Chided by Ol’ Lambykins for a third visit – I don’t concur. Tavern remains a great Chicago spot for steaks and again delivered a delicious meal at a reasonable cost. I arrived at 630, anxious to get my scotch on. Knocking back 4 Oban before dinner – I started to hit my stride. Scotty Markets and the crew followed around 7 and shortly after. Except Donald, who was dangerously close to pulling a Glick showing up as we were seated. I am a fan of the bar at Tavern, it is a good space. They were however a bit slow on the service. Maybe if they were fast I could have had 6 scotches before dinner.

Making our way upstairs, Tavern was not as crowded as expected. In fact, I would have to say it was kind of dead. Really my only poor marks for the evening – the atmosphere was no where near as boisterous as the last time. If you recall, we sang happy birthday to a hot blonde in the corner.

From a service standpoint I thought we were well attended to, even if some did not care for the pace – which, admittedly, was brisk. Surely had he been full of Gin, Thorzeen would have had the waiters take some time to strut through our sides. Instead he spat fire in my direction which I always love.

Diving right into the apps we hit up some Connecticut blue points, pot stickers, tuna tar-tar and blackened shrimp. Everything was amazing except the tar-tar had too much cucumber for me. Not a fan. A cucumber has the ability to poison an entire dish. The shrimp were huge and well seasoned – a definite highlight. Oysters as fresh as they come. Great job on the apps.

Keeping the wine to a reasonable level we got some Mount Veeder cab and were ready for steaks. Standard bone in rib-eye, medium rare. The steak was great and my personal steak knife sliced through it like warm butter. It was definitely on the rare side. I would even say it was cooked rare, not medium rare. But, that is fine with me. For sides we got “all in” potatoes, chipotle Mac and cheese, creamed spinach and some au gratin. All were excellent. They do the creamed spinach right….good mix of greens and cream. Very well balanced on one of the better in my opinion

Continuing to snip….lamby-kins informed me I forgot it was someone’s birthday. We got some key-lime anyway and it was delicious.

All in all a good night, I was quite hammered. Rick Ray walks free thanks to the giants. I throw a 7 out there….rick ray, what is your number?

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