Green Zebra report (long-ish)

Victor and I took his mother to The Green Zebra on the last evening of her visit from LA.

The Green Zebra menu is divided into three parts: light dishes, medium dishes, and heavier dishes. Our server recommended that we order two or three from each group. This was our first experience with a Chicago “small plate” place but we often generate such meals on our own at finer restaurants by ordering conglomerations of appetizers rather than entrees (to the sometime disgruntlement of servers), so the idea of being EXPECTED to order 7-9 dishes for the three of us was very welcome.

From the smallest plates, we ordered grilled asparagus, duo of soba noodles, and miso soup.

The grilled asparagus, accompanied by pickled onions, was delicious. Perfectly done asparagus. The only problem with this dish was that there wasn’t more of it.

The duo of chilled soba noodles consisted of two small piles of soba noodles: one with a peanuty sauce and the other with a coconut curry sauce. Often, when two presentations of the same thing are offered together, one utterly outdoes the other, making you wonder why they bother offering the lesser. So it went in this case, where we all agreed that the peanuty sauce was fabulous and the coconut curry was OK.

The miso soup, characterized on the menu as containing wild mushroom and organic dandelion, sesame rice cracker, and roasted tofu, was unremarkable. It tasted of lots of sesame oil and might have been lovely in small tastes, so this was a case where a big bowl of it was a drawback. It was the only dish we didn’t finish.

From the medium-weight plates, we ordered slow-roasted shitake mushrooms. sweet corn mezza luna, and artichoke cassoulet.

The slow-roasted shitake mushrooms were tasty enough, but were not served precisely as advertised. The menu said, “…in crispy potato with savoy cabbage.” When we asked the server for clarification on this dish prior to ordering, he echoed the promise of CRISPY potato. As it turned out, the mushrooms were roasted with the cabbage (which was delicious), but the potato was NOT crispy. The potato’s texture was more like the texture of a potato slice in the middle level of a gratin. Not entirely lacking in structural integrity, but chewy rather than crispy. So: a disappointment.

The sweet corn mezza luna were raviolis containing a sweet corn mixture accompanied by paper-thin slices of roast beets and a few fiddleheads. The raviolis were nicely done but not entirely to my taste. Overall, I could have done with more of the beets and fiddleheads, which were lovely.

The cassoulet was a nice artichoke stew with summer squash and favas, but in such small portions it’s hard to credit it as “cassoulet.” Each of us got a single fava. You start to sort of feel sorry for the person in the kitchen who has to dish this stuff out. Talk about bean counting…

We only ordered two heavyweights: crimson lentil cake and galette with confit of tomatoes, sunchokes, and fennel.

I loved the lentil cake—thought it well spiced and enjoyed the crisp texture--but my companions found it too dry. Which was actually a good thing (more for me!).

The galette was nice enough; the crust reminded me of Chicago-style pizza (with which I have limited experience)—sweet and cakey. The vegetables were a pleasantly savory mix.

Finally, we shared two desserts: cream puffs, which were very delicious; and an upside down blueberry cake, also good.

On the whole we had a lovely experience at the Green Zebra. While the atmosphere was hipper than we were, we weren’t made to feel out of place (a round of martinis might have helped to make us oblivious, though). Service was attentive and pleasant and the food was entertaining even when it was not quite as tasty as we hoped. The bread (a white kind and a grainy kind) was regularly replenished and was terrific. Since it has been a complaint about Green Zebra that they don’t serve enough food, I want to make clear that we left full. But we may have overindulged on the bread.

We’d return some time with another guest from out of town (especially if she were a vegetarian, and even more enthusiastically if she were paying).

Green Zebra
1460 W. Chicago Ave
312-243-7100