RedBrick Chicago

My extended neighborhood has quite a few places like this, with Balkan or neighboring-Balkan influence extending into Ameritalian pub food menus. This entry is owned by a couple of Turkish guys, and they've sprinkled things like moussaka and baba ganoush onto a menu filled with things like chicken wings, burgers, meatballs, onion rings and pasta bolognese. A couple of rarely-found Turkish wines round out a list of Beringer and Fetzer varietals, and Bud and Miller products fill too big a part of the beer list.

The baba ganoush was quite good - a rough chop of smoky eggplant with a complementary drizzle of chili oil. The onion rings were fine too, but the ridiculously skimpy portion for $6.95 was disappointing. The spinach pie was lousy - not much flavor inside, and a way-too-generous sprinkle of Kraft-like Parmesan Cheese product on the outside.

RedBrick Chicago
Sports Bar & Restaurant
1938 W. Irving Park Rd
773-904-8540

I could have sworn I posted about RedBrick, but couldn't find record of it. It must be another post in my head. We went right after they got their liquor license, but we didn't know that until we got there with our own drinks. They let us drink what we brought but charged us a BYO fee. That irked us because they didn't tell us that upfront. I don't remember much about the food because none of us were impressed. I do remember that they wouldn't substitute vegetables for the pita that accompanied the hummus my gluten-free friend ordered. There might have been a language issue, but it was just another data point for us to check RedBrick off our list and not return.