Le Lan

Too bad, because Le Lan was Le Shit! Seriously one of my favorite high-​end dining experiences in the entire city. Totally underrated.
From what I understand, however, Chef Bill Kim has opened a new restaurant in Wicker Park called Urban Belly, which my friends tell me is more casual, but also exceptionally delicious.
I would kill for a bowl of his coconut soup.

I hate to be the bearer of such bad news but today May 12, 2009 Le Lan had to close its’ doors for the last time. Every experience I’ve had there has been great and while the prices are high the food is well worth it. I know I will not be the only person to miss this place. I think we should all take a moment of silence for some well deserved grief. *moment*
SIGH.

Truth be told, I hadn’t even heard of Le Lan before I got to Chicago. A person I’d never met before picked it out for our group. But being an adventerous eater, I was immediately excited to give it a try.
From the minute we walked through the 24″ door I was not disappointed. The electic ambiance provided the perfect backdrop for what I can only describe now as a fantastic meal.
Immediately we were treated to an appertif that I never did really get the right name of. I believe it had something to do with pork skin though…
Then we proceeded to order drinks and appetizers. It might be easier to just list the things we didn’t order, but for sake of simplicity I’ll list what we DID get.
I can attest to the superb quality of all of these dishes: Poached Duck Dumplings, Pork Belly & Pink Shrimp Spring Roll, Wild Mushroom & Chicken Dumplings, Elk Carpaccio, Bobwhite Quail w Foie Gras, Soy & Mirin Marinated Elk Loin, Asian Bouillabaisse, Phở Braised Painted Hills Farm Short Ribs, Wrinkled Green Beans, Le Lan Basmati Fried Rice, Marinated Eggplant…
And in case you manage to leave room, which shouldn’t be too hard because this is a restaurant that strives for quality over quantity… we also ordered all the deserts — which were all fantastic.

I brought my parents here when they were in town. I had decided to come here based on the menu they have posted on their website. It is NOT the menu they are currently serving. There were still some things I was definitely interested in, but I was dissapointed, for sure.
The service was great. Perfect amount of friendliness and not stuffy. Ambience of the place is a bit cold though. Maybe it’s the brick walls and one square room? Not sure. Our appetizers were awesome. Main course… meh. I got the pork special (pork three ways). On top of being miniscule, it was tough and cold.
We ended well with dessert — two dishes recommended by our server– some coffee extravaganza and something with almond cake. But no chocolate in sight. It was good, but meh all around. I wouldn’t tell someone to go.

The food here was absolutely fantastic! My boyfriend took me here for my birthday and it was really unforgettable. I had two great cocktails (a passionfruit margarita, and a mojito), then started with the watermelon and thai basil salad. The watermelon was incredibly fresh, and there were delicious sweet beets scattered through the salad.
The Wagyu beef appetizer was outstanding. The beef was buttery and melted in my mouth; I actually closed my eyes while I was eating it to really savor it.
My scallops were tremendous, and they were lying atop this savory tomato couscous that I adored. I knew I would eat every bite no matter how full I got!
The staff knew it was my birthday and brought me a crème brûlée with a candle in it. That dessert was delicious — I can’t remember what the other one was. I think I loved the crème brûlée so much that all memories of other desserts were wiped out of my mind. It was a beautiful, romantic restaurant with great service (the waitress said I looked radiant and glowing) and nearly perfect food!

Yeah, nothing special. Went during Restaurant Week, so I’m not sure if they put their best on the menu or if they were just trying to cheap out. The food was OK, and the service was great — but it wasn’t enough to convince me to come back at their regular prices.
Ambiance wasn’t that great. We were sitting by the back wall under the fluorescent lights by the dragon mural. Not a very comfortable or flattering light.
Dessert was definitely the best part for us — I thought it was fantastic. Was underwhelmed by the soup, and my hanger steak was pretty stringy. I guess that what you get when ordering hanger steak but I’m glad I didn’t order it when it was $ 26? on the regular menu.

