May St. Café--report on a long ago dinner

In another post, Bob S. mentions a group outing to May St. Café from earlier this year. For some reason, I composeda post at the time and never quite finished. After digging it up, I'm not quite sure what I meant to add, although it does end a bit abruptly. In any case, here it is, for posterity's sake. This was from, perhaps, April or May.

May St. Café

A week ago, several board denizens and a few others congregated for a meal at May St. Café in Pilsen. The restaurant is located on a rather lonely industrial stretch of Cermak, at least walking east from Halsted.

My curiosity, and surely many others', was piqued by Chicago mag's occasional not-quite-praise for the joint. I'm not sure if being named "Most Offbeat New Opening" of the past year is a compliment or not, but it surely has won the place lots of business, including the patronage of myself and 13 others last Tuesday night.

Curiously (and maybe Chicago mag feels this way too, hence the not-quite-praise) most of what I find myself inclined to say about the place is not about the food. But let me begin there anyway. My memory is already fading a bit, so hopefully others in attendance will pick up the slack.

We got to sample a good bit of the menu, which aims for a mid-level Nuevo Latino/pan-Latin eclectic flavor--I recall explicit Puerto Rican and Cuban mentions. Our starters included a mango-jicama salad, a few types of quesadillas (chorizo and Chihuahua?, pear and brie), a marinated portobello mushroom with dandelion greens, pasteles (Puerto Rican tamales, with the masa surrounding made of more traditional Puerto Rican starches, not corn, and in this case served with coconut shavings and herb sprigs--tarragon, thyme, maybe sage?).

I very much enjoyed the pasteles, and the dandelion greens were a big hit, I liked the chorizo quesadillas even though they weren't particularly special and the pear-brie combo didn't do much for me. I only got a bite of the mango-jicama salad.

Entrees included pork chops, steak, lots of roasted veggies, chicken in a very cinnamon-y "mole," a few different kinds of rice, some soupy Cuban black beans, and maybe some other stuff.

Everything, I thought, was good. There was nothing I didn't enjoy, but also nothing that made me feel I needed to get back and try it again. Desserts were flans and something else at the other end of the table that I didn't try. They were very small.

Knowing the restaurant was also on the small side, I had called to make sure they could handle 14 people. They said no problem. Upon arriving, the table more or less agreed that, if the chef was up to it, we would give him a price per person and let him do what he felt would best show off the restaurant to a group of intrepid eaters.

Chef Mario Santiago was game, and off to work he went. I'm not sure that this family-style eating, however, was the best way to sample the restaurant. It was tempting because it allows you to sample a broad range of the restaurant's offerings. But the experience is much different than the plated dinner you would typically get. In this case, I think the party size would have made plated dinners equally challenging.

In retrospect, and to view the restaurant at most honestly, I would have gone with a smaller party, maybe 2-6, and just ordered off the menu. And I may yet do that. But again, Chef Mario was excited, and is primarily a caterer, so everything was prepared and plated beautifully, and I didn't at all feel the restaurant wasn't up to the task. Chef (and owner, I believe) did say he would have been happy to prepare us something special with advance notice (he knew a party of 14 was coming, but I didn't try to arrange any menu in advance).

Hi. I was interested to read Aaron Deacon's post about his experience at May St. Cafe and I wanted to share a review from my recent visit there. I went with a party of two, so I think my experience may have been a lot different than dining there with a large group. We absolutely loved the food; everything we had was flavorful and interesting.

For more details and some photos, you can see my full write-up in my food blog At Our Table. Visit http://atourtable.blogspot.com if you're interested.

I missed this thread originally. I've been to May St. twice, once for lunch and once for dinner.

I enjoyed my meal both times, but not enough to go back regularly. I'm kind of in the same camp as Aaron.

Beth really liked her salmon prep for the dinner visit. Although, to be honest, I think she mostly really liked the grilled veg -- she has a habit of choosing entrees based on side dishes. And she'd been eating horrible food in Windsor, ON, for the past week.

My chiles rellenos were fine. My chicken w/mole for lunch was, again, fine.

I think, perhaps, my ordering has been a little too focused on straight mexican food. The strengths at May St. are supposedly the more fusion/nuevo latino dishes. I haven't tried any of them.

I'm sure I'll go back at some point. Maybe I'll break my "fine" streak.

To report in more detail on the dinner visit:

I started with tortilla soup, which was good, although relative to the broth, the chicken was somewhat bland. Beth had the mango salad mentioned in AtOurTable's post. It didn't wow her. She focused on the dried mango bits, but still managed to finish a lot of it. For comparison, she finished all of her entree -- a quite rare occurrence. Which is, again, either praise or hunger.