The theme here is fish, and it is carried out in almost every course. Even the sourdough bread has bonito flakes in it. That bread was a bit chewy for my taste, but the flavor was good and the accompanying black garlic butter was delicious.

I preferred the Parker House Roll, which looked more like a pita and tasted like cheese bread.  Its companion old bay butter was also very tasty.

We tried both the fancy and the fried oysters. Fancy oysters include a bit of foie gras, but the primary flavors are yuzu and green apple. They were delicious, but pricey at $5 each. Fried oysters coated in squid ink panko and topped with trout roe looked more interesting, but were just okay.

The crispy octopus was indeed crispy, as it was completely coated in crunchy flakes. The accompanying citrus mayo and jam offset each other very nicely. One of the best octopus preparations in town.

The best thing we had was the Cacio e Pepe, a pasta dish traditionally combining cheese and pepper, but here it was Uni butter and pepper. The fettucini was perfectly cooked, and the sauce was rich and delicious (although it needed additional salt and pepper to bring out the flavor).

Charred shrimp cocktail was fairly conventional. The charring made the shrimp a bit too sturdy, but the cocktail sauce was excellent.

The least successful dish was the Foie gras and donut, which sounded really fun, but wasn’t. It was a generous serving of perfectly seared foie gras, crisp and caramelized on the surface, and runny on the inside. But the other ingredients on the plate didn’t really work. The donut was small, tough, and flavorless, and was no substitute for a more traditional brioche or even pear or apple slice. And the strawberry “jam” was really bits of marinated strawberry, too chunky to provide the needed sweetness in each bite. It was also nearly impossible to combine the disparate ingredients into a composed bite, something essential with foie gras.

The dessert list is very interesting, with each one accompanied by a different ice cream or sorbet. I opted instead for a sampling of those accompaniments. The chocolate sorbet was excellent, and the black rice ice cream exotic and intriguing. Tobacco ice cream was the most exciting idea, but just tasted like vanilla.

There is an interesting wine list, with a small selection of nicely varietal wines by the glass.

Service was almost too attentive. Three waiters, two bus boys and a manager kept clearing away every dish and glass, even when we wanted to hang onto them, and often while someone else was still eating. The restaurant wasn’t very busy yet, so perhaps they just needed something to do, but it became funny after a while. It’s commendable that they want to provide good service, but I think they need to relax just a tad!

About half the tables are round and half are rectangular, and they’re pretty small. This works okay for the rectangular ones, but the round ones don’t work well for sharing plates. They don’t take up any less space, and I think should be jettisoned in favor of the rectangular ones.

One pet peeve is that at the beginning of the meal we were told that “Chef wants you to order everything at once.” That’s simply not acceptable in a sharing plates restaurant. You don’t know everything you’re going to want at the start of the meal, or what order you’ll want it in. I’ve played this game before and ended up with a table full of food that the chef was supposedly going to course out for us. I’d rather do that myself.

Portsmith
660 N State St
Chicago, IL 60654
(312) 202-6050
http://www.yelp.com/biz/portsmith-chicago-2

Acadia

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Interior

Caviar and beef tartare

Mini lobster roll

Pizza

Bialy

Salmon

Ice

Cucumber

Scallop

Buckwheat

Lobster

Pork cheek

Peach melba

Chocolate

Hysop ice cream

** (2 stars)

I have struggled to figure out how to give Acadia three stars, which Yelp defines as “A-OK”, and I just can’t do it. It was not okay, and here’s why.

Acadia is trying to operate at the Alinea, Oriole, Grace level, and it’s not even close. At this level a meal needs to be an experience. The food needs to make you pause in wonder. We found ourselves doing a lot of wondering last night, but not in a good way.

The decor is fine. They’re definitely going for an Alinea vibe. And the service was fine, too, although we got the impression they’d sent someone over to Grace to take notes, and then imperfectly shared them with a less experienced staff. But the problem was the food.

Course after course we were presented with gorgeous dishes–some of the prettiest in town, no doubt–that went nowhere. Rather than ingredients coming together to create something greater than the individual parts, there were a series of disjointed, sometimes even flavorless creations that left us wondering if the chef had gone on vacation and left the restaurant on autopilot.

