Dinner at Torali — The Forkling

It’s a fun, fun time in the Fio-Green household.

Changes are afoot on all fronts as we gear up for a move (just a few blocks from where we are now) and I get ready to start a new job.

So this week, I’ve been purging my closet of all remaining bubble hemmed, Long Island ice tea-stained, Forever 21 dresses from my youth, as well as ridding our place of nearly all lingering relics from my pre-adult life.

I’m going to shoot it straight with you here: I’m on the hoarding spectrum.

Not quite Netflix-Evil-Genius-Marjorie-Diehl-Armstrong hoarding, but... getting there.

That said, these past couple weeks have NOT been filled with home-cooked gastronomic feats that I’m proud of, but rather lots of cold pizza, grilled cheese, and chicken soup as we try to rid ourselves of as much old food as we can in our current place. One important thing to note about my hoarding style is that I’m particularly keen on not throwing away food. Ever. I will find a way to eat 98% of the food we have before it spoils or gets tossed.

Case in point, I had a handful of croutons for a snack today.

“I had a handful of croutons for a snack today.”

Said no self-respecting, halfway-decent food blogger, ever.

I don't know, guys. If you accept a new job, and you're moving into a bigger and better place, should you really be eating croutons? Should you really be making questionable culinary "creations" out of the eight pounds of chicken breasts you bought from Costco six weeks ago?

No. You shouldn't. You should go to the Ritz Carlton's new-ish swanky Italian restaurant, Torali, and eat something worthy of these exciting changes.

Torali has been on my list since it opened late last summer. The Ritz has undergone a massive renovation over the last couple of years, and based on looks alone, this place earned a couple forks. It was easy (too easy, scary easy) to make a reservation with one of my close gal pals after we attended a bridal show at the W Hotel just a few blocks away.

We had already polished off roughly five flutes each of complimentary champagne, so drinks weren't of grave importance (as they usually are for me). Rather, we opted for cocktails: myself, a fruity mezcal situation, and the lady, an Aperol Spritz-esque concoction, which at $16-18 a piece weren't cheap. HOWEVER. These cocktails were not your standard Chicago more-ice-than-alcohol drinks. They were huge. They lasted the entire meal. That gets a fork.

You know what else gets a fork? Any place that gives me a substantial amount of olives. All you can eat, unlimited free refills, no judgment passed olives.

That big red guy was one of the *best* olives I've ever had. That's not an exaggeration.

While Torali is known for being an Italian steak joint, I was really more in the mood for carbs (see above re: crouton snack). So we agreed to get as much of that good stuff in as we could.

We started with burrata off the antipasti menu that was really, really good. It's not often that burrata is ever not really good, but this was even better than the usual because it came with a baba ghanoush (ghanouj?)-like smoked eggplant spread and toasted chickpeas that were SO flavorful. The bread was perfect also.

But you know what really goes well with bread?

BREAD. It was a trick question. So we got more of it. This time, with one of the most truffle-y, sinful, gush-about-it-later-in-your-diary beef tartares in this fine city.

In another life, the black truffle, the cow, and the quail may have all been friends.

Something I thought about later... if truffle perfume was a thing, would I wear it?

For our mains we wanted to do something to balance out our meal. Like, carbs. This is where we came to a Robert Frost two roads moment. A moment that I will look back on and regret for many, many years to come. Maybe even the rest of my life. Emily said, "Should we get the cavatelli?" And I said, "Let's try the roasted duck agnolotti."

Do not. Get. The duck agnolotti.

This had to be the only truly not-good thing on the menu. These were the most dry, weird, bland, pierogi-esque excuse for agnolotti I've ever tasted. We ate them in silence. Hate-ate. I think I finished the majority of them because again, I cannot bear the idea of food going into a garbage can and not my mouth. But honestly, I blacked it out.

GREAT NEWS THOUGH because when I blacked back in, the other pasta we had ordered, the gemelli with wild boar ragu, had arrived and was ready to cleanse my palate (but never my memory) of that mistake. This was classically, beautifully, simply delicious.

Round about this time, our sweet server, Albert, was dropping off round #3 of olive refills, and we were ready to burst. I think there's something in the chemistry of free champagne + lots of bread = bloat city, but I'll need to do more research.

And just as we were about to ask him for the check, he dropped some famous last words. "Are you sure you don't want to look at the dessert menu? We have the best chocolate cake in the city."

Excuse me? That's not something you casually mention and then waltz away to get the check. Give me that f%cking cake.

Here's a quick Chicago chocolate cake ranking for anybody who's new here.

1. Portillo's chocolate cake

2. Gibson's chocolate mousse cake

That's the end of the ranking.

I don't know if those were coco krispies or what but they were critical to this cake's success.

Now the ranking goes something like this:

1. Portillo's chocolate cake

2. Gibson's chocolate mousse cake

3. Torali's chocolate cake

It wasn't the best in the city, but I'll be damned if it wasn't pretty darn good. Extremely moist (promise I will not overuse that word on this blog!) and served with fresh whipped cream and some distant cousin of chocolate rice krispies. And hey! Would you look at that. There was gold leaf on it. I'm such a sucker for gold leaf.

So when all was said and done, we were full. We were satisfied. And we were now genetically made up of 67% carbohydrates by volume.

The Forkling says: 7.4 forks out of 10.0

Albert's service, the drinks, the ambiance, the carbs... all added up to a solid 8. But that agnolotti will not soon stop haunting me in 4AM night terrors, so I had to knock this one down a smidge.

Will be back on my cooking and eating game after the move. But until then, friends don't let friends eat croutons.