Club Lucky

This is how you do it!

One of my favorite Italian places in Chicago, for certain! When you walk in the door, you are taken in by the old school feel, sounds and smells.  Friendly greetings and a great bar up front, really make this a top spot in my book.  

The drink menu is fun, the wines are great and they even have a lovely list of single malts, all for a very reasonable price.  

The night started with bacon wrapped figs and roasted garlic, which were in a light mascarpone sauce.  Brilliant combination of flavors overall and the sauce was great for dipping the light crusty bread you get at the table.  

Rounded the meal off with the Veal Franceses and some gluten free rotini in marinara sauce.  WOW!  Both were excellent!  The sauce is to die for .... on both dishes!  The wines we chose were outstanding and really complimented the meals.  Finished off the set with a nice Lemon Italian Ice.

The service was outstanding, very attentive and knowledgeable.  The ambiance, really makes this a great place for a night out with friends, a date or just hanging out at the bar on your own!  

Apps, 4 drinks, entrees and dessert, under $100 before tip.  I can not recommend this place more!  A must experience and if I had 5 stars, it would rate it!

Hollywood Grill

Comfort Food Time!

I've had coffee and pie/cake here several times late at night as well as a plate of the cheese fries, many times.   I have never really eaten the food there until recently.  

Let me start off by saying that the coffee and sweets are great!  Cant go wrong here.  The Cheese Fries are really good as well, one of the places I will go to for that fix!  

Service is prompt and friendly, no issues there either.  

But the food, was not something to draw me in.  We ordered a couple entrees and a couple shares.  The cheese fries, great!  The corned beef hash... was okay at best.  I ordered a Ruben, which came openfaced, but the meat was dry and overall not too appetizing.  My friend ordered the German smoked sausage and eggs, which turned out to be Eckrich style smoked sausage, nothing fancy.  

Overall the food was, eh... bland and unappetizing.  The bill was $30, which is a tad high for that lot, I would prefer to go to the deluxe Diner in Rogers Park over Hollywood.  

They still get 3 Stars because they make up for it on the late night sweets and fries and the service has always been decent for me.  

 

Bluebird - Wicker Park.

Green Curry Thai Mussels

A bit off the path, but well worth the extra block or so.  The atmosphere grabs you first, it is really a romantic setting, low lights and quiet, but busy.  The tables are small, they do pack you into the space, so that was a challenge.  Im a scotch guy, so the scotch list was good and I opted for a nice Irish Whiskey.

The food was a pleasant surprise.  I started with a mixed green salad, that was light and refreshing with just the right amount of light creamy dressing tossed throughout.  A second plate was grilled brussel sprouts with chorizo.  This was good, but the greens were drowned in a chipotle Aioli mayo, which was good but a bit much.  You lose the flavor of the greens and sausage.  

Finally, The dish that won me over were Green Curry Thai Mussels.  OMG!!  The sauce there were cooked in was Killer!  I could have licked the bowl out!  The mussels were perfectly cooked with onion, edamame and crimini mushrooms with a couple of crostini slices on the side.  I was floored with how good these were!

Great dinner, nice conversation with a date, we were hoping to stay a bit more, but were floored by the fact they this place had NO COFFEE to end a nice dinner with.

We chose to close the tab.  Overall, the FOOD BILL was decent, not too bad for a nice evening out!  I recommend Bluebird for a nice date night.  Parking was not too bad either.  $2.00 per hour, two hour max until 10pm.