OON

802 W Randolph St
Chicago, IL 60661
(312) 929-2555


Had a pretty semi enjoyable dinner there last night. i heard about OON recently on Eater Chicago. Basically, some young chef from Saigon Sisters branched out and opened his own shizzz.. While I appreciate the new twist on Vietnamese Food, i was not super impressed and did not prefer anything to the original versions of what was being riffed on. Meaning, I would have happily eaten at a more traditional Vietnamese Spot. Portions were on the small side, it was definitely going for more precious than hardy. I had three dishes last night with a three drinks and dinner came out to 70 bucks with tip. I had one cocktail that was supposed to have tequila, it was just like a liquified jolly rancher to my taste.


I was kind of taken a back to see a young white dude dressed in a chefs outfit walking around the dining room. I seriously almost left at that point. I then heard the guy talking to two girls sitting at the bar next to me. He looked at one of their plates and said, "that dish you ordered is my favorite thing on the menu but, it looks like THEY gave you a small portion" I was thinking to myself, did the chef just refer to the kitchen as THEY. Uh, isn't the chef's job to watch everything that comes out of their kitchen. Talk about placing the blame on someone else. if you are the chef, there is no, they in the kitchen, it is you.. Perhaps if he wasn't walking around chatting up the customers, he would have better control over the quality of food that comes out of HIS kitchen.

I started with the papaya salad with pork belly.. This dish was not very good. There was no unity in the dish. Peanuts were really small bits, the sauce wasn't really blended well, it was all kind of boring.. The little strips of pork belly were cold and not really pleasant to eat. Kind of had the slick fat that coats your tongue.. Fortunately, there was barely any of it on the plate. I have better version at almost every placeI have ever had a papaya salad.

Next up was the foie pho. This was a really nice concept. Foie nicely cooked sitting in a duck broth. The duck broth was really nice. The problem here was, they gave you a huge bowl of broth and very little else. There was a little nugget of foie, there were perhaps three fork full of noodles and a couple of insanely thing bits of duck. There needed to be quiet a bit more noodles, there needed to be more herbs and there definitely needed to be a wedge of lime served with the dish. So much broth, nothing else.

Lastly, i had octopus tentacles with wheat berries, fennel, dots of smoked strawberry puree and chorizo. This dish was really nice. I enjoyed everything. Wheat berries were cooked well, the octopus had a nice char on it and when combined with the chorizo and strawberry, it was very nice. This was the clear winner of the evening.

The restaurant is in the early stages as it opened last week. I hope the chef stays on top of things and makes the necessary adjustments.

Daniel wrote:I was kind of taken a back to see a young white dude dressed in a chefs outfit walking around the dining room. I seriously almost left at that point.

Hope if you ever go to Pok Pok you don't see Andy Ricker!

I have eaten at Pok Pok.

I was not referring to his race, I was referring to the fact that this meticulously dressed guy, was just having a pleasant chat in the dining room with customers at 830 during dinner service.. I was even more disturbed when he blamed the kitchen for putting out a bad plate. Not to mention, why even say something to a guest while they are eating the dish. He also did nothing to correct the situation or even go back and get them a new plate. It was a strange moment.

Daniel wrote:I was kind of taken a back to see a young white dude dressed in a chefs outfit walking around the dining room.

Daniel wrote:I was not referring to his race

In any event, I recently went to Oon and Daniel, you'll be happy to hear that White Chef stayed in the kitchen. As for the food, I really enjoyed the flavors but was a little surprised at the portions. It's fairly clear the kitchen is operating under the assumption that people are going to get a small plate and a large plate. Unaware, I only ordered a large plate - the pork roulade, which came with betel leaf, potato miso-puree, pickled apricot and a caramel sauce. The pickled apricot was, not surprisingly the most interesting thing on the plate, but the combination of sweet, umami, and tart all worked really well with a really excellent tender piece of pork.

I did try a bite of someone else's octopus dish and agree with Daniel that it was really, really good.

Oddly, while even the large plates aren't all that big, the desserts are massive. I don't remember the details all that well and the dessert menu isn't online, but it was a massive piece of chocolate cake that had some yuzu in there. I'm not a big cake person generally, but I ate well over my share of it.

Unfortunately for the chef, it got trashed in Time Out Magazine. I'm happy you had a good meal there. You only had one thing I had and while I didn't say the octopus was really, really good, I did enjoy it. Though, without going back and reminding myself what the dish was, it was fairly forgettable. The whole experience was fairly forgettable good and bad.. Well, except for the chef blaming his kitchen for a mistake. That I have never heard before.

I think next on my list will be Saigon Sisters when I head back to Chicago in a few weeks.

Looks like the chef was working the room the night of the bad review.

