{"id":171,"date":"2006-12-23T07:03:42","date_gmt":"2006-12-23T07:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alephnaught.wordpress.com\/2006\/12\/23\/anniversary-dinner-at-merlo-on-lincoln\/"},"modified":"2006-12-23T07:03:42","modified_gmt":"2006-12-23T07:03:42","slug":"anniversary-dinner-at-merlo-on-lincoln","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/2006\/12\/23\/anniversary-dinner-at-merlo-on-lincoln\/","title":{"rendered":"Anniversary dinner at Merlo on Lincoln"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content_div-171\">\n<p>In preparation for our 16th anniversary night out,<span style=\"font-family:Helvetica;\"> <\/span>Aviva was in a quandry &#8211; where to go to dinner?  We wanted Italian food &#8211; we<span style=\"font-family:Helvetica;\"> <\/span>love Italian food, but there are very, very few places in Chicagp that have food<span style=\"font-family:Helvetica;\"> <\/span>that, in our opinion, tastes at all like the preparations in Italy.  I mentioned<span style=\"font-family:Helvetica;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.merlochicago.com\/pages\/locations_lp.html\" target=\"NewWindow\"> Merlo on Lincoln<\/a> .<\/span><\/p>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/merlocardfront.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"275\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/2005\/04\/07\/tilton-elementarys-read-aloud-2005\/program\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/program.jpg?fit=559%2C754&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"559,754\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"program\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/program.jpg?fit=559%2C754&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-275 colorbox-171\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/merlocardfront.jpg?resize=300%2C171\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"171\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Helvetica;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/merlocardback.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-276 colorbox-171\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/merlocardback.jpg?resize=300%2C167\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"167\" \/><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family:Helvetica;\">They have two restaurants &#8211; one on Maple in the Gold Coast \/ north loop area, and the one on Lincoln south of Diversey.  We choose the one on Lincoln because its a little more convenient and would probably be less busy.  The food is Bolognese and quite nice &#8211; the lasagna is a special standout, very much like what we had in Bologna.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Helvetica;\">Aviva and I shared the insalata di carciofi, funghi, sedano e grana (&#8220;raw sliced artichoke salad with champignon mushrooms, celery and &#8216;Parmigiano Reggiano'&#8221;).  I had the Passatelli (&#8220;extruded dough of &#8216;Parmigiano Reggiano&#8217;, eggs and grated bread cooked in hen stock&#8221;) followed by the tortellini alla panna (&#8220;hand-made tortellini stuffed with &#8216;Prosciutto di Parma&#8217;, &#8216;Parmigiano Reggiano&#8217; and veal tenderloin in cream sauce&#8221;), also hand-made.  Ended the night with their special Christmas dolce, an Italian Christmas cake soaked in liquour with chocolate shavings and a scoop each of lemon and vanilla gellato.  Very yummy!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Helvetica;\">I highly recommend this spot &#8211; just be careful that you have time, as they are a slow food restaurant; each course will be made individually for you, and that takes time (if eating a sit down meal in Europe makes you edgy, this may not be your cup of tea).<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"translate_block\" style=\"display: none;\">\n<hr class=\"translate_hr\" \/>\n<a class=\"translate_translate\" id=\"translate_button_post-171\" lang=\"en\" xml:lang=\"en\" href=\"javascript:show_translate_popup('en', 'post', 171);\"><span>Translate<\/span><\/a><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/google-ajax-translation\/transparent.gif?resize=16%2C16&#038;ssl=1\" id=\"translate_loading_post-171\" class=\"translate_loading colorbox-171\" style=\"display: none;\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" alt=\"\" \/>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In preparation for our 16th anniversary night out, Aviva was in a quandry &#8211; where to go to dinner? We wanted Italian food &#8211; we love Italian food, but there are very, very few places in Chicagp that have food that, in our opinion, tastes at all like the preparations in Italy. I mentioned Merlo [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[62,114],"class_list":["post-171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","tag-food","tag-restaurant"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2w3Qj-2L","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}