Oh my god, I'm back.

I know, it's been a long time. I've been hiding out post break-up. You know how it goes. But I have now found myself a new dinner partner, and have resumed eating my way through the city, and I wanted to tell you guys about these two tasty restaurants we've been to lately. We'll go with the better one first.

First off is Sola, of "dale from top chef used to work here" fame. It's technically on Byron, just west of Lincoln. It's contemporary american with an asian/hawaiian tilt, and they have a really great beer list. Our waitress might have been the cutest thing ever, too. We started with the Tuna poke, which was hawaiian big eye with avocado, sushi rice, soy syrup, and wasabi oil. It was ridiculously good, it's very reminiscent of the tuna tartare at Naha, if you've been there. But watch out for the stripes of wasabi oil on the plate if you don't like spice, I thought S. was going to die. I had the fish special, which for the life of me i can't remember what it was, most likely halibut, since that's my favorite. I do remember I basically inhaled it. S. had the flatiron steak with grilled asparagus, baked mushrooms, leeks, and sake miso bordelaise. It was fantastic, too. Overall, the place is adorable, the service and the food was great, and I'd totally go back. You should too.

Up next is Chalkboard in Lincoln Square. I'm having a bit of a Lincoln Square fetish lately, and I actually wanted to go to Tallulah, which is new up there, but they were booked. Luckily Chalkboard had a cancellation. It's a tiny little space, with a rotating seasonal menu which our server literally read word for word to us. Um, dude? It's all written on those big ass chalkboards on the wall. Get me a glass of wine and shut the hell up. (To be fair, he was really nice. Just a little over-exuberent.) We started with psycho-server's reccomendation of the seared dry pack scallops with sugar cured kalamata olives, vanilla bean "mayo", pumpkin oil, sage and roasted walnuts. Oh, my god. Maybe he was excited about the menu for a reason, cause these were insane. For dinner, I had the duck cassoulet. The confit of thigh, chorizo, white bean, and mushroom on the bottom was so, so, so good. The roasted breast on the top was tasty but it was a little rare for me, and I usually like things barely dead. S. had the special of Kobe London Broil with shiitake purée and baby vegetables, which was really good, but he was still hungry afterwards. But this is someone who could most likely eat a small horse, so that's not really a judge of portion size. I was perfectly full. All in all, it was a really tasty meal, and a super cute space. I hear they have a really good brunch, too, which I'd like to try, but I'm probably not dying to go back for dinner. It's only okay.

Off to Avec tomorrow night, which you've already heard of from Liz. See you all later.

Oh my god, I'm back.