CHI - Urbanbelly

It's the last final week of classes for me (for real this time) yet Christel and I are still managing to find time to go out and hit some spots on my list while I'm still in Chicago. We checked out the menu online and it's just weird and fusion enough that we needed to check it out right away. 

LOCATION: 1400 W. RANDOLPH ST., CHICAGO, IL 60607

Their tagline one on of the menu's online was "Long Noodles, Short Rice, Phat Dumplings" which just sold us. We figured we could order a little of each and go family style on this meal to test them all out. When we got to the restaurant the current menu was a little different from what we saw online but we had a basic idea and just altered our plan a little. 

We ended up getting coconut curry pho, wok fried rice cakes, and togarashi fries which come with a curry mayo. Since it was so warm out we decided to just opt to sit outside even though it was getting a little later and windier. It was still a great decision and it's so nice to finally be able to sit out and eat in the sunshine. 

Everything was so delicious and while I can be a little skeptical of asian fusion I was super happy at urban belly. The rice cakes were by far our favorite. There was shrimp, peanuts, toasted garlic and chives and had a great pickled kinda cucumber thing that was super well balanced with the textures and flavors of everything else. The menu describes this as their version of a Pad Thai which I like as a reference because it's pretty much a nail on the head with what they've accomplished. Christel and I are also both suckers for good rice cakes like this so it wasn't a hard sell for us. The coconut curry pho was an alright choice, a pretty good flavor but honestly just tasted like a normal Thai coconut curry with pho noodles in it. Not the most imaginative dish but also not a miss either. They nailed the coconut curry so it wasn't hard to like. The togarashi fries were also pretty good in terms of seasoning and the curry mayo was a nice touch. I'm not a huge fan of dips but mixed mayos and aiolis are usually pretty good in my book. 

And of course we somehow managed to get lucky and there was a special deal for the 1st of every month where each dumpling was offered for $1 each instead of $1.50+ for dine in which sent Christal through the roof because she HAD to take advantage of the deal. So, even though we had all this food we went for a dumpling round as well and ordered two of each dumpling to test them out.     

Pork and Cilantro

Chicken Curry

Beef and Cheddar

Sweet Potato and Maple

So here's the run down on each of the dumplings really quick 

Pork and Cilantro - Pretty classic for a dumpling, it comes soaked in soy sauce and ready to eat without any need for dipping but it does get a little salty so maybe less sauce is more. 

Chicken Curry - SUPER light flavor for what you think a curry dumpling would be. The chicken was a good texture and it was a clean bite but could actually use more of a kick.

Beef and Cheddar - If you like pizza rolls this guy is for you. Tastes pretty much like a beef and cheese pizza roll with a crunchy exterior and a pretty recognizable taste. The pickled onion on top was a great touch that made it a little different and 'elevated' it from the pizza roll world.

Sweet Potato and Maple - This was a perfect combination, not surprisingly, but it was a little tough to chew into and I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of the texture of the potato. I love pirogies but this was missing the mark for some reason and while the flavor was good I'm not sure I would get this dumpling again. 

All in all, I say Urbanbelly was surprisingly good but then again I was skeptical to start with so I'm not sure that's saying much. I would go back but I'm not sure that I would ever really crave anything I ate.    

CHI - Umai

You would think finals quickly approaching would mean buckling down and getting some work done but not for me. When stress hits my flight response is totally on board and I go into complete denial about how stressed out I am. Cue aimlessly walking around target and going out to dinner with Christel (who's already finished defense) while I avoid my final projects.

LOCATION: 730 S CLARK ST, CHICAGO, IL 60605

I've heard about Umai a little before and I'm not one who likes to be left out of new things so I asked Christel if we could go since we were both down for some dinner and she agreed because she's great at humoring me. I've actually heard more about sushi and Umai but when we looked at the menu a bunch of the udon/ramen dishes looked pretty great to us so we decided to skip the rolls and go straight for the noddles.

