Last week there was an blog in the
Chicago Tribune talking about a new wood fired pizza place called
SoNo Wood Fired. At the time I'm writing this the web site basically says very little, no menu, no contact info, just a logo and a place to sign up for twitter and facebook feeds. This was the weekend of the
Chicago Air and Water Show and the
Midwest Buddhist Temple's
Ginza Festival. Every year during these events (which normally happen on two consecutive weekends instead of on the same weekend) the only thing to do is find a parking spot on Friday and leave your car there for the entire weekend. Move your car and you're not likely to find another space within a mile of home until Monday. Until I saw the blog about this new restaurant my plan was to visit
Old Town Social for lunch on Saturday, I've enjoyed most of what I've tried there. With this new information in hand, I ventured out on a very how Saturday just before noon and trekked my way to SoNo Wood Fired...and found it closed. No hours posted on the door, just a menu and a locked door. I guess opening a restaurant with no information on the web page and no information on the door is one way to go...
Anyway, next door to SoNo is
Urban Burger Bar. The two restaurants are owned by the same people so I figured they might know if the pizza place would be opening for lunch. The answer was no, it wouldn't open until 4:30pm. Oh well, I decided to have my lunch at the also new Urban Burger Bar.
UBB is a pretty nice bar, they have a wide selection of beers with about 15 or so on tap. And the stuff on tap is GOOD beer, mostly from micro breweries. Plus, on the Saturday I was there ALL draft beers were only $3! The main food attraction is (coincidentally) burgers. There is a long list of topping to choose from, with a few premium ones that cost extra. For some unknown reason the menu on their website starts with their "Urban Stackers" and leaves out the "burger bar" entirely. Someone really needs to talk to their webmaster to get things straightened out! After I enjoyed my Crooked Tree IPA from
Dark Horse Brewery I ordered my burger. I chose a grass fed burger (all burgers are 1/2 pound) made with beef from the
Tallgrass Beef Company, an organic beef producer partially owned by local media personality
Bill Kurtis. For toppings I chose mushrooms, crispy onions, white cheddar cheese and bacon. The burgers come with a side, I chose regular fries but there are other options like sweet potato fries. They also offer a selection of dipping sauces for the fries instead of just ketchup, I chose the chipotle aioli.
The burger arrived in about 10-15 minutes. Not bad considering that the place was pretty busy. The burger itself was cooked to a nice medium rare as requested. It was juicy and tasty, but could have used a little more seasoning in my opinion. I have to admit that I'm kind of a bun man, and this one was nice. A bad bun can ruin the burger experience for me. This one was fresh, sturdy and gave just the right amount when you squeezed it to take a bite. They were pretty generous with the toppings. The crispy onions where sliced thin, breaded and cooked until crispy. I would have no problem having just these as a side. The mushrooms could have been sauteed a little more, I like some caramelization on my sauteed shrooms and these seemed a little on the bland side. The cheese and bacon seemed top quality. All in all, there wasn't much to complain about with this burger that couldn't be addressed with a salt shaker at the able. The fries were good as well, and since I'm not a big fan of ketchup I appreciated all the dipping sauce options available. The chipotle aioli was really good on its own, and I used a bit of it on the burger as well. I'm looking forward to trying my original plan, pizza at SoNo, at some later date (and time).
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