As one might suspect, Spanish wine bar Vera is too informal to rate Phil Vettel’s highest praise, but he takes it on his own terms and comes out happy enough. “Vera is the kind of place where you can drop in after work for a quick ham, cheese and sherry snack, or order a half-dozen small plates and a bottle of wine and settle in for the night. Either way, you’re not going to drop a lot of coin here,” he says. He has high praise for the most ambitious dish: “That paella is terrific, by the way, a game-rich version that comes across as a sort of rice-based cassoulet. The paella, redolent of garlic, onions and tomatoes, is loaded with chunks of duck chorizo (made in-house), shredded rabbit confit and pickled chilies, and topped with overlapping slices of roasted duck.” He also admires the seriousness with which the restaurant approaches its sherry program, calling the staffers’ ability to pair sherries with your order “a great experience.” [Tribune]
Michael Nagrant’s take on Slurping Turtle is split down the middle. If it’s a hunk of meat on a stick, he loves it: “Yagihashi’s bincho fare is inspiring. While the generous hunk of grilled foie gras and cubes of rare American-style Kobe beef, a k a Washyugyu, served with a tiny pool of orange-perfumed ponzu dipping sauce are stellar, a simple slice of juicy chicken thigh glazed in soy and spritzed with lemon tastes just as luxuriant. …Nothing on the Web can inspire the carnal lust I have for Yagihashi’s fried chicken, a golden duck fat-fried, crispy-crusted cube of succulent-to-the-bone flesh.” But he’s more equivocal about anything that comes in a bowl: “The thing about the soup bowls however, is that while they’re good, they’re not transcendent. Yagihashi’s noodles aren’t made in-house, and they while they’re solid, they don’t have that super-fresh spring. The braised pork in the shoyu is tender, but it’s almost flavorless. Yagihashi’s broths are deeply savory, but they don’t have the voluptuous body of stocks I’ve had elsewhere.” [Sun-Times]