Disclaimer: I ordered off of the Restaurant Week menu
Never judge a book by its cover; never judge a restaurant by its chef? Urban Belly (same owner) struck a dissonant chord in my urban belly, but I was still willing to give Le Lan a shot.
Wine: My friend ordered a glass of wine at the bar and the bartender happened to pick up an almost empty bottle of it. Well, even a non-​wine drinker would know to open a fresh bottle and not to pour that to even your worst enemy, but this dude proceeded to pour all of the leftover into her glass and then opened a fresh bottle and poured a little from there. They charge you a pretty penny for a glass, but fill your glass with garbage? Oh, no you didn’t. So far Le Lan is starting off at 4 stars.
Appetizers: Four of us ordered the butternut squash soup and it turned out pretty good. Actually, to be honest, I thought it was a tad too sour, but others liked the tartness. My friend ordered the soba noodles, which were surprisingly good. Soba as an appetizer? It works and had a nice kick to it. We’re still at 4 stars.
Entrée: I ordered the Thai-​chili misteak cooked medium. It came out raw. Rare would’ve been plausible, but raw? So I sent it back (which I’ve only done maybe twice in my life), waited 10 minutes, received the now «medium» misteak, and took a bite. I like flavorful food, but the only flavor I was tasting was sodium. I could literally feel my blood pressure rising throughout the meal. Le Lan, you just lost a star.
Dessert: We had to wait 30 minutes from the time they took away our entrée plates to when they set down our desserts. Oh the anticipation! I was excited for the chocolately lava flow from my molten chocolate cake, but when carved out my first piece. NO FLOW! Don’t worry, Mari. Try digging more towards the center and maybe that’ll do the trick. Ok, so I dig towards the center and… NO FLOW. Patience, you’ll get there. Nope, it never flowed. The molten chocolate cake was over-​cooked. My tummy cried a little that day. –1*
Service: Slightly disappointing, but not enough to subtract a star.
Overall, I think it’s pretentious.

My wife and I were in Chicago this past weekend and happened to catch Le Lan’s restaurant week menu which was really good. We got seated on the second floor and had very nice service — I know that can be a challenge sometimes during a specials week, at least in NYC, but it wasn’t here. Unfortunately the restaurant week deals did bring out some of the riff-​raff (just like in New York) and we had a table of some young cacklers near us. (But I can’t blame that on the place)
Anyways, the drinks were solid (yummy blood orange cocktail), and then I tucked into a butternut squash soup — something I can’t resist in the cold weather. A really nice steak followed up, and then a delicious molten chocolate cake (I see other people caught that too).
As noted, service was a tad slow, but again I expect that during such a week — luckily we never felt ignored and always got full descriptions of what we were looking at. All in all, I was pleased — we’ll have to make it back and hit this place during a non-​restaurant week.

FYI There is a fantastic deal going on here until Thursday 1÷29÷09 — $ 20.09 for a two-​course meal of beef short ribs, curried trout, or a tofu dish with a course of chocolate cake or coffee crème brûlée. (No — I don’t work here, but I love a good deal!) I also noticed they offer a 3 course meal for $ 33 on Tuesdays.
The menu is a little pricey — $ 10 –12 appetizers, main entrees are close to $ 30, most wine bottles are $ 40 — $ 50, so I was psyched to hear about the above mentioned meal deal! We started with the duck dumplings — amazingly flavorful dumplings covered in a coconut sauce with pineapple and some other yummy things that I forget. Sooo good! I ordered the curried trout which was absolutely delicious! The boy got the short ribs and loved them too! We divided and conquered the desserts — the chocolate cake was really good, basically a warm moist chocolate brownie. The coffee crème brûlée was okay, a little too strong though. Overall, the food was ridiculously good!
The restaurant décor is what you would expect for a nice restaurant downtown though it leans more toward an Asian theme. It’s really cute though — great for a date. The service was really good; our waiter was really friendly and attentive.

No better Tuesday night deal in the city, if you like Asian influences.
When a French/​Vietnamese restaurant, it was one of our top 5 in Chicago. It’s evolved away from the Vietnamese flavor, but is still a wonderful restaurant.
The décor is fabulous, a stylish Asian-​influenced room with quality linens and tableware. Service is first class. The choices change with the season, and have always been interesting, from the standard bouillabaisse to the various pork dishes. Excellent chicken coconut soup. Exciting deserts, both visually and in taste. Presentation is clearly important to Chef Lam, and it shows. It’s a great dining experience, but
a touch less than it use to be.
Tuesday nights are an extra treat for your dining budget. For $ 38 you get soup or salad, ANY entrée on the menu, and ANY dessert on the menu. Not a limited pick-​one-​of-​these-​three-​choices ripoff. Full menu selection from the entrees and desserts. It’s a great deal, but you will need to book it ahead of time. Lots of people know about it and fill the place on Tuesdays.

