The Parrot Cage: Future Chefs of Chicago

Sometimes beauty schools will offer you $3.00 haircuts, so that their students can have real live people to practice on. Of course, a $3.00 haircut is a serious risk, if you care about what your hair looks like. But transplant the idea to a cooking school: if things go badly at their test-restaurant, well, all you leave with is indigestion.

Not that any of us got indigestion. Some of the food was quite wonderful, actually.

The Parrot Cage, named for the resettled Hyde Park birds, is a southside restaurant run by students of the Washburne Culinary Institute, which is part of Kennedy-King College. It is overseen by bona fide culinary professionals, but the people who greet you, cook your food, bring it to you, and bus your table, are all students.

The atmosphere and cuisine aspire to upscale seasonalish American/global: think North Pond in utero, with (understandably) less panache. The food we had was mixed: some really stellar food, some less stellar. Among the stellar was a simple endive & smoked salmon appetizer, an appetizer of steamed mussels with Asian noodles, and a Duck 2 Ways entree. An apple-tart dessert was truly exceptional. Less exceptional: a falafel-encrusted salmon, and a fettuccini dish with good flavor, but a higher butter-to-food ratio than was advisable.

Here are the mussels and the duck, e.g.:





But the appeal lies beyond just the food. There is a youthful eagerness & excitement to everyone working there. When the woman clearing our plates asked me if I had enjoyed the ham croquette appetizer, and I said yes, she beamed like a fifth grader and said, "I made those." Or like: when our waitress had to be shown how to use a corkscrew to open a bottle of wine (it's BYO), the moment wasn't uncomfortable or embarrassing, it was, somehow, sweet.

Is that patronizing? I hope that doesn't sound patronizing.

The restaurant is in the South Shore Cultural center, a beautiful, underused building, which looks out on the lake. It was designed by the same people who built the Drake, to be the center of a private country club 100 years ago:



The restaurant's lighting is unromantically bright, though it's probably that way deliberately-- a better learning environment, I guess. The food isn't cheap, exactly; but it's certainly cheaper than other restaurants of the genre. Don't think of a $3.00 haircut; think of a $60 salon visit for $25, with hairstylists who are really excited to do your hair.

(Hopefully, this answers this.)




The Parrot Cage
7059 S. Shore Dr.
773-602-5333
http://kennedyking.ccc.edu/washburne/pa ... /about.htm

Thanks for the great post with pics and info. Who knew? I look forward to checking out this variation to the Chicago culinary schools. Plus, it'll get me a an area that I don't get to very often.

How cool! I went to the website and they have a "Reservations" link. Did you have to make one and should I? Thanks!

daveco_hen wrote:The Parrot Cage, named for the resettled Hyde Park birds . . .

The name also recalls The Bird Cage, for about 60 years the South Shore Country Club’s less formal restaurant. Thanks for the review, makes me want to visit even more.

marias23 wrote:I went to the website and they have a "Reservations" link. Did you have to make one and should I? Thanks!

We had reservations, though obtaining them took some diligence-- How To Man The Phones is not high on their educational agenda. I suppose the webform on the website would be easier.

However: when we ate there, at 7:00 PM on a Saturday, the restaurant was not quite half full, and never got any fuller. So.

I haven't eaten at The Parrot Cage yet, though I did stop in to look around in November:



They also have a relic of a long gone Chicago restaurant:



On this occasion, we were advised they conduct a brunch once a month.

Washburne Culinary Institute is developing a culinary library. They are actively seeking cookbook donations.

Regards,

The relic of Le Perroquet is enough to get me down there. A treasured memory; I was just thinking about that Roz Chast cartoon today.

It hasn't been mentioned so far, but the culinary school/lab/restaurant was profiled last week on Channel 7's Steve Dolinsky's pupvittles segment.

My wife and I dined at the Parrot Cage last night with another couple. After seeing the review on Check Please, and reading the menu, I was looking forward to a nice execution. I'm used to dining at restaurants connected to culinary schools, as I've eaten at Kendall a lot over the years and have eaten at a few culinary school restaurants on the west coast. Unfortunately, the execution just didn't happen.

