BONGO ROOM

He says:
Several years ago my grad school roommate, who is always the first to know about everything cool (she knew about blogs, Sufjan Stevens, and Barack Obama at least 3 years before everyone else!) took me to Chicago’s Bongo Room claiming it served the best brunch around. The shops of Wicker Park are filled with funky antiques and avant-garde shoes, but the uber-trendiness surrounding Bongo Room doesn’t hold a candle to what’s going on inside of it …

With a hodgepodge of exposed brick walls, lime green accents, and capacious wooden booths occupied by hipsters and tots alike, the Bongo Room clearly thrives on its eclectic décor and clientele. Its free-wheeling vibe is complemented by the adventurousness of its kitchen, which consistently churns out dishes more daring and creative than any other eatery I’ve ever found. Pancakes topped with nutella and vanilla sauce in a chessboard pattern? Check. A croissant breakfast sandwich with hollandaise and muenster? Got it. That the Bongo Room can reinvent nearly every standard breakfast item with as much verve as it does easily confirms its status as the best brunch spot in America.

She says:
We recently visited the new location in the South Loop of Chicago, and so we’ve now found the other best brunch spot in America. Shiny and new, the downtown location attracts the same crowd as the Wicker Park original. And the food is just as good.

As soon as I saw it on the menu, I knew I had to order the chocolate tower French toast. I believe that they concocted this dish with me in mind. Made with bittersweet chocolate chunk bread stuffed with maple mascarpone, the toast is served with a banana crème brulee sauce and banana slices. The thick slices of bread were actually not that sweet, but with shaved chocolate melting over the top, the dish achieved an acceptable degree of chocolatey-ness. Dipping it in the crème brulee sauce added some needed sweetness. As a whole, it came together quite nicely.

However, as shocking as you might find this coming from a chocolate-lover such as me, I agreed with everyone else at the table that the lemon ricotta pancakes were hands down the morning’s winner. The ricotta created a very light pancake which, when flavored with lemon zest, were like a gift from an angel. Each bite was made even more heavenly by the topping of crushed gingersnap and brown sugar butter.

Another great thing about Bongo Room is you can ask for half-orders, which alleviates the dilemma of having to choose between so many delectable dishes. As a result, on top of our pancake and French toast half-orders, a friend and I also managed to scarf down an order of eggs benedict. The variety we chose came with spinach, roasted red pepper, and a feta hollandaise sauce. It was certainly very good, although less interesting than the other dishes we tried. The accompanying rosemary-sprinkled roasted potatoes were very tasty.

He says:
Bongo Room’s breakfast burrito isn’t as innovative as its pancakes or French toast, but it’s just as delicious. After all, you can’t go wrong with guacamole and a heap of scrambled eggs wrapped in cilantro-jalapeno tortilla. On our most recent visit, a chipotle sour cream served on the side spiced this bad boy up. If there’s a better breakfast burrito out there, I haven’t tasted it.

We say:
Chicago is blessed to now have two locations serving the best brunch in America.




Bongo Room (Wicker Park)
1470 N. Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago, IL 60622
773-489-0690

Bongo Room (South Loop)
1152 S. Wabash, Chicago, IL 60605
312-291-0100

BUCKHEAD DINER

He says:
For several years now I’ve been obsessed with the whole “high/low” craze. Hoodie-blazers? Awesome. Mac & cheese made with gruyere and white truffle oil? I’ll take it! So when I first heard of the oxymoronic Buckhead Diner (Buckhead = high-class, Diner = low-class … get it?!) I knew Uptown Girl and I would inevitably make an appearance at this Atlanta stalwart.

Located right off Piedmont Road, the Buckhead Diner does its best imitation of a 1950’s diner. Counter seats overlook the open grill and spacious booths are pressed against every wall. The overall décor is a subtle Art Deco. But there are touches of upper-crust modernity throughout as well. The tables are a rich mahogany and the booths are upholstered with buttery-soft leather. There is the valet, who insists on taking your car even though there are plenty of open spots in the parking lot. And then there is, of course, the menu.

She says:
You can order a burger & fries off this extensive menu as easily as you can select the mahi mahi tostada. As Downtown Boy said, Buckhead is all about mixing the high and the low. Luckily, our choices were made easy by the $30 prix-fixe menu (we visited during Buckhead Restaurant Week).

To start, I had the chevril scented crab cake, which came with your typical butter sauce. It was average… I’ve had yummier versions with fresher and sweeter crab, but I’ve also had ones that tasted like the nasty dredges of the ocean floor.

I also tried the Truffled Chicken Salad. It tasted like ordinary chicken salad on a bed of lettuce. Wah-wah.

