Date Night at Stella Barra

Earlier this week, my boyfriend and I decided to try out Stella Barra, a Lettuce Entertain You restaurant, for date night. I have been to several LEYE restaurants, including Summerhouse Santa Monica which shares space with Stella Barra, and they have all been delicious. While Summerhouse Santa Monica is very bright and reminiscent of...Santa Monica... (shocker), Stella Barra has a much darker, trendy vibe to it. The atmosphere is very warm and many of the tables are situated around comfy couches. Our waiter was extremely friendly and explained to us that Stella Barra is tapas style, so they generally recommend two pizzas and one appetizer or two appetizers and one pizza per couple.

Bread with extra virgin olive oil, aged balsamic, and roasted garlic ($1.95)

We started with the bread, which is a great deal for $2. It actually comes with four slices, but we ate two by the time I snapped the above photo ;) The bread was very crunchy and delicious. The balsamic olive oil was exquisite, and we ended up using it later for dipping our pizza crust. 

Margherita Pizza, fresh mozzarella, basil, extra virgin olive oil ($13.95)

We opted to order two pizzas and an appetizer. To try as many different things as we could, we opted for one red pizza and one white. The Margherita was a classic pizza with delicious mozzarella and fresh basil. The basil was my favorite part of this pizza as it added a lot of flavor. The sauce was nice and tangy, and the crust was very flaky. 

Fennel Bianco pizza, hand-shaved fennel, burrata, rosemary, torn basil, extra virgin olive oil ($14.95)

For our white pizza, we opted for the Fennel Bianco. I am a sucker for fennel so this was a must-try. While the Margherita was a good, classic pizza, this was both of our favorites. It was much more flavorful than the Margherita and each piece was quite addicting. The crust was slightly fluffier than our Margherita pizza, and the fennel was bursting with flavor. My favorite part of this pizza was the burrata. It was extremely creamy and added flavor to every bite. 

Chocolate chip cookie with vanilla ice cream

For dessert, we decided to indulge in a chocolate chip cookie (heated up in the oven!) with vanilla ice cream. There is a bakery in the vestibule between Summerhouse Santa Monica and Stella Barra that the two restaurants share. It has a wide array of cookies and other baked goods. Some of the particularly yummy looking ones were peanut butter and s'mores, but we opted for the classic chocolate chip. Stella Barra lets you go to the bakery case and pick your cookie, and then they will heat it up and top it with ice cream for you. The cookie was absolutely delightful. The outside crust was crunchy, while the inside was gooey. The ice cream didn't immediately melt and was delicious atop the warm cookie. Our only complaint was the charge for this dessert - the one tiny scoop of ice cream was around $4 in addition to the cookie. Besides that, this was the perfect finale to a delicious meal. 

Each pizza comes with 8 slices, so two pizzas between two people still leaves plenty of leftovers. The slices are light, so you aren't left in the food coma that often comes with classic Chicago pizza. The take-home box includes instructions on how to best reheat the pizza, which (as you can see in the above picture) I greatly enjoyed on Thursday night. I recently took a gander at Stella Barra's brunch menu and it looks to die for. After a wonderful night with delicious food and excellent service, I will most definitely be back. 

New Modern Grill: a classic favorite

One fateful day over the summer, my roommate, our boyfriends, and I were in search of a classic diner to have some breakfast on a Saturday morning. We were walking around our neighborhood and stumbled across New Modern Grill at the corner of Halsted and Belmont in Boystown. It is a small, classic style diner that has a counter, TV, and sells lottery tickets. We have now gone three times to New Modern Grill (basically every time our boyfriends visit now) and have had the same waitress each time (who I believe is one of the restaurant owner's). She is so friendly and remembered us after just one visit. It has gotten to the point where every time our beau's visit, we head to New Modern Grill for a home cooked breakfast from our "mom." They have everything that you could ever want on a classic diner menu, from Denver omelettes to gyro sandwiches. The prices are ridiculously good and the food is even more ridiculously delicious. You can also tell that many of the customers visit on a daily basis and the entire restaurant has a charming "regular" vibe.

November Burger of the Month: The Gyro burger

On this visit, my roommate and I decided to order the November Burger of the Month: a delicious gyro burger. The burger comes with a regular hamburger patty, gyro meat, onions (grilled or raw, I went with grilled because um...duh), lettuce, tomato, tzatiki sauce, and feta. I can honestly say this was one of the most delicious things I have tasted in a very long time. The gyro meat and hamburger meat complemented each other perfectly. The grilled onions were a sweet addition, and the tzatiki sauce and feta added the creamy cheese flavor to finish it off. It was so filling but I finished it all because I just could not stop. They serve crinkle cut fries (my favorite type) that are perfectly crispy on the outside and pillowy on the inside. Fries are an added side dish, but the plates are big enough to feed another table. That, however, did not stop us from each getting our own plate of fries. On other visits to New Modern Grill I have tried the gyro omelet, Denver omelet, reuben, and ribeye steak sandwich. Not a single dish at this restaurant has ever disappointed. It is all delicious and homemade. It truly feels like eating in your momma's kitchen. They rotate burgers, and the October burger of the month was a Caprese burger that I wish I had had the chance to try.

My only complaint about New Modern Grill is its short hours: it's only open from 6 am to 6 pm on most days. However, according to a comment on Yelp, they are open 24 hours on Fridays and Saturdays. If this is true, I know what I'll be doing this weekend. If you are in the mood for a classic, no-frills meal, I highly recommend New Modern Grill. 

Mimosas and Brunch at Angelina Ristorante

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of trying out another neighborhood restaurant (right next to Wrigley BBQ, actually) with a mimosa brunch at Angelina Ristorante! This Italian restaurant is located at the corner of Addison and Broadway on the North Side and offers bottomless champagne and a brunch menu item for the very reasonable price of $21.... which is precisely why my friends Lydia, Julija, and I decided to check it out. We arrived right at 11 AM and were seated immediately. Our waiter was extremely friendly and brought over the champagne as soon as we uttered the words "champagne brunch." You can have the champagne on its own, or at no extra charge you can have orange juice added to make a mimosa or peach juice added to make a bellini. 

Frittata Toscano ($8 on regular brunch menu, $21 with bottomless champagne)

I had the hardest time deciding what to order from this delicious brunch menu (mostly because I could not, for the life of me, decide between sweet or savory) but I eventually landed on the Fritatta Toscano. It is described as an "Italian style baked omelet with red pepper puree and goat cheese, with panchos papas and toast." It was absolutely to-die-for. The omelet was perfectly baked and the veggies were well distributed throughout. The show-stealer of this dish was the goat cheese, which added a deliciously tart and creamy texture to the meal. The panchos papas were perfectly cooked as breakfast potatoes should be, and the toast was a nice addition.

Lydia ordered the Eggs Benedict with ham which I had the pleasure of trying. They were wonderfully executed eggs benny with a perfectly runny poached egg. Julija had the bagels and lox and our waiter was even so kind as to bring her extra salmon when she needed just a little more to construct her bagel. All in all, we had such a nice experience with this brunch. The atmosphere was great, service exceptional, and the champagne was truly, truly bottomless. Having tried the brunch, I would love to try out dinner at this adorable spot. The menu is slightly pricier, but I think it would be the perfect date-night spot. I had even considered stopping here for my pre-marathon carboload session..... but decided to order in instead ;-)

Happy November! -Megan