Mado - Sunday Brunch

LTHForum,

While Mado has been an active topic of discussion there seems little mention of Sunday Brunch, which my bride and I found quite enjoyable on a recent snowy Sunday. Hallmarks of Mado ring true, quality ingredients, thoughtful preparation coupled with buoyant flavor and reasonable, actually very reasonable, prices.

We started with house made blueberry jam with sourdough toast. Sounds simple, but the pure flavor, really more of a distillation of blueberry essence, made both my wife and I smile at first taste. Bonus, Cava seems the perfect jam and toast quaff. Blueberry jam is available for sale at a reasonable $10 per pint. Call first, they may now be out of stock.

Blueberry Jam with Sourdough Toast



For starters we split salad and Charcuterie Platter, though I felt a little guilty as I made a weird mental leap and compared Mado's Chicken Liver Pate to my grandmothers chopped liver, not the same thing, I know, that's why I said weird leap. I felt a little guilty when I, at least at that moment, preferred the silky smooth richness of Mado's pate.

Country Pate (pork), Testa, Chicken liver pate, Ciccioli.. Not shown, Rolled Pigs Head



We split a salad, Arugula and shaved fennel with citrus, pistachios and espplette, bright citrus with light spice of espplette perfect palate refresher after rich charcuterie.

Arugula and shaved fennel with citrus, pistachios and espplette



It was a toss between Spit-Roasted Chicken and Potato Hash with fried eggs and Crackling bread with fried eggs, corn bread with cracklings called, but Chicken Hash won the flip. Chunks of chicken, tender crisp potato cubes, perfectly fresh sunny side up eggs, delicious and well priced at $8.

Spit-Roasted Chicken and Potato Hash with fried eggs



The Brides Eggs in Purgatory made me think of Hammond's Christmas Cooking, lightly spicy rich tomato flavor, particularly tasty version with olives and fennel.

Eggs in Purgatory



I'm not a fan of chocolate cream pie, one taste of Baker's Square 25 years ago was enough to put me off it to this day, but Mado's version with almond cornmeal crust made me rethink my anti CCP stance.

Chocolate cream pie with almond cornmeal crust.



Needed a bit of heat for my Chicken hash Rob Levitt produced a hot-as-hell dish of Marinated Bullet Pepper that Jason Hammel of Lula had made for a co/chef dinner at Mado the week before. Wow, hot fast burn, no complexity, just smoking upfront heat, and lots of it.

Marinated Bullet Pepper



As our most enjoyable Sunday brunch was winding down Rob Levitt chatted with us a bit and, as many conversations of mine do, the subject turned to BBQ. Turns out Mado has a cool as hell wood burning JR Manufacturing grill which currently had a ham chuckling away on a jury rigged smoker setup, very inventive use of equipment at hand.

Smoking Ham on Jury rigged smoker





Mado brunch has now taken a place with our other Sunday favorites, dim sum at Shui Wah or Phoenix or more traditional brunch at Tre Kronor and Prairie Grass.

Enjoy,
Gary

Mado
1647 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Chicago, IL 60647
773-342-2340

G Wiv wrote:Needed a bit of heat for my Chicken hash Rob Levitt produced a hot-as-hell dish of Marinated Bullet Pepper that Jason Hammel of Lula had made for a co/chef dinner at Mado the week before. Wow, hot fast burn, no complexity, just smoking upfront heat, and lots of it.

Marinated Bullet Pepper

Great looking brunch, Gary. We'll have to give it a try soon.

Those peppers appeared during the Slagel Family Farms pig dinner at Mado. A few of us got to sample them. They were far too hot for wide distribution. From what I understand, they weren't supposed to turn out with quite so much heat.

Ronna

It would never have occurred to me that Mado had a brunch -mmm, offal first thing in the morning! What could be better?

Olives and fennel (seeds, I assume) would be a good addition to Eggs in Purgatory. Lately, I've been adding crumbled Caputo's Italian sausage, with some fennel, and I like the idea of adding olive-y texture and saltiness. This is a very simple dish and so profits from some additional items that can add dimension and visual interest.

The rolled pig's head is good but you definitely need to do the bread upgrade (which I see you did) -- I found it flavorful, sloppy and a little too slippery to eat straight-up.

Interesting, the rolled pigs head in the picture looks quite different from the way it was served to me at Mado a week ago or so. I have a feeling it is now a different preparation and serving method. What I had was several slices, sliced very thin on a deli slicer, prosciutto-style.

Kennyz wrote:Interesting, the rolled pigs head in the picture looks quite different from the way it was served to me at Mado a week ago or so. I have a feeling it is now a different preparation and serving method. What I had was several slices, sliced very thin on a deli slicer, prosciutto-style.

I had the rolled pig's head as you describe (note: this item is not shown in GWiv's photo).

David Hammond wrote:

Kennyz wrote:Interesting, the rolled pigs head in the picture looks quite different from the way it was served to me at Mado a week ago or so. I have a feeling it is now a different preparation and serving method. What I had was several slices, sliced very thin on a deli slicer, prosciutto-style.

I had the rolled pig's head as you describe (note: this item is not shown in GWiv's photo).

aha, duh. Poor reading comprehension for me today. Anyway, I really liked it as it was served, without bread. Very flavorful - as you noted - and though it was pretty slimy, I somehow found that quite pleasant.

David Hammond wrote:Olives and fennel (seeds, I assume) would be a good addition to Eggs in Purgatory.

Hammond,

Sliced fennel, not seeds. Try it next EiP with olives, I think you will enjoy the outcome. I should point out fennel and olives are not mutually exclusive with Italian sausage.

Enjoy,
Gary