Not a weird animal from a dream but a vegetarian restaurant in Chicago. It’s actually a green tomato, a favorite of farmers’ markets. As the name suggests, the food is meant to be seasonal just like the tomato. Thankfully, the weather has finally improved over the last few weeks and some semi-decent produce is actually available in the Midwest. When we’ve been before, there’s been the odd miss but not yesterday – all the eleven plates we shared were excellent. I’m going to attempt to make the feta marinated in chili sauce – why didn’t I think of that before? The American popover is somehow related to the Yorkshire pudding – hadn’t realized that either. And I’m going to grill sliced fennel! I won’t be able to reproduce the presentations but hopefully the taste will come through.
If you’re ever coming through Chicago, you should try this restaurant, even if you’re not a vegetarian. They serve really original, tasty food.
Cheap Talk 
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May 23, 2009 at 10:37 pm
jeff
Grilled fennel is actually trickier than you would guess. You have to cook it thoroughly without drying it out. I have failed many times. What works best for me is to first salt it and coat with olive oil and let it sit for at least 30 minutes before grilling. This softens it a bit sort of like you would an eggplant.
Then you want super high heat. And it takes longer to cook than you guess so even if it looks soft, taste a bit before taking it off the grill.
Tonight I made grilled fennel and orange salad. Simple: grill fennel slices, section two oranges, juice and zest a third. Use the juice and zest with some olive oil and dijon mustard to make a vinagrette. Arrange the fennel and orange sections and pour over the dressing. Top with chopped mint and toasted almond slices. yumm…