tournee

The Publican is a very good addition to the Chicago dining scene. The menu offers a nice variety of dishes from cured meats, fish, fowl, and various land animals. Although, vegetarian and vegan dishes are on the short side; I don't recall seeing any vegan items. It is more a a beer friendly environment, but they still have some very nice selections of wine from across the globe. The two wines I had was the Zuccardi '07 "Series A" a chardonnay, viognier blend from Argentina, which was very interesting as the two grapes worked together. The second wine was an intense shiraz from South Africa at the Robertson Winery "Wolfkloof" '05, which had a wonderful bouquet. The glass of wine is technically a quartino, quarter of a liter, which makes it pleasant companion with a meal, as I often find that the standard glass size does not pleasurably lost throughout the whole meal. Unfortunately, you do not get a proper wine glass, so you miss a good part of the bouquet from the wine.

First off, it is a pig friendly place, so do not be surprised that a salad is topped with "ham bread crumbs." Yet, the non-pork dishes I had were done quite well. I started off with a Tennessee country ham that had very expansive flavors, which crossed a wide spectrum of the palate. I followed that up with grilled octopus with fava bean pure, fennel, and pea shoots. The octopus could have been seasoned a bit more, as it lacked an intense sea flavor, but they all paired very well together. The third course was a very good beef heart that retained its meaty flavor as well as the proper tenderness for organs. For dessert, I went with a simple, and quite pleasant, buttermilk chocolate cake with peanut butter mousse and burnt butter ice cream, which paired very nicely with the '89 mas amiel dessert wine from France.

On a side note, it has one of the more interesting bathroom areas in Chicago. There are separate bathrooms for the sexes(3 for women & 2 for men), but in the area there is a nicely fashioned circular, communal sink. The most interesting restroom I've been in at Chicago is a bar off of Michigan Avenue in half basement establishment. Inside the the bar, the far walls are lined with chest high mirrors with entrances to the restrooms on either sides of the room. For the men, it turns out the mirror is one-way so you could see what was occurring in the bar while taking a piss. I could not find out how the womens was situated as we could not get the women curious enough to go in and find out if & how the mirror was situated for them.