Evanston Lunch Group, Ten Mile House, Wed. Feb. 25, 12:30

The Evanston Lunch Group returns to home base this month to try one of Evanston's newer restaurants. Ten Mile House recently added lunch service, so we can sample their wares. ELG regular B2B recommends their food as delicious, so we hope that people can come along and try it for themselves.

Please join us. All are always welcome.

Wednesday, Feb. 25th
12:30 pm

Ten Mile House
1700 Central Street
Evanston 60201
847.905.0669
http://www.tmhevanston.com/

That place looks great !!! I'd love to join

We went there last week; overall the pizza and sandwiches were good. And you can definitely tell it's a wood-burning pizza oven once you walk through the door and take a sniff. At any rate, we'll be there.

If you don't mind a city dweller, I'd love to join you.

yes

Chicago magazine named Ten Mile House one of the 10 hottest restaurants in Chicago right now.

I am tentatively in!

I have enjoyed this restaurant in the evening. Glad to join you all for lunch.

I'm in. First time LTH Lunch!!

We will be there.
Robert and Catherine

Looks as if we are 12 as of now:
EvA
Cabbagehead
rubbbqco
nr706
moetchandon
stevez
nsxtasy
nukegirl?
B2B
Indianbadger--Welcome!
Robert
Catherine

I'd like to join you if you have room for one more.

Sorry for posting so late, but I just found this thread after returning to the Board from a hiatus of many moons. Finding a lunch group meeting walking distance from work is a rare treat.

George R wrote:I'd like to join you if you have room for one more.

Sorry for posting so late, but I just found this thread after returning to the Board from a hiatus of many moons. Finding a lunch group meeting walking distance from work is a rare treat.

We have a reservation for 12, and I imagine we'll be able to shoehorn one more in! Please join us, George.

EvA wrote:

George R wrote:I'd like to join you if you have room for one more.

Sorry for posting so late, but I just found this thread after returning to the Board from a hiatus of many moons. Finding a lunch group meeting walking distance from work is a rare treat.

We have a reservation for 12, and I imagine we'll be able to shoehorn one more in! Please join us, George.

As it turns out, things are really crazy at work right now, so I'm going to have to bow out. Sorry for the last minute notice, but something came up this afternoon that I'm going to have to deal with most of tomorrow. George, you're welcome to my spot.

Sorry for the equivocation. I'm definitely there.

I wasn't able to attend at the last minute - sorry for the no-call no show... How was lunch?

I happened to dine here last week for dinner - I'm curious to hear other's thoughts on the food....

The ELG had a good lunch with its usual excellent company at Ten Mile House. It's a pleasant space, comfortable, and the service was very good--shout out to our waiter Daniel, who divided menu items not usually meant to be divided for the ten of us to try. We were impressed to see how much lunch business they had on a cold Wednesday.

The food was good and very competently executed. TMH does its own smoking, and you could smell a nice teasing tang of smoke in the room. I thought the smoked meats we had were their best offerings. The smoked chicken wings were meaty and very tasty, although served with an awfully bland ranch dressing (but I'm not a ranch fan). The ribs were very good--nice pull, some smoke flavor, nice rub with a spicy kick in no need of bbq sauce, although 4 were offered in the obligatory plastic squeeze bottles tucked in a cardboard 4-pack beer holder.

We also tried 2 wood-fired pizzas: the TMH, with bbq sauce, white cheddar, pork shoulder, thick-cut bacon, roasted garlic, and crispy onions, which I didn't try, and the Smoked Chicken, with garlic oil, fontina, roasted tomatoes, red onions, and arugula. The ingredients were fine and nicely proportioned on a decent crust (it's no Stop 50 or Spacca).

Our waiter told us the most popular sandwiches were the crispy grilled cheese and the fried chicken, so we ordered these. Additional ingredients can be added to the grilled cheese, so we added the excellent wood-roasted mushrooms, but to me, it's still just a grilled cheese sandwich. The toppings for the chicken sandwich were good, but the thin-sliced breaded chicken was boring, although well cooked, tender, and not dried out.

We also tried the poutine with smoked brisket. The brisket was good, and the poutine was served with a tasty giardiniera. Montrealers would not recognize the poutine, which was made with sliced, waxy potatoes in a thick sauce. Not bad, but not poutine, and not my thing.

Ten Mile House seems a very competent operation; Cabbagehead says it reminds him of an LEYE place, and that's a good comparison. I suspect it will do well in north Evanston.

Nicely described by Evie.

The smoked meats - barbecued ribs, brisket, etc - are the thing to order there. Those were the best items we had.

It's also worth noting that they were doing quite a good business for a weekday lunch, with around 80 percent of the other tables occupied.

I agree with EvA and nsxtasy that smoked meats are the way to go. We couldn't order everything and there are several dishes I'd like to try. The BLT sounded worth a go.

Also, our waiter definitely deserved three cheers for his efforts to accommodate the group's requests.

I had a slightly different take on the pizzas. Looking at the menu, the TMH seemed like a bit much, but it worked well. In contrast I felt the smoked chicken pizza was nothing to get excited about.

It would be interesting if they switched two of the pizza toppings -- put the crispy onions on the smoked chicken to give it some crunch while arugula on the TMH would be a nice foil to the smoky, salty bacon. I've had pizza before with bacon and arugula, and the combo works.

In summary, I think Ten Mile House has a number of very good dishes at fair prices along with excellent service. Definitely worth a return visit.

George R wrote:It would be interesting if they switched two of the pizza toppings -- put the crispy onions on the smoked chicken to give it some crunch while arugula on the TMH would be a nice foil to the smoky, salty bacon. I've had pizza before with bacon and arugula, and the combo works.

I'm sure they would be happy to do that for you if you asked for it.

From Eater:

Eater wrote:Located in the Central Station building, Ten Mile House begins serving Sunday brunch this coming weekend and the menu is bigger than most brunch offerings. Featuring numerous sandwiches, frittatas, pizzas, salads and other assorted plates, the restaurant is also offering up a large selection of alcohol. Gaze upon the menu in full below and begin formulating a plan of attack.

EDIT 3/8/15: We ate brunch there today and it was very good. Of particular interest, they accept reservations in advance over the phone, thereby (presumably) avoiding the risk of a long wait to be seated.