I decided to order the nabeyaki udon which is an udon noodle in dashi broth that comes with a piece of shrimp tempura, a poached egg, spinach, fish cake, shiitake mushroom, and chicken (although I don't recall a piece of chicken in mine but instead for sure had imitation crab and what seemed like two pieces of tomago which I'm not mad about). After much deliberation Christel went with the udon kare which is udon in a Japanese curry and she went with beef and added a poached egg as well. Honestly I think we both ended up wanting a ajitsuke egg instead but poached was alright. We also ordered an ika butter which is just squid sautéed in butter with mushroom and lemon as our app and it was so worth it I'm pretty happy about that decision.   

I love udon more than ramen just because of the chewiness and texture overall so I'm always happy to find a bowl because it's not as common or popular. Since my dad is a chef he usually just throws in udon for me into whatever soup he's making and I'm always happy but an actual udon dish just warms my soul... and my stomach. This dish was super hot coming out which is great, I just had to give it time to cool before I burned all my tastebuds off. I also regret not taking my tempura out as soon as it got to me because by the time I picked it up to eat it was super soggy and the batter was basically mush, but again that's my fault. The tempura flavor was actually really great and well balanced to me. I love shiitake's and tomago felt like a better sweet substitute to chicken which struck me as odd on the menu. The broth was well balanced, a little sweet but super savory without being salty. I'd say if any gets umami, it's Umai. I would totally go back again for this udon or to try their sushi which looked pretty great from where we sat at the bar. Christel seemed happy with her udon too and even had curry and beef leftover to cook with some rice for lunch tomorrow. Overall, it was a successful outing and I'm happy I got to get some udon in my belly.   

CHI - Umami Burger

As I've likely said before, I'm not a huge burger craver but we went bouldering and decided to get some food afterwards so we walked towards the west loop and ended up at Umami Burger because I've never been before.

LOCATION: 945 W RANDOLPH ST., CHICAGO, IL 60607

Of course this restaurant is fairly well known so it's been on my list but we didn't want to waste a meal in LA on something we could get in Chicago so now was a good time to try it out. I decided to just go with the basics and order an Umami Burger seeing as it's the namesake of the place and I added shoestring fries and I truffle'd 'em (if that's the right way to say it). The umami burger comes with parmesan frico, shiitake mushroom, roasted tomato, caramelized onions, and Umami ketchup and while I'm not a condiments person and dislike ketchup I decided to leave it in knowing that was the intention of the dish and also that they must've added some sort of twist to ketchup to call it their own. 

I was overall pretty happy with this burger. Christel pointed out that it's such a clean burger to eat because it doesn't drip all over your hands and the bun holds everything in so nicely it didn't even really fall apart or slide around which is extremely rare for a burger anywhere. I'm in love with the parmesan frico which gave everything a nice crisp texture. I didn't really taste or see the shiitake mushroom and the tomato was also pretty subtle too so they didn't really have any sort of impact for me which is disappointing because I love shiitakes. The umami ketchup itself was pretty unobtrusive and I was fine keeping it in and Christel and I speculated that their 'umami' flavor just comes from truffles. As much as I love potatoes and fries, shoestrings always make me a little sad because they're so crisp they loose their potato flavor. I found the truffle fries themselves to be a little too salty, not being balanced enough with how much truffle cheese and salt they put on the fries overall. Naked fries tasted much better and were more fun to dip in their sample of garlic aioli and diablo sauce. 

Overall, not a bad experience though nothing to rave about. Pretty basic mid-level burgers that are perfectly fine to eat but Au Cheval has nothing to worry about here.  

CHI - Bombobar

This Saturday was a rough one for me which means Christel wanted to cheer me up with ice cream!