We knew we were in trouble when we started with not one but three amuse bouches, not one of which was special. They included a meat with caviar on it–not the last time this mistake would be made. Who does that, and why? The flavors aren’t complementary, and each ruined an otherwise fine ingredient. A two-bite mini lobster roll was just that, but not a particularly good lobster roll. And the “pizza” was a nice cracker with some cheese on it. This would probably have been the best choice as the amuse bouche course.

Bread service consisted of a bite-size pretzel roll with truffle butter. Honestly, you can get a better pretzel bite at Bar Louie, and I found myself yearning for their mustard.

The first true course of the night was good quality salmon. As with nearly every course, something was poured on it table-side. This was a delicious broth of osmanthus and charred pineapple, which did nothing to enhance the salmon, but was wonderful to sip from the bowl once the salmon was gone. The course is accompanied by a durable bialy.

A bowl of shaved ice appears, and vinegar is added. Hmmm.

Cuttlefish and cucumber is an attractive dish, but with very little flavor.

A scallop is not seared quite enough to make it interesting, although one of our party of three likes the weird dehydrated crispy/gummy orange segment served with it.

The pretzel roll reappears, this time without the truffle butter. Was the first one a mistake? This one is accompanied by a dry, too tough miniature biscuit. Seriously, I can make a better biscuit with Bisquick. This one looks like a huge amount of effort went into it with nothing interesting to show for it, a metaphor for the meal itself. The breads are accompanied by a dish of buckwheat groats soaked in a generous amount of butter, one of the most savory dishes, and one that required nothing to be poured onto it.

The lobster course is the most successful. Although the small lobster tail is a bit tough, the lobster bisque (poured over the plate, of course) is delicious, and really complements the other flavors on the plate, especially a half spoonful of corn nibblets. This is what all the courses should have been like.

The last savory course is a nicely cooked piece of pork cheek which has plenty of flavor without the dollop of osetra caviar ruined by being placed on top. (Again, who does that, and why?)

Three desserts follow, all along the same lines of a bowl with ice cream or chocolate pudding topped with random flowers and bits of this and that. They are all fine, and the fact that most ingredients don’t compliment each other would have been overlooked save for the preceding parade of mismatched items.

About halfway through the meal we lapsed into a sort of stunned silence. Having been to nearly every fine dining restaurant in Chicago, how could this possibly be? I suppose the tip-off should have been that we were able to purchase tickets the night before. And in fact the room was half empty, so word may be getting around. It’s certainly hard to imagine repeat visitors.

So let’s talk about the tickets. When I purchase a meal and wine pairing through tocktix, I don’t appreciate an attempt to upsell me as soon as I sit down. If you want to offer an optional wagu, add it as an option on tocktix.

Nor do I appreciate the effort to sell me additional wine or cocktails to “start” the meal. With a nine-course wine pairing for $125, it shouldn’t be 15 minutes before the first wine shows up. Every other restaurant in town brings out a sparkler with the amuse bouche. There’s a reason. And the high-acid, mineral-focused wines didn’t really match the food anyway. For the same $125 Oriole manages  a pairing of entirely old world gems, so it’s not impossible.

In short, this meal didn’t remotely justify its $1200 price tag.

Acadia
1639 S Wabash Ave
Chicago, IL 60616
(312) 360-9500
http://www.yelp.com/biz/acadia-chicago

mfk

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Bar

Interior

Ceviche

Aguachile

Bread service for two

Crunchy prawn heads

Sardines (special)

Coquettes

Fideos

“Tortilla”

Basque cake

**** (4 stars)

If you don’t like little fishes such as sardines and anchovies you should stop reading now.

Still with me? mfk is definitely all about the style of fish you would find in the Basque region. It’s a lot like the pinchos we had in Bilbao. Nearly all of the plates are sized for sharing, so expect to order two or three per person, depending upon size and appetite.

The best items we tried were the ceviche and the aguachile. Both incorporated really fresh raw fish. Croquettes were also good.

The fideos was a good pasta dish, but it’s hard not to end up with very soft pasta when it is this thin. The dish we liked the least was the tortilla espanola, which had nothing to do with tortillas. It was basically a very fishy salt cod omelet.

