Chicago: Paris Club

The day before Carmen moved to San Francisco, a bunch of girls met up at Paris Club for one last hurrah:  

The Near North area isn't my favorite place to hang out once it gets dark.  Too many girls in tight minis (even in the dead of winter) and guys who think they're hot stuff (when they're really not).  Just not my kind of scene.  All that yuppie-ness makes me itchy.

Paris Club seems to be the great capitol of yuppiedom.  I know it was a Saturday night, but still.  That place was PACKED:

To spare ourselves the crazy wait, we elected to try our luck at the first come, first served tables by the bar instead of actually being seated in the main dining room.  Thanks to Queen G's cousin, who shamelessly hovered over a party that looked like it was about to leave, we scored a table almost shockingly quickly.

Between the four of us, we did quite some damage.

First were the cheese frites:

Then the tuna tartare francaise with lemon and mint:

And the lobster crostini with truffled scrambled egg:

A small pot of mussels in coconut curry:

And the short rib bourguignonne:

As the night went on, we were joined by additional friends, one of whom added an order of the croque monsieur fingers with dip madame:

Out of everything we had that night, the creative take on the croque monsieur was what stood out the most for me.  While the cheesy breadsticks might not seem so impressive by themselves, the madame dip with its egg yolk at the bottom of the jar was pretty damn nifty.

The girls were curious about whether it would be possible to get into Studio Paris (the club upstairs).  Now why am I not surprised that the only way to guarantee entrance is to pay an arm and a leg for bottle service?

Whatever, Studio Paris.  Your snooty club wouldn't have been able to handle us anyway.

Food was good though.  Props for that.


Paris Club
59 W Hubbard St
Chicago, IL 60654
(312) 595-0800
http://www.parisclubchicago.com/