emilio's tapas

To take a break from the cookbook posts, we'll head back to Chicago, to a great restaurant: Emilio's. On our way to the Navy Pier, we stumbled upon this Spanish tapas restaurant. My dad decided he was hungry, so we took a seat and ordered.

The menu consists of cold tapas, hot tapas, paellas, soups, and desserts. We each ordered a tapas that caught our eye and shared them over Spanish wine and sangria.

We started with the Garbanzos a la castillana. It was a cold garbanzo bean spread with garlic, radishes, and roasted red peppers. It was topped with a cool dill sauce and served with toasted bread. It was heavenly, much like hummus (which I love), but better.

Next we had Queso de cabra al horno, which was a baked tomato sauce with goat cheese and olives, served with toasted bread. It was my favorite of the three we had. It was rich and warm, with the slight flavor of nutmeg. Oh man, I wish I could replicate this!

Our last tapas was Carne asada a la parrilla, which is a grilled skirt steak with peppers, onions, and mushrooms, topped with a cilantro wine sauce. The meat was tender, juicy, and full of the flavors of the vegetables. It was very good, but my dad ate most of it.

All the food was delicious: fresh, colorful, and flavorful. The service was very good and the restaurant was clean and well-decorated, though we ate outside. We actually ended up dining a second time at Emilio's and trying another round of tapas. I'll share that meal in another post. If you find yourself in the Chicago area, I recommend a trip here. There are tapas for every palate!

You can check out their website here: Emilio's Tapas - Sol y Nieve