Last night my wife and I visited a place called Riganato’s in Geneva, IL. We had been out traveling in the area and thought we’d stop somewhere for Italian. Siri included the place in a list of suggested local establishments so we gave it a try.

The place is one of those old converted houses with lots of charm. A newer establishment that opened in 2012, it’s clean and well appointed decor on the inside instilled confidence for a quality experience, but the cheap looking disposable menus made me wonder what to expect.

The menu offers a mix of Greek and Italian dishes, pizza, burgers and sandwiches. We started out by sharing the Arugula and Mozzarella salad. This is a delightfully tangy salad with large chunks of artichoke hearts, diced tomatoes and mozzarella, and is well proportioned. My wife thought it was a bit overdressed, but I enjoyed cleaning my plate with my bread. We decided to go lighter and cheaper this time. They offer a large selection of gluten free options, so my wife enjoyed a yummy pork sandwich and a side of sautéed garlic spinach. She said the bun was well done, but we can only assume it was store-bought. I had a Manchego and Jalapeño burger with sweet potato fries. The fries were quite good, a bit limper than I’ve had at some places but the outside was still crunchy. The burger was generous and flavorful, offering a medium level of heat. To round out the meal, they offer these little mini dessert options that sounded delightful and are a perfect portion size. For GF there is only a house-made rice pudding, but that and my chocolate cake were great cappers on a pleasantly surprisingly good meal. We fully intend to return there some day soon to try their dinner entrees.

These kinds of places have been some of my favorites over the years. There is a certain charm to dining at a place that used to be a home. The layouts are always intriguing, many with fun twists and turns, and a cozy, lived-in feel. Cafe Isabella’s in Tinley Park has been a favorite for years. There are many of these types of restaurants throughout most major cities and I’ve visited a few in Springfield, MO, Dallas, TX, and San Francisco, CA. There are dozens of these throughout Chicagoland worth exploring, and I’ve enjoyed quite a few. I imagine the appeal of opening restaurants in such properties is based on factors like climate-consistent basements for storage, wiring and piping in place for gas, electric, and plumbing, offices and storage upstairs, built in porches or patios, and the charm of creating the feeling being invited into someone’s home.

Whether it’s your first date, or your first date since the baby was born, consider one of these restaurants for your next dining experience, and unleash your adventurous side. Enjoy!

To celebrate my birthday, my wife and I just went to Geneva to explore the highly touted classic small-town downtown. We visited several great stores, such as the well-known “The Little Traveler”, Southwest Trading Company, Mr. Cromwell’s Attic, and the enticing “The Spice House”. The culinary highlights of our trip were two separate visits to All Chocolate Kitchen, and a late lunch at Gratto Italian Tapas.

As we traveled south on the east side of Third Street, we stumbled first across ACK, as it’s also known. Apparently, this place is famous for all the things inside made from chocolate, sugar, and whatnot, such as a life-size astronaut statue, or a giant chocolate tree. According to the website, “The Guinness Book of World Records awarded Chef Roby the World’s Tallest Cooked Sugar Building, the World’s Tallest Chocolate Sculpture and the World’s Longest Candy Cane, in 2013.” There’s a picture of the “building” on one wall. They offer a wide range of items, but since we were just starting out, we opted to try four different truffles. The PBJelly was pretty much what it says, the Black Walnut Cream, and Port were delightful, and their signature cocoa powder dusted french truffle was truly decadent. 

We wandered down to the train station, then back up the other side. The place that most intrigued us during the trip for our main meal was Gratto. (I have no idea why their website is down.) This notion of italian tapas had piqued our curiosity, so we made our way back and were seated inside. It was earlier than we realized so they only gave us the lunch menu. With less selections to choose from, and being a bit overwhelmed by the heat of the day, Cathy and I started by sharing what would prove to be a pretty standard mozzarella caprese salad. I would have preferred a better size ratio between the tomato and mozz slices. These tomato slices were nearly twice the size of the cheese. The fresh basil was generous, but overall, I’ve had better versions of this classic.

Thus, expectations were a bit low for our entrees. We opted for two seafood choices. Cathy ordered a salmon with eggplant, and I opted for a whitefish. I can’t fully remember the description for her dish, but the combination of the topping and the fish was surprisingly good. She also chose the gluten free pasta side, which was spaghetti instead of the usual linguini. The simple evoo-based topping was tasty, but the pasta was a bit underdone. (I’m used to restaurants having trouble getting gluten free pasta cooked properly, so I didn’t hold this against them.)

My whitefish was topped with a brown butter cream sauce with capers, and served with a side of sautéed spinach and a simple linguini with what I think was a spoonful of bruschetta on top. The whitefish was crispy around the edges and tender in the middle. The sauce was delicious. The spinach was perfectly prepared for my tastes, and the linguini, while not standout, complemented perfectly. Overall, we were quite impressed with the entrees.

I casually dropped the hint that it was my birthday to the waiter. If they offer anything special for birthdays, he didn’t seem to know. Service wasn’t standout, but I’m spoiled working at a place with such high service standards, so I don’t expect much from a local operation. I would still recommend checking Gratto’s out, but go after 4pm if you really want to see what the tapas is like. I may go back and find out for myself.

Afterwards, we returned to ACK for truly amazing gelato. I had a seasalt chocolate truffle and Cathy had the Mossy Twig, a minty selection. We finished off with two more port truffles before heading back to the car.

