Dinner at Landmark and a Play at Steppenwolf

Last Friday my mom drove down to Chicago from Wisconsin for her much belated birthday dinner and theater date. We do this every year, but this year for some reason we celebrated about 6 months too late. Oh well. Better late…. This year we had tickets for the Steppenwolf Theatre and went to a restaurant across the street called Landmark.

I really enjoyed Landmark. It was really beautiful, really fresh, local food, and the wait staff was really knowledgeable and really down to earth. Let me see if I can remember what we had – the menu is really seasonal and it had just changed so I can’t cheat by looking at the menu online. We split a bottle of white wine. I can’t remember what kind it was (!!) except that it was delicious. As an amuse bouche the chef sent out some little tiny bowls of morel mushroom soup. For appetizers we had goat cheese ravioli with some Parmesan sauce and cherry tomatoes. We also had an appetizer of scallops and pan-fried gnocchi. For entrees I had the trout with wheat berries and morel mushrooms. My mom had risotto with ramps. In the center of the risotto they crack a fresh farm egg and when they serve it you slowly stir it in until it’s nice and creamy. For a side we had fiddlehead ferns that were roasted in a wood oven. Where else are you going to eat fiddlehead ferns!? They were good. They taste kind of like asparagus. And then we were warned that it was like 8 minutes til show time, but we insisted on seeing the dessert menu. We had the goat cheese cheesecake that was served creme-brulee-style and with a strawberry and thyme gastrique. On the side were three slightly salty, savory crackers. The dessert was a really perfect balance of savory and sweet. It was so delicious. Actually, the entire meal was. We had a great dinner.

The play we saw at Steppenwolf was called “Dead Man’s Cell Phone.” This was my first time to Steppenwolf. It was a really nice theater and I enjoyed the play. Note: All of the Steppenwolf plays have an intermission. We didn’t know this and when the play abruptly ended we weren’t sure if it was over and we were supposed to guess at the rest or if it was intermission. Good thing we stayed. It was intermission and the story went on. Afterwards we stayed a little longer for a discussion that was held about the play. It was neat to hear what other people thought about the play.

One thought on “Dinner at Landmark and a Play at Steppenwolf

  1. it’s a good thing you stayed! although the second act was a bit odd, in my opinion…created more questions than answers. i liked the play though.

    i dropped in to say you should definitely see the main stage productions at Step…their season thus far’s been great!

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