Have you ever been in a restaurant where someone of the table behind you was talking very loudly? We sat down, and the guy behind us was LOUD. EVERYTHING HE SAID WAS LOUD. It sounded as if he was talking over a band playing, except there was no band. I told my wife that I would like to see him in the sequel to the movie "A Quiet Place", which made us laugh, but which didn't help improve our dining experience.
I felt weird requesting it, but we asked to be moved, and staff of the restaurant happily obliged. We were moved to halfway across the restaurant, and I swear I could still hear that .
Once happily settled in our new seat, we placed our order, and our drinks came out fairly quickly. The tomato bisque came out, and it was room temperature. For a moment, I considered that maybe they were trying to serve it like a gazpacho, But I thought better of it, and asked for them to heat it up. It was delicious at the proper temperature.
The crabcake sandwich is huge, served on a hoagie roll. Most importantly, there's a lot of crab in it: I love that. There are a few Anaheim pepper slices, which provide a little zing to it, but not enough to be overpowering.
Maybe the best surprise was the mac & cheese. For five dollars you get a bowl that's almost large enough for a meal. And, it's creamy and cheesy.
Other than the issue with the soup, service here was top notch. I'm sure even the guy who made us move would get that message LOUD and clear.
SECOND VISIT: We loved our experience so much, we returned 2 days later. This time, things weren't so great. It wasn't too busy, and we sat in the bar area to watch the game. The bartender waited on us: he was one of those overly confident people who didn't write your order down. I always hate that.
My wife ordered a whiskey sour, and it came back with a cloudy consistency; it turns out that serving it with an egg white is a way to serve a whiskey sour. She liked it, so no harm done.
I ordered a burger with an egg on it. The burger came out with no egg. It was tasty, but I missed the egg.
Meanwhile, my wife ordered another whiskey sour. About 15 minutes later, the bartender comes back and says they're still getting the egg ready, and I thought he meant for my burger. This seemed weird, halfway into eating my burger, to tell me that an egg that takes three minutes to cook isn't done yet. It turns out, he was talking about the egg for my wife's whiskey sour. So, we canceled that order. Five minutes later, he comes back and says he has canceled the order!
Also weird was the obsession today's cook had with cheese. My wife's grilled chicken sandwich, which was perfect last time, had about a 1:1 chicken:cheese ratio.
And, besides the communication issues with Mr-doesn't-like-to-write-down-the-order, he also decided to spend most of his time chatting with another bartender about the game. We often had to flag down somebody else to help us out with things we needed.
This place is gone for me must-visit destination in Chicago to a solid maybe. Bummer. read more