Yusho

yusho

Yusho is a “yakitori-inspired” Japanese restaurant that opened in Logan Square or Avondale, depending who you ask (I say Avondale), about a year ago. Dallas and I have been wanting to try it but never got there. The other night Jess and I were trying to decide where to go to dinner and decided to check Yusho out.

We knew Yusho serves small plates and our waiter told us that it was designed to be a tasting menu. So everything you order has just a bit on it that everyone gets to taste. For two people he suggested five things, so we ordered these five:

  • Maitake mushroom :: egg vinaigrette, dashi gelĂ©e
  • Okonomiyaki :: blue prawn, cabbage, chick pea
  • Pork Spare Ribs :: brussels sprouts, kimchi, chive
  • Pickles :: cucumber, lotus root, carrot
  • 2x fried chicken :: kanzuri, matcha, lime

The mushroom dish was very good and we really enjoyed the spare ribs as well, but I think that the okonomiyaki was for sure our favorite. It was like a seafood pancake and was so tasty. The cabbage on it was a good contrast. The pickles were super tangy and the lotus root, so pretty. Let me just say… all of the plates were bigger than we expected. When they brought out the chicken at the end (pictured above) we were already pretty full and then were staring down four pretty decent sized chunks of fried chicken. Oof! Not that it wasn’t good, but put us way over the top at the end.

We also sampled a few of their fancy cocktails and quite liked them. You could totally just go to Yusho for drinks. They were all very creative and delicious. We especially enjoyed the old fashioned grasshopper cocktails we had for dessert that were served in the Anchor Hocking Wexford stemware. Reminded me of my grandma!

blanche_de_bruxelles_beer

After dinner we met up with Chris at Small Bar around the corner. The Logan Square location of this bar is the original and is a small, neighborhoody divey bar compared to its fancy Division Street sister location. They have a really great beer selection with a lot of unique choices. I had this Blanche de Bruxelles, a Brussels white, that I have to remember to drink in the summer. Really light and refreshing.