EWP Review: Takashi

Ever since the ol' Michelin folk came to Chicago, I made it my mission to hit up all the places they bestowed with their lovely stars. 

So towards that end, Mr. EWP and I called a sitter and headed to Takashi. 

The place is tiny, blink and you'd miss it on the street, but it's well decored.  We sat upstairs which was a little roomier, but oh so hotter. They only had a window air conditioning unit.  Yes, that's right, a WINDOW AIR CONDITIONING UNIT.  And there was a rather large man sitting in front of it hogging all the cool goodness. What a jerk.  Another building issue: the bathroom was basically right in the middle of the tables. They tried their best to cover it up with this odd screen thing in front of it, but it was stil super awkward when I took a restroom break.

But enough about the setup, let's talk food.  The appetizers were both delicious and GIGANTIC.  Honestly I couldn't believe how much food was on our plates, especially for what we paid.  Mr. EWP's was basically the size of an entree. And my foie gras was more than generous a portion.  Our desserts were equally as phenomenal.  But the very odd thing was, after great beginnings and endings, our entrees were just meh.  Nothing to write home about, nothing that I wanted to go out of my way to eat again.  Mr. EWP had a wasabi encrusted steak and I had some sort of chicken creation that tempted me with the promise of eggplant, which there wasn't much of sadly.  It was just very boring.

So while the apps and desserts made us all giddy and would have been a 3 in my book, you really show up to a restaurant for the entrees, and those just made me fall asleep. 

And because of that, Takashi is only getting 2.25 stars.

But they have a special noodle night that I do still want to check out, I think more casual Asian fare may do better for them.