Chicago Restaurant Week - Carnivale

Carnivale is a restaurant that Patrick and I have been wanting to check out for awhile. When we saw that it was part of Chicago's restaurant week we made our reservations right away. With rooms with titles like Lambada Lounge, Flamenco Room, Tango Room and Samba Room, we were destined to have a fun time! You have to check out the link above and look at the pictures of this space, it's amazing!

Cocktails
By far, my husband ordered the coolest cocktail. He had some kind of speciality Mojito and it came with a glow stick. I was SO jealous of his glow stick (um, you know what I mean);)

My order was a Caipirinha which is made with ypioca cachaca rum, limes and simple syrup. The Caipirinha was a risky choice for me because the first/last time I had one was at a friends party and they were STRONG!!! My husband convinced me to try one at Carnivale and I'm glad he did. It was a very refreshing drink.

While sipping on our drinks we looked over the Restaurant Week 2010 menu. I love that the menus were so colorful. It matched the theme of the entire restaurant.

Dinner

I started off with the Three Sisters' black bean soup with Niman Ranch ham and topped with Crema. This dish was SO good and very filling. I will definitely be ordering this when I make my return visit to Carnivale.

My second dish consisted of Lomo Saltado, Dietzler farm beef, roasted vegetables, rice and a soy chile broth. I'm very picky about the meat I eat and this did not disappoint. The meat was really tender and the flavors were excellent and really complimented each other. The only thing I would have added to this dish is a little bit of spice. I like a little kick to my food!







I loved that right above our table was a picture of 2 dogs eating a fancy dinner:)





It appeared that everyone was going for the dessert we wanted and the restaurant was having some trouble keeping up with the demand. The manager said they had no idea it would be so popular. Because we had to wait so long the restaurant provided us with free coffee drinks. We didn't mind at all, it was nice being able to catch up and talk over some coffee.


I had a Cappuccino.




Added a couple sugars to my drink. I was impressed with the variety of sweeteners that came with the coffee!






Dessert


The dessert was well worth the wait. Extremely good! We both ordered the Roasted apple crepes topped with dulce de leche ice cream. I'm normally not a big fan of hot apple desserts but this was scrumptious. My husband and I both hope they put this on the permanent menu!





I hit the restroom before we left and loved that they had Audrey Hepburn pictures hanging on the walls. It was a nice touch!





Verdict: Patrick and I both decided we will be making another trip to Carnivale. The menu looks great and we can't wait to try out some of the other dishes!



Fun Fact: Carnivale is located in the building that used to house a club called the Drink. When I was a younger girl and used to visit Chicago I would always go to the Drink and party the night away. It was so exciting and fun because back home we didn't have clubs like it. So when I walked into Carnivale it was shocking to have all of these emotions come flooding back to me. I'm sure my husband got sick of me pointing out where things used to be and what I remember from my "Drink" days:)



Question



Do you ever go to a place you haven't been in along time and get hit with a flood of emotions from your past?



This happened to me 110% when the cab dropped us off at Carnivale. Good times!