MK (Chicago)

Ah, Valentine's Day. The day of...chocolate?...cards?...gold pagodas with fresh water pearls (http://www.neimanmarcus.com/store/catalog/prod.jhtml?itemId=prod35730304&parentId=cat16130831&masterId=cat16130736&index=8&cmCat=cat000000cat000553cat17640731cat16130736cat16130831)?

I guess so.

Originally, the wife and I weren't going to go out - she'd been feeling very under the weather for about 2 weeks (so sick that she hampered child making practice). But fortunately, she was feeling a little bit better - her nose was now pink and not too red - and she got us a reservation for 8.30 at MK. I don't know if we enjoyed it as much as we could, I still had work to do when we got back and she had to study for class, but we tried our best.

Ah, we arrive there and got valet parking. Valet parking is key in a large city. I'd much rather drive someplace than wait for a train in the cold. The key here, dear restaurants, is to charge a MODEST price for valet, so much so that the valet price is really convenience. My wife and I travleing via train would have cost a total of around $8. The convenience for valet is no more than 3 dollars. So, 11 bucks is kinda my limit. MK charged 10. Kudos.

We enter and they take our jackets, not much eye candy (sans my wife, of course) around, maybe this place isn't the hot spot Yelp is telling us about.

We sit down at the far end of the restuarant and it's nice and warm. Though 10 minutes later, for the rest of the evening, there's some sort of draft that making us a tad chilly. We soldier on.

Due to our impending work, we only get one drink, a white wine Riesling. Wow, it was delicious, very crisp, well chilled. Mmmm, tasty, and I'm not really a wine connosieur.

An amuse bouche comes out, very tasty - 'twas salmon with creme fresche on a heart shaped biscuit. It was good, very amuse bouche like, got my appetite rearing. Anyways, we order and start our wait. Now there's something a little odd. We've been waiting for about 10 minutes and we have a bread plate and no bread! Well, the bread comes out. Clearly someone reads my blog. There were different types of bread with varying textures. The butter, however, was TAD too cool, but after a few moments or so, it was still spreadable. MK, fix that, make it spreadable immediately.

Our appetizers were Foie Gras and Fetuccini with wild mushrooms. The fetuccini was not particularly great, quite honestly. It was a tad "overproduced," a little oily, not entirely fresh pasta, and the sauce wasn't nearly as creamy as I was anticipating. Though the mushrooms it had were good. The Foie Gras was good. Not the best. I believe the best foie gras I've ever had was in Sarasota FL (I don't remember the name of the restaurant). It had a very light meaty aroma and was super rich, and the date reduction was a fantastic flavor. I'd give the appetizers a 7-8

We then waiting a bit more and nothing. Apparently something happened to our food and a waiter came to our table to apologize. I like the way they apologized. They gave us free food - a carrot soup for us to share. The carrot soup was good, the presentation was very traditional nouveou cuisine - a bowl with a little something in the middle and then the waiter pours the soup into the bowl. 6.5-7.5

Out come our main courses. I had the Venison while my wife had the skirt steak. We both had it medium. Oh boy, was it medium. That is some terrific cooking. Take note L'Oricio. My venison was good, very strong pepper flavor, though the chocolate sauce (or mole as they call it in latin cooking) didn't really speak much of anything to me. But boy, was this meal cooked well. My wife's skirt steak was also cooked VERY well. I found the flavors bold, but thought the outside was TAD charred, adding an uncharacteristic burned flavor to meat.

The meal was accompanied by truffle oil pomme frites with aioli. The presentation was interest - a big old drinking glass with wax paper and stuffed with the fries. I wasn't wowed. At all. The fries were rather too well cooked, a surprising mix of soggy and burnt, weird, I know. My guess is the kitchen used the double fry method (essentially you cook the fries twice, once to cook them, the second time to color them - I don't have the time to explain this technique, read about cooking french fries and you'll understand) and it didn't work successfully. Though, the truffle oil was very nice and the aioli was very rich.

Main course = 7.5-8.5

We didn't get a chance to have dessert as we were both full, but we will be coming back for drinks and dessert. Maybe another review?

total Grade: 8-8.5

Good eats