Help! last minute birthday restaurant recommendation!?

OK I was going to take my girlfriend to Aruns Thai for her birthday today, she loves Thai food, and it sounded perfect... but they just called me and said they have a plumbing problem and have to cancel all reservations. Our schedules don't really have any openings from now until we get back from vacation in May, so I need to find another good place before then.

Criteria: fine or "nice" dining, not too crazy fancy (she's a pretty casual person and is not into dressing up and doing real formal dining). Quality ethnic food, ideally something on a quality/uniqueness level that we ordinarily wouldn't seek out. I don't know of any foods she doesn't like other than being allergic to nuts, she especially like asian food. Aruns seemed perfect

So whatchu guys think? Any ideas? If anyone can help me out here (again), it's LTH forum...

Rob

robzr wrote: Our schedules don't really have any openings from now until we get back from vacation in May, so I need to find another good place before then.

If I am reading this correctly, I think the only way to accomplish what you seek is to build a time machine.

Hi,

If it is Thai, then take her to TAC - Thai Authentic Cuisine at Sheridan Rd just south of Irving Park. You will have save yourself a bundle, have a really terrific meal and won't be sorry you never stepped into Arun's. There are lots of reviews, just do a search.

Regards,

Perhaps:

Le Lan
749 North Clark

It's a moderately upscale French/Vietnamese fusion cuisine.

Not to cop out, but this is the kind of question that www.opentable.com is set up to answer-- or at least to make a short list of places that are actually available, and then come back here for opinions on them.

If you want a good fine dining option and find yourself willing to forgo the desire that it be ethnic, consider Bonsoiree. Definitely fits the bill as far as fine dining without being too crazy fancy, and is of a quality/uniqueness level that one wouldn't normally just drop by on a random evening.

I took my wife there last Thursday for her birthday (though my wife also generally favors ethnic food, and in particular leans toward either Chinese or Thai) and we had a fabulous evening. I posted at length about the dinner itself in that thread. At any rate, a quick check on OpenTable.com shows they have availability for 2 tonight at 6:30 or 8:30.

Takashi could work really well - http://www.takashichicago.com/

I'll second Bonsoiree as well, great place.

Well thanks for (most of) the replies guys! I knew (most of you) would help

Looking at the LTH Forum reviews of Aruns, it sounds like it might actually be a good thing it didn't work out there.... so I checked out opentable and some reviews, and made reservations for Le Lan. She spent some time in Vietnam a couple months ago, hopefully she'll enjoy that place.

I've been to Bon soiree a number of times (I live pretty close there), great place, thats on our list of places to go... TAC I haven't been to but its definitely on my list, might be a little too casual for tonight though.

Thanks again for the help!

cheers

Rob

robzr wrote:So whatchu guys think? Any ideas? If anyone can help me out here (again), it's LTH

I think you got lucky.

If Thai, TAC with a nice to very nice bottle of champagne. Though I see you settled on Le Lan, not a bad choice far as keeping with the theme.

Well, Le Lan was a big success she really enjoyed it, the atmosphere was nice, not overly stuffy. The waitress was nice and informative. We had the 6 course taster menus and wine pairing. The food was very good, presentation and creativity was great, portions were generous (we went hungry and left comfortably stuffed). The wine pairing was nice - not always the best matched to the food, but the wine was all quite good. One thing we really liked was that we each had different food, so we got to trade each course halfway through which was really fun. That probably made the wine pairing challenging for them. Overall it was a great meal, we both had a good time and enjoyed the food. Thanks for your help! We'll check out TAC when we get a chance; it seems to be an lth fave...

Rob