The Pork Sort
rrr This sterile white-and-steel space would make a lab rat feel at home. But for fine dining with a rotation of top-notch seasonal ingredients, served by a crack cadre of skilled food-service ninjas who would die for your smallest whim, chef Paul Kahan is still at the top of the game. Don’t do what I did last time, succumbing to my basest instincts and ordering course after course featuring a cured pork product. By the time I’d finished my endive salad with poached egg and pancetta, seared diver scallops with guanciale, and braised pork belly with Chinese broccoli, baby turnips, plums, and barbecue consomme, my alimentary canal felt like the Bonneville Salt Flats, and my plan to finish with the bacon ice cream was foiled. You owe it to yourself—and to Kahan’s sense of balance—to give, say, mussel soup with saffron, garlic, and basil a slurp or try the grilled sturgeon with sauerkraut gnocchi and Anjou pear. Challenges in the area of wine selection are sometimes met by the guidance of your Joseph Abboud-clad waiter, sometimes not. —Mike Sula
F 8.9 | S 7.6 | A 6.8 | $$ (5 reports)American Contemporary/Regional | Dinner: Sunday, Tuesday-Friday | Closed Monday | BYO
Cafe Iberico739 N. LaSalle | 312-573-1510
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Loud, crowded, and a tad disheveled, Cafe Iberico has been going strong for years and seems only slightly worse for the wear. The cavernous 450-seat restaurant includes two dining rooms, three bars, a party room, and a deli counter offering a selection of Spanish cheese, sausages, and canned goods—and it’s expanding into an upstairs space. At ten on a Wednesday night the front bar was surprisingly packed with a diverse crowd of diners, from a clutch of Muslim teenagers gossiping on the sidewalk to a multiethnic mix of young professional couples and a rowdy squad of pub-crawling frat guys. The service was efficient, if not terribly solicitous, and the bathroom was a mess. But if you stick to the classics, the menu still delivers. A bowl of mild Spanish olives was a nice complement to a simple plate of buttery jamon iberico and nutty manchego cheese, served with rounds of bruschetta. The gambas al aijillo—grilled shrimp in garlic and oil—were firm, crispy tailed, and came sizzling hot; champignons a la plancha were mushroom caps in their own dusky, smoky oil-and-garlic suspension. The more ambitious dishes fell flat. Dry as dust and served with even drier french fries, the pork tenderloin showed no signs of having been marinated as advertised; a special, octopus and cuttlefish in a tomato sauce with potatoes and peas, was bland and mealy. But if a dish disappoints, you’re not out much more than a five spot, and at $3.50 a glass even the sangria is cheap. —Martha Bayne
How likely is it that a Filipino family will invite you over for some of their traditional chow? No time soon, I’m guessing, so until then, Cid’s Ma Mon Luk is where to go for down-home cooking from the Philippines, set forth without ceremony (or much service—hey, this is mom’s kitchen, what do you expect?). Siopao is a rubbery meat-filled steamed bun, which I liked but may be an acquired taste. More recognizable to most of us is beef caldereta, pot roast sprinkled with sausage slices in a mildly piquant tomato sauce, comfort food epitomized. Most delicious is lechon kawali, roast pork chunks with a crunchy, glistening coppery crust served with sweet, vinegary, livery dipping sauce, stupendously simple and satisfying. To drink try the calamansi juice, a type of limeade. —David Hammond
F 7.2 | S 7.5 | A 6.5 | $$$ (8 reports)American Contemporary/Regional | Lunch: Saturday-Sunday; Dinner: seven days | Saturday & Sunday brunch | Open late: Friday & Saturday till 11
