Dinner at Opera

My friends John and Missy from rural South Carolina are in town for a visit. Last night I wanted to take them for a "Big City Dinner". The debate was between one of our many ethnic favorites or a place rich in the circus department. I opted to go to Opera because it's the type of dining they just don't get around their adopted home outside of Greenville. Going to Opera on a Sunday night turned out to be a pretty good idea, since the restaurant was not crowded and there was a chance to interact with the waitstaff a little more than in my past visits.

Opera'a food is generally an interpertation of traditional Chinese dishes done with a French touch. Authentic, it is not. Good, it is. They feature their version of Peking Duck (in 3 styles) on their menu, so I gave it a try last night. The duck was presented in all three courses at the same time. At first, this annoyed me a little bit, but then I realized that that was a good thing because it gave you a chance to enjoy all three tastes at the same time. Like I said, their dishes are adapted from the traditional offerings and the peking duck came with:

1. Pancakes served with hoisin sauce, but also chinese mustard, similar to what you would get served with eggrolls and chopped scallions. The duck served with this course was the skin-on breast section rather than the traditional duck skin.

2. The leg and thigh meat served in a not too sweet sauce featuring whole grapes.

3. A noodle dish made with wide rice noodles. (this was my favorite of the three)

Opera "Peking Duck"


Sure, it's not authentic or traditional, but I enjoyed my visit very much. Opera is fast becoming one of my "go-to" places to take out of town clients and guests for something unique. Today, I'm taking them to Elephant Thai or maybe Spoon for something a little more "chowish".

Steve,

I love that there's a picture of the duck prep! Thanks for the report.

I also recently went to Opera on a Sunday night and noticed that I did not even need reservations. The place was half-empty.

The 3-prep. duck is a little intimidating when they put it down, but you're right: It's nice to have all three to sample at once.

My other favorite at Opera is the whole red snapper, crispy hunan style. Whenever I'm entertaining out of town guests who want a little bit of a "scene", I head for Opera and get a duck and a snapper.

Best,
EC

Ms. EC and I had an impromptu dinner at Opera the other night. We had a $50 gift certificate email and we both realized that it was exactly three years since our first date, so we decided to do a little celebrating.

Opera is a restaurant that wants me to hate it, but I can't. I hate the ultra-hip vibe, the dance-party music, and the seemingly overpriced simple dishes ($28 beef & broccoli??!!). If not for the quieter, semi-private vault seating in back, I would never go there. On the other hand, I always enjoy my meal and I remember each dish long after my visit.

We secured a quiet seat in the vault area, got a couple glasses of wine, and got to ordering. We did not order either the duck preparation or the whole snapper, their two most impressive dishes but we did have a nice array of plates:

An amuse of cream of fennel soup with chive anglaise was not particularly Asian in flavor, but it was very warming for the cold spring night, and had a nice peppery finish.

The Mongolian sticky lamb ribs were sticky (as advertised), slightly chewy, slightly sweet and spicy, and bone-licking good. Steaming hot towels provided to help clean up our sticky fingers.

Pork and ginger dumplings are always a reliable appetizer at Opera, but not much better than I can make myself. Ms. EC loved the fresh peanut flavor of the sauce.

Two entrees and one side dish included:

Seared scallops with oxtail dumplings which were nice, but exactly what you'd expect from the description. Probably the least memorable dish of the night.

Chicken & wild mushroom stir-fry has always been a surprisingly good dish with high-quality ingredients cooked just right. This particular prep might have been slightly overcooked for my taste, but still excellent in its simplicity. We generally order this one just so we can take home the leftovers, and it made excellent leftovers.

Spicy twice cooked eggplant could've been spicier for my tastes, (but many things can). These eggplant pieces had a spiced, crispy exterior and a soft interior that brought out the eggplant flavor. I really enjoy when a chef is able to put together an eggplant dish that heightens the natural flavor of the eggplant.

Ms. EC's very telling one sentence review was: "This was not as good as it has been in the past". I tend to agree, but only because of our ordering, particularly the lack of one of their grander dishes. Overall, I think I enjoyed my meal much more than she did.

I try not to draw any comparisons between Opera and my favorite Chinatown haunts. This comparison wouldn't be fair to either sie. Opera goes for hip-but-accessible slightly-upscale Chinese-inspired food, with no real concern for authenticity. They always present dishes with excellent ingredients and flavors that I enjoy eating and that I always remember afterwards.

