mk North (long)

Today is the 21st anniversary of our wedding, and Mrs. F picked out mk North. We'd eaten at the downtown mk a few years ago (while my cousin was exec. chef there), and had been meaning to try out the north version.

I was not terribly impressed by the place. It was good, but not the kind of fantastic food experience I'd had at the original.

First courses:
Bread served was light, crunchy, salty crust. Excellent.

Glass of red zinfandel: excellent wine, decent sized serving, light and fruity first taste with deep rich following flavor.

Lolla Rosa salad (daily special): Red lettuce, beets, vinaigrette, queso fresco, carmelized cibolla onions. Could have used a more vibrant cheese than the fresco, but was otherwise fine.

Stuffed Squash Blossom (daily special): stuffed with crab and goat cheese (not crab cheese, duh!), light tempura batter, served with a variety of lightly-cooked vegetables and a tasty green broth/sauce. The broth was delicious, and I happened to be craving some veggies, so it was very nice, but the squash blossoms really didn't deliver much crab punch. Overall, only OK. There were three small blossoms instead of the advertised two, so that's a plus.

Main Courses:
Lamb T-Bones (daily special): Also, served three when promised two. This was delicious, served with roasted tomatoes and a red wine sauce. Big, meaty chops (although t-bones are a pain to eat when dressed up nice). Best dish of the evening.

Ravioli: Goat cheese-filled half-circles were very tasty, but these were served with the same broth/veggies as the tempura (plus some shavings of morel). It was still tasty the second time, but I felt the waiter should have told me I was ordering basically the same thing twice. So this was my biggest disappointment.

Pomme Frites with Truffle Cream: One of their signatures, and terrific. Crisp salty fries, and a light mayo-like dipping sauce for them (this spawned jokes about "New Truffle-Flavored Miracle Whip" with artificial truffle flavor).

Dessert:
Creme Brulee: Excellent, freshly burnt crust atop cool, soft custard. Fresh berries (straw, blue, rasp, mull) on top.

So why do I feel negative about this? Mainly the duplicate sauce thing, but overall I don't think all the dishes held together well. The downtown visit each main course was matched with starches (salsify, potato, etc.), this time the menu seems overly aimed at the Atkins crowd (creme brulee and frites notwithstanding). Even the pasta dish was mostly veggies. I should have probably gone with my first hunch and had the salmon (but Mrs. F doesn't like fish and we intended to share).

Service was superior but not amazing. Value was OK (total bill with tip, two glasses of wine was $105). You can enjoy a meal there, but compared to our 20th at Carlos (admittedly twice the price), not a particularly memorable experience.

Joel...

Interesting that you feel this way. Mr. Kwe has been there for a couple of business dinners and his feeling has always been "eh".

Happy anniversay, btw!

Joel:

I find you are absolutely correct about MK North. I have always enjoyed the cuisine and the service at MK's, but I guess that they feel that the North suburbs can not support a restaurant of that quality (despite Trio (weep, weep), Carlos, Le Titi de Paris, Le Francais). At any rate, when my wife and I went, we found the food competent, but uninteresting and unmemorable, and the ambiance just like many other upscale suburban restaurants. It is worth the drive to River North IMHO. When we decide that we don't want to fight the downtown traffic we will sometimes drive to Sanford's in Milwaukee - the drive time is about the same from where we are, if Chi-land traffic is stalled as usual.

GAF