Oceanique

Hello Everyone,

My girlfriend celebrated her birthday this week and I decided to take her to Oceanique in Evanston.  I have heard good things about it and I bought a groupon for it a while back so it was the perfect opportunity!

La Tache

Hello Everyone,

My girlfriend and I went to brunch the other weekend.  Brunch doesn’t get the respect it deserves.  We like to go to brunch every once in a while, it’s like something different than the usual.  Breakfast, lunch, dinner every day can get old and it’s nice to mix things up a little bit with a brunch here and there.  Personally, I love brunch food (Egg benedicts are my favorite)!  There are a lot of great brunch places in Chicago (and I hope to blog about every one of them).  There are a few brunch places in Andersonville/Edgewater that are a short walk from my apartment.  This time we decided to try La Tache, a French restaurant that serves breakfast, brunch, and dinner.

 

It was actually a nice day when we went to La Tache.  We arrived there around 2pm on a Sunday and it was pretty empty.  There were a few people eating in the outside patio and a couple of people in the inside dining area.  They were all towards the end of their meal already, so we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves.  La Tache actually closes at 2:30pm on Sundays (but reopens at 5:30pm for dinner) so we were the last guests for brunch.

The menu was pretty good and there were plenty of choices.  My girlfriend went with one of the specials, Beefcakes.  It was actually quite an interesting combination of food: pancakes, beef patty, bacon, egg, and maple syrup.  The beef patty was sandwiched between the two pancake flaps and it was all topped with bacon and a fried egg.  The egg wasn’t as runny as I thought it would be…maybe it cooked a little before she broke it up?  The maple syrup was very sweet and went well with the pancakes and bacon. A little weird with the beef patty…but overall wasn’t bad.

I had the ham omelets.  It was quite simple: eggs, rosemary ham, roasted peppers, and brie cheese (I LOVE BRIE!).  The omelet came with a side of breakfast potatoes and bread.  Even though the omelet itself was pretty ordinary, brie cheese made it 5 times better.  The side of multi-grain (I got wheat) bread was also very good.

Usually, I am not a big fan of alcoholic drinks during the first meal of the day, but I will always make an exception for mimosas.  Orange juice and champagne is just delicious.  The mimosa at La Tache wasn’t all that bad; the champagne was slightly sharp (a little more than I would like).

They also have a daily special for dinner and some of which I would be interested in coming back and trying.

Overall, it was a positive experience at La Tache.  I probably wouldn’t go back for brunch until I try some of the other places in the neighborhood.  The price isn’t bad as well…two people with a mimosa came out to be $35 overall.