Dine with Top Chef Dale Levitski at Relax Lounge

For Suzette’s birthday, I wanted to do something fun. We are huge fans of the TV show Top Chef on Bravo, and we’ve been dying to have a meal prepared by one of the chefs. After some extensive research (i.e., Google), I learned that Stephanie Izard (Season 4 winner) and Dale Levitski (Season 3 runner-up) hadn’t opened their new Chicago restaurants yet. Stephanie’s new restaurant is called The Drunken Goat and will open in Fall 2009. Dale’s restaurant, Town and Country, should open in 2009.

With a little more digging, I found out that Dale Levitski is cooking at Relax Lounge on Thursday nights – they call it Dine with Dale. It's a three-course dinner for $30 per person. I was surprised that I could get a reservation on short notice, but it’s not well-known yet. So we made plans to go into Chicago on a Thursday night (March 12, 2009), which for us is unheard of.

Relax Lounge is a long, narrow space. Foremost it is a bar, with bar food and not much dinner seating – there are about 12 tables. They have a tiny kitchen which turns every Thursday into a Top Chef challenge for Dale.

We sat at the bar and ordered some interesting drinks – mine was a Calientini made with Absolut Pear, St. Germaine, jalapeno, and cucumber; Suzette had an Eau de Veev made with Veev (acai vodka), Domaine de Canton (ginger liqueur), pear, and grapefruit. I know they sound strange, but they were really delicious. They were savory and not sweet, with the alcohol in perfect balance with the flavors.

We were soon moved to our table where we finished our drinks. We thought we might feel a bit out of place in a bar for hip, young people. After looking around, we could see the other dinner patrons were almost all over 30 and probably Top Chef fans as well.

The first course was a salad with smoked salmon, avocado puree, bacon, corn salsa, and a matzo cracker balanced on its side. The salmon was delicious and avocado was smooth and silky. You could taste each individual component and they were all really fresh.

We each ordered a glass of the recommended wines: a Hess Chardonnay and a Santa Julia Malbec. The Malbec was very fruit forward and easy to drink, and matched the entrée really well. The Chardonnay was better with the food than without, but I wasn’t crazy about it.

The entrée was Chicken Marengo, crawfish, tomato, and olives with a chicken breast atop a potato. I love comfort food and this was it! The Malbec was a perfect match for this dish.

Dessert was a brownie sundae. When I read the menu, I thought dessert wasn’t as exciting as some of the previous weeks’ desserts, such as cardamom brulee, lingon berries, and lemon crepe. All doubt was erased when our dessert arrived. The brownie had huge chocolate chunks, the whipped cream was so light, and the chocolate sauce was delicious. It was chocolate heaven!

Around 8:30, people started trickling in for the second seating. By 9:00, it was just slightly crowded. During the evening, we had a few glimpses of Dale working near the kitchen. After everyone received their dessert, Dale came out and chatted with some of the guests, but didn’t make it past the third table. He needed to prepare for the next seating. Fortunately, they were very accommodating and we were able to sneak into the back to compliment the chef and have our picture taken.

The pace of the entire meal was unhurried. At the end, I was surprised that two hours had elapsed. Two hours for a three course dinner may sound like a slow pace, but it didn’t seem like that at all.

The food was fantastic, service was great, and we really enjoyed the entire experience. Get a reservation and give it a try! If you are a foodie, you won’t regret having a meal prepared by a Top Chef!

Here are some links to good interviews with Dale Levitski:
Interview: Dale Levitski, "Top Chef" Finalist
Dishing With Dale
Life after 'Top Chef': Where's Dale?
Chicagoist Re-Grills: Top Chef Finalist Dale Levitski

- schneid

dinner at Charlie Trotter's

On March 8, we went to Charlie Trotter's in Chicago to celebrate two 40th birthdays. Suzette will be 40 in a few days, and my running partner Tim actually turned 40 that day. I can honestly say that our dinner at Charlie Trotter's was the best meal I've ever had.

For a lot more photos, please visit my Flickr page.

We checked into the Radisson Hotel and Suites Chicago around 4:15. The hotel is under renovation, which is a pain. You actually have to go outside to walk from the lobby to the elevators or the pub. Fortunately, the rooms we reserved were not available and we were upgraded to a junior suite.

we walked around Michigan Avenue...

We met up with Tim and Thea around 7:15 and walked over to the Elephant and Castle pub. We had a light snack and some good beer - the Fuller's ESB was great but the Fuller's London Porter wasn't as good as usual.

We left around 8:30 and grabbed a cab to Charlie Trotter's. We arrived early and only waited a few minutes for our table. We could have had dinner at 6:00, but we wanted to eat at the kitchen table which was only available at 9:00 that night.

More details to come. It took over 3 hours to finish dinner!



- schneid

Coffee

I am definitely going to spoil myself with some good coffee. I just won a West Bend Poppery II hot air popcorn popper on EBay, which I'm going to use to roast green coffee beans. This is a highly recommended brand of popcorn popper for this purpose and they are no longer manufactured. I also ordered some green coffee beans from Sweet Maria's. They have a sampler pack of 8 coffees from 4 continents. I requested decaf for half of them, so Suzette can enjoy them too. I can't wait to roast my own coffee!

The main purposes for roasting your own coffee beans are:

• You can buy exactly the coffee beans that you want. Different beans have really different flavors. Most people don't know that because most coffee is overroasted and they all taste the same.
  
• You can roast exactly the amount that you like. You might like a lighter or a darker roast.
  
• It is fresher. As soon as the coffee is roasted or ground, it loses freshness. You should use roasted coffee beans within 1 week. So this is almost the only way to get really fresh coffee. Green coffee beans are fresh for up to a year.
  
• It doesn't need anything added. You can drink it black.
  
• It's reasonably priced. The coffee is $5-6 per pound online. Even considering shipping costs, this coffee is cheaper than the Papanicholas coffee that I like (5.99 per 12 oz on sale).

Thanks (or blame) to Rob W. and Russ M. from work for putting me onto really good coffee!

- schneid

Cermak Fresh Market

There is a new grocery store in Aurora called Cermak Fresh Market. It's on Route 31 a couple miles south of I-88 and a couple miles north of downtown. It is fantastic! It's typical of this type of market in that the meat and produce are abundant and cheap, but brand name stuff like cereal and soda is expensive. They have a great selection of ethnic specialty items too. There were many Mexican and Asian products. I went on Saturday to only buy produce, meat, and some Asian condiments. By the way, Vietnamese red chili sauce is way hotter than the chili sauce I had at a Thai restaurant this weekend!

There were some sales, and we bought local Gala apples, huge Spanish onions, pears, and limes for 10 cents each. The prices of the meat were great. A package of assorted pork chops was .79 per pound. Rib eye steak was $4 per pound! I didn't need any meat, but I might start shopping weekly to get fresh produce and meat. Meat is one of the few things that I really crave that fits into a healthy diet.

- schneid