He says:
I don’t usually wax poetic about salads, but Buckhead Diner’s beef sirloin carpaccio arugula salad must be singled out for praise. This “salad” consisted of fresh spring greens garnished with six strips of sirloin steak. Most fine-dining establishments barely give you that much in their entrees, but Buckhead Diner tossed the medium-rare cuts into the salad like so many grape tomatoes. The beef was juicy and complemented the greens better than I could have imagined – it was totally a Downtown Boy dish!

The soft-shelled crab also hit the spot. Deep fried into a golden-brown perfection, the crab was briny and crunchy in all the right ways.

She says:
After my two average starters, the entrée I ordered finally dressed to impress. The scallops were some of the best I’ve had outside of the Pacific Northwest, seared nicely on the top and bottom, and tender within. They came atop a delicious bed of vegetable risotto, and I almost never like risotto! It was cooked through without displaying the slightest bit of mushiness. At the bottom of the bowl was a puree of peas, which was disgustingly salty, but certainly made the dish look beautiful.

He says:
I was starving, so I opted for the meat and potatoes entrée: Flat Iron Steak and Mashed Potatoes. It was ho-hum. The steak was dry compared to the lovely steak strips in my salad, which makes me wonder how a restaurant can knock one dish out of the park and then completely whiff on another? The lump of potatoes on the side were nothing special.

For dessert we split a crème brulee with chocolate chunks, which we both hated. The crème brulee itself was more gummy than creamy. It also didn’t jive with the chocolate bits buried at the bottom of the dish. Worst of all, the pastry chef used milk chocolate rather than dark, which would have offset the crème brulee’s sweetness.

We say:
Buckhead Diner is a fun choice for upscale eats with a downtown look. But there are as many hits as misses on the menu, so choose carefully.




Buckhead Diner
3073 Piedmont Rd NE, Atlanta, GA 30305
www.buckheadrestaurants.com/diner.html

BLOSSOM

She says:
When you step off the charmed streets of Charleston you want to step into a place like Blossom. With wood tables, warm lighting, and a wood fire grill in the center of the open kitchen, Blossom is both elegant and comfortable. The service also surpasses the usual expectations. One of our friends asked about the vegan-friendliness of the menu and our waiter didn’t bat an eye at his queries; on the contrary, he was very accommodating, bringing olive oil for our friend to dip his bread in and ensuring that all cheese was left off of his food. He also made excellent suggestions about what dishes to order and a bottle of wine to compliment them all. Now that’s good service!

And then there is the fish. Blossom specializes in seafood, almost all of which is locally caught. Maybe that’s not unusual for a town so close to the sea, but it’s not everyday that you experience the quality of fish served at Blossom.

He says:
The steamed mussels Uptown Girl and I shared were outrageously good. They were unusually plump and melt-in-your-mouth delicious. I couldn’t get enough of them. The broth of white wine, tomato, capers, and garlic was the perfect complement, bold yet not so overwhelming as to distract from the mussels. As Uptown Girl can attest, I was happily dipping my bread into the remaining sauce until my entrée arrived.

Our two dining partners chose the chilled beat salad (mache, basil, almonds, champagne vinaigrette) and the porta bella mushroom salad (arugula, apples, garlic aioli, and lemon shallot vinaigrette) and both were very happy.

She says:
The mussels were a tough act to follow, but the grilled yellow fin tuna firmly stood its ground. Seasoned and seared lightly around the edges, the remainder of the thick steak was left rare… a perfect grill job. The port wine reduction added a complex contrast which I loved, although the friend who I shared the dish with thought it was too sweet. The tuna came with Carolina rice (long-grain rice) that was slightly saccharine and tasted a bit creamy, although it had been cooked into a patty so that the edges were almost crunchy, sort of like sticky rice. Delish.

My friend and I also shared the linguine with clams. The homemade pasta was a welcome treat, and the clams were very fresh. My only complaint was that the clams were a bit over-salted, whereas the pasta was a little bland. A bite with pasta and clams was wonderful, but otherwise the dish was slightly off balance.

He says:
I went with the special of the day, a local critter called triggerfish. I’m not usually a fan of mild white fish, but I am definitely a fan of whatever the chefs at Blossom can cook up. The triggerfish was superb, the delicate white flakes of the fish prepared in a mild butter sauce for a result that was by turns light and rich, graceful and awesome.

The one letdown of the night was our vegan friend’s wood-oven grilled vegetable pizza (sans mozzarella). The pizza dough already starts out thin, and without the cheese to retain its moisture, the end result was awfully dry. I suppose this highlights Blossom’s one flaw, its dearth of vegetarian and vegan options. It’s difficult to offer stellar vegan at a seafood joint, I admit, but if a restaurant could pull it off, I’m sure it would be Blossom.

We say:
When in Charleston, eat at Blossom.




Blossom
171 East Bay Street, Charleston, SC 29401
http://www.magnolias-blossom-cypress.com/