Chicago Eats - Mercat a la Planxa - Update 1

Update (March, 2012)

My friend who is visiting Chicago again saw my original post (below) on Mercat and wanted to go. Really, it was the pulpo con patatas that really sold her and reminded her of her trip to Spain. So we went, and I was happy to go again.

We got some of the dishes I had already tried because they were so good; the same starter bread (just as good as I remember), the pulpo con patatas (not as tender as I remember but still good), along with the bacon wrapped dates (even better this time around). We got some new dishes this time:

Pimientos de Padron - flash fried Padron peppers

A nice complement to eat with our "main" dishes.

Tocino con Cidra - slow cooked Holland Pork Belly w/Black Truffle Slaw

 I'm pretty sure that the pork belly sauce had truffle oil in it. Why? If the slaw actually had black truffle, why unnecessarily complicate the dish with a generous helping of the much inferior truffle oil? It didn't ruin the dish, but it definitely detracted from it.

Mar Muntanya - serrano ham wrapped around yellow fin tuna, potato croquette, topped w/foie gras 

AMAZING.

Roasted cauliflower with manchego cheese

Very good, this dish reminded us of a high-end cheddar broccoli casserole.

Octopus w/salad of frisee

Too. Much. Salt. Too. Much. Dressing.

Cepes y Butifarra Coca (Flatbread) - mushrooms and catalan sausage w/manchego cheese

Hey, salt. Think I got enough of you from the octopus salad. But overall this was tasty, mushrooms were the main hero of the dish. Just wish they'd tone down the added salt. The catalan sausage probably adds more than enough sodium on its own.

Overall, visit #2 was a success, marred by the use of truffle oil in the pork belly dish and too much salt/dressing in the octopus salad.

However, service at the end of the meal nearly ruined the experience. Waiting 30 minutes for our server to come back after getting our table to cleared to either order dessert or get the check is infuriating. Service the first time was fairly good (although not great), so this will be something to keep in mind as I plan future meals.

Original Post (July, 2011)

Another day, another celebrity chef's restaurant. Last night we ventured over to Mercat a la Planxa, which is located on S. Michigan Avenue, with head chef being none other than Iron Chef Jose Garces. A tapas restaurant with 3 others in my party for the night, I knew I would have the opportunity to try a lot of food. As always, pictures and my quick (I promise this time) thoughts ahead.

tomato bread to start

Bread for the table - basically like pico de gallo on top of buttery bread. Delicious and light, only the ends of it seemed to be at all greasy. Great way to start.

pulpo con patatas - spanish octopus w/potatoes and paprika

I love mollusks, they taste delicious. Mollusks also have some sweet dance moves. As you can see, this dish had a lot of paprika in it, with some acid from what I would assume is lemon juice. I'm a regular Sherlock Holmes. Don't know if the potatoes really added anything as the dish itself wasn't very strongly flavored, and not at all salty. However, the octopus was awesome.

datiles con almendras - bacon wrapped dates stuffed w/almonds

My friend told me a few different time about these dates - I'm not sure if it was because she didn't remember telling me about them, or if she just loved them so much. Well, it was probably the latter because these things were my favorite dish of the night. It was a classic sweet + savory combination that worked so well. Get these.

truita de patata - spanish omelette with spinach and potatoes

Good ol' eggs and potatoes. One of my tablemates commented that this tasted more like potatoes than egg - I would agree, but when you have the harder texture of the potato against something as soft as egg, I think you're bound to notice the potato more. Good dish, but it was overshadowed by the other stuff I ate.

llenties i cigrons - black lentils and garbanzo beans w/goat cheese and tomato

I was surprised at how much I liked this dish - very creamy, well seasoned, and not a lot of saltiness. All good things. I'm glad Chef Garces went with a goat cheese for this one - the subtle and soft flavor went really well with the creamy lentils.

albondigas de venera - scallop and shrimp meatballs

Scallop and shrimp. Two sea creatures that are delicious. Did you know that scallops have over 1 billion eyes? Wikipedia has the real number. Some might not agree with mushing up scallops and shrimp into ball form, but I think it was genius. I like meat balls, I like seafood, I like this dish. Like scallopballs (not to be confused with scallop testes) with chunks of shrimp in it, if that makes sense.

serrano ham and fig salad

Can't go to a Spanish restaurant without getting some of that jamon, right? The jamon de Iberico de bellato (or something like that, basically Iberico pork-belly ham) was a bit much on el dinero side, but we got this ham and fig salad based on a recommendation from a friend. Very good, although I didn't taste much fig until I went digging around looking for it. Serrano ham was delicious, albeit extraordinarily salty. I guess I'm more used to the more subtle flavor of proscuitto.

pinxtos muranos - lamb brochettes wrapped in bacon

Well, this was good. But bacon wrapped anything is good. One point here is that I didn't get much of a lamb taste. I hope this wasn't due to being two pitchers of sangria deep, but I felt like the lamb was overpowered by the bacon + sauce. Sauce was sweet btw.

paella valenciana - chicken & chorizo paella w/artichoke and tomato salad

I love paella. I usually like rice dishes. Good flavors (chorizo in here was great), but the chicken was pretty bland on its own. Probably a good thing considering that my salt sensing 'buds were in overdrive. I prefer paella del mar (I think I can speak el espanol, I really can't though), and I actually prefer Cafe Babareeba's paella to this one. However, I (we) was (were) really full at this point, so maybe that impacted what I tasted. Oh right, and that damn sangria...

croquettes de xocolate - chocolate and caramel filled croquettes

So good. Deep fried balls filled with chocolate and caramel? YEA GIMME. Shove one of these with the banana cream into your fat face and wait for a gush of awesomeness and sweetness. There were 6 croquettes and 4 of us...but seeing how that candle there was for me (I just turned 1!), I decided to grab two. Someone else was smart enough to grab the last one.

Overall, a great dinner. I'll definitely be back, if for nothing else but to get my hands on those dates again. Maybe I'll bring a date for the dates (probably not given that I make jokes like that).