Guest Post: Big Bowl- It’s Bigger Than Just the Food!

By Tovah Domenick

I have always been a fan of Big Bowl’s food but after my most recent visit I have come to appreciate Big Bowl even more. Since they have numerous locations in MN I wanted to share on my dad’s blog.

Big Bowl is a great Chinese & Thai restaurant offering both a menu as well as a make-your-own stir fry bar. I have tried many items on the menu and everything has always tasted delicious. During my last visit in late March I noticed a new section on the menu listing all the things Big Bowl is doing to set themselves apart in the restaurant community. For those of you who consider yourselves eco-friendly I hope you will appreciate these efforts and support Big Bowl in what they are doing:

-A conversation about direct trade coffee and the benefits to the farmers landed the product on their menu. Purchasing locally grown produce came next. Heirloom pork from small family-owned farms in the Midwest followed, and then all-natural chicken and a higher-quality, humanely raised, all-natural beef. They also purchase sustainable and responsibly-fished seafood.

- Big Bowl has switched to eco-friendly cleaning supplies and post-recycled paper products. They banned bottled water from the menu and installed a filtration system.

-A couple other fun things they have launched: if you drive a hybrid, you can valet for free, and most of their locations have recently installed bike racks to encourage biking instead of driving.

-Lastly (and probably their biggest effort), Big Bowl entered into a legally binding contract to reduce and offset its carbon output by 100 percent. Basically this means finding ways to pollute less and funding environmental initiatives such as wind and solar power, sustainable farming, and reforestation. They have already started this process by doing more business with local companies, replacing their kitchen lighting with energy saving bulbs, and installing light sensors that flick the switch when no one’s around.

And since this is a foodie’s blog, I have to offer some menu favorites: Their fresh ginger, ginger ale is made on the premises and is delicious! This past visit I ordered a Passion Fruit Ginger Ale. For an appetizer their potstickers are tasty and come with three great dipping sauces. My husband almost always orders the Crispy Orange Chicken, and I am a big fan of the Thai Hot Pepper Shrimp w/Basil & Peanuts (for heat-lovers only) and the Panang Curry Chicken. However, most people (like my mom!) will never order from the menu and always choose the make-your-own stir fry bar, where every vegetable you can imagine can be added to chicken, beef, pork, shrimp or tofu and your choice of many sauces. To finish off your meal you MUST try the mochi for dessert, which are small ice-cream balls covered in mochi (a Japanese rice cake mold). They usually offer 3 flavors- green tea is my favorite.

Guest post: Holiday dinner at Graham Elliot, Chicago

By Tovah Domenick

When Peter and I decided to spend part of our holiday money on going out to a nice dinner, the possibilities were endless. Chicago is definitely a foodie's world and since it's rare that we treat ourselves to a nice dinner, we wanted it to be a memorable one.

After much debate, we decided on Graham Elliot. Graham Elliot is a celebrity chef in Chicago and is known for being at the forefront of the molecular gastronomy trend at Avenues, the restaurant in The Peninsula hotel. Creating dishes such as fois gras coated in Pop Rocks, Elliot took fine dining to a whole new level – though the prix-fixe menus were out of reach for everyday people like us. In June Elliot opened his own restaurant, coining the term "bistronomic" for his new approach, blending everyday bistro ambiance with modern haute-cuisine.

As we entered the restaurant we were greeted by friendly staff and an amazing smell, which turned out to be a bowl of juniper and rosemary boiling in water at the host stand. The restaurant decor is simple yet classy. The drink menu boasts of exotic drinks and a fine wine selection, but since we don't drink the bartender made us a "mocktail" of a passion fruit and ginger fizz.

The menu is divided into 5 sections- Cold, Hot, Sea, Land, and Sweet. The Cold and Hot were first courses, the Sea and Land were main courses, and of course the Sweet was desserts. We decided to order one of each. After placing our order, we were given a basket filled with not bread, but garlic butter popcorn, which was delicious!

For my first course I ordered the Bagels and Lox, a play on the classic Sunday morning favorite. The dish came with two thin bagel chips on top of thinly sliced tomatoes sitting in a herb puree, and topped with slices of smoked salmon. The salmon was very fresh and the whole dish tasted great. Peter ordered a sausage risotto topped with a nice layer of provolone cheese and fried basil. Yum!

