Publican

My friend Aaron is in Chicago shooting the new Superman movie. Or, ehm...excuse me...I mean, he's shooting the new "Autumn Frost" movie. Whatevs. The set is all over Chicago. The cat's out of the bag.

I am SUPER (pun intented) excited that FINALLY a movie is shooting in Chicago that one of my friends' is working!  I have a good amount of friends in the movie industry but they never seem to work on the projects in Chicago. 

Anyhoo, Chris and I met up with Aaron on Sunday night for dinner at Publican. Publican received a lot of press when it opened and I continue to read only great things about it.  The menu is mostly pork/pig focused with some plates of seafood as well.  To say the least, I was really excited to dine here and was thrilled when Aaron said he was up for checking it out as well.

Random side note: the three of us actually dined in, what we dubbed, a "pig pen" (to stay with the pork theme).  It was a table closed off by doors. Quite interesting.

Anyway, onto the food. Everything is served family style, so you share all the plates. Here's what we ate:
-shrimp and grits with corn relish (pretty good)
-taste of three hams (OMG so good, especially the one from Tennessee!)
-croquettes – chicken and chorizo (sooo good)
-hanger steak with peaches (a MUST have)
-pork belly (meh…it was OK but not as awesome as I had hoped it would be)
-side of corn (SOOO good)
-side of beets (also incredible)
-dessert waffle with honey butter (excellent)
-plum tart (also excellent)
-coffee for the guys (with dessert) and sparkling wine for me (with dessert)

They drank beer and I drank white wine throughout the meal. So I really liked, if not LOVED, every dish we had except the pork belly. It was too fatty for my taste so I would probably just pass on this if ever we dined there again. It was a pricey meal but I'm always willing to drop moolah for good food and it was awesome hanging out with Aaron for the night.  Here's hoping another movie brings him out this way again, soon.

http://thepublicanrestaurant.com/