A couple of us had the "three soups" tasting, consisting of butternut squash, chicken and sweet peas, and seafood gumbo. The butternut squash soup was excellent, with a bit of sweetness. The chicken and sweet peas soup was pretty bland, with the broth having little flavor. The seafood gumbo was very good, with some nice spice but not overpowering at all.

The caesar salad was a plate of romaine hearts dressed with a creamy caesar dressing that tasted like it came from a bottle. The croutons were billed as garlic croutons, but were pretty plain and looked store bought. The Grana Padano cheese that was supposed to be there wasn't, as there was a somewhat plain soft cheese crumbled on the salad.

The frissee salad was excellent, with fresh ingredients that were nice and crisp. The dressing was an excellent blood orange vinaigrette. The salad had beets, goat cheese and caramelized walnuts, all done very well. Unfortunately, there were supposed to be avocados on the salad, but they were missing.

The tomato tart tatin salad looked great on the menu, but didn't come through. On the menu, it states "tomatoes, herbed goat cheese, caramelized shallots, basil, baked under a puff pastry crust topped with baby greens finished with aged balsamic vinaigrette". What came was quite different. There was a large square of puff pastry about 6 inches square and 1-1/2 inches high, and completely empty. On top of it were a few slices of tomato on top of some greens with a little bit of shallots and about a tablespoon of goat cheese. I'm not sure what the point of the puff pastry was if you're not going to bake the stuff inside of it.

All four of us ended up ordering the same main course, the Australian rack of lamb. The lamb was billed as being paired with pureed roasted sweet potatoes, broccoli rabe, and port wine demi glace. Each plate contained 4 chops that were cooked perfectly medium rare and had a great flavor. The port wine demi glace ended up being a thick brown gravy that tasted fine but could have been a lot more delicate. The sweet potatoes were more half chunky, half puree but tasted great, and I'm someone who usually don't like sweet potatoes. The spears of broccoli rabe were severely overcooked, limp and lifeless. They also had a bitter taste that didn't work well with the dish.

The restaurant's wine list is small, but they have a policy where you can BYO with a $5 corkage per bottle, so that's what we did. The stemware was a real issue however for the restaurant. While they have 3 sparkling wines on their wine list, the waitress had trouble finding four champagne flutes, finally turning them up after about 10 minutes. The other stemware that they have are tiny glasses which were ok for a white wine but really bad for red, so I asked our waitress for more of the large stemmed water glasses, and we used them for the red wine. Unfortunately, we had two red wines and they couldn't find 8 of the water glasses, even though there were four on the empty table next to us, so she brought us four large brandy snifters which we used for the second red wine.

As far as the service, let me say that our waitress, the bus boy, and the food server we had were all good hearted and trying hard. However, it was very amateurish. I realize that they're students, however I don't think anyone has trained them on table service! In addition, they were defintely understaffed even for this tiny restaurant.

Overall, this restaurant has a looong way to go to get to the level of Kendall College's dining room, which would be a logical comparison. I think the fault is with the program and the culinary school's staff and not the students. The maitre d'hotel was not keeping her eye on the students to direct them, and perhaps only having one of them for the restaurant is too much for her to keep track of. In any event, much needs to be done before this program can call itself a first tier program.

All the best,
John Danza

Science Boy and I took Gram to Parrot Cage last night for her birthday. I had made a reservation on-line once we'd all agreed on a date. Wednesday night, a very nice woman called from parrot cage to confirm our reservation and to mention that they would make sure we had a "very nice" table since we were celebrating a birthday (which I made mention of on the reservation form).

We arrived a few minutes early and the hostess led up to a very nice table, indeed, in front of a big window, overlooking the lawns. Gram was thrilled. (When she lived in the South Shore neighborhood 30 years ago, that was still a country club and, she said, "We could never go in.")

We ordered starters - SB got the trio of soups. Since he is allergic to seafood and one of the soups was a gumbo, they let him substitute a second chicken soup for that. He enjoyed both soups very much. Gram got the fresh pea soup, which she pronounced "delicious." I finally decided on the Creamy Grits, Greens, and Shrimp. The grits were perfect, slightly thick and nice texture. The "greens" part of the dish was fresh spinach, which was warmed just enough by being in the grits to be tasty but still bright green and kind of crisp. There were three shrimp on top, maybe sauteed? However they were prepared, it was simple and delicious.

