Chicago Restaurant Week: Just the Right Time to Visit Frontera...Again.

I'm back, Frontera! ¡A comer!

I ate at Frontera on Friday, the first day of Chicago Restaurant Week.  And I got the Restaurant Week menu.  Three courses, twenty-two dollars.  You read that right, twenty-two dollars.  That's about how much you'd pay just for an entree!

Restaurant Week lasts until February 10.  Here's a link to Frontera's featured menu, if you'd care to peruse: http://www.rickbayless.com/news/view?articleID=259

Course one, the Huitlacoche Enchiladas, had an interesting balance of flavors.  The French-fried red onions on top presented a glimmer of familiarity in a dish otherwise entirely unique and foreign to me.  The huitlacoche itself wasn't too assertive, something I appreciated since I'd never had it before.  I mostly tasted the black beans, with a hint of...huitlacoche funkiness.  Not bad funkiness, just funkiness.  It's one of those flavors you can't quite put your finger on.  The tomatillo sauce was sharp and acidic, a welcome attribute in a plate of rich beans, fried onions, and crumbled cheese.

Next to arrive at the table was the phenomenally beautiful Gunthorp pork with apricot mole.  The apricot mole didn't scream apricot, but it complemented the pork in a way that only a stone fruit could.  As in any good sauce, the heat in the mole doesn't hit you in the first bite; instead it builds over time, nuanced and complex.  Atop the pork was a grilled apricot salsa, something I had difficulty identifying when the dish was put in front of me.  I enjoyed it immensely.  The salsa's texture contrasted perfectly with the tender pork and smooth butternut squash.  The spinach gave the plate the bitterness it needed to counteract the sweet squash and sweet-spicy mole.

The final movement in this symphony was a superb interpretation of the pastel tres leches.  Perched upon a smear of sweet goat's milk cajeta, the cake is reminiscent of a pound cake that's been dipped in milk.  Not too wacky, right?  Wrong.  Because once we get beyond the caramel and cake, Frontera starts to get a little crazy.  The cake is topped with little dollops of soft, lightly toasted meringue, with a texture reminiscent of marshmallow crème.  Then, in a stroke of genius, the cake is topped with supremes of blood orange and candied blood orange rind.  The sharp citrus, similar in flavor to a cross between a grapefruit and an orange (at least to my taste), kept the dish from seeming too cloyingly sweet.

Dessert went perfectly with my café de olla, its blood orange slices subtly echoing the orange zest flavor in the coffee.

I cannot applaud this special menu more.  Get out there and try it.  It's a fantastic price for fantastic food.  Nothing like a little Frontera to alleviate the winter blues.

~The Amateur Foodie