Taking Flight

The BF's birthday is in early January. It's a bit of a double whammy for me. Just after Christmas/Chanukah I have to come up with a birthday gift. What's a girlfriend to do??

One thing I can bank on: something food-related will always score big points. The man loves food. All kinds of food. In all shapes and sizes. A while back, my friend Christina recommended Flight Chicago, a walking tour of three-to-four restaurants in one of Chicago's neighborhoods. She gave the flight as a gift to her parents, who are also adventurous foodies.

I chose Flight #004 for Z and me. The restaurants looked yummy and I knew Z hadn't been to any of them. We started at the Butcher and Larder at 1026 N. Milwaukee. A delicious charceuterie plate greeted us, complete with head cheese and chicken liver pate, Z's favorite!

Next, we walked just up Milwaukee to Frontier for an amazing oyster cooked like Oysters Rockefeller, a tasty dark beer, and a delicious rabbit-with-dumpling dish. Rabbit is a guilty pleasure of mine. Bunnies are so cute, but they are also tender and flavorful.


From the street, Frontier could pass for a sports bar. But don't let the TVs on the walls fool you. The food is a deliciously unique twist on comfort food. One of Frontier's hallmarks is its whole animal service. Order a pig for a table of friends and the fine chefs at Frontier will slow roast it to perfection. Super Bowl party, anyone??

After Frontier, we continued up Milwaukee, turning left on Division to The Bedford, a new restaurant in an old bank building. Check out the vault while you sip on cocktails concocted by the in-house mixologist. At The Bedford, we started with a pisco sour cocktail. Next came a deviled egg. My favorite dish of the day, and one of the best things I've eat at a restaurant in a while was the strip steak complete with celery root and fig gratin, trumpet mushrooms, roasted shallot marmalade, topped with blue cheese. I love blue cheese. Really love blue cheese. And this blue cheese had a way of bringing out all of the other flavors in the dish.


Before we moved on to Prasino, our final stop on the tour, we made a quick detour to Rite Liquors. Truthfully, I've been going to Rite Liquors for years as part of my friend Adam's "Slashie" birthday tour. (A slashie deserves its own blog post, so I'll save the explanation for another day.) Long story short, Rite is a dive bar of the ultimate form. It closes around 5 a.m., only to open again around 8 a.m. Regulars sit at the bar at all hours of the day and nite and can choose from a wide variety of Hostess confections to keep them sated while they sip on Coors Light and strawberry schnapps.

Just down Division from Rite Liquors, we made our final stop at Prasino. Prasino first opened in LaGrange and opened a second location in Wicker Park in August 2011. I love Prasino's commitment to environmentally friendly food and design. And that it serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. The dessert that concluded the tour was delicious; I can't wait to see what they do for breakfast!