Dinner at Blackbird

a restaurant in Chicago, for New Year's Eve.

It's been a long ten years, the past two very rocky, for my husband and I. However, no one got killed or maimed, so that alone is worth commemorating :-).

I'm counting down the minutes until the 10:30 seating.

I did just about ruin the evening, though :-( I put on a super nice outfit and he said tepidly it was nice. I remember a different time, so I got upset. :-(

No matter what we are going to have a nice dinner though.

Do enjoy.

The menu reads like a FoodTV show.

I'll order "Iced tea....to drink."

You are a brave woman. :)

No alcohol for me. I'm quite the bitch naturally with no chemical assistance.

No alcohol for me either. I'm just not fond of drinking alone.

Incompatible with my medication. Both tax the liver. I like my liver.

When drinking in moderation works, it works really well.
When it doesn't, it really, really, doesn't.

I'd rather be sober with a liver, than drunk without. I haven't had a drink in almost a month. And that was one beer. Hmm...

Blackbird is a slick, hip, trendy, neomodernist place that attracts a slick, hip, trendy crowd--or what passes for one around here, anyway. While standing at the bar I entertained myself by watching the gallery of fashion disasters: the Chubby Flapper, the Aging Stripper, the Emu.

We were seated along the east wall, in a cheek-by-jowl row of tables. Since the seating arrangements were bierstube style, one could scarcely avoid one's neighbors. I struck up a friendly conversation with the couple to our right about the young kids the table over who were violating the no cell phone policy with abandon ("My friends are taking me out for an expensive dinner!") The man called over the waiter and had the ill-mannered little hipster taken care of.

To our left were two young women who spent the meal alternating stabbing absent friends in the back ("She's fat! She's the most miserable person I know. She won't go on dates." "I told him, 'Just get married. It's stupid. You're so stubborn'") and furiously texting into their phones as if they were Game Boys. One wore a dress which recalled a tube sock.

I cannot comment on the wine, but I will advise that grapefruit juice and soda water looks vaguely sophisticated and alcoholic without being so.

For appetizers, I ordered the antique gruyere cheese salad with comice pears, walnut praline, frisee, watercress, and apple saba. I got, well, a salad, with rectangles of cheese. Nice enough, but no interplay of flavors. My husband got the brandade stuffed squid with lucques olives, grilled bread, crunchy red peppers and arugula. This was very good. The squid was nice and tender, the presentation good, dang, I should've gotten that.

I ordered the crispy arctic char with butternut squash, green grapes, black trumpets, pine nuts, and verjus. Again, good enough. The presentation was so-so; the color palette was limited and the squash, grapes, trumpets and nuts were heaped atop the rectangle of fish, with only a circle of verjus to set off the entree. I'm not sure where the 'crispy' comes from. The fish gave me no trouble, it was cooked well enough.

He got jamison farm lamb chops and shank 'cassoulet' (why in quotes?) with spring valley shell beans, thumbelina carrots, and braised endive, and, darnit, he came out ahead again. When lamb is good, it's good, and when it's bad, it's really awful; in this case, it was really good. The lamp chops were like butter. Mmm.

The dish arrived with the shank bones dramatically arranged in a V. It grabbed the attention of the tables to either side. "Your dinner has antlers," I remarked. "Wow! You have a big bone!" remarked one of the women to the left. We all laughed.

Service fell apart at dessert. It took forever, with several reminders, for my husband to get his coffee, and dessert took a very long time to arrive. I got the butterscotch pot de creme with fresh churros, scotch poached apples, and arrop , which redeemed the meal, although the apple pieces look like chickpeas. He got the five-sample selection of cheese, which was artfully presented. Coffee was good, not at all bitter.

Blackbird is on again, off again, according to reputation. When a dish is on, it's great, when it's off, it's good, but nothing spectacular. I wouldn't put it at the head of the list of places to go. Try Spring on North Avenue first.

The couple next to us, an attorney and caterer, were friendly and grew more so the more they drank. We enjoyed a bit of intermittent conversation with them throughout the meal. I got some tips on where to get the lowdown on new restaurants around town. The caterer remarked, "There's a big group of food industry people in the back, I know some of them, and recognize a lot of faces."

Oh, and we got a legal parking space across the street.