Simply It on Lincoln near Childrens Hospital

The former owner of Pasteur (Tuan Nguyen) has started a restaurant in Lincoln Park, at 2269 N Lincoln, just down the street from Childrens' Hospital. For people searching for decent food near Childrens Hospital, I am including multiple spelling variants (Children's Hospital; Childrens' Hospital). I've eaten there twice, both times with my four-year-old, and it is a good place. Whilst it is not knock-your-socks-off, ultra-authentic Vietnamese food, the food is very tasty, light and quite a good value. Both times we have dined from the lunch specials menu, which is priced in the $7-9 range. This includes a drink, soup, salad, an entree, a little egg roll, and a dessert.

1. The drink can be tea, but I chose the excellent house-made lemonade, served in a large coke glass. It was fresh, light and not too sweet, with some lime flavors supplementing the lemon.
2. The soup is a small bowl of clear chicken broth, slightly peppery (black pepper), and filled with beautiful jewel-like pieces of fresh vegetables: carrots, red bell pepper, onions, herbs. On our visit today there were also quartered Brussels Sprouts, very tasty and not cabbagey at all.
3. The salad is also filled with great veggies, shredded Romaine, onions, red bell peppers, carrots, etc. Also it was topped with chow mein noodles.
4. The entree is a generous but not outsized portion of very well-prepared food and again includes lots of veg. The chicken noodles had that smoky edge from a properly hot wok and the curry tofu was tasty with a brothy coconut sauce and (again) lots of veg, including green beans and broccoli. The banh mi was okay-- no pork belly or pates, just beef. Also it came on the kind of roll one gets with Italian Beef, rather than a crispy French roll. Nevertheless quite tasty and (yet again) loaded with fresh veg.
5. The dessert was a fresh fruit plate with pineapple, grapes, watermelon, and honeydew melon.

Do not go here if you MUST have ultra-authentic Vietnamese food. It probably is lurking there somewhere in the menu, but we have not found it.

Do go here if you want a very tasty meal with really excellent service-- attentive but not intrusive-- the waitress brought us extra napkins without being asked, topped up water, and offered refills on the lemonade. The owner was around. The table next to us had a fussy eater (no cilantro, no parsley, no this, no that) and the chef was brought out to consult to find something she would eat. Also do go here if you like to have a lighter restaurant meal-- as you can see from the description above, each course was loaded with good-quality veg.

Also do go here with kids. This place was a HUGE hit with our daughter-- she loves noodles and mango smoothies. She drained every drop of her soup broth, munched the egg roll and the crunchy noodles on the salad, and devoured the fruit plate. Luckily we were not near Childrens' on "business" this time, but this is a good spot to stop after a visit to the hospital-- certainly a mango smoothie to look forward to would cheer any little urchin who had been poked and prodded.

Finally, do go here if you like a good value-- we three ate for about $30 total, including three lunch specials and a smoothie, and had leftovers to take home.

Simply It
2269 N. Lincoln Ave.
Chicago, IL 60614
773-248-0884

I ate there a few weeks ago and have a word of caution.

I ordered a dish, described as tofu and broccoli in a spicy tomato sauce. It turned out to be deep fried tofu sitting on a layer of what tasted to be Heinz Ketchup, ringed with steamed broccoli. It was pretty disappointing. The other people I ate with enjoyed their dinners a lot more--a ribs dish went over well. If I go back, I'll ask more questions about the composition of the dishes; it seems hit or miss.

In the plus column: the atmosphere was fun, the service was good, it's near the theater, and it's BYOB.

If someone would be willing to give their pho a shot, I'd be curious to hear how it is.

I ordered it for delivery one of the first few nights they opened (the delivery person excitedly mentioned that we were their first delivery). Unfortunately, it was quite bad with the only discernible taste in the broth being pepper. I remember not having more than a couple spoonfuls. The delivery person seemed very kind and I chalked it up to opening day jitters. Hopefully it's improved as I'd love to have a local delivery spot for pho.

I did a delivery order from Simply It last night. Executive summary: it wasn't bad. It wasn't amazing, but it wasn't bad. We got (pasting descriptions right from their menu):

16. Shrimp Spring Rolls (4) (Goi Cuon Tom) $5.50
Shrimps and assorted vegetables wrapped in rice paper. Served with delicious plum sauce.
The rolls themselves were a bit bland, but that may likely be by design. They tasted very fresh though, which was nice. The plum sauce tasted okay, but it was extremely goopy.

21. Grilled Lemongrass Beef (Thit Nuong Rau Song) $7.95
Lemongrass grilled beef served with rice paper, fresh vegetables and dipping sauce.
The grilled beef was very nice...tender, nicely marinated, well seasoned, with a great grilled flavor. I was a big fan of this beef. The beef strips came on a pile of slightly overcooked thin noodles (rice noodles, maybe?), with a side of very fresh cilantro, cabbage, carrots & cucumbers. The dipping sauce was nice, tasted like it had some fish sauce & some nice acidity. They packaged 6 sheets of dry rice paper, which I softened up with the dipping sauce before making beef/noodle/veggie tacos.

