The Cellar in Evanston

Journal #1 (1/28/12) – The Cellar in Evanston, Illinois

                Evanston is my mind was always known for three things. One, the home of the expensive and apparently affluent student body and campus of Northwestern University - Two, the last suburb on the north shore of Lake Michigan before Chicago – Three, a lakeside town with a goldmine of open restaurant doors, birthed from the diversity of the second city nearby. Aside from those nuggets of truth, one will learn that the affluent side of Evanston leads way to the occasional rough neighborhood where multiple ethnic groups are left behind by society and a school system that erodes in a mirror image of many parts of America. From what I have seen across the country, with schools that saddle bankrupting tuition with well-spoken institutions like Duke University and the University of Chicago, poverty is less than a mile away. 

The Evanston I know came from visits over the years by my car to dine on close to authentic Spanish tapas at Tapas Barcelona on Chicago Avenue and walk the lakefront promenade all the way to Burnham Park, secretly reveling in the knowledge that Burnham himself was the creator of such illustrious landscape designs. But after having lived in Evanston for a year with my best friend Nick, there were still some restaurant doors that I had not either known about or never found the time to journey through and peruse their menu. This is how I came to The Cellar.

Close to a month ago I had moved in with my girlfriend Ally. We found a renovated condo to rent in Arlington Heights, much closer to one of my schools. This past Friday night I was feeling the need to share another culinary adventure with my friend Nick, a man I have known since our high school days that possesses great passion for food and all the flavors in a bite of a dish he orders with anticipation. 

From his apartment we trampled shoe leather to downtown Evanston. The Cellar is located next to a great neighborhood wing shack called Buffalo Joes. Trust me - do not order the spicy wings on a hot day unless you wear a badge of honor on being a chili-head. Nick had to stop me as I walked past the entrance to the Cellar – this wasn’t the first time I had missed this long and narrow gem near the Northwestern campus at 820 Clark Street.

At around 6pm we waited a mere few minutes before they had to separate a four seat table. Nick in his infectious humor said to the hostess, “You can just chainsaw the middle.” As the hostess sat us down, we both grinned as she handed us our menus and said “Here is your table, no chainsaw required!”

The menu was one wide page of American style tapas. Much to my surprise most people I talk to in my classrooms or out and about haven’t a clue what tapas is. If you are a neophyte at this culinary wonder stemming from Spain, all you have to know is that tapas is finely prepared and presented food in small portions for cheaper prices. If one asks, “How is that ever going to fill me up?” haul their ass off to an Old Country Buffet and strap on a feed bag. Trust me, ordering a few plates in-between sips of beer, wine or a martini will have you patting a satisfied paunch you should be proud of for that night.

The mouths of Nick and I were agape at the diverse mix of American and European tapas choices. We settled on the following.

 -Braised pork belly with marrow potatoes, root vegetables, red wine demi glace;

-Blue cheese beignets that sat on top of roasted mushrooms, with port syrup, crispy prosciutto, blue cheese powder;

-a Butter and salt flight: parmigiano reggiano butter with fleur de sel, goats milk butter with Himalayan pink salt, truffle butter with truffle sea salt, and warm petite baguette

- a small bucket of fried chicken with buttermilk battered natural free-range chicken, coleslaw, sweet garlic gravy.

The waiters in tapas joints stagger out the plates, so as you can enjoy the flavors of each dish one at a time. The middle-aged couple next to us tapped their fingers on the table and flew a few choice words at the waiter for having to wait for each plate to come. If you order it, the plate will come. If you are well into digesting a meal at any restaurant and the next order hasn’t come, that is not on you – the chef has placed a terrible burden on his wait staff that will scream the orders for table 9, table 16, table 23. Cooking fast in a fine establishment can mean usual disaster. Take the same principle to cooking at home. I am sure I will have an entry soon on properly cooking a steak or buying fresh vegetables for a change!

First - the butter and salt flight, a plate that bore three tiny dishes, each with a unique butter inside. My personal favorite was the truffle butter that had the mushroom creaminess of an expensive truffle with the smoothness of churned butter. 

Nick and I were floored with the braised pork belly. The scallop shaped potato on the bottom had a caramelized edge, the blended root vegetables in the middle, resembling a thin pattern of mash, supported a medium sized square of braised pork belly. The flavors of the slightly charred edge and especially within the fat, were next to godliness. 

You might be asking yourself if the fried chicken bucket was made of cardboard and bore an old Kentucky man in a white suit and glasses on the front. Toss out that thought and think more of traditional southern style fried chicken, served in a waved paper lined tiny metal bucket. The first thing you notice about good southern style friend chicken is the flavor of the rub, which had a cayenne kick, on top of a crunch of biting into skin that could be heard tables away. I hate with a capital H friend chicken that when you chew the white meat within, you need a glass of water to wet down the chicken because it’s about as dry engulfing sand on a summer beach. This chicken at The Cellar was moist, appropriately complemented by a dipping light white chicken gravy sauce that had perfect balance. 

As we sipped a unique martini made of gin and a pure rosemary infusion, we tossed back a few micro brews, along with a dark ale with a twinge of fruit flavors called Brother Thelonious that you have to try if you are a fan of the less popular beers. That led us, far from buzzed because of the compounding food, to the beignets, traditional Louisiana dish that is at most places fried dough a powdered sugar – absolute heaven. The mushrooms, mixed with fried pancetta underneath, had a clear woodsy smell to them, as if they had been plucked a few days before from a forest not yet frosted over with a long Midwestern winter. 

All in all, the actual retail price (my nod to Price is Right) of the meal in the end ended up being around sixty dollars for the both of us. As we made our way back out into a chilly Friday night of Evanston, the wind forcing our hands up to hold our coat collars closed, Nick and I couldn’t stop talking about the quality of The Cellar. It is one of those places you cannot wait to take more people to in the future.