Best,
Michael / EC

Beginning Tuesday, January 17th and continuing every Tuesday after that, Opera will be offering any appetizer/salad, any entree' and any dessert on its menu for $25 Each diner on Tuesday nights can take advantage of this offer! Opera is located at 1301 S. Wabash in Chicago. The phone number is 312-461-0161.

gleam wrote:

Beginning Tuesday, January 17th and continuing every Tuesday after that, Opera will be offering any appetizer/salad, any entree' and any dessert on its menu for $25 Each diner on Tuesday nights can take advantage of this offer! Opera is located at 1301 S. Wabash in Chicago. The phone number is 312-461-0161.

There is this as well...

When you dine at Opera any Sunday through Wednesday in January, each person in your party will receive a $50 gift certificate to Red Light which can be used any day of the week until the end of April! Furthermore, the opposite applies--------dine at Red Light any Sunday through Wednesday in January and each person receives a $50 gift certificate for Opera which is good until the end of April! Don't miss this great opportunity over the next few weeks! Red Light is at 820 W. Randolph Street in Chicago. Phone 312-733-8880. Opera is at 1301 S. Wabash in Chicago. Phone 312-461-0161. (We will be closed on January 1st and 2nd and will re-open Tuesday, January 3rd.) GIFT CERTIFICATES WILL ONLY BE ISSUED AT DINNER DURING THIS PROMOTION.

KDK Restaurants

your bar,

Are you quoting KDK restaurants or are your from KDK restaurants?

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:your bar,

Are you quoting KDK restaurants or are your from KDK restaurants?

Regards,

Quoting. Sorry that does look misleading-- simply a bad copy/paste job.

Thanks so much for the info on these promotions. I got a couple gift certificates from there a while back, used some, but still have some left. These promotions will make my use of them so much more worthwhile. Thanks!

I thought you can't use their gift certificates with any special promotions, like the prix fixe.

We ate at Opera for the first time last Sunday. We used a $50 certificate we received when we purchased $100 in gift certificates and we both ordered the $25 prix fixe. We only had to pay for our drinks and coffee plus tip and tax. A really great deal. And the food was delicious.

Bigmamma wrote:We ate at Opera for the first time last Sunday. We used a $50 certificate we received when we purchased $100 in gift certificates and we both ordered the $25 prix fixe. We only had to pay for our drinks and coffee plus tip and tax. A really great deal. And the food was delicious.

What did you order? I have reservations w/my friends on Tues. Do you know if you get a smaller portion of the 3 courses on the prix fixe menu or are all the dishes the same size as ordering a la carte on any other night?

If Opera follows its sister restaurants, Marche, you can order anything off the menu as it is normally served as part of the prix fixe. It really is a great deal if you don't order liquor. Even then, it's a great savings.

for a long time last year Opera gave away gift certs to Marche. now that was a killer combination. in a perfect world, i'd be able to order 3 desserts @ opera during their prix fixe and completely ignore the rest of the menu.

The portion sizes are the normal sizes on the a la carte menu. For appetizers we had the crab cake which wasn't anything special and the lobster and pork sui mai which were delicious steamed dumplings. Those I would get again. My entree was the pekin duck which was enough to feed a whole table. I ended up taking the noodle preparation home. I really enjoyed all of the preparations. I believe it is pictured in this thread. My husband had the salmon which he said was absolutely delicious, especially the rangoon which came with it. We both were stuffed and had the sorbet trio for dessert. All three sorbets were some of the best we have eaten. We saw a couple of tables get a salad (don't know which one) but it was huge. Enjoy your dinner Tuesday night. As I said, for $25 this is really a great deal.

I have a ton of gift certificates for Marche and Opera. They say cannot be used with promotions or special offers -- but if I can use these on tue and wed for the prix fixe, then these are a great value.

I'll try it out, thanks.

My wife and I ate at Opera Sat night for her B-Day. Her sis gave us a $50 gift cert she got from some where if you spend $75 so we used that.
This was our first time eating there and we were impressed.

My wife is a vegetarian and I decided to eat vegetarian for the night as well and I was not disappointed.

We started off with the Fried Lotus root and corn fritter appetizer. It consisted of breaked fried lotus root which was bland by itself but they offered some sort of infused salt, chinese hot mustard and a chili sauce to dip them in. Also the corn fritters were very tasty in a deep fried sort of way.

We also got the morel mushroom wonton appetizer which turned out to be surprising very complex tasting. Inside was what I assume was a mix of morel and shitake mushrooms with a hint of coconut. I wasn't expecting much but was presently surprised with this dish.

I forget the name of the dish my wife got but it was basically a ramen type noodle dish with vegetables with a very intense coconut sauce on the side. The coconut sauce comes in a tea kettle and the server explained that they put it on the side since it's so rich and can be overpowering so they let the guest decide how much they want. The dish in essence was similiar to a curry noodle but the coconut sauce tasted as if it has been reduced and like the server said - it was very rich.

