New Tapas Restaurant on Southport

I have been looking for a new really great Tapas place. Has anyone been to the new one on North Southport?It is around 3700 North Southport.

Or can anyone recommend another one in that same area please?

Delia31 wrote:I have been looking for a new really great Tapas place. Has anyone been to the new one on North Southport?It is around 3700 North Southport.

Bulhedia?

Tahnk you I will check that out!

Delia31 wrote:Tahnk you I will check that out!

Please do. I've been waiting for it to open and would like to hear how it is.

I found it!

It is called Bull-eh-dia's!

I will definitely let you know how it is!

Bull-eh-Dia's Tapas Bar
3651 N. Southport Ave
Chicago, IL
773-404-2855

I have been waiting for a solid Spanish restaurant to finally arrive in Chicago. The closest one in my mind is Avec, and really Avec is more of a Spanish/Med influenced restaurant. After viewing the menu at Bull-e-dia (something like that), I suspect that this will be like all of the other "Spanish" restaurants in Chicago - ie, not so good. Besides a bacalao dish, their menu seemed to have the usual suspects listed. I will note that I have not been to Mercat a la Planxa, and do find that establishment to be extremely intriguing. I tried making reservations this weekend and was not sucessful. So, the point of my post is that hopefully I'm wrong and Bull-e-dia and it is received well.

Have you tried Azucar in Logan Square, or the original Emilio's in Hillside? You just might dig.

Is that the Emilio's on Roosevelt Road? If so, yes - I've been to both. I found both just to be okay with maybe the edge going to Emilio's. I had no faith in Spanish food within the States until I went to El Meson in Santa Fe, New Mexico last September. It was amazing, and the quality of the food reminded me of Spain. They had items such as pimientos padron (I've never been able to find these!!), wonderful white anchovies (boquerones), and lovely fried sardines. I was in heaven.

I really wish something like El Meson would open in Chicago. I should disclaim that I am probably overly picky here because I have family in the Galicia region of Spain of whom I visit every 2 to 3 years.

El Meson Restaurante Tapas Bar
213 Washington Ave
Santa Fe, NM 87501
(505) 983-6756

My girlfriend and I made a trip in the Cubs traffic to Bull-eh-dia's last night (and surprisingly found a spot quickly). The verdict was mixed. We were able to get a table outside, but while my GF loves the sun, I preferred to have the shade of an umbrella, which weren't present.

Although we picked a dirty table, a cleaning quickly followed water, bread, and olive oil for dipping. The menu consists of 2 pages--cold and hot tapas (mostly hot), paella (3 kinds--chicken and seafood, seafood, and vegetarian, i think), and some assorted soups and salads. The wine list looked very impressive: almost exclusively Spanish and the vast majority of bottles pricing between $20 and $40. The service throughout the evening was quite good; it seemed that one of the two servers was a trainee, since one stood behind the other during ordering, but we couldn't figure out which.

We ordered a half pitcher of red sangria ($11) which gave us each one and a half sizable glasses. GF liked it; I thought it was a bit on the sour side and lacked a fruity punch.

We ordered 4 tapas: scallops in saffron sauce; (hot) tortilla espanola; pincho de pollo; and pulpo a la plancha. Although not on the menu, we also tried to order some roasted bell peppers with crostini, seeing that they had both roasted bell peppers as part of several other tapas as well as crostini, but our waitress, after checking with the kitchen, said they could not.

First, the bread and oil--it was ok. I highly dislike the cut-up white baguettes (which I imagine also double as crostini) for aesthetic and taste reasons. The bread was simultaneously a bit stale and overly chewy. The oil was pretty bland.

Tapas: The truly perplexing thing to me was that the tapas were coursed: first the scallops, and when we were done 15 minutes later, out came the omelet, and when we half finished the omelet 10 minutes later, out came the chicken. The octopus (which I love) did not come out. From the time the chicken hit the table to the time we asked for the check was about 30-40 minutes. We assumed that they simply forgot the octopus, but when asking one server for the check the other one stopped by 3 minutes later and said, "you know you have one more tapas order in). We politely declined since both full and because we had hoped to have it served at the same time as everything else. I don't think that this was a result of preparation, but rather the kitchen's desire to serve one after another. My limited understanding of tapas has been that dishes come out when they're ready (perhaps a few cold first, but then all the hot ones come out pretty much together).

The food itself was ok. The scallops were fresh, but to my taste underseasoned; GF enjoyed them. Saffron sauce was a bit too thick and sweet, lacking a deeper flavor that would have made the scallops more interesting. The omelet, unusual in my experience to be served hot, was flat rather than a thick slice. While it was a fluffy omelet, it was seriously underseasoned and consisted only of diced onion and potato. The chicken was well roasted and juicy, but heavily, unavoidably sauced (because it was poured over the top) and the accompanying rice had a great texture but was very bland despite the presence of saffron threads. Again, we were full enough and ready to go by the time we asked for the bill, so the octopus will have to be tried on another occasion. They did not bill us for it.

Overall: I'm loathe to relegate Bull-ed-dia's to the realm of mediocre restaurants because it's still relatively new. Further, we didn't feel like we were ripped off given the bill was $37 with tax and 20% tip. But the food would not pull us back right now, especially when served in courses rather than together.

cjk