Mas Restaurant in Wicker Park

Friday evening messycook, her fiance, my DH, and I met up at Mas in Wicker Park. Overall it was a great spot, made better by great company!

We arrived a few minutes after 7 and found messycook and her fiance at the bar drinking very exciting looking mojitos. They had a piece of sugar cane sticking out and were made with some darker rum to give them an interesting two-toned effect. Not to be left out, I ordered one as soon as we sat down. It was a nice mojito but prettier than it was tasty.

We were in no rush to order and luckily the waitress was fine with that. She checked in with us a few times, told us about the specials, but didn't hurry us along. Eventually we got a bit organized and I ordered a bottle of Rioja Crianza. We also ordered four appetizers that we planned to share with each other. The wine was brought over and it was fine, not spectacular but certainly enjoyable. And then our first courses arrived:

• Beet salad with blue cheese (this was a special)
• Empanada - wild mushroom, goat cheese and walnut filling
• Arepa - spicy fried shrimp with Columbian corn cake
• Arrachera - grilled flank steak with heirloom tomatoes and spicy goat cheese

We all shared the appetizers and agreed the shrimp was the best one and the empanada was another winner. They all had good flavor but didn't necessarily bowl us over.

I ordered a second bottle of wine - this time an Argentian Malbec to be served with our entrees. All wine service was prompt and they hit their mark timing wise.

For main course each couple split an entree. Messycook and her fiance ordered the pork chop special (I think it was a pork chop) that was served with morel mushrooms and mashed potatoes. It was a huge portion (16oz.) so perfect to share. The spices were very nice and it cooked with a lovely charred exterior. (My memory may be off on this dish) My DH ordered a different pork dish: chile-cured pork tenderloin served with white beans and truffle scented jus. Again this was very nice.

For dessert we ordered a type of carrot cake that came with a small scoop of ice cream (if memory serves). This was great and messycook and I cleared the plate.

All in all the ambiance and service at Mas were great! I would definitely return. The brunch menu looks delicious and I plan to check it out. The food was all good, but nothing blew us away. It was a fun and energetic spot. I don't remember the total bill - messycook may know. All in all we had 3-4 mixed drinks, 2 bottles of wine, 4 appetizers, 2 entrees, and 1 dessert.

Mas Restaurnat
1670 W. Division
Chicago, Illinois
773-276-8700

Nice review, SpaGirl!
The things that stood out for me, in no particular order, were:
-Mojito wasn't as great as I thought it would be. Had a strange-ish flavor that I can't quite describe. Maybe it was made with dark rum, but somehow I think it was raw sugar granules (usually they are brown).
-The shrimp app. was great because the corn cake with it was very creamy, offsetting the crunchiness of the shrimp.
-SpaGirls pork was much better than the special I picked out (which was gi-normous! 16 oz?!). Hers was more tender and less salty.
-The carrot cake had pistachios in it, and I think some white chocolate on the outside. The vanilla ice cream with it was like gelato, and so good the boys only got one bit each
-Bill was just under $200.
-I would go back, try a Margarita, and stick to app's and dessert.

I am the sous chef at Mas, and I enjoyed reading your two reviews of our restaurant. To clarify the mojito, it is actually light rum with an organic brazilian cane sugar we get from a small importer of specialty products. He also represents small farmers and is the guy we go through to buy the pork chop you had. He only deals in exotic, high priced goods, but they are well worth the price. That sugar comes in around 80 dollars a pound. Also, the carrot cake has a coconut ice with it, which is almost a sherbert. It has coconut milk, sugar, milk and a little dark rum. Simple to make, which is good, since we make all our ice creams on the premises. Thank you for your cahtting about us and definitely stop by for brunch and see us. My name is Ryan, and I'm here working it every Sunday morning.

If you didn't like the mojito, try a caipirinha. If you're not familiar, it's a drink made with sugar, a brazilian sugarcane liquor called cachaca (similar to rum, but somehow smoother I think), and muddled limes. Good ones are addictive and my experience has been that mas serves up good ones.

I've been to mas around 5 times - none in the last 6 months however - and never been disappointed. If available, the chipotle-braised short ribs is a great dish and there always seems to be an interesting fish preparation. One of my favorite restaurants to take out-of-town guests.

I'm surprised to see you refer to cachaca as smoother than rum. That hasn't been my experience.