Just tried their new menu last week, they have a new chef. Fantastic winter menu with lots of meat! Great bouillabaise (I am not even going to bother trying to spell that correctly).
still have that great winter special going on, 3 courses $ 38 — I think. So worth going.

So lets get things straight here: I have good taste in restaurants. I chose this amazing restaurant as my birthday destination & I was not disappointed.
This was actually my 3^rd visit to Le Lan, and I must say, I think this was the best visit. Their concept is French/​Asian now… not French Vietnamese, but wow, this was an impressive meal.
I started with the Thai coconut soup… amazing flavors and small olive oil poached shrimp cooked to perfection. I think I could have eaten a quart of that soup. SO good!
My main was the lamb loin & lamb leg combo. The loin was a perfect medium rare & looked beautiful (I love lamb and yes I think it can be beautiful) :) The leg was braised with lots of spices and was accompanied with Yukon potatoes. Normally I don’t eat everything on my plate, but I just could not stop eating this!
Then came dessert. I was pretty surprised to see only 4 options, plus a cheese plate. I got the fresh peach & blueberry crumble with blueberry ice cream. When it arrived, it wasn’t anything I expected visually. It looked rustic but sooo good. It had a lot of fresh mint that was a bit much, however, everything tasted so fresh. This is a great summer dessert!
I also want to recommend the cocktail they call «sangria». It was a sake base and included other liquors & fresh fruit. Yum!
Love this place! Make a reservation now :)

There are many things about this restaurant that made me want to give five stars, but there were too many things keeping me from doing it.
The décor is simply beautiful. Very enticing and romantic. Although, my friend and I could not get over the overwhelming scent of men’s cologne. We wondered if it was possibly a scent the restaurant had chosen or an over eager patron? It was hard to tell, but either way, that smell changed the way our food tasted. it was that strong. :(
We shared two appetizers to start. A chicken and mushroom dumpling and a tomato salad. Both were good but not amazing.
Our server brought over another appetizer, compliments of the chef, which was some sort of seafood plate. Unfortunately, neither of us eat seafood so we had to break it to him. We were grateful anyway, but sent it back with him.
For dinner I had a chicken breast over risotto and my friend had pork, also over risotto. Both were flavorful and well prepared. but again, nothing crave-​worthy. We did order a side of green beans which were downright amazing. Sad that this was the best part of the meal.
Desert: I had a Bavarian chocolate dish while my friend had a berry compote of some sort. Both were pretty tasty.
Overall, nice ambiance, friendly and knowledgeable staff, damn sexy sous chef, good drinks and decent food… just didn’t wow me to the point of gushing.
I would come back if in the neighborhood.

I really like this place. I’ve never had a bad meal here. The décor, the service, the food, the dessert, the drinks are all outstanding. Also great about this place are the meal specials that they have (Tuesday nights!) and the New Year’s special they do each January (for example, three courses for $ 20.08 this year).
The only drawback is that there is little or no street parking near the restaurant and I hate having to valet. Otherwise, I absolutely love this place and highly recommend it.

Another Restaurant Hopping adventure with Hubby… Must say we loved this place! We ate at the bar and were greeted very warmly and given menus right away. Décor in this place is very chic without being stuffy.
Cocktails were very yummy — My husband had a Ginger something and I had a drink with Pineapple in it that tasted like summer in a glass. I knew I won «Best Drink» when hubby ordered what I had for his second one.
Food was awesome but secretly I totally loved the Chorizo flavored popcorn they gave as a bar snack. It was the bomb. We had their soup, the dumplings and spring roll. all of it was awesome so we can’t wait to go back.
Highly recommend!

Décor: Minimal Chic
Staff: Attentive. Warm, but not sickly sweet. Professional.
Drinks: Divine! Did I say, deliciously divine?!
Food: This is where the hard part begins. One or two words cannot convey the absolute fabulous-​ness of the cuisine. Surprisinly, I had the Unilocal Eats special menu and the food was still marvelous! I had a beet salad that would make anyone turn into a «beet lover». The viniagrette was fantastic. Light and slightly tangy. I then had the special, which was some sort of short rib or pork dish (after three Sake Sangrias, I forgot the name!?)…forgotten name, or not, the dish was divine! My friend had the scallops, and I think I heard her moan in ecstacy?!

