Mercat

Great Spanish food. Order the Catalan Express if you're here for lunch, it includes a first course and second course, plus soft drink or iced tea for $18. This is a great deal considering that the priciest second course, Tuna, is already $17.

Our waitress was great and she gave us a very thorough rundown of the menu to begin our meal. The busboy though, was completely clueless, mixing up dishes between tables and amongst diners at our table.

I had the Ensalada Verde to start, mixed greens with asparagus, avocado, green beans and shaved mahon cheese. Very good, although there was maybe just a touch too much vinaigrette. It overpowered even the cheese.

Everyone else started with the Arroz a la Cazuela, a saffron scented broth with shrimp, chicken chorizo, artichoke confit and piquillo aioli. The crostini with aioli was a hit, and the soup was well-received, although quite salty. Everyone was surprised by the generous size of the shrimp.

Two of us had the Atun con apio-nabo, yellowfin tuna, smoke pine nuts, celery root and basil-emulsion. Very light flavors, wonderfully presented. Our tuna was lightly grilled, though it could have been even rarer. The celery root was the highlight of this dish.

The Black Angus Hanger Steak and Mercat Burger were both prepared well. The burger had a very unique La Peral cheese sauce that was very light, padron peppers and red wine onion jam. The hanger steak was accompanied by potato croquette, and beech mushroom escabeche. Iron Chef Jose Garces really personalizes each offering on the menu.

For dessert we had the signature Croquetas de Xocolata - milk chocolate croquettes, banana marshmallow, rosemary caramel, and arbequina olive oil. Again, a very unique dessert, unlike anything I have ever tasted. I am not crazy about it because I don't generally like fried food and I much prefer dark to milk chocolate, but I can appreciate the combination of flavors in this sweet dish.…

Marcat and the Table-Side Pig. The best part about group dinners is group orders. Usually, a party of 8 at a Tapas place would mean that one could sample 1/2 the menu. But today we sampled 1/2 a pig and were ripped off with no denominator.

As most gimmicks in the restaurant world, table-side swine is heavy on price, light on meat and lax on preparation. If one wants to nibble more than pork, it's important to dine with a large, sample-friendly party and without the vegetarians, Jews or Muslims. One needs to plan ahead: our party reserved the piglet 3 days in advance. And one needs to pay down the plastic because staring at this snout is going to cost you a car payment.

The newborn table-pig is not a newborn concept. Greektown has been doing it for as long as Halsted crossed Van Buren. But unlike the flesh of nature's oceans which allows for great variety in the sampling of Snapper, the only ready portion of a porker lies in the loin. And maybe belly. And maybe, if we were in China, the trotters and tail and every other damn thing. But, for the American table, little piggy means little else than 5 pounds of pulled pork. Not bad but how much sloppy pig can one eat? I did more than my fair share but not enough to make it worth $220. However, how cool would it be if the restaurant would send the porker back after its table-side theatrics and proceed to cure some ham, cut some shoulders, braise some ribs and bring back the dinner party a week later for pig-round-2? THAT would make it worth the price!

Sadly, with the way things stand, buying the pig defeats the entire purpose of Tapas dining. Your party would have to seat 15 to make the purchase viable and taste some other dishes. But at that size, you'd be fighting over the single piglet. And if you get two, well, from forth the fatal loins of those two porks, a pair of star-cross'd piglets gave their life; whose misadventured piteous oven-spits doth with their death bury their diner's appetite.

Mercat is a good restaurant. Go there for tapas. Or suffer the 3-hours' traffic of pig's stage.

Love,

Mealschpeal com…

Amazing!. My Boyfriend and I were visiting Chicago and got a recommendation to go to Mercat. We both absolutely LOVED it. I understand why some people think that you get little for what you pay for, but you have to go into it knowing that tapas are going to be small plates and this is an expensive restaurant (I think it was a little misleading that Google gave it a "$$" rating when it should be "$$$$") . Our waiter clearly told us that we would need multiple plates and was very helpful. I will be recommending Mercat to friends and family if they are in the area.…

Terrible Service. Went there on June 20th for a birthday celebration. When the waitress asked us whether we had been there before, we responded no, and she offered no explaination. We chose the tasting menu. Most dishes were good. The tapas that was a dumpling of some type was terrible. When she asked us, what we thought we told her and her repsonse was "how odd, most people think this is the best. I had pre-ordered a dessert to be brought to the table, which of course was not. For the money, the service should have been rated a ten, but was not even close.…