The Basque cake was voted one of the best desserts in Chicago, but we didn’t find it all that special. Actually it seemed kind of dried out, but maybe that was just our piece.

Pricing is reasonable. There is a limited selection of wines, but they are perfect matches for this type of food.

Service isn’t at a fine dining level, with servers shuffling your used utensils from dirty plates to fresh ones, but it is adequate.

As others have noted, it only takes one loud person to make this very small restaurant very noisy.

mfk
432 W Diversey Pkwy
Chicago, IL 60614
(773) 857-2540
http://www.yelp.com/biz/mfk-chicago-2

MingHin Cuisine

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Entry

Interior

Menu

BBQ Pork Crepe

Oyster congee

Fried shrimp roll

Duck

Siu Mai

Shrimp dumpling with chive

Fried pot stickers

**** (4 stars)

This is probably the most nicely decorated and modern restaurant in Chinatown. It’s populated mostly by locals, not tourists, so you know you are going to get a very authentic experience. Fortunately there is an extensive pictorial menu, so you can get a pretty good idea of all the dishes before you order.

Be aware that this is real Chinese food and dimsum, not the variety served at the Chinese restaurant in the mall. As such, many of the items are going to be more gelatinous than you are used to, so examine the pictures carefully. Crepes, for example, are not what you think they are.

Of all the things we tried, we liked the Siu Mai (pork and shrimp dumplings) the best.

At lunch time, the dim sum is very reasonably priced. We left stuffed for under $30 for two of us.

MingHin Cuisine
2168 S Archer Ave
Chicago, IL 60616
(312) 808-1999
https://www.yelp.com/biz/minghin-cuisine-chicago-3

Leña Brava

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Interior

Upstairs

Cured salmon laminados

Lena ceviche (albacore)

Hiramasa laminados

Chesapeake wild striped bass aguachiles

Huarache

Plantains

Short rib

Duck

Artichoke

Blueberry tart

*** (3 stars)

This is an interesting new concept from Rick Bayless that is different from his other restaurants, and anything else in town, too.

The menu is almost entirely plates intended for sharing, divided up somewhat arbitrarily into groups such as ceviches, aguachiles (which were a lot like the ceviches), cockteles (which were a lot like the ceviches), laminados (more like sashimi), etc. All four of those categories are mainly raw fish prepared with different sauces. We tried four of them and found the sauces interesting but the fish inferior in quality to what you would expect in a good sashimi bar. The salmon, in particular, was largely inedible, with a third of each piece so tough and stringy it could neither be cut nor chewed. Sure, we could have sent it back, but it should never have been served in the first place, as it was visibly flawed.

More successful were the two wood-fired dishes. The duck had a nicely lacquered coating and excellent flavors. Short ribs were less interesting, as the sauce and the accompanying mashed cauliflower were quite bland.

The Huarache was one of the best dishes. It was a sort of corn flatbread with what can best be described (but wasn’t so described on the menu) as a vegetable mole.

Two sides were pretty good: the artichoke hearts were nicely cooked al dente, and the plantains were nicely caramelized.

Both the corn crisps and the tortillas that accompanied several courses were quite good.

Perhaps the best thing we had was the blueberry tart, a large, hand folded pastry with a nicely charred crust, served with ice cream.

The wine list offers a very eclectic selection of wines by the bottle and glass. It’s eclectic enough that I’ll wager you’ve never heard of 90% of the producers.

The restaurant is divided into a number of smaller rooms, with the outdoor seating and upstairs the quietest areas. Service was efficient.

Leña Brava
900-902 W Randolph St
Chicago, IL 60607
(312) 733-1975
http://www.yelp.com/biz/le%C3%B1a-brava-chicago-2

Cold Storage

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Interior

Interior

Hot sauces

Complementary salt and vinegar chips

Smoked fish dip

Hiramasa crudo

Warm crab roll

Fish and chips

Bourbon pecan ice cream

The check

***** (5 stars)

Great ambiance, a chill soundtrack and excellent food come together in this Fulton Market seafood bar. It’s one of two restaurants that share the same reception area, the other being the fancier Swift & Sons steakhouse.