Eversman, formerly of Saigon Sisters and our Breakout Chef of the Year in the 2011 Eat Out Awards, walked around the room, visiting tables and suggesting dishes for guests to order

Update. Had dinner at OON last night. Was surprised on a Tuesday evening around 8pm to see only about 35% of the tables occupied (while there was a line next door at Au Cheval). I might have suspected - Open Table reservations were available two days before for our choice of seatings. Doesn't bode well for a relatively young restaurant on Restaurant Row.

We had the chilled udon noodles, the grilled octopus, and for entrees the scallop and quail. The menu no longer offers the foie phob (somewhat disappointingly, as I wanted to try it). For us, the chilled udon noodles were the winner of the evening. I disagree with Time Out's review, that the noodles were gluey. They were a bit dense, but not gluey. The yuzu-soy dashi was flavorful, and I thought the herbs in the broth added nice flavor. Peekytoe crab and shimeji mushrooms rounded out the dish. The bread course, fried bao with a lemon aioli, was actually quite good -- freshly fried, crispy outside and soft inside, and hot (though a little bit oily), and went nicely with the lemon aioli. With these first two items, our meal was off to a strong start.

The grilled octopus was good, but not great. It had a bit of the char that was mentioned above, but was not overcooked as the Time Out review suggested. I just thought this dish was disjointed -- the wheatberries & fennel made a nice complement to the octopus, but the fried chorizo and smoked strawberry sauce didn't seem to fit. The smoked strawberry sauce was indeed over smoked, and weirdly sweet, while the fried chorizo didn't seem to go with anything else in the dish, both texturally and flavor-wise.

We both enjoyed our entrees. The quail had a nice house-made sriracha on the side, and both dishes were beautifully presented. As previously mentioned, the portions are indeed on the smaller side. 1 quail on my entree and 4 medium sized scallops on the other.

There was a slight mix up in terms of service -- we were brought mussels that we didn't order (we turned them away), and the same mussels showed up on our check at the end of the evening. Otherwise, the service was fine (and definitely staffed for more patrons, rather than a 2/3rds empty restaurant). Dinner for 2 with 1 glass of wine including tax/tip = $105.

Overall - a nice meal, if forgettable. Glad I tried it, but I'm not in a rush to go back. I think I enjoyed Eversman at Saigon Sisters when he was doing a more authentic Asian style, as I'm not generally too excited about Asian fusion as I also prefer the original versions of most dishes.

Wings and potstickers probably weren't the first things you'd expect to eat at OON, Matt Eversman's contemporary Asian envelope-pusher, but true to form the crafty culinarian gets new ideas "Out Of Nowhere," inspired to add what he calls "a taste of Asian-gastro" to the menu. So along with all the stunners implanted elsewhere on the menu, diners at OON can now enjoy modern riffs on familiar favorites such as wings, potstickers, and fried rice. It's gastropub meets Asian modernity, personified via sweet 'n' spicy chicken wings with kimchi spices, cucumber kimchi, and herbed crème fraîche; bourbon-braised pork potstickers with kabocha squash puree, pickled grilled onions, green onions, and soy-chile sauce; and roast pork belly fried rice with egg, Brussels sprouts, shallots, scallions, and mushrooms.

http://www.diningchicago.com/articles/2 ... -creations

I wonder if they are trying to attract the after-work bar dining crowd, which Kabocha seems to be doing with its ramen.

Annnd they are closed

http://chicago.eater.com/archives/2013/ ... s-done.php

I have to admit I kept meaning to go there, but I have a long list of restaurants to eat at and it never managed to float to the top of the list. Maybe Chicago dining in the West Loop is now just saturated unless you are offering something really very different from what's currently available? And OON was very close to somewhat similar restaurants like the chef's former Saigon Sisters and Embeya.

mgmcewen wrote:Annnd they are closed

http://chicago.eater.com/archives/2013/ ... s-done.php

I have to admit I kept meaning to go there, but I have a long list of restaurants to eat at and it never managed to float to the top of the list. Maybe Chicago dining in the West Loop is now just saturated unless you are offering something really very different from what's currently available? And OON was very close to somewhat similar restaurants like the chef's former Saigon Sisters and Embeya.

Too bad they didn't make it; I had similar feelings about them as you. I had meant to try them, but too many other new places to try (and old favorites to return to); I love Embeya and the menu seemed rather similar - so when I was in West Loop and seeking that style of cuisine Embeya always won out. Will be interesting to see what moves in; definitely prime real estate for a restaurant, but agree lots of competition. I know Boka Group had mentioned opening a steak venue in West Loop in 2014 (and a sushi place in 2014, not sure about location); so that is a possibility. Achatz & Kokonas also mentioned a new West Loop project for 2014. We shall see...

"For me, with such a dynamic team, it was unfortunate that team wasn't marketed and embraced," McDaniel, now at The Gage and Henri, says. "Lack of capital and lack of quality marketing is death for any concept."

"Lack of quality marketing," was a bit of a slap to the marketing team involved who lured Matt Eversman away from Saigon Sisters, whom this marketing team was representing at the time.

Regards,