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La Fonda
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As soon as I contacted my Webmeister with news of my Billy Strayhorn coup, he suggested that we sit down and talk about it. And as long as we were doing that, he said, why not sit down and talk at a place that we could review for the site. By coincidence, he had a new favorite in his neighborhood. And that's how we happened to dine in late July at La Fonda, on Chicago's North Side. We met outside the restaurant, where there are a number of tables for al fresco dining, although Chicago's Broadway will not be mistaken for the Great White Way any time soon. But like all true webmeisters, mine likes to hang out indoors in dim light, so we headed inside. La Fonda is on two levels. You walk in from the street to a high-ceilinged bar with a few tables for dining. A mezzanine level has the main dining room, and that's where we went. Décor is what you would expect from a Mexican/Central American restaurant decorated by someone with a sense of restraint. Earth colors in the dining room are accented by a few, tastefully hung wall hangings. We ordered drinks, and two of us had mojitos, a Cuban drink of rum and lemon juice with fresh mint leaves. I was inspired to go home and concoct my own version. Here it is. La Fonda bills itself as a "Latino Grill," and you will find menu items from Colombia and a number of other stops in Central and South America. And how many restaurants of any kind have you been at lately when one of the appetizer choices is blood pudding with a sauce of guajillo chiles and tostones (fried green plantains)? The webmeister wanted to try that, but no one was willing to share with him. So he got part of his wish by ordering a plate of just the plaintains. Billing themselves in this dish as tostonachos, the plantain slices were pounded flat and deep fried (twice), then topped with melted cheese and guacamole, with a cup of black bean salsa in the middle of the plate. His wife, Kay, had tamalitos (little tamales) with guajillo sauce. I had a wonderful ceviche, seafood marinated in citrus juice to "cook" it without benefit of heat. Husband Bob had one of the hits of the evening: Arepa, a little cake made from sweet corn, topped with bacon wrapped shrimp and red pepper aioli. It was wonderful, and the rest of us almost sampled Bob right out of his own appetizer. Then the main courses came, and we realized with horror that having both an appetizer and a main course at La Fonda is a not task to be undertaken by those who don't have healthy appetites. Choosing independently, all of us had chosen dishes featuring beef. That isn't tough at La Fonda, where a lot of beef is to be found on the menu. The webmeister and I had both chosen the Plata Montanero, a combination of a tenderized steak grilled to order, fried pork rind (no, really), white rice, black beans, sliced avocado and fried lengths of plantain (the sweet kind, not like the green ones we had eaten earlier), all crowned with a fried egg. As a bonus, not listed on the menu, each came with a small, crisp-baked arepa. The webmeister's long-suffering spouse had the Plato Mixto. That gave her half a chicken breast, half a churrusco (grilled beef tenderloin), garlic shrimp, black beans, fresh corn salsa and more sweet plantains. Only Bob has a non-combo dish. He chose the Bistec A La Criolla and got a sirloin steak simmered in a sauce of onions and tomatoes. After all that, only the webmeister could look dessert in the face. Everyone has to have a special talent. I sing; he chows down. Dessert choices at La Fonda are very limited, perhaps recognizing that most people won't be able to eat them. He chose Tres Leches. Translated literally as Three Milks, this dessert if a high, light cake made with milk, condensed milk and evaporated milk. Our waitress brought extra forks, but I don't do desserts, and the others were mostly too stuffed for anything but a small bite. We walked out unsteadily into the warm night, eager for a bit of walking to get the blood circulating again. We all swore that we would go back, maybe for a meal made of multiple appetizers. La Fonda has it all: excellent food, excellent service and reasonable prices. If you're a Chicago North Sider, you owe it to yourself to check it out. La Fonda |
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