Restaurant field notes: North Pond

     The kids wanted to meet for brunch at North Pond on Sunday.
     Which itself is parking the ball onto Waveland Avenue, parenting-wise. Really, if your grown children, having successfully launched and escaped the paternal clutches, nevertheless regularly circle back and say, "Hey old people — are you free?" that's snagging the brass ring.
     As if we weren't buoyed enough by the invite, walking into the lovely little Lincoln Park restaurant at 2610 N. Cannon Drive, with its gorgeous Arts and Craft interior, drove us to maximum good spirits. The hosts are excellent at welcoming — a lot of places fall down on this. Smiles, warmth, and took our coats.

     The place is so well-constructed you can be forgiven for assuming you're enjoying quality from an earlier age. Actually, though it was built in 1912 as a shelter for skaters on the pond and was nothing fancy. It went through a variety of incarnations — it was a hot dog stand for most of the time we lived three blocks to the northwest, before North Pond Cafe opened in 1998. It has to be the only restaurant to win a Michelin star that was once a homeless shelter. (The star has since been snatched back; but such glory, once conferred, lingers).
     True, my wife and I bobbled the first  challenge. The server set down a "Hot Chocolate Menu" which the savvy dinner would have taken as a tip from the cosmos to order the hot chocolate. We did discuss it. But I've got that diabetes thing, and my wife has that preserving her girlish figure thing, so we opted for coffee. Though I presciently mentioned during our pre-ordering analysis  that higher end restaurants which nail every other aspect of the dining experience often botch the coffee part for reasons I do not understood. My theory is, in their frantic quest for excellence, fancy eateries forget to clean the coffeemakers regularly.
     Anyway, the coffee arrived. I sipped, then silently dosed mine with cream, the international signal that the coffee is no good. My sharp-eyed wife noticed. Meanwhile, my daughter-in-law's hot chocolate arrived and she raved about it. I thought of quietly dipping into hers a spoon to try it, but she's new to the family, and that seemed, oh I don't know, an over-familiarity.
     Then I did an uncharacteristic thing. The next time the waiter swept past, I handed him my nearly full cup, said the coffee wasn't to my liking, and asked for a cup of cocoa. Typically, I wouldn't send a bowl of grease from the drip pan back if a place served it to me. But fortune favors the bold. And that hot chocolate looked good.

     My wife did the same. It was worth the effort. Not too sweet, with all sorts of intriguing flavor hints including, another server tipped us off to, lime chantilly.

The cuts in the corn bread were my doing.

     Brunch is $59, and under any other circumstances than meeting our beloved son and D.I.L., that would have been a dealbreaker for my wife and, honestly, it almost was. She was inclined to suggest something more budget friendly. But I disagreed, observing that we had talked about going to New Orleans, but didn't, so this meal was far cheaper than buying a praline at a candy shop in the French quarter, if you figure in the flight and hotel. And mirabile dictu, that argument carried the day. Plus we could consider it an early Mother's Day Brunch, that being a holiday, like Valentine's, when the savvy restaurant goer dines at home.
     North Pond brunch is three courses, and I opted for the Tart Tatin, as appetizer, the "Beef, Pastry" for the main course, and Chocolate Cake for dessert.
     I stepped away to spread the insulin welcome mat for that feast, then had to take a phone call from the paper. During my absence, an unexpected trio of breads arrived — quite quaint and pretty, with jam and a pair of interesting butters.

It's hard to find a good tart, but this was.

     The tart is described as "Honeyed Carrots, Goat Cheese Ricotta, 'Pop Tart' Dough, Arugula Salad, Lardons" — that last ingredient being a term I wasn't familiar with. It means cubes of fatty bacon, and I did enjoy picking those out. The salad was a tad wet, but welcome. I'm a big carrot fan — I don't think I've mentioned it before. Truly, Bugs Bunny level. I order just about anything made of carrots, did so here, and didn't regret it.
     The Beef, Pastry — no, that comma is not a typo — is described as "Turmeric Pastry Wrapped Grilled Striploin, Sweet Potato Purée, Root Vegetable Pavé, Sherry Jus."
     I wish I had thought to complain about that comma between Beef and Pastry; it would have been the height of the meal. "Waiter — there's a comma in my Beef Pastry." The sort of thing that enters into Steinberg lore, the way I once ordered the Happy Family plate at Szechuan Kingdom, and met the raised eyebrows — I always get beef and broccoli — with, "I've sampled the 'Happy Family' at every Chinese restaurant I've been to. To compare them. And do you know what I've found?" They gazed at me, puzzled. "All happy families are alike..." I said.

Beef, Pastry worked, despite the comma.

     Tumeric is the It Girl spice of the moment — our older son had been singing its praises recently. A relative of ginger, it is a deep golden orange. The accompaniments struck me as a tad greasy, but the meat was dense and satisfying.
     The Chocolate Cake was no wedge of standard birthday, but "Lapsang Souchong, Raspberry Curds, Sunflower Seed Crumble, Madagascar Vanilla Gelato." I looked up that first term (if I'm spending sixty bucks on brunch I want to know what I'm getting and getting into) and took away that it is a kind of tea.
     I like tea. But in this case, the cake was a reminder of the perils of insufficient research, because I didn't focus on the Lapsang Souchong definition long enough to grasp the "it's by far one of the boldest, smokiest teas out there." Truly,

The Laphroaig of cakes.

Lapsang Souchong is the Laphroaig of teas, and while smoky tea chocolate cake might be an acquired taste, it is not a taste acquired on the first attempt, at least not for me, a judgment my wife confirmed. I mean, I ate it. But my wife's carrot cake was superior, a reminder that one should always order the carrot dish.
    Brunch was a case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. The kids adore North Pond — they've eaten there before — and for me, the room and the service helped pull the food, which honestly I wasn't in love with, over the finish line. I enjoyed the experience sufficiently that I'd go back, if only for the joy of complaining about that comma. Plus the entire staff was truly first rate — the waiter didn't charge us for the misfire coffees, which is only smart serving, but not a bar that all could clear. There was no unsettling 3 percent "because we can" fee. The place was surprisingly uncrowded for 12 noon on a Sunday.
     Afterward, we walked to the Lincoln Park Zoo and ... well, we'll visit the zoo here on Thursday.

 

   Reminder: I will be one of the speakers at Chicago Fights Back, "An Evening of Stories, Poetry, History, and Music- focused on Chicago, on change, and on resilience." Wednesday, May 7 at 7 p.m. at the Hideout, 1354 West Wabansia. Raising funds for groups benefiting the homeless and the hungry that are impacted by cuts to the federal government. And yeah, it's a little discordant after a twee skip through a fancy restaurant. But one of my few writing rules is, Be Who You Are, and in addition to being a guy who meets his kid for an expensive brunch, I'm also someone who'll figure out some kind of presentation and drag myself to a gritty bar to help people I've never met. And if you are too, maybe I'll see you there. For more information, click here.