Dinner at Alhambra Palace Restaurant

Alhambra Palace Restaurant is a good Morrocan restaurant on Randolph Street.

1240 W. Randolph, Chicago, IL – (312) 666-9555

We went to the antique market on Randolph and went by this restaurant on the way there. You can’t miss the facade – its a bad takeoff of the Arabian Nights. Aviva had wanted to try this place for a while so we decided to eat there after the market.

The food was decidedly good – Aviva had the dolmeh (stuffed grape leaves) and chicken tarine, and I had the falafel and spiced lamb tarine. The grape leaves weren’t soaked in brine and were soft and tasty. The falafel was perhaps the best I’ve ever had, crispy and not oily on the outside and soft and fluffy inside, with a slight hint of cinnamon. Tarine is the name of a ceramic cooking pot that’s got a conical top with a hole in it; the food is placed inside and then slow cooked. The chicken was lightly seasoned, but the lamb was outrageous – I could pull it apart with a fork only, and the spices were wonderful.

The restaurant is actually not the main attraction – they have a large (perhaps seating 500 – 1000 people on two levels) auditorium in back where they have belly and flamenco dancing. They rent hookahs at $20.

It was expensive. But, the portions were large (we took some home) and the food was good. We’ll go back again.

Dinner at Mitsuwa Market

We saw Mitsuwa Marketplace, 100 W, AlgonquinRoad, on the TV show Check, Please!

This is an oriental market, selling a lot of Japanese and some Chinese and Korean food and, well, stuff, especiailly books. We got food at the dim sum shop, but there are 5 different food preparation stores, including one that’s Korean. The dim sum was wonderful, we also had their special soup with jockey balls, all very tasty.

After dinner we stopped at the tea and ice cream shop near the entrance to the food court; Aviva and I shared a scoop of plum and a scoop of green tea ice cream – next time I think I’ll try a soft serve swirl of vanilla and green tea.

They only take cash. Come hungry, as there’s a lot of food.

Anniversary dinner at Merlo on Lincoln

In preparation for our 16th anniversary night out, Aviva was in a quandry – where to go to dinner? We wanted Italian food – we love Italian food, but there are very, very few places in Chicagp that have food that, in our opinion, tastes at all like the preparations in Italy. I mentioned Merlo on Lincoln .

They have two restaurants – one on Maple in the Gold Coast / north loop area, and the one on Lincoln south of Diversey. We choose the one on Lincoln because its a little more convenient and would probably be less busy. The food is Bolognese and quite nice – the lasagna is a special standout, very much like what we had in Bologna.

Aviva and I shared the insalata di carciofi, funghi, sedano e grana (“raw sliced artichoke salad with champignon mushrooms, celery and ‘Parmigiano Reggiano’”). I had the Passatelli (“extruded dough of ‘Parmigiano Reggiano’, eggs and grated bread cooked in hen stock”) followed by the tortellini alla panna (“hand-made tortellini stuffed with ‘Prosciutto di Parma’, ‘Parmigiano Reggiano’ and veal tenderloin in cream sauce”), also hand-made. Ended the night with their special Christmas dolce, an Italian Christmas cake soaked in liquour with chocolate shavings and a scoop each of lemon and vanilla gellato. Very yummy!

I highly recommend this spot – just be careful that you have time, as they are a slow food restaurant; each course will be made individually for you, and that takes time (if eating a sit down meal in Europe makes you edgy, this may not be your cup of tea).

Sapori Trattoria

Sapori Trattoria is on Halsted just south of Diversey. Its a small Italian restaurant with a reasonably diverse menu and a pretty good wine list.

I had the squash soup and the ossabucco on lasagna – the food was really good but the service was terrible. I think something was wrong in the kitchen because our table wasn’t the only one getting apologies and free desert.

We had a good Saturday – new glasses and good Italian

I had my eyes checked a week ago Friday, so we started looking for new frames. I wanted smaller round frames because the lenses get too wide if the frames aren’t round, and the ones I have now hit my eye brows.

We went to Eye Want on Milwaukee and found just what I wanted – they have a great selection of frames, from conservative to radical.

Then, we ate dinner at Francesca’s Forno, a nice little Italian restaurant a short walk down the street – I highly recommend it, the wait staff was helpful and friendly but unobtrusive and the food was quite good.

Aviva’s brother came to visit

We had a great time I think. Friday I met up with Aviva and Brian at Room and Board, an upscale furniture shop. We had dinner at Opera , a really nice Chinese restaurant. We took Brian to Uncle Fun on Saturday – that’s a really
interesting shop that sells strange toys.

We went to the King Tut show after that, then decided to head south to show Brian Hyde Park.

But, we ran out of gas as we passed the Museum of Science and Industry. Eventually a cab stopped and took us to a nearby gas station where we could get a can and a gallon, put it in the car, filled up at the same station and just went to dinner at Luna Caprese , an Italian restaurant Aviva and I favor right now.

My 47th birthday!

Yes, I’m a yankee doodle dandy, born on the 4th of July.

Had a quiet day yesterday, mostly finishing up and posting my travelogue for our Spanish trip. Then, we went out to dinner at a very nice Mexican restaurant, Salpicon. The food was really good and it was really loud and busy for a holiday.

Nathan’s visit and Spamalot

Nathan came in this weekend – he got here Friday night. Aviva was going to drive out with me to pick him up but she had saved a stray dog, she was in heat and in our yard, Basil was going nuts (even “fixed” (why do we say a dog is fixed when they’ve been neutered?) he still tried to hump the other dog), so she stayed home and waited for a friend that adopts out animals to come over and take the little dog away (we’re going to pay the dog’s vet bills and hopefully someone will adopt her (maybe we will after she’s fixed and done with her hormone thing)).

I picked Nathan up and we went to Woodfield Mall in Schaumberg, but amazingly we didn’t buy anything! Dinner was at a big restaurant named Ram – the food was very good. Then it was back home.

Saturday we got up and went shopping – I needed to return a KVM switch to Microcenter, so Nathan tagged along and we bought a few things. We ended up at Uncle Fun, one of our favorite places in Chicago. We went home, played video games (Nathan also showed me Half Life 2 – that’s a very cool game!), changed clothes and went out to dinner at
Ben Pao. The food there is good (a little sweeter than most Chinese I’ve had). Then Aviva dropped us by the Palace Theatre so we could see Spamalot. Spamalot is a musical based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The play was lots of fun!

Unfortunately, all fun things end and I took Nathan back to his mom Sunday morning so they could drive home.