TNDC: Mercadito

This week was my pick and I chose Mercadito, 108 W. Kinzie. A landmark known for their Mexican food and more commonly known among my friends as the place where Alyssa got kicked out for dancing. Apparently it’s like “Footloose” in their downstairs lounge.

Alyssa was willing to risk walking up to the hostess stand and seeing a picture of her face with a slash through it. Small club tonight, just me, Alyssa and Meghan. Neha is continuing her world travels in Spain and Amy was leaving for a conference in the morning.

Meghan and I decided to do our pre-cocktail hour at the restaurant. She had a bad day at work and went straight for the traditional margarita. I decided to be a little adventurous so I ordered the Smokey Pablo, which had cien anos reposdao (huh?), mango, chile morita and blueberry float. All that was code for a spicy mango margarita on the rocks with a taste of blueberry. I would have enjoyed it more without the blatant spices.

For our second drink, Meggie and I were intrigued by the michelada, which included a beer of your choice, lima, salsa inglesa and secrets. Yes, secrets. I assumed these were metaphorical secrets but the bartender informed us they, in fact, had a secret sauce. Apparently a michelada is a Mexican beer cocktail. They pour an ounce of Worcestershire and Tabasco sauce over beer. She gave us a taste of the “secrets” and it felt like I was drinking a steak. No thanks. I stuck with Corona Light.

Once we sat down, our waitress informed us their portions were pretty small and meant to be shared. So we each ordered a different type of taco: steak, pork and fish. We paired it with two sides of black beans and rice and fried plantains. Each of the tacos were really good but not out of this world. The pork was spicy and too much for little Megalicious. The fish were OK but I compare all my fish tacos to those at Paula’s in Fort Wayne and these didn’t hold a candle. The steak were also good but like I said, they were only a little better than the ones at Chipotle and double the price. Black beans and rice are hard to mess up but the plantains were very good. I’ll never argue with fried sweetness.

The problem with this sharing setup is they only gave you one itty bitty plate. So all your food is crowded on there and they don’t give you any larger or additional plates, weird.

The dessert menu was weird but Alyssa is obsessed with caramel so she ordered the flan. My only other experience with flan was at the Illinois Street Residence Hall dining hall at the University of Illinois, so I decided it was worth a second shot. Mistake. While the initial bite was good, all of a sudden the goat cheese alarm in my mouth went off. Again and again. I’m not sure how to make flan but I’d advise against adding goat cheese.

All in all, a good experience. I’d definitely go back to drink and risk a John Lithgow-style monologue about dancing.

Mystification of cashiers

Sometimes I am mystified when people are mystified by my simple questions or requests. Two such incidents occurred recently.

Stefanie had a $15 gift certificate to Sprinkles Cupcakes that she scored free from the hotel she works at, so we treated ourselves during a lunch break recently. We each ordered a cupcake (milk chocolate for me, Bailey's for her), and she ordered two to take home for her boyfriend. I also ordered some milk, which put us over the $15. I told Stef I would just pay her the difference. I held out a $5 and asked the girl working the cash register if she could give me change. She looked at me as if I asked her to stick the $5 up her butt, light the end on fire and eat a cupcake at the same time. The blank look ensued, and she finally asked her co-worker, "Do we have change?" The co-worker's eyes got HUGE at the thought of exchanging my $5 bill for five $1 bills. More awkwardness ensued as these two brainiacs tried to do the math on this. Finally, Stefanie told me to just pay the girl the difference with the $5, less worry about the change issue. Oy vey.

The second incident occurred today at Jimmy John's. In lieu of a traditional baby gift, I wanted to buy a friend of mine a gift card since she loves their sandwiches, and it could be used on a night she didn't feel like cooking. I also wanted to buy myself lunch. I ask the counter girl if they sold gift cards, since I didn't see them shoved down my throat like I do at every other establishment. Blank look.
"Um, I don't know. No. Yes."
"Can I buy one?"
Blank look.
Turns to co-worker. "Do we sell gift cards?"
"Yeah we do," he says, almost exasperated by the question.
She shrugs. "I'll let you handle this."

While he's trying to figure out the gift card machine, I decide to give Smarty Sally a separate task.
"I do want to order a sandwich."
"Oh great," she says, eyes perking up at a word she knows.

So another guy starts making my sandwich while the Gift Card Guru is still working on my request for a $15 card. Smarty Sally decides to ring me up.
"That'll be $7.01."
"With the gift card?"
Blank look, furrowed brow.
"How much was your gift card?"
"$15."
Furrowed brow.
Gift Card Guru is able to do the math: "$22.01."

Sigh.

Heaven on Seven

This blog seems to be turning into a restaurant review site. I don’t care-deal with it.

For everybody’s birthday in my department—there are six of us, all women—we bring in treats to have in the morning and find a day to take the person out to lunch. This week was our assistant Chrestine’s birthday, and she chose Heaven on Seven, 600 N. Michigan Ave., which is Louisiana-style food.

Being that it’s right off Michigan Avenue, I thought it would be a tourist trap. Which is code for chain food and expensive prices. But it turned out to be kind of a hidden treasure.

It’s pretty dimly lit inside and decorated Mardi Gras style, with purple, gold and green beads and masks everywhere. Kelly circa 2002 would have instinctively went to lift her shirt for the swag (I let some guy look down my shirt in college to win a Mardi Gras banner-for real) but professional Kelly circa 2011 seemed to be able to control herself. Or realize that a Mardi Gras banner with a Miller Lite logo is not great décor in a bedroom.

Heaven on Seven also has a wall with probably 1,000 different bottles of hot sauce on shelves. It was pretty incredible and overwhelming for someone who just grabs what’s available to put on my egg white omelette from the ADA café (The grill cook, Alberto, for realsies makes the best omelette I’ve ever had. Three egg whites, spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes and cheese, if you please).

For starters, they bring out a plate of sweet pickles to the table. I did not imbibe, as I only like regular guy pickles. I ordered gumbo soup and orzolaya, which is jambalaya with orzo pasta. My biggest issue with these dishes involved the sausage in both, which is hard to get around with this style of food.

The gumbo was great; not red as I’ve had it before but brown and with a scoop of white rice on top. Superb. The orzolaya was good, minus the sausage. It also had shrimp and chicken so I got my protein in, but I spent a lot of time navigating around the sausage.

Here comes the best part.

Whenever my department goes out for lunch, we let the birthday girl choose a dessert and we all split it. Being ladies who are conscious of our figures, we only want a couple bites as a taste. Chrestine chose peanut butter pie, and I could smooch her for it. It. Was. Fucking. Amazing. Best best best peanut butter pie I’ve ever had. Get up and go to this restaurant right now and order it. Do it.

The end.