(Chicago) – I heard some good feedbacks from my friends about the food at Sola. When I saw this place available in restaurant.com, I quickly bought a $25 gift certificate for a cheaper price. However, these coupons have a lot of restrictions. For instance, it can only be used during weekdays, excluding Fridays, which is perfect for me; I prefer that. I hate it when my food experience is affected by annoying crowd and long wait times just to get a table.
So it is a slow Wednesday summer night, I am off to Sola to validate what I heard through the grapevine.
The ambiance is neat and classy. Not over-decorated but elegantly composed without intimidating its diners. And the hanging light pendants make the room warm and more intimate. I am excited to see their menu. The items are not the usual dishes that you see in a hundreds of restaurants around. I heard as well that they change their menu every month based on what locally grown ingredients are in season. Very impressive!
Sola’s offerings, as described in the menu, seem well thought out, daring in terms of the use of ingredients and intriguing at the same time. I hope the food descriptions get translated to great tasting dishes.
Enough of the menu, we called our waiter who is very accommodating and knowledgeable on everything in the menu, and ordered the most interesting dishes I could find.
Started with a free amuse-bouche of smoked sable fish with apple and chive salad on crispy wanton.
Followed by an appetizer of pork belly and crab with quinoa, kim chee, charred onion in miso sauce.
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Then, moved to the first entrée of berkshire pork 3 ways; grilled loin, braised cheek, kalua pork, chinese broccoli, figs, bacon bread pudding, port–curry jus.
Another entrée of wagyu hangar steak with grilled asparagus, stir fried jasmine rice, slow cooked farm egg, swiss chard, mustard demi glace.
I got a side of this wonderful truffle parmesan fries. The truffle was so evident and I just couldn’t stop eating this. My friend got a Sola-original cocktail “Wicked Wahini” (House-candied ginger vodka, pineapple, passion fruit juice, pepper mill and floating star anise) which smelled really fragrant but a little weird to my taste. I settled for a glass of Australian Shiraz, instead.
Wow! That’s the only word I could say after swallowing the last piece of truffle fries. The meats are perfectly cooked, the combination of different components bound by its savory sauce worked pleasantly, the textures are exciting to the tongue and portion size is big enough to appreciate all the flavors without making me feel bloated. Brilliant!
One thing I forgot before the night ended was to ask our waiter why the restaurant is named Sola. I know it could mean “alone” but I can’t imagine that this place will ever be alone. The food is creative and delicious that many diners will accompany Sola every night and come back again and again. If they meant it as “unique”, yes, I agree. There is something exceptional with Sola. Kudos to Chef Carol.