huevos con vino

Topolobampo is the brainchild of Rick Bayless, a major American chef and former Iron Chef competitor.  Topolobampo sits within the Frontera Grill restaurant in Chicago; I had been there once before, about a year ago, and the experience had been so good I was interested in repeating it with a different set of friends.  The first time, I had about 4-5 glasses of wine, all of which were different.  This time, it was a mezcal kind of evening…no wine (although they had a Littorai that really caught my eye) was served in the end.  Just lots and lots of mezcal.

Dinner (reprinted from the menu):

• Ceviche Primaveral - lime-marinated halibut cheeks with salsa bruta (homemade mayo, poblano, grilled ramps, pickled fiddlehead ferns) and Tracey’s baby sunflower greens; cured halibut “cracker” and crushed pepitas
• Tamal Colado - Yucatecan polenta-style tamal, layered with herby house-made ricotta, local spring nettles and chipotle-glazed shiitake mushrooms; morita-infused black bean broth
• Trucha en Tamal - Rushing Waters trout roasted in corn husks, stuffed with wood-roasted poblano chile, wild ramps, grilled calabacitas, corn and herby rice; served with creamy tomatillo-poblano sauce and chunky-fresh avocado salsa

Drinks:

• 1921 Reposado margarita (one)
• Del Maguey Minero mezcal margarita (three)
• Crema de Mezcal hot chocolate (two)
• Crema de Mezcal straight (one and a half)

As you can see, it was a busy night.  I love good mezcal: It’s a combination of the smoky, earthy flavor of tequila with the roasted, malty flavor of scotch.  Del Maguey make some of the world’s best mezcal and while I wanted to try their Pechuga, at $35/glass I didn’t want to taste it that badly.

Overall, I highly recommend Topolobampo, although the main waitress we had this time seemed sort of joyless and bland.  The waiter we had a year ago (Oliver) had flair, interesting conversation points, and terrific wine suggestions.  I missed Oliver this time around…*)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006 at 3:13 pm and is filed under restaurants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.