My Most Memorable Experience At a Restaurant Was… Impossible to Pick By: Don

Don Anderson is a design engineer whom will do whatever it takes to eat a good meal. He likes watching auto races, cruising in his convertible, cooking, and eating out. He likes to call himself a 'Food Geek' and enjoys discovering new places so he can eat dishes he does not have the skill to make or ethnic foods he has never heard of. The food experience is what's important to him and it is even better when it's excellent food for the price. He watches Check, Please! because everyone in Chicago has 'A Guy' and the show brings people together to talk about their 'Guy' in the food business! 

My most memorable experience at a restaurant was… impossible to pick.  So here is a top 4, in no particular order.

My wife and I ate at Vie in Western Springs and one of the options for the salad was a bleu cheese dressing.  I love bleu cheese (although, truth be told, not much of a fan of what shows up as bleu cheese dressing at restaurants), so I decided to see how they do theirs. When my salad arrived, it appeared to be dressed with vinaigrette.  I mentioned it to the server, and they said that, in fact, this was the bleu cheese dressing.

I was dubious, but rolled with it.  What followed next was the most spectacular bleu cheese dressing I have ever had.  In fact, all other bleu cheese dressings pale in comparison.  It was as if each individual leaf of lettuce was covered in invisible bleu cheese frosting!  Such strong flavor, without being seen was, to me, amazing.

Pat Bruno (at the time the food critic of the Sun Times) mentioned that the best pizza you could find outside of Naples, Italy was in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.  That sounds just like the kind of crazy thing I am up for. So on a trip to Green Bay, my wife and I stopped at Il Ritrovo to check this out.  Pat was not kidding.
I ordered a special that was tomato, prosciutto, mozzarella, mushrooms, and basil.  The pizza was constructed so that every single time I took a bite, I would get a different combination of the ingredients.  It was so memorable because each bite was delicious and different.

The first time I picked up rib tips from Honey One, they were still on the West Side and had no seating.  So I took them home, ate them at my kitchen table and growled while I ate them. Literally growled.

For the past few years on Christmas Day morning, I have spent the time with two of the most wonderful things in my life:  my wife and an Ann Sather cinnamon roll.


Vie Restaurant
4471 Lawn Avenue 
Western Springs, IL. 60558
(798) 246-2082
http://www.vierestaurant.com/


Il Ritrovo
515 South 8th Street 
Sheboygan, WI. 53081
(920) 803-7516
http://www.ilritrovopizza.com/ 


Honey 1 BBQ
2241 North Western Avenue
Chicago, IL. 60643
(773) 227-5130
http://honey1bbq.net/


Ann Sather Restaurant
909 West Belmont 
Chicago, IL. 60657
(773) 348-2378
http://www.annsather.com/