Alison W.
Yelp
The food was great. We got the smokey whipped feta starter, french dip panini, and prosciutto & fig jam panini, with spring salads as the sides for the paninis. (See details of ingredients at bottom.)
My very picky mother got the french dip panini because it sounded like an italian beef sandwich (big deal in the Chicago area), and basically it was indeed like that, and was very good.
The other panini was a little less good, in my opinion, partly because a third of it had no prosciutto on it, and it seemed in general like they were skimping on the prosciutto. The bites with sufficient prosciutto were very good. And, to be fair, I'm not the hugest fan of brie, though I do like it, so maybe it was just me. I think more prosciutto and more fig would have made it way better, though.
The smokey whipped feta starter was amazing and honestly the best thing. And while the menu says it comes with "crostini," it actually came with three different options for dipping: Crostini, toasted bread, and a flat cracker-like thing that I'm not sure of the name for.
The spring salads were not all that exciting, since little side salads rarely are, but they were high quality ingredients and tasty, and I'm glad they come with the paninis.
The service was great too.
I usually don't care much about service as long as they aren't bad/mean in some way. I'm fine with the bare minimum done in a timely manner. But they went above and beyond. We were being a pain in the butt since we took a while to decide if we should eat indoors or out and which exact table to sit at. We had a good reason: We were afraid my elderly mother would fall off the stool, so we thought one of the indoor tables with regular chairs would be better, but we wanted to sit outside, so we ended up sitting on the stools but pulling the table close to a wall so that she'd fall into the wall if she fell backwards. They realized what was going on and were very nice about it, and helped pull over another table for us to give us room for all the food.
Another nice thing they did was--when they learned we'd be sharing everything--bring extra little plates as well as pre-cut the two paninis into three equal-sized pieces. (But that's why I'm saying a third of the prosciutto panini, MY third to be exact, had zero prosciutto.)
A third nice thing they did was ask if we wanted to keep the menus, which are just paper. I actually very much did want to keep the menu because I like to have it to remember what I ordered and the prices in case I want to go again or recommend it to someone else, but I would have been embarrassed to say so, and would have just handed it over. I'm glad he asked, and I did keep mine.
And they were just very kind and friendly in general.
A final positive note: I see in other reviews here that they allow dogs in the outdoor seating area. I'm totally that person who would take a dog if I could, so that's good to know, and makes me more likely to return.
If you guys read this, thank you for being so very nice to us!
Full descriptions of the menu items we got:
Smokey whipped feta: cold smoked feta, chipotle chilies, chili crunch, local honey, Sciabica's Mediterranean medley olive oil, thyme, cypress flake salt, crostini.
French dip panini: Roasted eye of round, horseradish-mayo, swiss cheese, house jus for dipping.
Prosciutto & fig jam panini: Prosciutto, fig jam, and brie cheese.
