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Tweet
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This is the Webmeister doing another solo report. Spider and I and our spouses were going to dine at Tweet for this review, but she got a gig, and her audiences always come first. Life is full of handy rules of thumb. Nelson Algren gave us the classic "Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own." Food lovers have their own set of dicta, two of which would have to be "Never go to a restaurant based solely on its name" and "Never pick a wine based on its label." So I feel I have to make some excuses to explain why three of us ventured through the snow drifts on the coldest night of Chicago's winter to a restaurant called Tweet, carrying one bottle of wine with a possum on the label and another, labeled Blockheadia Ringnosii, with a picture of a multicolored ringnosed blockheaded figure." Both of the wines (Tweet is a BYOB establishment) were highly rated by Wine Spectator, and the kitchen of Tweet is home to not one, but two chefs who worked for Charlie Trotter, a man not known to tolerate second best. As bitter as the weather was, it was probably the right time for a first trip to Tweet. Just as the relief of putting on an extra blanket on a cold night is sweet, so was walking out of the cold and into the warmth (from central heating and from hospitality) of a narrow restaurant where half the clientele seems to know both each other and the management and where a twenty-five-below windchill factor didn't seem to leave any tables untaken. The menu is relatively short, with a selection of one soup, three salads, three "small plates," seven entrees and a single take-it-or-leave-it a la carte side dish (mascarpone creamed spinach). The soup changes daily, as does a fish entrée. Also offered (and chosen by one of us) is a three-course prix-fixe meal. When we were there, it included a salad of organic lettuces and herbs with shallot vinaigrette, which was also available on the regular menu, a ragout of rabbit, which was not, and a Sambuca tiramisu, also not on the menu. With one of my dining companions having rabbit, I really should have sampled something else. But somehow I fixated on the rabbit, so I ordered a braised rabbit from the menu, served with a baby carrot hazelnut tartlet, dandelion greens and Dijon demiglace. My rabbit was a little bit dry, although not unpleasantly so, but the wonderful tartlet made the dish worth the price of admission. The rabbit in the ragout, on the other hand, was perfectly rendered in a rich sauce with root vegetables. Our other dining companion wanted a meatless entrée, and so settled on what was billed as faragne polenta. We had to ask what this was, and we learned that the cornmeal we expected for polenta had been augmented with buckwheat. It was an inspired addition. The polenta itself was served with braised greens, wild mushrooms, charred tomatoes and a sauce of bleu cheese and walnuts. If we were expecting Trotter-like perfectly sculpted studies in food in the center of a large plate, we were quickly disabused of that notion. Chef Janice Martin keeps her mentor's devotion to fresh local ingredients and skillful preparation, but she fills the plate more with food than with sculpture. Not that presentation is lacking. It isn't. But there's no doubt when you see your entrée that you're going to get enough to eat. Desserts were the realm of Sous Chef Kimberly Stewart, the kitchen's other Trotter grad. Aside from the Sambuca tiramisu that came with the prix fixe dinner, our table shared a trifle of cream, chocolate cake and berries (in a drinking glass with a map of Italy on it), and my own choice/favorite, a molten-centered chocolate cake with coconut chocolate chip ice cream and caramelized bananas. Tweet doesn't have an espresso machine, but the coffee is good. Granted we brought our own wine (and incurred no corkage fee), but the meal seemed almost a bargain. Three of us ate our fill and more and walked out the door only a little more than a hundred dollars lighter, tip included. I spoke with Michelle Fire, the owner/proprietor, before we left because I just had to know where the name of the restaurant came from. She told me that her original concept for the restaurant was for brunch only (which they still serve and which I plan to try once the ice is off the sidewalks), and was talking with a friend about concepts surrounding "early bird." Suddenly, her friend just said, "Tweet." Like so much else about the restaurant, it was the perfect choice. Tweet |
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