Chicago: Cafe Iberico
The problem with being indecisive (and having indecisive friends) is that choosing where to eat always takes forever. After much hemming and hawing, we somehow decided on Cafe Iberico for dinner last night:
We got there rather early, so the restaurant was pretty quiet at first, but it quickly livened up as we were taking our time perusing the menu. I just had to take a picture of the interior because there were wine bottles over our heads(!):
Starting with our favorite of the night, the pulpo a la plancha:
I read about this dish on a Yelp review, and honestly, I think this is what decided our dinner venue for us. Grilled octopus with thin fries and olive oil...pulpo a la plancha, where have you been all my life? I expected the the octopus to be chewy, as it usually is, but holy moly, I've never had octopus like this before. It was soft and dare I say almost melt in your mouth amazing? The fries soaked up all the flavors of the olive oil and the octopus and were almost as good as (better than?) the fries under the farm chicken at The Publican. (Blasphemous, I know.)
Because we were going rather seafood heavy, we thought we should pick a light veggie dish to balance out the meal. We settled on the tostadas de pisto:
That's toasted bread topped with stewed eggplant, peppers, onions, zucchini, tomato, and olive oil all in one heavenly bite. Plus a creamy hard-boiled egg. The veggies were sweet and refreshingly chilled; a perfect compliment to the warm richness of the octopus.
What really impressed me about Cafe Iberico were the prices. Seafood paella for $11? Sign me up!:
While not the best paella I've ever had, for the price, it was really, really good. There was plenty of seafood to go around: shrimp, fish, clams, and mussels abound.
This is one place I'll definitely be coming back again (ideally with more friends so that I can try more of the menu).
As a side note, Cafe Iberico gets major bonus points for refilling our bread plate without having to be prompted. And for giving us more bread the second time around than the first.
Cafe Iberico
739 N LaSalle Blvd
Chicago, IL 60610
(312) 573-1510
http://www.cafeiberico.com/
We got there rather early, so the restaurant was pretty quiet at first, but it quickly livened up as we were taking our time perusing the menu. I just had to take a picture of the interior because there were wine bottles over our heads(!):
Starting with our favorite of the night, the pulpo a la plancha:
I read about this dish on a Yelp review, and honestly, I think this is what decided our dinner venue for us. Grilled octopus with thin fries and olive oil...pulpo a la plancha, where have you been all my life? I expected the the octopus to be chewy, as it usually is, but holy moly, I've never had octopus like this before. It was soft and dare I say almost melt in your mouth amazing? The fries soaked up all the flavors of the olive oil and the octopus and were almost as good as (better than?) the fries under the farm chicken at The Publican. (Blasphemous, I know.)
Because we were going rather seafood heavy, we thought we should pick a light veggie dish to balance out the meal. We settled on the tostadas de pisto:
That's toasted bread topped with stewed eggplant, peppers, onions, zucchini, tomato, and olive oil all in one heavenly bite. Plus a creamy hard-boiled egg. The veggies were sweet and refreshingly chilled; a perfect compliment to the warm richness of the octopus.
What really impressed me about Cafe Iberico were the prices. Seafood paella for $11? Sign me up!:
While not the best paella I've ever had, for the price, it was really, really good. There was plenty of seafood to go around: shrimp, fish, clams, and mussels abound.
This is one place I'll definitely be coming back again (ideally with more friends so that I can try more of the menu).
As a side note, Cafe Iberico gets major bonus points for refilling our bread plate without having to be prompted. And for giving us more bread the second time around than the first.
Cafe Iberico
739 N LaSalle Blvd
Chicago, IL 60610
(312) 573-1510
http://www.cafeiberico.com/
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