55. Roasted Duck Curry (Cari Vit) $13.50
Crisp, roasted duck sautéed with veggies and curry sauce.
Really good duck...juicy, tender, with nice skin on them. I think this dish would've been better if we'd eaten it there...the skin was somewhat crispy by the time we got it, so I'd imagine it would've been great straight out of the kitchen. The curry sauce was a bit thicker than I would've liked. Had eggplant, cauliflower & yam pieces, and white onions & snow peas in it too.

72. Tofu & Egg plant (Ca Tim Dau Hu) $9.50
Eggplants & tofu slowly baked in a clay pot with caramel saice and black pepper.
This was my fave out of our order. The "caramel saice" (more typo than "engrish", I'm guessing, what with "i" and "u" being next to each other) was really good...garlicky, with a bit of sweetness. I loved the eggplant chunks (same as the ones in the duck curry), and the tofu pieces were were fried (just the way I like them!) and had soaked up the nice gravy. My wife asked if they'd add extra veggies to this for her, and they did with no extra charge: broccoli, bamboo shoots, red bell pepper & snow pea.

Both entrées came with rice, but my wife upgraded to brown rice ($1.50 extra). They threw in a free chicken salad ((Goi Ga) $6.50, Grilled filet of chicken breast tossed with mixed organic greens and lime dressing.), which was okay...dressing was very mild, shredded carrot & cabbage were crisp & fresh, and the chicken looked/tasted boiled & was low on seasoning (again, this might be by design). They also gave us a box (labeled "complementary") of watermelon & musk melon chunks, which were nice & sweet.

Delivery came promptly within the 45-minutes-to-an-hour window we were promised. Our total was $47.19, which certainly adds up, but seems a tad steep for what we got. Overall, it wasn't bad, but I don't see myself getting cravings for it in the future. If anyone's curious, click here for their website, which has the full menu.

Working recently at The Greenhouse (formerly Victory Gardens/Body Politic theatre), I have been hitting Simply It a lot recently.
First I think they have been steadily improving since they opened. The menu tells us that the chef is a former sous from Colonial. (Don't know if this has been true since they opened or not.)
It will never displace Argyle St. There really is no funk here. But if you think of it as Argyle deliberately smoothed down a bit for the Lincoln Ave. audience, but also done with care and integrity, this is probably the best version of that idea that it can be.
Flavors are clear and bright (if mild, as noted above). Ingredients are very fresh. Prices are relatively low and portions generous.
It's not meant to be a back-handed compliment, or faint praise when I say that what the do really well is hospitality.
Owner Tran and his wife (going all the way back to the first Pasteur on Lawrence and Sheridan) are gracious and genuinely friendly. I've watched them work the room, spending as much time as needed to talk with every table and get people who have never eaten this food feeling comfortable with what they're ordering.
They are also very free with the un-ordered lagniappe, which makes people feel cared for.
I was recently picking up some take out for which I had phoned ahead. It was an off-the-charts Saturday, and the food wasn't quite ready when I arrived. While attending to his full room, and his line of waiting customers, he also produced a cool glass of water for me, immediately followed by a complete appetizer of fried vegetable egg rolls. Just to make up for my 5-10 min. wait.
Every time i have dined in we have received either a chicken salad, or a house-made lemonade or ice tea on the house.
Yes they do a version of pho, and all the condiments are fresh and crisp, but it's certainly not for the well-initiated. It's a nice bowl of soup.
So far I have very much enjoyed:
* the grilled lemongrass beef
* the Saigon crepe, large and very tasty
* the North Vietnam Fisherman's soup---a very nice amount of heat with this broth
* the tofu/eggplant in clay pot (major garlic presence, and that nice carmelized clay pot goodness)
* lemongrass chicken (nice heat, could use more lemongrass intensity)
* curry chicken (only observed and smelled this over a colleague's shoulder, but he was very happy
*Chicken salad: just the barest prickle of heat, but lovely fresh crispy crunchy cabbage and good chicken
* Tiramisu (I know, but I wanted a sweet and it was good.)
* The "complimentary" fruit comes with both take-out and dine in and every single time each piece has been deliciously sweet and ripe, not just an afterthought.

One item that is curiously hyped on the menu as a "chef's choice" or something like that,
gets its own box and everything, is a roll called "Fresh, fresh, fresh!" Looked promising in description but just didn't come together for me. Julienned asparagus, tofu, carrot, jicama (maybe something else), wrapped in seaweed, then wrapped again in rice paper. Served with 2 dipping sauces: a tamarind, and another more like plum sauce. Both basically sweet. Essentially there was no melding. Every one of the ingredients just sat there in the roll next to its mates but remained untransformed in any way. A swing and a miss.

