Adriatic Cafe Restaurant: A Nice Place for a Leisurely Meal

Adriatic Cafe is a place in our neighborhood that immediately was on our radar when we came up with this idea.  How many Croatian restaurants do you know about within walking distance of your house?  This place has a few things going for it.  The food has been pretty consistently good.  The wine list is exotic with lots of Balkan wines.  The patio is great on a nice day.  The issues?  Well, don't come on a day when you're in a hurry.  Service has certainly never been a strong point, so patience is necessary as we set out on another Balkan adventure, this time to Croatia!



Drinks
Beth decided to go with a Serbian wine made from a German grape, blaufrankisch.  It's a lighter red wine with a lower alcohol content and went really well with lunch.  Lower alcohol means you can have two glasses at lunch and still operate somewhat heavy machinery!

Food
For starters, we went with the griglia mix, which consists of shrimp and squid in a light caper sauce with a salad.  The seafood was nicely prepared in what was almost like a pesto sauce.  Its mild flavor didn't overpower the seafood and the dish was just the right size for an appetizer.

Griglia Mix

For entrees, Beth went with the stuffed pork loin.  It was stuffed with ham and cheese.  Sounds pretty good, right?  The real kicker was what was wrapped around it, bacon!  Three types of pork in one dish--now that's an entree Chicagoans can appreciate.  The pork was juicy and the sides of mashed potatoes and red peppers made for a great meal!

Stuffed Pork Loin

Neil went with the hardest thing to pronounce on the menu, karajordjeva schnitzel!  So what is karajordjeva schnitzel you ask?  It's a fried Pork tenderloin stuffed with kaymak and smoked meat served with mashed potatoes and vegetables.  What does that mean?  Deliciousness!  The smoked meat wrapped inside was similar to a very smoky ham and the whole thing was nicely fried so it wasn't too heavy.  The mashed potatoes had a great consistency and probably a stick of butter, which never hurts!  A nicely sauted mix of vegetables topped it all off.

 Karajordjeva Schnitzel

Overall
One of the charms of Adriatic Cafe Restaurant is the atmosphere outside.  They've built a nice covered area on the patio so you can enjoy Chicago in the spring and summer.  The owner, who's main business is construction, has built his own water feature, which is quite a sight!

Beth also got a meet a new friend, Mr. Turtle, who entertained us immensely while we had a nice, leisurely meal.  Turtles and koi in a Croatian restaurant.  Good times.

Of course, patience is a key.  The service is uneven and it didn't let us down.  Everything came slowly but steadily and luckily we weren't in a hurry.  A quick read through the Yelp reviews will quickly reinforce this, but the food is good and the wine list is interesting and affordable!


Foreign Factor
6 out of 10 The menu has a number of things you would expect to see on a Middle Eastern/Balkan menu, but also some great options that you don't normally run across.  The wine list features central European and has some very eclectic options.  The owner, who appears to spend a fair amount of time hanging out, told us that he often employs folks from the old country and the restaurant is run by his daughter.  We suspect that a number of other assorted cousins are also lurking around.  They aren't in this to make money, but the food is pretty darn good!  Be sure to try the grilled lamb.


What We Learned
Don't come here when you're super hungry or in a hurry, but do try some of the things that you don't recognize the name of.  And they grill a good meat.  That never hurts.  We've sort of been working our way around the Mediterranean with our visits to Greek, Moroccan and Yugoslavian places.  It's been interesting seeing similarities that carry through these different cuisines and differences that make them distinctive.  The wines are definitely a highlight--there's way more out there than chardonnay and cabernet--and many of the European wines are more food friendly than the big, muscular stuff that's so prevalent in the U.S.


More
Read up on Croatia and also Montenegro, where the owner is from.