Chicago: The Silver Palm

My dad made a last minute decision to fly in to Chicago for a visit. He arrived last evening, so today was the first day we had together to explore the city a bit. After checking out two conservatories and taking a buttload of pictures of plants, we wandered around downtown until as close to 6:00 pm as we could as that's when The Silver Palm opens for business:

I first heard about The Silver Palm from watching the Chicago episode of "No Reservations". At the time, I never imagined that I would one day be actually living in Chicago and able to actually check out the train-car-turned-restaurant myself:

Not a lot of tables fit inside the railway car, so I was worried that we would have to wait a while to get seated. But for some reason, the restaurant was surprisingly empty tonight:



Maybe we were just early. We did enter the front door at exactly 6:00 pm. Oh well. Whatever the reason, I still enjoyed the red mood lighting.

Because of the lighting, it's a bit hard to see what you're eating. Certainly doesn't detract from the taste though. First up were warm biscuits served with a wedge of butter:

The biscuits smelled so good and tasted good too.

Then came the white bean and garlic bruschetta:

Buried under the mountain of greens and parmesan shavings were 4 pieces of bruschetta slathered with some kind of delicious white bean spread. I highly recommend this. I'm not a salad person (understatement of the year), but I found myself going back for the pieces of salad that were left behind on the plate. The grittiness of the white bean spread, the saltiness of the parmesan, and the tanginess of the vinaigrette all came together for a fabulous way to start off our meal. Even my dad was impressed.

Hailed as the best sandwich in America, the three little piggy sandwich was what brought Bourdain to The Silver Palm in the first place. It's what also brought me (twice) to Silver Palm's doorstep. Who can turn down the promise of triple swine delight? Our sandwich came cut in half and on two plates because our waitress knew that we were planning on splitting it (extra fries, yo):

I hate flash photos, but I had to take one to show what's in this baby:

6 layers of double smoked ham (I counted), fried pork tenderloin, and bacon make up the three piggies. As if that's not enough, there's also an onion ring, gruyere cheese, and a fried egg. Holy moly. There's so much goodness going on that I can't even be bothered by the fact that the egg yolk is popped and dribbling down the sandwich (for those of you who don't know, I have serious yolk issues - see previous post). The bun is fantastic too, by the way.

I finished my half of the monster sandwich, but my dad only ate a half of his half. Thanks a lot, father, for making me look like a PIG.

Hehe....pig...eating a three piggy sandwich...okay, I'm going to stop now.

The Silver Palm
768 N Milwaukee Ave
Chicago, IL 60622
(312) 666-9322
http://www.thesilverpalmrestaurant.com/