04/03/08

Wonderful, flavorful pan Asian

by JenniferCathleen

This restaurant has a great downtown location and terrific food! We took our family visiting from out of town to this spot and had a great time. Each of our dishes had a wonderful, unique flavor. Our maki rolls were excellent as were the Pad Thai and Ginger Beef. Our server was very nice and friendly, although a bit awkward as a formal server at times. We still enjoyed him, and he took good care of us.

After about two hours, we were nearly ready to go when a hostess RUDELY approached our table and asked us to leave. This was the only part of the evening that soured our experience. I just don't think when you buy dinner for six - all courses - and two bottles of wine that it is an appropriate environment to ask a customer to leave so the next reservation can sit down. I also don't think two hours at a table is excessive, particularly as it was obvious we were getting ready to go.

• Pros: food was awesome, lighting in restaurant is very soothing and comfortable, great location
• Cons: hostess was rude

03/17/08

Simply Delicious

by mona4k

A couple friends and I had a girl?s night out last weekend. We were referred by hotel?s concierge. Although, we were not expecting to be treated as visiting royalty, our dinning experience was beyond expectation. The service was literally PERFECT. Drinks were fantastic. I especially liked Lychee Fizz martini. The Sesame Calamari appetizer still makes my mouth watery when I think about it. The entrees were spectacular.

Sorry to those people that had a bad time there. It sounds like it wasn?t the food, but the service. Regarding the service, the server was as attentive as we wanted it to be. We went there to enjoy a nice meal and each others company and we had the opportunity to do so. I definitely plan to return.

• Pros: Great food; Excellent Drinks;
• Cons: None

03/17/08

Marvelous Fine Dinning

by JJC2007

Check it out! Looking for Asian cuisine, this is the place that you don?t want to miss.

The atmosphere was charming and magnet. The lighting is spectacular. Despite all the accessories, the most impressed was incredibly prepared delicious food. Signature Shiro Miso Glazed Salmon was superb. I found the ambiance to be romantic. By far, one of the best Asian cuisines that I have ever had.

• Pros: Delicious Food; Romantic Ambiance; Great Music;
• Cons: Pretty crowded on weekends.

03/16/08

worst service anywhere

by bgctygrl

We had quite the evening here, and not in a good way. We eat out quite a bit-everywhere from Tempo to Alinea have never, ever been treated this poorly in a restaurant before.

After waiting over 20 minutes to even have our orders even taken, the restaurant manged to bring my food out with the appetizers (which were wrong), bring my friend the completely wrong dish (and try to convince her that it was what she ordered) and delay bringing our husbands' food for 50 minutes after that (the belief is that the order was never put in). And throughout this time we were completely ignored (had to request to speak with a manager 4 or 5 times). The manager wasn't even apologetic. She just kept making lame excuses and when we asked that the food be removed from our bill she argued with us and said she would only take off 15% (I might also add that she was extremely rude). We asked for more off, and she started bargaining with us! Then told us that she couldn't take it off the bill because the cost of the food was so expensive that it would put the restaurant in debt. Uh, if one table will put your restaurant under, you have a bigger problem than just us.

We asked for the bill 2 1/2 hours after we first sat for our reservation. It was wrong-not only did they barely take anything off the menu, but they charged us TWICE for our husbands' food. We asked to get it fixed. 10 minutes go by and still our new bill had not been brought. We asked again. 10 more minutes go by and finally we calculated in our heads what the correct bill should read, left some cash on the table and walked out.

Inexcusable. Too bad, because the food isn't half bad. Clearly we wont be going back, and I advise you to stay away.

• Pros: Food is decent, like the bar
• Cons: Service is horrible, expensive considering the bad service, rude management

02/29/08

Do you like the taste of recycled cardboard?

by rt1979

Then come to Republic and try out the Hong Kong Steak ($28). Get it rare, medium...whatever, it all comes out well done. An ex-friend of mine recommended this restaurant to me for Restaurant Week, and I was excited to enjoy some high class Pan-Asian cuisine in the heart of downtown Chicago! I wish I had read the previous reviewers comments, because they were so right!

One bit of advice, watch out for the random toothpicks/wood chips holding your Tempura ($10) together. They are completely embedded in the food to keep the fried onions in one piece. Good luck finding it!

Ahh well, if I helped convince one person to avoid this place, then our $250 (for a small group) plus parking was worth it.

• Pros: hahahahahaha
• Cons: Bad Food. Bad Service. Bad Time.

02/29/08

Avoid even if at the brink of starvation and desperation

by Kulin13

Possibly the most disappointing restaurant experience my husband and I have experienced since moving to Chicago 5 years ago. We dine out regularly.

In general, the food, service and general management of the restaurant were well below average.

There were more than 4 people in my party and we ordered a variety of appetizers including Tuna Tartare, the Tenpura and the Republic Salads. As for the Entrees, some of us had the Hong Kong Steak while others went for the American Kobe Shoulder Loin.

