Urban Belly

 

My mother and cousin Danielle came to visit for the day this past Friday. Every time my mother comes, we try to do something new. That day's adventure? Heading out to Urban Belly to try "The Best Thing [Art Smith] Ever Ate" as featured on the Food Network.

So I picked up my mom and Kris (aka. Danielle, Kristina, Dani...don't worry, I'm not confused, are you?) and headed out to the Avondale neighborhood of Chicago. I'm not sure exactly what I was looking for but I wasn't quite expecting to find Urban Belly in the middle of a strip mall. So it kind of crept up on me even with a GPS but a short detour later, we were there.

One of the first things we noticed was that it were the dark wooden and warm colors, minimal decorations and "communal dining". Otherwise, there were four long tables with wooden stools. There were only two other people there when we entered so we ended up sitting at our own table. The restaurant is also "counter service" which we didn't mind at all. According to my mother, Urban Belly is an eclectic mixture of Asian cuisine based on the ethnicities of the husband and wife that founded the restaurant.

Now according to Art, the best thing he ever ate were the Rice Noodles with Hominy, Kimchi, and Spicy Pork Broth. However, after looking at the menu, there were plenty of other things that looked pretty tasty.

My mother ordered the Urban Belly Ramen (Pork Belly, Shiitake, Pho Broth). My mom liked it and I took a couple bites of it. I thought it was okay, but I was liking other other two dishes better. I wish I could describe it a bit more but it just didn't wow me..plus I am not too experienced in Asian cuisine and flavors

Kris and I then shared the next two dishes;

 Pork and Cilantro Dumplings. These were better than I expected since I'm not normally a fan of dumplings.

 The pork and cilantro were pretty well blended so I couldn't really distinguish the two flavors separately but I would order them again.

 Rice Cake Noodles (Chicken, Mango and Korean Chili Sauce). Now this was quite interesting. The rice cake noodles are not your traditional noodles. They look like flat oval disks and were a bit chewy but both Krissy and I were kind of drawn to them.

The sauce was quite flavorful and had that spice to it but again, delicious. The chicken was cut into strips and had a crisp breading/coating. There weren't as many mangoes as I would have hoped, in fact, there were only a couple small cubes but again, we enjoyed the dish as a whole so it didn't bother me too much. We also found an extra ingredient that wasn't listed on the menu. Fish Cakes. This was another noodle (?) that was a seafood like taste to it. I ate one or two and then started to eat around them, as did Kristina.

(given to us at the end of the meal, soft ginger candies)

As far as food quantity goes, we came home with almost half of both noodle dishes and one dumpling. So there was quite a bit of food. I was sorry to find out though that when I went to reheat the Rice Noodles, the noodles stuck together and became mushy. Also, those fish cakes kind of infused the sauce a bit. With that said, I would be hesitant to recommend leftovers because reheating destroyed the quality of the dish. I ended up throwing it away because it was no longer enjoyable. Would I recommend the restaurant? Sure, why not! Do I think it was "The Best Thing I Ever Ate"? Um, not so much but would I go again if I had the option? Yes.