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!