I got the kaipong which was a mixture of rice/oyster mushrooms/bok choy/other veggies wrapped up in lotus leaves and roasted/toasted. When I was presented with the dish it basically looked like a roundish ball of leaves and the waiter cut open the pouch for me. When he did that it released a nice earthy aroma and and I also noticed that there were a few lychees inside which gave the entire dish a nice fruity aroma. The dish ended up having a comfort food feel to it - it kinda reminded me of a New Orleans style dirty rice dish. This is also one of those dishes that people are other tables will see and ask about it.

For dessert we got the carrot cake which was basically a long thin piece of carrot cake with candied ginger, candied carrot, and carrot sorbet on top. The carrot cake was good but what made the dish memorable was the carrot sorbet which was very freshing and light.

We also ordered two martinis - one a peach and lychee margarita type drink and I got a the effen cherry one. Both were good but overpriced IMO. Hers was $9 and mine was $14.

Overall it was a great experience and the waiter was nice and had a lot of good suggestions.

Total bill with tax and tip was right around $100 which turned out to be $50 after our GC. I think we would definitely go back but forego the drinks next time.

cjchaps wrote:I forget the name of the dish my wife got but it was basically a ramen type noodle dish with vegetables with a very intense coconut sauce on the side. The coconut sauce comes in a tea kettle and the server explained that they put it on the side since it's so rich and can be overpowering so they let the guest decide how much they want. The dish in essence was similiar to a curry noodle but the coconut sauce tasted as if it has been reduced and like the server said - it was very rich.

Sounds like a version of Curry Laksa.

My friend bought a Groupon to this place, so we ended up going out for dinner here last Saturday. It was an early reservation (6:30 pm) but they were already starting to fill up a bit. I saw a number of Groupons spread out on the host desk, so apparently, that's working out for them on bringing in some new business.

I've been here once before and actually had a pretty decent experience, but remember thinking that it was a bit expensive for what it was. Nothing in that respect has really changed, in my mind.

They always have a special soup of the day, so I ordered a soup, and we shared an order of crab cake sliders. The soup: let me talk about the soup. If the soup and soup alone was my meal, I could not say enough good things about this place. It was a creamy carrot soup with ginger, sweet chili oil and a few other things which escape my memory at the moment. Wonderful texture, flavor - definitely everything I want a soup to be. It was large enough to be split between two people, which is what we ended up doing. (In other words, I begrudgingly gave up the rest of the bowl so my friend could try some.)

The crab cake sliders were bland, bland, bland. My friend really liked them, but she dislikes spicy dishes. The crab was very mild - so with the bun included, it was almost too much. They included a little side of tartar sauce, which wasn't anything to write home about. It was fresh, but bland as well. This app really could have used a little kick of flavor somewhere, whether it be in the crab cakes themselves or the tartar sauce, I don't know.

I ordered the Firecracker Chicken [chicken, roasted chilies, cilantro, scallions]. It was noted to be spicy, and boy, they were not kidding! I often find that "spicy" dishes really aren't that spicy, but this one just about kicked me in the butt. I had trouble eating more than just a little bit that night. The leftovers mellowed out a bit, but keep that in mind if you order that dish. Yowsers.

My friend ordered the Crisp Orange Beef [lotus, scallions, snow peas, sweet orange-chili glaze] which was fantastic. The great thing about it was that they just barely breaded the beef before stir-frying it, and it didn't come out at all soggy - very crispy, like the breading was an extension of the beef. Beef was tender, and the sweet orange sauce was fantastic. If I ever came back, I would definitely order this.

We also ordered a half-bottle of pinot noir, which was excellent, but even their wine options seemed a bit pricey. The [albeit, fantastic] half-bottle I ordered was $55.

Honestly, I hate to complain about price-point, but in the end, I felt like, save for the soup I ordered, I could almost replicate the exact same meal at P.F. Chang's for at least 1/3 less. Is that rude to say? I want to like this place, but - I don't know. I just have trouble justifying the expense. Perhaps if I lived within walking distance of here, I wouldn't, but to make another special trip here? I probably won't. Maybe I'm just bitter because they sat us in the very corner of the dining room next to the bathrooms, where a draft blew on me all night long. Our service was a bit slow, too. I had to ask more than once to have various silverware replaced, or plates added.

Anyway - my final thoughts about this place? Eh. Meh.

Opera Restaurant
1301 S Wabash
Chicago, IL
312-461-0161