My second course I ordered from the Sea menu, the Roasted Monkfish Wellington. Delicious! The monkfish was cooked perfectly in the breading and it was served with French lentils, glazed carrots and melted leeks, and a truffle coulis. Peter ordered from the Land menu, Beef Tenderloin, served with parsnip tater-tots, mushrooms, creamed watercress, and smoked Béarnaise. The dish was simple but great, fresh flavors.

For dessert we couldn't resist ordering the Deconstructed Snickers, which was a fudge torte topped with peanut nougat, toasted peanuts, and salted caramel.

Overall the meal was great and we would go back again as they change the menu seasonally. We were expecting to be wowed a bit more, given Elliot's history, but everything was flavorful and fresh, and the portions were plentiful for the prices (appetizers were all around $11 and the entrees were $30-40). When in Chicago I would definitely recommend giving it a try!

Dinner at Il Mulino, Chicago

This is another guest post written by my daughter who lives in Chicago.

Wednesday night Peter and I celebrated my birthday and we went to Il Mulino, that's an Italian place right down the street from our apartment and it was SO SO good! One of the best meals I have ever had!

Right away when we sat down they had a plate of fried zucchini drizzled with chili oil. Then they brought out this huge chuck of super fresh and very tasty parmesan cheese and shaved off a piece for each of us. Then they brought a small plate with a couple pieces of Italian salami. Then they brought a bread basket with a variety of sliced breads, and another bread basket with two pieces of warm garlic toast.

And THEN they brought us each a piece of bruchetta, which I didn't eat of course because too many tomatoes but Peter said they were great. And this was ALL before we even got our menus!

The basic menu looked great but we both ordered from the specials menu, which had a ton of options. I got pancetta wrapped scallops with a mushroom risotto and Peter got pasta with Italian sausage. Both were delicious. And of course we had to get espresso and dessert and got the sample platter for desert which had a tasting of their super rich chocolate cake, the chocolate mousse, tiramisu, and some type of almond sponge cake.

The house that the restaurant is in is really beautiful too and after dinner I asked the maitre’d the history of the building which was pretty interesting. Needless to say we will definitely be back.

Guest post: Café des Architects in Chicago

My sweet daughter sent me the following e-mail about a restaurant she and her husband went to in Chicago. I asked her if it was ok to put it on Krik’s Picks as a guest post. So here it is:

Hi Dad!

As a fellow foodie, I wanted to share with you the delicious meal Peter and I had last night! This week is Restaurant Week in Chicago and basically what that means is about 25 high end restaurants offer a special tasting menu this week and all menus are $31.95. It's really a great deal because I would say at every single one of these restaurants the average entree is $31 (or more) and with this deal you get 3-4 courses. So it was very hard to decide on a restaurant but we went with Café des Architects in the Hotel Sofitel.

To start they brought out a basket of fresh breads with butter and a delicious tapenade.

Our appetizers: I got a lobster-mango salad that was so nummy! It was a piece of lobster on a piece of mango and topped with some kind of creamy cheese. (The menu online says it was a citrus cream pistachio caramel - Krik.) It also had a little side of candied walnuts and baby spinach with a scoop of fresh guacamole. Peter's sounded simple but he liked it even better than the lobster app! It was a cauliflower velouté (I probably spelled that wrong but basically a pureed soup).

Then they brought a salad which was pretty basic and had an aged balsamic dressing.

Entrees: Peter got a crispy duck breast wrapped in bacon on top a butternut squash puree. I got a butternut squash risotto with a parmesan crisp. Both were delicious and we ate every last drop- literally! I never order duck but it looked so good and I'm glad we did because it tasted great.

Dessert was one option only and was a trio of desserts; a crème brulee, a cinnamon cake with coffee flavoring, and a fruity dessert that I can't really explain but tasted good. Our only complaint was not enough chocolate in the dessert :)

(In a follow-up e-mail, she elaborated on the dessert - Krik.)

I have a better description of the dessert....I couldn't think of what it was before but it was a key-lime tapioca topped with fresh fruit. I actually don't think I've ever had tapioca before but it was great and I loved the texture!