Jack's North Shore Eats

Broadway Cellars

There's a new restaurant here on the North Shore called Broadway Cellars. This is the third restaurant to try this space, but, like The Room and South, I don't give it long...

The food was good, but not good enough to overcome the horrible service, lousy decor, or confused theme...

If there was a highlight to the evening, it was the bread pudding...

But what wine goes with bread pudding? And there is the problem with Broadway Cellars in a nutshell. It has a theme, but it really doesn't adhere to that theme. Their follow through on the "wine restaurant" is scattershot at best. See my review at Centerstage Chicago for more details.

Taking Mother Out...

Mother's last Saturday in the City we took her to Mia Francesca's on Bryn Mawr, also known as Francesca's on Bryn Mawr...

A spot of wine...

And then to dinner...

And some dessert...

The food was great. The service was horrible. I probably won't go back. Oh well...

Tweet?

I told you about Tweet before, but only for brunch. We went with Sarah and Isaac for dinner and, well, go for brunch...

My steak wasn't bad, not bad like the service (You know you're in trouble when the bus boy cares more than the waiter.), but it was uninspired.

Bad Bar Food

Charlie's Ale House in Andersonville is one of those bar/restaurants that can't make up its mind what it is so everything suffers...

The liquor is wet and cold, the service has always been very nice, and the food isn't bad; it's just that it's not particularly good.

Chopped salad and a steak sandwich...

I guess you don't have to be a large chain restaurant to act like a large chain restaurant.

Tagine...

What a disappointment this new restaurant is! We went with Adrianne and Maxwell (Whose drag name I just learned is Ruby Cole!) and really thought this would be a great restaurant. I don't have a lot of pictures because of lighting issues, but there wasn't much to see except way too many peas!

For those of you not in the know, a tagine is a type of cooking pot made out of clay. They can be very ornate, but are usually simple things that would look really nice in the garden. Unfortunately for this new restaurant, the owners don't bother to serve the food in a tagine and therefore miss a wonderful opportunity to make their guests forget about the overcooked vegetables and the bland flavors.

The desert too was an utter waste of time. You know you are in trouble when you can't even get your mousse cold...

I should say that the lamb was tender, but that certainly wasn't enough to cover up all that was wrong with this new restaurant.

On a bright note, Mother brought Alex a new tagine from Egypt for Christmas. Who wants to help me try it out?

WARNING: Andies

After some consideration, I decided to add a new catagory to this site: WARNING. This will be my way of giving you the heads-up about...

Well, in this case, Alex and I ordered from Andie's for the second time in the past month. The first time, they screwed up our order and had to make a second trip to our house. Accidents happen, right?

Unfortunately, Alex didn't feel so hot the next day...

This last time, not only did Alex feel sick, but Mother's Greek Roasted Potatoes were essentially day old baked potatoes fried in olive oil. She threw then out. (She told me to tell you all that their spinach pie is also awful.)

The really sad part is that Andie's used to be the best Middle Eastern place on the North Shore. When they remodeled a couple of years ago, we were nervous that their food would suffer as they started to play the "high-end" restaurant game. For a while, everything was great, but now...

The service is bad and the food is unsafe. So long, Andie's, I hope you get someone back at the wheel soon...