Chicago is a great eating town, but I didn’t expect my favorite meal there to be at an Asian fusion joint.
We started off with the Young Coconut soup, which was pretty darn similar to Tom Kha, but just a tad classier. I’m not even sure what that means, but I wanted to just keep ordering that until I was transported to Bangkok.
We then enjoyed the spring rolls, which were equally delicious versions of Asian standards.
The setting reminded me of some great restaurants I’ve visited in New York and Asia, and so it gave off the vibe that Chicago was a real international town (not something I felt previously.)
We rounded our meal out with the banana leaf wrapped red fish… holy smokes that must have been laced with crack or something.
Hands down my favorite restaurant in Chicago.

This Asian-​French hybrid located in River North delivers on unique offerings for both lunch and dinner. Most recently I was there for dinner and we had a great evening.
The interior of the restaurant is lovely. While not overly large, the bamboo and green tile lend a calming air to the space. And on the back wall, the dragon mural draws the eye to it. Since it is one large room with a bar– it can get noisy in here although on our last visit, it was about half full and the noise was at a normal level.
Once seated, you are presented with these soft rolls with hoisin glaze. Careful– they keep bringing them and you don’t want to fill up on bread with the items they have on the menu for you to savor and enjoy. Put the bread down, now!
We usually try a wide range of salads and appetizers. My friend likes beets so we tried the goat cheese and spinach salad with beets. Very interesting combination of flavors. It didn’t make me change my opinion on beets but it was good! For appetizers, we went with the wild mushroom and chicken dumplings and beef carpaccio. Both were delicious!
For our entrees– we tried the short ribs served with mushrooms and rice and the rainbow trout served with couscous. Very good– although I think the short ribs were the overall winner– full of flavor and so tender! For dessert, we split the banana chocolate bread pudding (need I say more?). I think I dream about that dessert!
The wine list is interesting as it has a number of more obscure wines on it. The servers are great, though, about helping find a wine that is in your price range and fits your taste.
Service is attentive without being overly assertive and on the night we were there– the owner was there and he stopped by to say hi. A nice touch, I thought.
If you are hesitant about trying Le Lan out– go on a Tuesday night. They have a fixed price 3 course dinner for only $ 38. Now you can’t beat that!
While Asian-​French is not my favorite type of food– this place does it up right with style and class. The way I describe it to my friends? It’s probably not what you expect which is why you should go.

After hearing how amazing this place was I tried it out. The portions are tiny (whats the fun of dropping 120 + tip if you crave more food when you leave). I had short ribs, my fiancée had something else (can’t remember probably means it wasn’t that good)
They had tasty apps though. Its the only place that made tofu taste good. With all that in mind, I’d say there are better tasting places to go for that kind of dough (yeah I just rhymed)

I really loved this restaurant. I have always been a big fan of Le Colonial, and was really looking forward to dining here.
We sat at the back of the restaurant at an intimate corner table. The space has a very Zen like tone — calm, neutral, relaxing, with just a bit of sexiness. This is a great date restaurant, as it is just romantic enough without going overboard. Tables are well spaced to give privacy… I hate it when I can hear other people’s conversations!
Coincidently, our server was an old old family friend of mine. He treated us VERY well. We had two complimentary glasses of champagne… a great way to start the evening.
The wine list is impressive for a fusion restaurant. We ended up ordering a bottle of Montrachet. It went very well with our meal. The asian steamed buns with spicy dipping sauce was wonderful. Perfect texture and just the right amount of spice! I then had the asparagus salad with walnuts, beets and greens. Citrusy and sweet with a bit of a zing, it was a good palette cleanser. We then split the Asian squash ravioli. Personally, I could have made a meal out of just a plate of this. it was SO good.
For our main entrees, I ordered the Pacific halibut and BF got the Lamb. The halibut was cooked perfectly — moist, flakey and very flavorful. It came with an escargot ravioli that was SO good. I’m not a big fan of lamb, but BF’s dish was very good… more tender than other lamb I’ve had.
The dessert… oh the dessert. We had a coffee cake that was served with chocolate mousse. The mousse went across the plate and did not look that appetizing at all. But, once you put it in your mouth, it was amazing. Our second dessert took the prize!!! It was a flakey fillo dough pastry with warm chocolate nutella type chocolate sauce inside. It was seriously orgasmic. I’m getting excited typing about it. The dessert came with carmelized bananas and vanilla ice cream.
I was really happy with our meal here. Everything was fantastic. I left a little stuffed and very tipsy… it was a very good time :)