Italian Village

In retrospect, there are probably one too many Italian places to eat at in Chicago. I have nothing against Italian cuisine, but…well, it can get boring sometimes with the same pasta or pizza or risotto etcetera etcetera dishes. Plus it’s usually easy to make at home. I don’t like eating food at restaurants that can easily be made at home. So I’m pretty glad that the Italian Village in downtown Chicago has a wide selection of Italian food – so wide that they had to have three different restaurants to accommodate it all.

The Italian Village restaurants are located in one building on 71 West Monroe, with three different ‘grades’ of restaurants. The upstairs level is called The Village, which is actually the lowest grade, filled with more ordinary yet very filling Italian food. The street level restaurant is Vivere, the highest grade, and most expensive out of the three. And La Cantina is the basement level restaurant, and is the middling grade restaurant.

I kind of expected the three grades of restaurants to correspond to their floor level, so was surprised when they didn’t. Now that I think about it, the reason why they put Vivere on the street level was probably because they want to force those who are too lazy to walk up or down the stairs to walk straight into the most expensive of the three restaurants. Strategic placement. Very strategic. But I still went to The Village with my ‘date’ for Valentine’s Day, so I suppose everything’s fine.

The Village is a very dim, rustic place with a bar and many little “cul-de-sacs” with booths in them, adding to the private yet cosy atmosphere. Well, it would have been cozier if it wasn’t so dark. So maybe the atmosphere was more like “slightly suspicious” than “cosy”. Hm. Anyway, I did like the walls with the 3D Italian landscape and LED lights embedded in where the windows and stars are supposed to be. I guess the place wanted to pretend it was somewhere overlooking the romantic shores of Italy, which was why there were no windows in the place at all. Pity.

Food-wise, I got some minestrone soup, and also tried their seafood ravioli. The soup was very average, and kind of pricey for its size, but what can I do? Prevent inflation? If I had a superpower, it would be to prevent inflation. And to be able to single-handedly cure any economic crises. As for the ravioli, it was really good. I really enjoyed the creamy tomato sauce, which was more like a bisque, and the shrimp and scallops were cooked perfectly. The scallops were a little bland, but the sauce totally made up for it. The ravioli itself was okay; maybe a bit too cheesy because it was supposed to be filled with blended seafood but all I could taste was the cheese.

Service-wise, it was very fast and efficient. A little too fast and efficient if you ask me, because it felt like we were forced to rush through all our courses. We were in and out of the restaurant in 30 minutes! The waiters kept running about, so I’m sure they’re getting a lot of exercise while making sure they covered all the hidden booths, but still. They could have relaxed a little, and be more friendly, more Italian…I’m nit-picking again.

About $15 to $25 per person, so even though it was the cheapest of the three restaurants it still wasn’t that cheap. 6.5/10 stars.

Kegon

About 90% of the time, I go to Japanese restaurants to have nothing but sushi. That’s usually what makes or breaks a Japanese place for me – whether their sushi is good. But since I’ve never been to a teppanyaki place before (“teppan” is an iron plate used for grilling, which translates to “yaki”), I decided to skip out on the sushi and go for the restaurant’s specialty. Besides, it makes more sense to order the restaurant’s “special” foods, since it should be what sets the particular restaurant apart from others.

So the place I went to is called Kegon, located in Northbrook. I know there are several branches of Kegon, including one in Hawaii, and this one was the first one I’ve been to. It’s quite dimly lit, which was probably for the best because the interior is clean, but tacky. There are plastic plates on plastic tables that are weirdly surfaced with a clashing colour scheme (ours was mainly purple with a pink and green triangle). Not only that, but they mixed too many different textures and materials – there are plastic tables, wooden pillars, carpeted and tiled floors, and metal grill plates. Not my cup of tea.

But the cooking performance, now that was something else. I’m pretty sure the chefs do the same routine at every table, every single day of the week, because the chef we got had a blank smiley face on all throughout his cooking. But I didn’t care. It was really fun watching him juggle his cooking utensils, set the oil on fire, make a volcano out of an onion half, and throw broccoli at my friend so she could try to catch it with her mouth. It might get old if you eat here every day, but for me, it was a novelty. As long as no one gets stabbed with a wayward fork, it’s all a very entertaining performance.

As for the food, I really enjoyed my swordfish teriyaki dish, which came with miso soup, salad, and rice. The miso soup was meh, salad was fresh (especially liked the homemade dressing), and the swordfish was perfectly cooked and seasoned. It also felt like I had the “true” teriyaki sauce with it, because instead of it being a really thick, gooey sweet sauce, their teriyaki sauce was light and not overly sweet or overpowering in taste. I could actually taste the fish underneath all the sauce! But above all these things, I think I loved the grilled veggies the most – they were very fresh and cooked just right, not like some of the soggy veggies you get as side dishes at other restaurants. Again, they were seasoned just right, so kudos to the blank-faced chef! He could probably do everything in his sleep!

The service was pretty fast, maybe because of the fact that we were the first customers for the dinner shift. Otherwise, I think I’d definitely want to return – this place satisfies all five senses in the most delightful way. 7.5/10.

Buffalo Wild Wings

Another one of those sports restaurant/bar places! Good for big parties, better for big parties who are also fans of major sports, and horrible for single people looking for good food. This time it’s Buffalo Wild Wings, a place that specialises in – you guessed it – buffalo wings. I never understood why they’re called “buffalo wings” when they’re clearly chicken wings. It’s not like buffaloes were ever able to fly, not even their first evolution species. Maybe these particular buffalo are of the Red Bull species.

You can find a Buffalo Wild Wings pretty much anywhere, since they’re a chain restaurant company, and the one I went to was in Vernon Hills. Quite a big space filled to the brim with sports paraphernalia and televisions with different sports channels playing, and they even had some arcade games tucked next to a pillar or two. My group was situated right next to one of those claw machines, so the place definitely had a very casual yet competitive atmosphere to it.

I had a half dozen of their traditional wings with spicy garlic sauce and carrots. It was meh. Nothing too special to it; the wings were cooked well, although the sauce was not garlicky at all, which was what they promised on their menu. I couldn’t taste any hint of garlic whatsoever, and this is coming from someone who cooks a lot with garlic (it’s pretty much a compulsory ingredient in Chinese food). In fact, BBW should have named it “Sour and spicy sauce”, because it was very sour, maybe only slightly less sour than eating a lemon. And it was quite spicy. How they determined the level of spiciness was pretty accurate – I’d expected a “medium spice” level to be a lot more mild, like most American cuisines (from what I’d experienced in the past, if a dish is labelled “spicy” at an American restaurant it’s usually extremely mild to nonexistent). I’m pretty glad I played it safe and got something a few levels lower than I’d originally planned. As for the carrots, well…they were raw carrots. Crunchy. Nothing to write home about.

Overall, a very average place that is more for watching sports communally, rather than a place to eat. The service was pretty quick, and our server was very accommodating with giving us all separate checks. But otherwise, like I said, nothing to write home about, unless you go with a daredevil friend who orders the spiciest sauce with his or her wings. Average price about $10, and 4/10 stars from me.