My Favorite Chicago Restaurant

I didn't do much cooking over the weekend, mostly because it was the weekend of my bachelorette party and I had a bunch of out of town guests here for the festivities. It was a great weekend that in many ways reminded me that this whole wedding fiasco is really going to be alright as long as my friends and family are there.

Anyways, during the party we played a game where I was supposed to guess the answer my fiance Matt would have given to certain questions. Questions like "Where was our first date?" "What is Rachel's favorite color?" "What was Rachel wearing the first time we met" you know, that whole deal. I am not going to get too braggy, but I did REALLY well at this game. I missed probably 2 or 3 questions, one of which being "What movie does Matt cry in?" (I still have yet to see him cry in a movie, but maybe that's because we've never seen Rudy together), "Who's better at yoga?" (He said himself except for the "Birds of Paradise" position, which is absolutely false...I am better at yoga with the EXCEPTION being "Birds of Paradise"), and finally "What is Rachel's favorite restaurant?" Matt answered the question with HIS favorite restaurant, which I also love, but really, the answer to that question is absolutely Karyn's on Green.

*Photo Image Credit: http://www.karynsongreen.com/gallery.htm*


And since I JUST went to this place with Maris a few weeks ago, what better time to review the experience. No pictures, sorry. Too much eating going on...

First of all, this place is beautiful, and I've never had to wait to get in. It's also only about 10 minutes from my house which is an added perk.

And, it's completely vegan.

And delicious.

Look at this place...don't you just want to camp out and spend 4 hours enjoying vegan food here?

*Photo credit: http://www.karynsongreen.com/gallery.htm*

The first time I came here, Matt, Maris and I spent at least 5 hours (and FAR too much money) sitting outside on a beautiful late summer/early fall evening. This was before I had even started thinking about going vegan so I was a little nervous, but after my first bite of those delectable french fries, I was hooked.

This last time, Maris and I didn't stay as long, but quite possibly ate more between the two of us than when Matt was with us.

We started with the Roasted Foraged Mushrooms and Steak Fries. The mushrooms were delicious, but really, those fries are INCREDIBLE. We annihilated the two sauces (which is probably my main reason for eating these...the BBQ and chipotle sauces are OUT OF THIS WORLD).

We thought we needed to have a LITTLE green in our diet, so we ordered the endive salad which reminded me that I LOVE endives! Who knew? Seriously, so good.

We then moved on to the Entrees which we sort of split, but not exactly. I ordered the Fra Diavolo. This was OUSTANDING. I was realllllly nervous about the fact that it said "tempeh crab" and even went so far as to ask the server if the tempeh crab was SHAPED like a crab (he looked at me with the kind of look you would expect following such a weird question), but seriously, I wanted to kick myself for eating so much before this dish came out because I wanted to destroy it right then and there. I wish I could tell you what Maris ate, but I can't remember. I just know she had some of their brussel sprouts which were also to die for.

If I had to say there was anything LESS than perfection in this meal it would be the foraged mushrooms. They were still incredible, but the rest of the meal left me in a euphoric state for about 2 days that I'm pretty sure can only be reenacted with heavy drug use.

Please go here. Even if you aren't vegan. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it.

And Karyn, if for some reason you're reading this...I love you.