It's not Tank Noodle or a Cafe Hoang, but if you're on Lincoln Ave. amid the DePaul bars and big screen TVs and Barleycorn's and McDonald's and Bacinos and a couple of taco places and the Athenian Room is a solid 10 min. walk away and you're a grown-up, then Simply It is where you want to go.

mrbarolo wrote:...and you're a grown-up...

Very nice review, thank you for the tips on good dishes. I'm also glad to hear that it has improved. The quote above is the only part of your review I disagree with-- my kid loves the heck out of this place. The lack of heat (not that excessive heat is such a problem in Viet food) makes it "safe" for her and the fresh healthy food, fruit plate, and friendly service make it mommy-approved too. That said, Mommy does wish for a little more "funk" (great description), especially in the banh mi.

Cheers, Jen

JenM wrote:

mrbarolo wrote:...and you're a grown-up...

Very nice review, thank you for the tips on good dishes. I'm also glad to hear that it has improved. The quote above is the only part of your review I disagree with-- my kid loves the heck out of this place. The lack of heat (not that excessive heat is such a problem in Viet food) makes it "safe" for her and the fresh healthy food, fruit plate, and friendly service make it mommy-approved too. That said, Mommy does wish for a little more "funk" (great description), especially in the banh mi.

Cheers, Jen

I think he was referring to the majority of the (college-aged) clientele of the bars and restaurants in that area.

Exactly. Not that Simply It is grown-ups only, but that the rest of the strip is all kids.

mrbarolo wrote:Exactly. Not that Simply It is grown-ups only, but that the rest of the strip is all kids.

Gotcha, thanks-- my definition of "kids" vs. "grown-ups" is skewed by my preschooler-centric world view.

On topic, I would welcome any reports on the Banh mi at Simply it-- it was weak last time and I wonder if it has improved. We will be in the neighborhood, maybe I will check it myself.

Cheers, Jen

I am eating at Simply It tonight. Does anyone have an update on recommended items and those that are...well, meh? Thanks.

I was there last weekend with a friend and split the summer rolls, the calamari salad, and the claypot chicken. These dishes were okay but nothing to get excited about. The watermelon and honeydew melon served at meal's end were both ripe and delicious. Since it was Saturday, perhaps, the service was very slow and the room got very noisy, but the servers and proprietor are very nice and friendly.

I'm almost never in that neighborhood for dinner, but were I to go back, I'd try a soup. The people at the next table seemed to be regulars and both had big bowls of soup and bubble teas.

What it isn't: "Pho Ga"--I'm pretty sure this isn't an authentic rendition of Pho...
What it is: A satisfying, comforting chicken noodle soup with lots of fresh herbs and spice you can add in. (and in all fairness, they call it Chicken noodle soup with the "pho ga" in parentheses). I've enjoyed it every time I've eaten there or ordered in.

I also like the 5 spices roasted duck salad.

A good friend of mine who is Vietnamese often prepares chicken broth and meat pho. Apparently people like it because its lighter and easier to prep. Yes delicious, inauthentic I doubt.

I have pretty much liked everything I've had there. We had something eggplant that was NOT the special eggplant, and it was terrific (we ordered the special, they gave us something else The salmon with sugar cane was good, as was the beef salad.

Khaopaat wrote:72. Tofu & Egg plant (Ca Tim Dau Hu) $9.50
Eggplants & tofu slowly baked in a clay pot with caramel saice and black pepper.
This was my fave out of our order. The "caramel saice" (more typo than "engrish", I'm guessing, what with "i" and "u" being next to each other) was really good...garlicky, with a bit of sweetness. I loved the eggplant chunks (same as the ones in the duck curry), and the tofu pieces were were fried (just the way I like them!) and had soaked up the nice gravy. My wife asked if they'd add extra veggies to this for her, and they did with no extra charge: broccoli, bamboo shoots, red bell pepper & snow pea.

I agree with this assessment. Next to #67 (King Crab Pasta), the tofu/ eggplant was my favorite dish. Both core elements were cooked to a very pleasant texture, and though the sauce was indeed sweet, it was well-balanced. #67 was outstanding - fresh tasting crab and that hard-to-pinpoint flavor you get only from stir fries made in a very well seasoned wok. I wouldn't be surprised if the cookware at Simply It is stuff that was held in storage from the old Pasteur Days, much like the very nice artwork adorning the walls.

The rest of the stuff was pretty good, with a universal penchant toward sweetness that eventually became a little cloying. I'd highly recommend Simply It - not necessarily as a Vietnamese restaurant, but as a great place to bring some nice bottles of wine and eat fairly inexpensively. There are fine dining touches that make an experience like that more pleasant here than at the multitude of other byob Amer-Asian places in town. Decent wine glasses and a prorietor who knows how to pour properly, for example.

In complete agreement. This is one of those places where that 1-2 steps up the scale in decor, service, and genuine hospitality coupled with some real restaurant professionalism makes a tangible difference, even with a shade less Argyle St. authenticity. I have thoroughly enjoyed every meal there even when some individual components were less than memorable.