Naha in Chicago: Cutting Edge Dining Experience (Chicago Restaurant Review No. 72)

Recently, we joined two friends for dinner at Naha, which is in the River North area of Chicago. This is a restaurant that Steve wanted to try, but we'd never gotten around to it. So we were happy when our friend Adela suggested Naha.

The room itself is very modern, but in a good way. The design is sleek, with high ceilings and tables that are large enough to not be crowded but small enough for relaxed conversation. We started with a bottle of Cote de Rhone, a French Pinot Noir, which we all liked, despite having varying tastes in wine. For an appetizer, Lisa had tuna tartare, which came with a dollop of creme fraiche on the tuna, but more in a diagonal pattern with capers, and a strip of smoked salmon. The whole dish looked pretty and tasted good. Steve had the Greek salad, which had a lot of things in it (more than he expected). It was just adequate. Adela loved her beet salad with bleu cheese crumbles, which she thought went together extremely well. Joe really liked his corn soup. (Steve and Lisa have no opinion on beet salad, as they would never eat it. Or corn soup. But we trust Adela. We don't know Joe so well, but she seems to like him.)

The experience with the entrees was somewhat mixed, though overall positive. Steve's lamb shank was a bit disappointing because it was scanty and didn't exactly fall off the bone, as good lamb shanks should. Lisa, on the other hand, really liked her bone-in ribeye. Usuallly she finds ribeye too fatty, but this was grain fed and had a good flavor and was not fatty at all. Steve absolutely loved this dish as well and ate several bites of it because Lisa took pity on him, seeing he was not enjoying his lamb shank. (She also is trying to lose the 5 pounds she gained in Paris.) Steve definitely wants to come back to Naha to order this.

Joe's quail was also scanty and bony, but since none of us had quail before, we don't know if that's unusual (although Steve surmises that if you are going to order a tiny bird for dinner, that's what should be expected). (Lisa did not know quail was tiny.) Adela had a rather bad experience initially with her halibut, which came almost raw rather than medium rare. The waiter, however, immediately recognized the problem and gladly took it back for additional cooking. He also brought the table a free round of dessert wine and an extra plate of dessert amuse bouche to make up for the problem, which seemed to us as going above and beyond the call of duty. Also, Adela did like the halibut upon its return.

The dessert menu did not really contain a lot of things that interested any of us, so we decided instead to have the cheese course. We all found this to be one of the highlights of the meal. There were 8 cheeses, each of which was better than the other, and the "worst" was excellent. This cheese plate compared favorably with the best we had in Paris, even though the cheeses were local Midwest. The dessert amuse bouche consisted of four very dark chocolate ganache pieces and four dark jelly candies. The dark chocolate put Lisa and Adela in heaven, so we were thrilled when the waiter brought a second round. Steve loved the jelly candies, but found the dark chocolate powder on the ganache pieces vile. (There really is no accounting for taste, but Steve is clearly wrong.) Joe inscrutably expressed no opinion.

This meal was a good example of the sum being more than the whole of its parts. There were flaws with some of the appetizers and entrees, yet overall Lisa and Steve both found Naha much to their liking and would go back any time.

The bathrooms were a little disappointing. There were two Womens' Rooms, one was a single and fairly small and the other had two stalls and was clean, but neither was particularly fancy or well decorated. (There were Mens' Rooms, too, but Steve did not bother, so we're accepting Lisa's judgment completely.)

Dinner for four, with two bottles of wine, was about $500, and would have been about $400 with wine by the glass, which we think is a good price for the quality of this dining experience.

Our ratings for Naha, 500 N. Clark St., Chicago, Illinois:

8 of 10 Steak Knives (or Quail Bones); 2 of 3 Bathroom Brushes