We did bring our own wine, a Cabernet Sauvignon, so we didn't try any of the wines on their list.

For entrees, Gram got tilapia, SB got the ribeye, and I had the Maple Glazed Pork Chops. (I was torn between those and the Blackened Salmon. It was the collard greens that came with the chops that won me over. I never had them before I met SB and now I am obsessed with loving them!) The servings were generous - I didn't even finish a whole chop! The pork was the teensiest bit dry, but the glaze had the perfect amount of sweetness without being cloying and the greens were moist and delicious. The corn fritters made me happy, happy, happy! I told SB that I am sure they serve them in heaven, perfect little corn pancakes. yum!

I did have a small taste of SB's steak, which was perfectly cooked. (Ha! His dish came with pomme frittes and our very sweet server looked appalled -- but tried to hide it -- when he asked if they had any ketchup at all!)

Desserts next! Gram and I ordered coffee. She had the pound cake with berries. She said it was very good, but I was disappointed to note that the "berries" were actually one small strawberry, perched in whipped cream atop the cake. Gram seemed happy, though, so I left that alone. SB got a peach cobbler, which was baked in its own little pie-like dish. The crust was flaky and melt-in-your mouth, the peaches sweet with just a hint of cinnamon. I ordered a choloclate mousse cake, which caused the only drama of the evening.

I should mention that SB has a pretty severe nut allergy. In fact, I made my ordering decions based partially on that. For example, I didn't order the Frissee salad or Australian Rack of lamb because both dishes have nuts in them and I knew he would like to taste whatever I'd gotten (which did, infact, turn out to be true). We don't go out much, especially since he got laid off again, so we try to be mindful of each other when we *do* splurge.

So, the cake came, with a scoop of sinful coffee ice cream. I gave hime some ice cream right away and then, before I'd even tasted it, took his fork and got him a generous bite of the cake.

He started eating it and said it was good, then turned ashen, grabbed the napkin, and started to spit out the cake. I was alarmed (his table manners are not *that* bad!) and asked if he was okay as he tried to rinse his mouth with water and wipe his tongue clean. (Gross, but true.) He finally was able to tell me there were nuts in the chocolate cake. When our server came back, I asked her about that. Yep. Hazelnut in the mousse filling (which was very evident when I finally got around to tasting it.) I suggested that they might want to just say "hazlenut-chocolate filling" on the menu and indicated that SB had almost gotten sick. She apologized and that was the end of it. (I did write about it on the evaluation form they asked everyone to fill out after the meal.)

Service was really good. Our server was attentive, but not annoying. I was pleased that they made sure Gram had a nice table for her birthday. This was a treat for us, too, and we thoroughly enjoyed our meal. We would definitely go back there again, especially for the $25 midweek deal.

Oh! One thing I found confusing was the tip. We were prepared to tip generously, but when the bill came, a 10% gratuity had been added and a note was in the folder explaining that the 10% gratuity is put into a scholarship fund for their students. That was fine with me, but we felt that the service deserved more than a 10% tip. I thought I could add it on when they brought back my credit card slip, but there was nowhere to add an additional gratuity. (We rarely go out, but we try to be generous to excellent servers when we do.) It felt wrong to leave just the 10%, but I didn't know if they had a policy against tipping since it is a school or what... Instead of asking, we left an additional 10% cash with the signed credit card slip for our server. Does anyone know what the proper tipping ettiquette is in a situation like that?

bluroses wrote:We did bring our own wine, a Cabernet Sauvignon, so we didn't try any of the wines on their list.

Was there a corkage charge?

There was a $5 corkage charge, which we figured was well worth it, since we were saving money on wine by bringing our own...

bluroses wrote:There was a $5 corkage charge, which we figured was well worth it, since we were saving money on wine by bringing our own...

That's very reasonable - I wish I'd known about that option last time I was there. Maybe next time ...