Otom

Otom is right down the street from us. It is the little sister restaurant to Moto, the molecular gastronomy heaven. Moto's tasting menu runs $110 per person for 10 courses or $175 per person for 20 courses. Which is why we were dining at Otom instead.

This was our third dining out experience in a row at a nice restaurant that had a child there. I'm still puzzled who wants to take a small kid to dinner at 9 pm at a nice restaurant? I hope this is not becoming a new trend.

Otom has some fancy cocktails that we started with. I had the Scarlett O'Hara with St. Germaine, lychee, raspberry puree, grapefruit, and Gruet. It was wonderful. Not too sweet but still fruity, just how I like it.

The Husband had the Brave Rooster with jalapeno-infused 10-Cane rum, muddled cilantro, pineapple syrup, and lime. Normally I'd think a drink that tasted like jalapenos was gross. This was was very good. With the cilantro and lime it was very refreshing and there was a definitely pineapple aftertaste.

My next drink was the Morning Dew. It had Plymouth gin, honeydew-cucumber syrup, house sour, prosciutto powder, and watermelon foam. I wasn't the hugest fan of this drink. It tasted like I was drinking a garden. The cucumber was a little overpowering.

The Husband had a Roses are Red, Whiskies are Blue which contained blueberry-infused Rittenhouse rye, orange curacao, orange juice, bitters, and rose water. He seemed to like it. I don't like whiskey, bitters, or orange flavor so I wasn't a fan.

My last drink was a lychee martini with 10 Cane rum, Soho Lychee Liquor, Lychee syrup, and house sour. It was good but nowhere near as good as the Scarlett O'Hara so it was a bit of a letdown.

I started with the BLT as an appetizer. It had caramel braised badon, smoked tomato jam, and romaine puree. It was perfection. Definitely the best part of the night.

The Husband had the shrimp with watermelon, heirloom tomato, and thai vinaigrette. The interesting part was they had managed to cut the watermelon and tomatoes so that just looking at it you couldn't tell which was what. So there was both red and yellow tomatoes and watermelon and you didn't know until you tasted each piece if it would be tomato or watermelon. It was a little disconcerting to try a piece of what I thought was tomato and it was watermelon. And then the next piece that I thought would be watermelon was tomato.

For my main dish I had the potato chip gnocchi with maytag, parmesan tuile, champagne grapes and pine nuts. The parmesan crust that came with this was delicious. The gnocchi were very light and matched very nicely with the sweet flavor of the champagne grapes.

The Husband had the skirt steak with heirloom tomato panzanella for his dinner. The steak was very good although wasn't really anything overwhelmingly special. The Husband doesn't really eat green things either so I ate most of his panzanella and it had a nice light dressing on it.

We also had a side order of macaroni and cheese with truffles, bacon, and white cheddar. It was amazing and only second to the BLT as our favorite of the night.

Definitely another culinary hit in the Fulton Market/West Loop area.