Cachaca is cane liquor, same as aguardiente in Spanish. It's made from the pressed juice of sugar cane, guarapo. It's sometimes misdescribed as a "brandy" but is, technically a rum, since the term connotes a cane-based liquor. But for drinking, it's the non-sucrose stuff in mollasses (the goopy byproduct of high-heat sugar processing) that gives flavor and mellowness to rum. To say that agaurdiente/cachaca is not known for its smoothness is an understatement. The better the cachaca, the less it tastes like anything, like vodka. You could put cachaca in a mojito, a daiquiri, or a Coke for that matter, but it wouldn't be the same drink, IMO.

JeffB wrote:To say that agaurdiente/cachaca is not known for its smoothness is an understatement. The better the cachaca, the less it tastes like anything, like vodka.

I think that is what I was trying to convey. I suppose my cachaca experience is somewhat biased. A friend regularly visits Brazil and has a tendency to bring me back some really nice stuff. Maybe for that reason, I'm able to stomach it better than rum, which I generally do not like.

I went to MAS yesterday with my wife and I thought a fresh update was needed. I looked at this thread and others before we went to get an idea of previous experiences. Overall, it was fine...that's pretty much it though. I don't think we'll be back because, quite frankly, it was just fine. With so many other restaurants out there, I just don't see myself going back.

Taking the suggestions from this thread and others, we had the Spiced Shrimp, the ceviche, and the empanada as our starters. All were pretty decent; of the three the ceviche was definitely the best. Specifically, the shrimp is lightly battered and served on top of a light creamy sauce. The shrimp, however, didn't need the breading, IMO, b/c the batter wasn't very flavorful. Also, the sauce didn't wow me either; not bad but just didn't wow me. The shrimp also comes with a corn cake topped with a salsa--very good, no complaints there.

The empanada was good but could've been much better. Frankly, it was good b/c it was filled with creamy goat cheese--hard to go wrong there, right? But, it apparently also contained mushrooms, which were obviously pureed b/c you couldn't really tell it was in there. Also, I'm used to crispier empanadas. The ceviche, like I said, very good.

Since we were getting 3 apps and PLANNING on getting dessert (we couldn't--too full) we decided to split an entree, which was the seafood stew. It was decent. My problem with it was that the mussels, at least a couple of them, didn't taste very fresh. My wife, actually, came across a few like that herself. There were also potatoes in the stew that were a little underdone; ie crunchy, y'know? The soup-part of the soup was very tasty and the remaining seafood in the stew was good.

So, I'm glad we went, and nothing was really bad or anything, but it could've been better.

Oh, almost forgot. Mondays are $5 margaritasand mojitos. I wish they would've told me that, with the reduced price, they eliminate the alcohol. Although I'm beign sarcastic, it was pretty obvious that the alcohol content had been lessened significantly.

Ooh. Almost forgot again. I'll end on a more positive note. I loved the black bean paste they give you with the bread. It was awesome. The bread, however, could've been better. It's actually prompted me to create a thread on places not serving warm bread. I'm posting that as soon as I get done typing this. I hope it sparks an interesting discussion. I guess I'm not ending on such a positive note? Oh well...

That's too bad, as Mas happens to be one of my favorite neighborhood restaurants, I can't remember one bad thing I have ever had there. However, I would never order a fish stew there. They have fabulous beef and I have had broiled fish specials there that were outstanding. For an appetizer you can't go wrong with the chicken tostada type thing. The wine dinner the last Thursday of the month is one of my favorite events.
Seems you ate enough to be full so skipped the desert so I guess not all that bad.

Don't get me wrong, I don't regret going there. Everything was decent, but I was expecting more (maybe unreasonably? I dunno) I just like going to a place that leaves me with "wow, can't wait to come back here again." For example, the ceviche was good, like I said--very good. But, if I wanted good ceviche, I'd probably go to somewhere like Cuatro where EVERYTHING I've had there has been awesome. It's interesting you bring up the beef, though. AngrySarah raved in another threadthat she (I'm assuming she's a she) had an unbelievable steak experience at MAS. I actually may go back to give that a try.

It's been a while (probably over a year) since I've eaten at Mas, but I remember some very solid meals there. I'll echo what's been said--very solid but not spectactular. On one of my visits there, a vegetarian friend ordered the squash entree which I thought was phenomenal--very richly flavored, stuffed with (I think) wild mushrooms. I never would have thought a vegetarian entree would cause such a severe case of plate-envy (luckily, my friend was pretty generous about sharing). I tend to be pretty carniverous (especially at South American-themed restaurants) but I would go back for that squash.