Cold Storage is a fairly intimate space with a seafood bar in the center and some cozy booths and a few high tops around the edges.

While the menu emphasizes the raw bar, there are many other choices, and in fact we feasted on everything but raw shellfish.

The mean starts with a large serving of complementary cross cut potato chips, which were fresh made and delicious. We began with the Whitefish Disp. It was served with saltines, but we liked it better on the chips. It was good, but could have been a bit smokier.

We also tried the day’s special crudo, a mix of Hiramasa, serrano chilis, cilantro and grilled pineapple. It seemed a bit pricey for the amount of Hiramasa, but was good.

The Warm crab roll was a good sized sandwhich with a flavorful crab salad and nicely toasted bread.

Fish and chips was a very generous serving of flakey white fish and a bowl of good fries.

We finished with two of the many house-made ice creams.

There is a thoughtful list of cocktails and a limited list of wines and beers. Service was friendly and attentive. We felt the pricing was quite reasonable given all the courses and drinks we had.

Cold Storage
1000 W Fulton Market
Chicago, IL 60607
(312) 733-9420
http://www.yelp.com/biz/cold-storage-chicago-3

Gibsons Bar & Steakhouse

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Exterior

Dining room

Porch

Bread service

Crab avocado

House salad (included)

T-bone

1/2 creamed spinach

**** (4 stars)

I’ve tried nearly all the independent steakhouses in River North so that you don’t have to. This is the one you’re looking for.

Gibsons is a very old school steakhouse. The classic starters and sides are here, without any pretensions. And Gibson’s is all about the meat. Their meat isn’t just prime, it is their own designation of Gibsons USDA Prime, the only restaurant in the US to have one. So of course the meat is very flavorful and tender. As you would expect, the sirloins and the sirloin sides of the T-bone and Porterhouse have all the flavor, while the filet sides are very tender but comparatively bland. My steak was beautifully seasoned and seared, but cooked a bit beyond the requested medium rare. Of course, my server would have been delighted to replace it, but I can’t stand to waste a perfectly good $52 steak. By the way, I had the T-bone, which is essentially a baby porterhouse.

But what about the other dishes? My favorite item was actually the crab and avocado appetizer. The very generous serving of delicious crab was lightly dressed and served with creamy avocado slices. Really nice.

I was going to order a half salad, but my waiter suggested I go with the complementary house salad that comes with all the steaks, and it was a great suggestion. Crisp lettuce and tomatoes were topped with an excellent creamy blue cheese dressing.

I did have a half order of creamed spinach with my steak. I liked the fact that it emphasized the spinach, with just enough cream to give it a smooth consistency, but allowing the focus to be on the flavor of the spinach.

Service was both friendly and professional, a delicate balance. Pricing is fairly reasonable considering the inclusion of a salad, and wine prices aren’t unreasonable either.

The place is very, very popular and therefore packed at all hours, so be sure to make reservations. Ask to sit in the “porch”, a side room with windows looking out on the park; it’s much quieter than the main dining room or deafening bar.

Gibsons Bar & Steakhouse
1028 N Rush St
Chicago, IL 60611
(312) 266-8999
http://www.yelp.com/biz/gibsons-bar-and-steakhouse-chicago

Cindy’s

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Interior

View

Tart

Falafel

**** (4 stars)

This is a pleasant, high-ceiling and airy space with a great view of Millennium Park, and a nice, if pricey, selection of small plates and entrees.

We didn’t have a lunch reservation and even though we arrived before noon the only seating was “high top” which turned out to be a bar. But it was pleasant enough.

We had three appetizers, each costing around $18 each. Falafel consisted of three oval pieces of falafel served with assorted veggies such as cauliflower, and some harissa. The goat cheese tart had a delightfully delicate crust and was served with a good sized green salad.

My favorite was the smoked fish plate. The very moist and tender fish had a great smoked flavor. It was accompanied by pickled onions, gherkins, creme fraiche, salmon roe, stone ground mustard and sesame crackers.

Service seemed a bit brusque, but it was efficient.

Cindy’s
12 S Michigan Ave
Chicago, IL 60603
(312) 792-3502
http://www.yelp.com/biz/cindys-chicago