If you’re looking for a great Chicagoland area small-town downtown experience, Geneva has a lot to offer. I plan to return soon. I can’t say if Gratto’s was the best choice for our meal, but it was not a disappointment. As italian restaurants go, I’ve had some better and plenty worse. However, I will probably never go through town again without stopping at All Chocolate Kitchen each and every time. With all the other reasons to make the trip, Geneva is a quaint little town definitely worth visiting, and ACK is the absolute must for every visitor’s to-do list. Enjoy!

I’ve previously mentioned one of my favorite sushi places is Sushi By Chef Soon, located inside Seocho Garden in Lisle, IL. Yesterday, I finally got to share it with my good friend, Martin. I had already experienced it with my other sushi-obsessed friend, so this was long overdue for us.

We arrived for lunch just as they opened. Since it was a Tuesday afternoon, we pretty much had the place to ourselves. Chef Soon was there, skillfully preparing our meal. We started with some tasty miso soup. (I enjoy miso soup, but it’s one of those things that is so specific a recipe that few disappoint and fewer impress.) Martin and I both love eel, so we ordered one piece each of the more common fresh water unagi and the less common salt water anago off the ala carte menu. Both were as good as any we’ve had. We asked the server about popular maki, because I couldn’t remember all the great ones I’d had during my last visit. We ended up with three, Ocean Drive, Tropical Island, and a favorite I soon remembered from before, the Summer roll. These are listed under the section, “CHEF SOON’S SIGNATURE MAKI”. We started with the Ocean Drive and Summer rolls and followed with the Tropical Island. Ocean Drive is almost triangular-shaped and tastes amazing, with the distinct freshness of the bell pepper and lime coming through. Tropical Island is also great, with an almost tortilla-like wrapping, that was very fresh tasting as well, and had a noticeable mayo flavor.

Both of the other rolls were delicious. Neither was as mind-blowing as Summer. The presentation of the Summer roll shows off it’s most unique feature; razor-thin slices of lemon top the roll and give it it’s signature zing. It’s the kind of roll that takes you back a bit, slows you down, makes you relish ever chew, the kind of taste sensation that makes you chuckle a little at how good it is. As Martin reacted with exquisite surprise, I knowingly nodded and replied, “I know, right?” I felt a little bad saving my last piece of Summer until we finished the Tropical Island, because I’m sure Martin was jealous watching me savor that last morsel.

I’ve been to enough sushi places to notice a pattern. Some excel at the nigiri (ala carte) while providing adequate maki (rolls), and vice versa. Sushi by Chef Soon is one of the rarer places that excels at both. Martin and I will continue to explore Chicagoland for great sushi, but I’ve officially proven to him now that my current favorite will be hard to beat. Enjoy!

I finally got a chance to get some sushi again yesterday. My good friend, Martin, who pretty much introduced me to sushi many years ago, invited me to check out Hakuya in Buffalo Grove.

It was lunchtime, so we started off with two combo plates and some ala carte unagi. They brought out complimentary miso soup and ginger house salad. The soup was standard, but the salad offered a nice variety. My plate was a four piece nigiri and spicy salmon roll. Martin had the six piece with a spicy tuna roll and a shrimp tempura roll. All the nigiri was flavorful and tender, the white tuna was especially delicate, while the red snapper was a bit chewy for my tastes. The unagi was great, nicely prepared and topped with just a smidge of scallions.

After that, we ordered two signature rolls. One was the house signature Hakuya roll, which was excellent, packed with flavor and generously portioned. The citrus vinaigrette added a nice creaminess. The other roll was a new one, called the Valentine. This one came out with each pair of nigiri prepared in such a way so that the two halves formed a heart. The flavors on this one were exceptional as well, and the presentation was better, but the cilantro was a bit dominant on the Valentine, so it didn’t have as diverse a flavor profile. I was still torn as to which roll to make my last bite but settled on the Hakuya to finish out an awesome and reasonably priced meal.

So if you’re looking for a new sushi place to try, Hakuya is worth the trip. Enjoy!

I made a new discovery recently. I have experienced, for the first time, the delightful combination of cole slaw and pulled pork.

It started with a trip to the Naperville Wine Festival yesterday. I was working at the Cooper’s Hawk booth and ventured over to the “food court”, a section where several food vendors had set up shop for the day. Three of the restaurants represented were all neighbors in the nearby buildings, Sugartoad, Tap In Pub and Citygate Grille. They were holding a slider contest, with each kitchen creating a signature pork slider. Texting in my vote for my favorite got me entered into a contest to win dinner for two. The best in my opinion was Citygate, as it had the right balance of sweet, savory, salty and tangy. Although Tap In put up some strong competition with balsamic-marinated cabbage.

There were two constants among all three sliders, pulled pork, and coleslaw. Each one was considerably different from the others, with different sauces and toppings, but the cool crunch of the cabbage was a superb complement to the warm chew of the pork. Why had I never seen this before? Was this a new trend? I had no idea.

Today, I attended my second company picnic. There, at the buffet area, was pulled pork to make my own sandwich. Down the line by the garnishes, lay a big bowl of cole slaw. That simple sandwich was the highlight of the meal. As we sat down, I told my wife how this combination seemed new to me, but she was quite familiar with the idea. It just goes to show me that there is still so much out there to experience. Which, for a foodie like me, is an extremely exciting prospect. Enjoy!

Update 08/27/13: I just stopped in at Firehoue Subs and discovered I’d already experienced slaw on pork at least once before, when I tried their King’s Hawaiian Sandwich. I don’t think I’d paid enough attention last time to register what I’d eaten. I’ll have be more aware in the future.