LOCATION - 832 W RANDOLPH ST., CHICAGO, IL 60607

Now usually cheer up ice cream consists of an attempt for banana split but we've had no luck with finding them nearby anywhere when we're looking for them so we've found alternatives. This time we decide to go to Bombobar based off of some cool things we saw on Instagram. Bombobar promotes their decked out hot chocolate which includes a mini donut and a biscotti and some whipped cream - the works. However, I'm not a chocolate fan in general and not a fan of cocoa or milk so hot chocolates are not for me. Christel has a distinction of not like hot chocolate, only chocolate milk so again, Bombobar is almost wasted on us.

Our saving grace and our reason for going was for the Bombolato, vanilla gelato made from scratch there at Bombobar, sandwiched in the middle of one of their famous bombolonis (an Italian hole-less donuts), covered in salted caramel and fruity pebbles. Basically, sugar on sugar with more sugar in the middle. 

My favorite part of this dessert (or breakfast if you really wanna roll that way) was the gelato inside. It was a really nice consistency, had great vanilla flavor, and was creamy but not too creamy. I would go back for the gelato and skip all the extra sugar (maybe keep the fruity pebbles...). Christel's favorite part was the donut - a light texture, not too sugary but still a great flavor without being too dense. 

Since the hotter chocolate is what Bombobar is known for we got a lot of interested looks from incoming customers and had several people ask us what we ordered. This doesn't seem to be a well known choice but I'm pretty glad we tried it. Honestly, the salted caramel was the only aspect that was very overwhelming and I tried to switch it out for something else but that wasn't doable. I don't mind caramel but it got into everything and pushed the sugar over the top. We talked about it and maybe next time we'd order it without caramel if Bombolatos were the goal, otherwise I would go for gelato and Christel would go for the bomboloni instead. No hotter chocolate for us - even for the insta. 

CHI - MCCB

C2E2 is here and I took it as an opportunity to take Christel to her first comic convention-y thing to look at some merch and see what illustrators sell at these kinds of things! After a few hours walking the floor we finished up and decided to have a late lunch in Chinatown.

LOCATION - 2138 S ARCHER AVE, CHICAGO, IL 60616

We just decided to walk around and see what looked good. I was in the mood for some carbs (noddles specifically because I'm dying from a cold and my body wants what it wants) and we ended up at MCCB Chicago. 

Neither of us have heard of this place before but we've of course walked by it many times and from the looks of the menu we thought we would like it so we walked in and were seated by the window right away. I was still feeling the cold but have been sick long enough to feel like I wouldn't get Christel sick so we figured I would just be careful and we could go family style. 

Since I was craving some noddles, we decided on the Spicy Dan Dan Noodles pretty quickly. Christel was feeling like some seafood and from what we could see there was a pretty popular whole fish dish but she opted for a safer choice of shrimp. MCCB has some pretty unusual flavors which caught our attention and we wanted to be slightly adventurous since we'd never see that before and ordered Mango Crispy Shrimp. Seeing as we're us, we had to round the meal out with some veggies as well so we picked our go to veggie anywhere, the infamous string bean. 

Turns out the crispy shrimp had rice included with it so we were really rolling in some carbs and my sick body was all over it. Everything was perfect and just what I wanted. The spicy dan dan noodles had the perfect kick to them but were balanced with a creamy peanut-y flavor. Green beans are always a win with me and the crispy shrimp turned out to just be the creamy shrimp my dad makes at home with a very mild mango flavor. I loved every single one of these dishes and would absolutely go back to MCCB. 

Our waiter that day was the nicest guy I've never met in my life. I wish he could be my waiter everywhere that I went because he was just so sweet and I think he enjoyed out quirky the two of us are. MCCB also had a nice promo where if you spend $25 you get a free Italian soda or a sweet dessert soup kinda thing and while I was drinking hot water for my throat, nothing screams Emily like a free soda so I ordered a pomegranate Italian soda, which our adorable waiter said was his favorite, and got it in a cool mug to take home (I even asked him and he said it was for me and even brought me a lid). I'm not a huge fan of dairy like this but it wasn't a bad drink and free is free so I'm always down for it. 

I'd love to go back and try some fish but I'm worried my hopes will be up and no one will be as great as the waiter we had our first time at MCCB.