Wishbone

T'is the season for eating out, and with family in town looking to take a crowd of us out for J's birthday dinner, we ended up at Wishbone in the West Loop almost by default. Since J eats his way through the W. Loop for lunch most days, it's usually not on our radar for a dinner outing, but on this night it seemed an inspired option over Leona's (whose quality has taken a nose-dive in the last few years) for a menu with a good amount of variety at a good value.

I had only eaten at the Wishbone in Lakeview once before and it was years ago, breakfast I think, which struck me as nothing special since I'm not into ham and grits. To think that all these years I've assumed that a Southern-style eatery bedecked in caricatures of barnyard animals is an unwelcome spot for vegetarians! Well, I'm here to say that I happily revise my initial estimation.

What pleased us most is how much the rest of our party enjoyed their dinners- and much sampling was had around the table, so I can attest to the high marks given the strawberry lemonade, crabcakes and blackened catfish as much as my mashed rutabaga (a special side of the day). For comfort food, the quality and freshness is certainly high, and while the portions are hardly svelte, a lot of the unnecessary oiliness one would expect of this cuisine is happily absent. The corn muffins that arrive on the table before one orders are light years beyond Bisquick. I would have one for dessert if they were lying around my kitchen, though they aren't overly sweet, but softball-sized, light and flaky. (The one side dish that was overly sweet to my palate was the mashed sweet potatoes with pecans.)

My main dish was so good I'm looking forward to the next opportunity to eat it again: Black bean cakes with red pepper sauce. With the exception of the creamy red pepper sauce, the cakes are vegan, and I also tried the mango salsa one can have with them instead to avoid dairy entirely which was OK, but the red pepper has a zing that's more up my alley. The cakes had an excellent consistency, not dry, and full of flavor. Here's another candidate for something to try to make at home. The mac and cheese was kind of a guilty pleasure- it held nothing back in the creamy and cheesy categories.

Sadly, we were all too stuffed to share a dessert or two, but I imagine they do a mean pecan pie or fruit cobbler.