The appetizers were acceptable in both presentation and tastiness. Nothing special.

The entrees were all overdone. For example, both Loins which were ordered Medium rare arrved well done. It took us more than 10 minutes to get the attention of a server who offered to take our steaks back to the kitchen to "cook further". Some of us returned our steaks after the first bite and declined the server's offer to replace the steaks. The reason for this was that the service had been so poor and slow for our evenign that we did not wish for further delay to our meal.

When the check came, we were charged for all of our entrees, despite our having alerted our server of our dislike for our food and some of us not having touched more than a small fraction of the food. To add further insult to injury, each of the entrees were described correctly (i.e. medium rare, rare etc)

Without wishing to ruin our evening further, we did not dispute the bill and we paid and made our exit as fast as possible.

Finally, a word about the service. There was a distinct shortage of both bus-boys and servers.

Our server was not familiar with the menu and unable to answer most questions about the items satisfactorily. We hardly saw him throughout the evening.

We all highly recommend you do not try this restaurant.

What made this the worst dining experience was that is was obvious that Republic do not value their customers in the slightest.

02/10/08

Good food but.....

by indyfoodjunkie

Being from out of town just visiting Chicago for the weekend, we were out looking for a place to eat dinner before going to a play. The restaurant looked very inviting from the outside so we decided to give it a try.

The sesame calamari was a very good choice. Perfectly cooked and the flavor was excellent. For the entree, I chose the stir fried asparagus with chicken. I was really wanting something completely different and it was the perfect choice. Large pieces of chicken breast, eggplant, prochitto mushrooms and nice, fresh pieces of asparagus. The sauce was light and added a really good flavor to dish. I was shocked by the somewhat blandness but was pleased that I could actually taste the vegetables and chicken.

My date chose the spicy shrimp. It was a nice portion and the shrimp were very nice size! We tasted each other?s dishes and the shrimp was perfectly cooked and had just a tinge of spice to the sauce.

A small bowl of sticky white rice was placed on the table along with the entrees.

Now, the food was amazing but there were issues. First was that soft drink refills are not free and they neglect to tell you. At $2.25 for an 8oz. glass, you can see where this will add a little bit of a shock to the bill. I had two and my date drank three.

The service does leave a bit to be desired. We saw a bus boy more often than our server. It is understandable when the dining room is full but we were downstairs and there were many empty tables.

I would probably go back because the food it definitely worth it but be cautious of the service and the amount of soft drinks that you drink!

• Pros: Food is really good!
• Cons: Service, Lack of Communication

01/20/08

Horrible customer service

by cruzerj

This place was a disappointment. The customer service was horrible. Our server was unattentive and did not appear to know what she was doing. She seemed to be overwhelmed and frazzled with the number of tables that she was responsible for. Several times during dinner, we had to request other servers and busboys to just locate our server. We even ended up having another server handling our table's requests since our original server could not be located. I wouldn't waste my time eating in the upper dining room, unless you want to be ignored and left alone. I will however say that the food was fine and ambience was nice.

• Pros: Ambience
• Cons: Service

11/27/07

Pretty Great!

by pyt333

My boyfriend and I came here b/c the video made everything look so good. We weren't disappointed. We started off with Salmon rangoon-soooo yummy! Also got a great Saki recommendation. We ordered a variety of rolls and sashimi. The Imperial roll was amazing! Unlike any roll I've ever tasted. The white fish sashimi was fabulous, as was the salmon. The dragon roll wasn't good at all. But we told them manager and they bought us a dessert to make up for it. The dessert-holy moly! We had the fruit with sorbet and champagne. Get it! Trust me. If you can't afford the meal, just go for this dessert. Better than any dessert I've ever had, including Emeril's chocolate tray. And I love the chocolate. Our server was very sweet and took really good care of us. A bit pricey, but you expect that when you are getting sushi. Would have been a lot less if we didn't drink so much. Over all, fantastic experience. Highly recommend!

• Pros: Service, food, drinks, kindness of the manager, DESSERT!
• Cons: I hate paying for parking. But the meal was worth it.

07/22/07

FANTASTIC food!

by abbeyroad85

This place truly impressed me from moment one. The decor is hip, but the staff was surprisinglu nice. The food was incredible from appetizers (the salmon rangoon was better than any crab rangoon I've ever had) to the sushi (without a doubt the best California roll I've ever had) to the entrees - which varied between traditional and more exotic pan-asian fare. We also had dessert- a creme brulee that was very very good.

But possibly the best thing about the place was the surprisingly reasonable price. The river north tourist area is often overpriced for what you get, but I was happily shocked when I received the check. 3 drinks, 3 appetizers, one california roll, 3 entrees and a dessert came to only just over $100 I was trying to impress my out-of-town brother with Chicago and thanks to Republic I absolutely did.

We'll definitely be returning.

• Pros: great food! reasonably priced
• Cons: Parking in River North is always an expensive hassle