Christmas Day dinner - in the city or Evanston

We'll be volunteering at a few places during the day and the Lovely Dining Companion is looking for a nice place to go for dinner on Sunday, Christmas Day. She has no family here, we can't get back home to LA for her, and so I'm looking to see if I can't help her celebrate.

I think we'd probably prefer the city or Evanston (starting point is Andersonville) and nice without being "expensive." Perhaps a better way to say that is nice without being too "dressy." I don't want to be any more specific than that in the hope that vagueness will encourage responses that I might not ordinarily consider. No restrictions as to type of food.

TIA

Andersonville works for me ... Edgewater Beach Cafe caters mostly to the people who live in the Edgewater Beach (Big Pink) but has a kind of p-elegance to it -- old mismatched beach furniture, with an ancient piano player ...

SGFoxe wrote:Andersonville works for me ... Edgewater Beach Cafe caters mostly to the people who live in the Edgewater Beach (Big Pink) but has a kind of p-elegance to it -- old mismatched beach furniture, with an ancient piano player ...

Forgive me for misunderstanding, but I would have thought Edgewater Beach Cafe was in Edgewater, not Andersonville. Admittedly, neighborhood borders can be a bit fluid depending upon who you're talking to, but to my limited mind, this one seems kind of obvious. (And, yes, I'm just in a bad/cranky mood today.)

A few years ago, husband and I ended up at Andie's in Andersonville for Christmas Dinner. It was surprisingly festive - we walked in with no reservations at 7 at night, and the place was jumping.

Not fancy, but definitely jeans ok. There were all sorts of people there - from families to tipsy singles. Maybe not exactly what you were looking for ... but Christmas Dinner at Andie's is a good memory for me.

Frankly, I prefer North Uptown --

If there is a couple few people interested in Andies on Xmas -- that's good for me too ... tho' Big Pink is so funky cool[/color]

There may be a misunderstanding here. We are STARTING from Andersonville. Meaning that's where we live. We are NOT looking solely for places in our neighborhood. We're looking for recommendations anywhere in the city (or Evanston). I was simply trying to be helpful by mentioning our starting location; didn't mean to mislead.

Many thanks.