Top Ten Meals: Green Zebra

This one I'll call number 2.
I don't yet have a fully-filled list of ten, probably due to my sprightly young age, but I'm designating my vegetarian chef's tasting menu meal from the Green Zebra in Chicago 2 of 10. It's not that GZ wasn't good enough to be top on my list, it's just that I'm not ready to commit. Let's just say that when it comes to eating, I'm still dating.

Which leaves me another 9 to fill in the rest of my life, so that's something to look forward to!

First course is a white bean spread on whole grain bread. I dig this. I mean, I'm a huge fan of hummus, but how cool is it when they make hummus out of something other than garbanzos? It's almost like a carrot dog, but minus the need for casing....


Second course: salads! Oh and were they ever! At Green Zebra you won't find huge bowls of greens filled with the usual suspects (onions, fruits, nuts); oh no, these were artichoke hearts, big shavings of parmigiana reggiano, peas (what?!), watercress, you name it. These guys went nuts. And it was amazing!

So, we have artichoke heart salad with some greens and some mushrooms and two big shavings of cheese. Wh0oah! And we also have grilled asparagus, on a bed of watercress (delightful!), with the littlest bit of parm melted on it, but lurking beneath is the secret something--a dollop of apple walnut puree.









Next up was the soup course: cream of fennel and cream of arugula. Although both were "cream," neither was heavy. The fennel one was drizzled with fennel oil, and the arugula one was drizzled with truffle oil! Oh my!









Following, a risotto cake with a crusty
cheese cracker and mushrooms, then, the magical morel mushroom dish: peas, shaved parmigiana reggiano, and yes, morels.

You can see that Green Zebra has a lot of repeat ingredients; probably, they use what's in season and what they can get from the local market, and that's what drives their menu. But I don't mind seeing more than one morel or repeat parm... no I do not! I hope they call me when its beet season! Or tomato season! Sweet jebus!

But I digress...

Moving on (yes, we are still eating here), the entrees. The dishes were small, a taste of each, really, but it was still a ton of food. So when the entrees appeared, I really wasn't hungry. at all. Which was good, because like a lot of restaurants that I've tried, it seems the chef expends his/her energy on the small plates and sides, and the entrees can sometimes be so so. These were good, very good, but nothing like the artichoke heart salad or apple walnut asparagus. Anyway, we had eggplant dumplings and asian stirfry. The dumplings were in a red pepper foam, which I know can be controversial (some people really hate the idea of foaming their food!), but I ask you: when it's good and creamy and light and flavorful, what's so wrong with foam? Don't hate on the foam!!

Finally, eegads!, came dessert. Two dishes: one all cherries and one all blueberries. The cherry one had a homemade chocolate ice cream bar with cherry ice cream, house made cherry soda, and candied cherries. The blueberry one was little pancakes with a wild blueberry compote on top. holy berry, batman. This stuff was good. I guess I am a convert. I guess I am.

And that's it. The meal, as you'd expect, took hours. The servers were friendly and offered both a wine flight and a non-alcoholic flight consisting of house-made sodas, teas, and fruit drinks. It was delightful.

Upon leaving, we walked a bit to try to shake off that daze of having consumed so much rich food, and we turned a corner, exiting the little vegetarian oasis in Wicker Park or Bucktown or wherever we were, and a sign, almost from God, appeared to remind us of what we just encountered and how we should never ever take it for granted:

Thanks, Green Zebra. I love you.