-Grubbing in Chicago
Five of a Kind: Openings in Noble Square / West Town
This months ‘Five of a Kind’ post is going to focus on five newly opened restaurants in the Noble Square and West Town areas. Chicago Avenue in particular has seen a handful of openings over the last year as four of today’s featured spots call the street home. I’m not going to declare that the local restaurant scene has totally recovered from COVID but there’s been good openings of late in terms of hip and modern chef driven restaurants like Maxwell’s Trading, Gaoku, Tama and more. I liked my visit to all five places featured in this post but money and time and stomach space may not allow me to fully explore the menu at each spot. Though I’d be cool going back to all five of these spots.
Gemma Foods isn’t brand new but the two year old pasta purveyor at 1117 W. Grand Avenue recently introduced a lunch menu served Tues-Sat. It has a handful of pastas including a couple of rotating ones based on what’s in season and what not. I recently tried the current stuffed pasta special which is a pasta tipica of Bologna called Balanzoni. It’s a green tortellini filled with a mortadella mousse and garnished with ground fava beans, mint, and fried pistachio. Typically this dish is served with a brown butter and sage sauce but Gemma served theirs with a simple sauce of melted spring leeks. Aside from the little part where the tortellini was pinched together being undercooked these were pretty well made. I always enjoy trying regional pasta dishes like this so I look forward to seeing what other specials they come up with. You can add a single meatball to your order so I tried one of them and it was excellent. I liked the sausage like texture on it while a garnish of giardineria is a pro Chicago move. They also put little cups of Calabrian chili oil at the tables which I thought was a nice touch as it’s a great way to give your pasta some extra oomph. Another good lunch option on Grand avenue.
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I’ve neither heard nor read much on this Latin forward brunch spot at 1450 W. Chicago Avenue. Un Amor started doing dinner a couple months after opening and there’s some intriguing taco options but all signs pointed towards the steak sandwich so I decided to go with that. They start off with tender outer cut skirt steak that’s cooked until medium rare and sliced and added to a toasted sub roll along with grilled onions and sautéed strips of poblano peppers plus a chihuahua cheese skirt crust which is achieved by cooking a bunch of shredded cheese on a hot flattop until it forms a crisp and glistening crust. They also add sliced hard boiled eggs and chimichurri making for a glorious mess.
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Chef John Manion of El Che Steakhouse has brought his live fire cooking skills to 1709 W. Chicago Avenue in West Town. Brasero is a South American grill with a Brazilian leaning menu. Most of the dishes get a kiss of smoke from that live fire grill and you can sample a handful of options at a daily happy hour running from 5p-6p. We sat at the bar one early evening and enjoyed a trio of happy hour specials including a half rack of ribs with a lip licking guava barbecue sauce. I thought about making that a full rack but wanted to try a few other things including a fire grilled prawn bathed in garlicky green curry sauce and garnished with toasted coconut and pickled Fresno peppers. The Paulista Pork Fried Rice was my favorite dish of the three. It’s described as “pure porky goodness with peanuts” and is made with chunks of smoky bacon plus tons of green onion, scrambled egg, and a chunk of butter and it’s heavenly. Hopefully they keep the happy hour in place as it's a good one for food.
Happy Hour at Brasero
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Nettare
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The building at 1329 W. Chicago Avenue has seen a handful of restaurants come and go over the last decade or so. Jook Sing is the latest tenant. Their menu is an ode to the Night Markets across Asia and they also sport a bar and serve food and drink until midnight on the weekend. Jook Sing is probably the oldest spot of these five featured as it opened in December of 2023. They’ve switched up the menu a few times already so a few of the things we had on our visit are no longer available but I enjoyed their rendition of the famous New Orleans noodle dish Yaka Mein. It had a bit of a Taiwanese beef noodle soup element to it that I really liked but it’s not on the current menu which has options like Singapore style Char Kway Teow and Indonesian Internet Noodles which is a dish made with instant ramen, corned beef and poached egg. Hong Kong style Chow Mein is the one dish we tried on our visit that remains on the menu to this day. I thought it was a good rendition even though we ended up with it on accident after our waiter heard me say chow mein when I said yaka mein.
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