The Outpost

A Happy Outpost on a Gloomy Day

I was on a high. Chicago was on a low. It was time for dinner

My high was from my fabulous west coast tour. I loved them and they loved me and I've seldom had a better time.

Chicago's low? To understand that, you have to understand Chicago spring, and you can't do that unless you live here. The bad news: Chicago spring is only three days long. The worse news: the three days are never consecutive. So this year we had a week in April when high temperature records were broken on five days, then a week in May when low temperature records were broken on five days. It was so gloomy that we went to dinner two blocks from Wrigley Field on a game day and there were hardly any people on the street. Usually game day is like Mardi Gras without the beads. And it doesn't matter if the Cubs win or lose, either. The beer tastes the same either way.

So four of us – me and husband Bob and my Webmeister and his wife Kay – wandered into The Outpost. The place had been chosen by the Webmeister, who found out only later that the chef whose work he wanted to taste had left to open his own restaurant elsewhere. Bottom line: we were entering unknown territory.

When you first walk in, before your eyes adjust to the light level, The Outpost looks like hundreds of other Chicago pubs. A bar runs along part of one wall at the entry, and there are a number of tables in the back. As you start to see things better, you notice the differences. The back bar has a better array of liquors than you are used to seeing, the walls have airplane and travel memorabilia instead of sports pictures, and the tables, where you would expect to see baskets of peanuts and bottles of mustard and ketchup, have tablecloths and matching napkins instead. You realize that the half-pound charburger with a Bud draft on the side isn't going to be one of the menu options.

Having served my own time on the staff of a restaurant/bar in New York, I felt for the waitress/hostess who was greeting guests, serving all the tables, and still managing to seem upbeat about it. She brought decent martinis for me and Bob and wine for the Web contingent and allowed us time to study the May, 2002, menu.

If the staff in the kitchen was no bigger than the staff out front, each of them must have had four arms. The menu has nine appetizers and eight entrees, and a few of them were rather ambitious. Not only ambitious, but large, as we soon learned. My bleu cheese tart (I can't resist bleu cheese) was served with apple and frisee salad and candied walnuts (too sweet for me). Common sense told me to take some of it home and save some room for the entree, but common sense lost. Bob had mussels, and there was an empty bed in some bay that night. The mountain of mussels was poached in a spicy Moroccan broth with preserved Meyer lemon and served with grilled raisin fennel bread. The Webmeister had a smoked chicken/red onion/marscapone pizza that filled the plate. Kay had pheasant springrolls with gingered Napa cabbage and soy balsamic vinaigrette.

We got some much-needed breathing room before it was time to tuck into the entrees. I opted for pan roasted chicken with sugar snap peas, cherry tomatoes and arugula. It was fall-off-the-bone tender and not at all dry. Bob had a rack of lamb with quinoa goat cheese creamed spinach and chili-infused lamb juices. I suspect that he just liked the way the word "quinoa" rolled off his tongue as he kept offering us tastes of it. Kay had Alaskan king salmon with fingerling potatoes, baby fennel and hedgehog mushrooms. She deemed it to be verging on dry, but not bad overall. The Webmeister had moulard duck breast with dried fruit bread pudding, an assortment of different colored chards and foie gras pan sauce. He feels about foie gras like I do about bleu cheese, and he would probably eat it for dessert if they would let him.

I'm not a dessert eater, but I wouldn't have had room anyway. The men were not deterred, although they settled on sharing the crème brulee of the day, which was chocolate. I assume that it was good, because they ate it quickly and with appropriate exclamations.

We were surprised at how much time we had spent, and it's a mark of a good restaurant when you leave feeling that your experience was more than just the food. For a not-unreasonable price, we had good food and a pleasant experience. Next time the weather keeps the Cubs fans away, we'll probably go again.