Las Tablas
Colombian Steak House
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Las Tablas
Colombian Steak House
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Best Steak on a Plank The churrasco at the ultrapopular columbian LAS TABLAS is a nicel seasoned pancake-flat slab surrounded by all kinds of native goodies like yuca, fried platano, baked potato, and chimichurri...... - taken from CHICAGO Februaury 2000
Zagat Survey
Champions of this "sizzlin" churrascaria-style Colombian BYO steakhouse in Lincoln Park are charged up about the "excellent", "authentic", "wonderfully spiced grilled meat" and "love the chimmichurri sauce" as well as the "warm service", "good value" and "fun", "happening" scene (it's always busy but worth the wait); small wonder that in 1998 it spun off a Northwest side sequel, which also serves wine and beer.
Chicago Magazine, November 2007, Article entitled "124 Best Dishes". www.chicagomagazine.com www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/November-2007/124-Best-Dishes/index.php?cp=5&si=4#artanc
LICUADO
Las Tablas Listed on the menu under "juices" or jugos naturales, this orchid-toned smoothie is the most soothing drink of the year. Subtly fruity and not too sweet, it's like sipping a breeze from the tropics. The main ingredient is mora (blackberry) concentrate imported from Colombia, and be sure to request it con leche: Milk seems to add an extra dash of comfort. 2942 N. Lincoln Ave.; 773-871-2414 [$4.00]
There's something about the arepa chorriada at this Colombian steak house: By most standards the dense, polentalike slice of “corn bread” smothered
in melted cheese and onion-and-tomato criolla sauce is greasy and unattractive. But the combination is such pure, simple pleasure that before you can overthink it, you'll be scraping the plate. That's the theme here: Before you can exclaim how enormous the bandeja paisa combination is, you've already sliced into the juicy New York strip, torn off a crisp piece of fried pork and broken the fried egg and mixed the yolk with the beans. And by that time your mouth is too full to
get the words out anyway.
Las Tablas Irving Park
It’s a little far west, but well worth the trip. You’ll get more bang for your buck at this festive Colombian bar and grill. Hearty portions (more than enough for two) include specialties like churrasco (char-grilled strip steak with plantain, fried yuca, baked potato and chimicurri sauce) and cazuela de mariscos (seafood soup with calamari, shrimps, octopus, clams and fish served with rice and green plantain). If you're not feeling particularly carnivorous, don’t worry; the vegetarian
paella should take care of things. That’s broccoli, cabbage, beans, garbanzo, potato and yuca.
In addition, the restaurant hosts DJs spinning salsa and live traditional Colombian music. Reviewed By: Michelle Burton. Las Tablas is a traditional Colombian restaurant set in a quaint Lakeview storefront. The menu is dominated by steaks and sea food ranging from such classics as sweetly char-grilled New York stripped steak and plump chicken breast to authentic paella a la marinara with squid, octopus, clams, scallops and shrimp. This is neighborhood favorite and will please both your wallet and your palate.
Las Tablas
March 7, 2003
Las Tablas is an interesting restaurant. It is bare bones, funky, rough around the edges, and a knothole removed from qualifying as a hole-in-the-wall. That being said, I would add that a lot of restaurants--fancy or not--around town would kill to draw the kind of crowd that keeps this place humming. The food is Colombian with a subtitle of Colombian steakhouse. Indeed, there are a lot of beef dishes on the menu, and beef or some other type of meat--pork, beef tongue, sausages and chicken--makes a statement on the impressive-in-scope menu. However, seafood, in one form or another, doesn't get short shrift at Las Tablas. And it would take a shrimp boat ramming into a cattle car to come up with this many combinations of "surf and turf." On top of that, seafood wangles its way into paella and several of the "weekend specials." The bottom line is that you will need some time to study the menu to arrive at a decision. Las Tablas is the creation of Jorge Suarez, who came to Chicago from Fusagasuga, Colombia, in 1985. A sister restaurant has opened at 4920 W. Irving Park Road (773-202-0999). What's good? Churrasco is very good--a "specialty of the house," the menu suggests. Served on a metal-lined wood board (the las tablas part), the meat is steak, as in New York strip. The steak gets butterflied and grilled, which, as it sits there, has a shape (no kidding) eerily close to that of South America. Along one "coast" are fried yuca (starchy, dense, semisweet) and fried plantain (sweet, soft, sugary). Over on the other "coast" is a baked potato. The thinness of the steak allows for quick cooking, which in turn gives it an unusual tenderness. Some of the good mineral flavor gets lost in the process, but overall the eating is quite good and the price ($14.95) is quite palatable. An arrangement called "matromonio" combines grilled steak (New York strip) with a pounded boneless breast of chicken. When that serving board shows up it is groaning under the weight of the steak, chicken, yuca, plantain and baked potato. Both of those dishes, along with several others on the menu, come with that Argentine spiced parsley sauce known as chimichurri, which is traditionally served with grilled and roasted meats. The spiciness of the sauce relates to how aggressive the maker is with the cayenne pepper, and Las Tablas zips it up pretty good. If you want to amp up the awesome factor, give the "bistec a caballo" a try. Two fried eggs are perched atop a pan-fried slab of tender, flavorful rib-eye with yuca and fried potato. All of this gets another zap of flavor when lavished with a tangy criolla sauce (onion and tomato). The menu sports many combos, which means that you can go with chicken and calamari, pork and calamari, steak and squid, pork and squid, shrimp and steak, and so on. On the other hand, if you like your shrimp straight up, then the grilled shrimp with a hint of garlic (langostinos al ajillo) is highly recommended. "Paella a la Colombiana," which is priced at $14.95, just might be the bargain paella of the year. Regardless of what Las Tablas calls it, I call it "kitchen-sink paella." Pork, shrimp, clams, calamari, chicken and octopus are the main characters in this marvelous dish. This paella doesn't have the complex character as those served at, say, Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba! or Emilio's Tapas, but all parts considered, it's very, very good. Appetizers are not such a grand assortment, so with the possible exception of the "cheesy corn bread" and the soup of the day (seven days, seven soups), there isn't a whole lot to be concerned about. (I snagged a vegetable soup with meat--the Wednesday soup--and it was quite tasty.) Desserts are from the "beauty parlor school of sweets," with mousses predominating (blackberry, passion fruit). Two for consideration (outside the mousse idea) are blackberries with caramel, which is like eating fruit with a candy bar, and coconut flan, which is, yes, a flan with coconut and not much more. My prime suggestion, however, is to finish with rich and cool ice cream. Pat Bruno is a local free-lance writer, critic and author. EXTRA Bilingual Newspaper Las Tablas, Everything’s Bigger in Colombia Posted on 03-24-2005 by Casey Sanchez At Las Tablas Steak House, the food is served on its namesake wooden boards—because it’s too big to fit on a plate.
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Last modified: 01/2008 |
