S.K.Y.

We arrived in Chicago on a Friday afternoon, it started raining as soon as we entered the city, as I wouldn't say I like driving in the rain, I felt lucky.

How S.K.Y. website describes the restaurant: “Contemporary American cuisine, redefined by my most inspiring experiences from around the world”. The menu has various dishes to choose from, fused with other cuisines of the world, the most easily recognized was Korean, as the chef's wife is Korean. S.K.Y. was also named after her, Seon Kyung Yuk.

We started dinner with some refreshing cocktails and began to order. We order a total of 6 dishes, including dessert. We were too full of walking when we finished but it was completely satisfactory, from the meal to the service. 

The first two dishes that we ordered were Maine Lobster Dumplings, and Dry Aged Steak Tartare. The dumpling sauce was sour and you could smell the fresh seafood, the dough was thin and chewy. The steak tartare was a mixture of fatty bone marrow crostini and the buttery taste of dry-aged steak. Crostini was crunchy, and fat from the bone marrow spread on top, lightly toasted, and perfect seasoning. 

For some greens in the meal, we ordered a Warm Mushroom Salad. The mushroom the restaurant used is called Hen of the Wood, a.k.a. Maitake mushrooms. It was Maitake mushrooms, avocado, and chèvre, mixed in a lemon-tamari dressing. The mushroom itself was delicious, it was crunchy on the cap, and chewy on the stem. But the dressing in this dish was too lemony and too sour for me. 

For our mains, we ordered S.K.Y. Fried Chicken and Foie Gras Bibimbap. The S.K.Y. Fried Chicken was one of the most recommended dishes on Reddit. Habanero butter was not too spicy but had a nice kick of flavor to stir away from the greasiness of the fried chicken, creamed corn was creamy, and had a sweet crunch of the corn, a great pairing with the fried chicken. 

However, the Foie Gras Bibimbap was a little disappointing, as a foie gras lover myself, I would recommend you mix the bibimbap yourself because the server does smash the foie gras down to mix it in with the rice, and add in the gochujang, you won’t be able to taste any foie gras or anything else besides the gochujang. 

To end our dinner on a high note, we ordered dessert. We ordered Banana Budino, it was recommended by our server. It was creamy and tasted amazing. And it was the right choice to end dinner. 

Location: S.K.Y.- 1239 W 18th St, Chicago, IL 60608

Side note: Tamari was slightly different from soy sauce but not identical. Tamari is made from soy and rice, while soy sauce is made from soybean and wheat. It took longer to ferment, so the color is darker and thicker, but less salty than soy sauce.