I have known about the Weber Grill Restaurant for a couple of years now but when we lived in Virginia I never thought I would get a chance to visit one. You see there are three located in Chicago, seems a little selfish to me, and one in Indy. There aren't any located anywhere around Arlington/DC area. Once we moved to Wisconsin I knew on one of our trips we would have to go by way of Chicago so we could stop at one and see if they are as good as they sound. Since we were going back to Wisconsin a couple of days early what a better chance to eat at the Weber Grill than this last weekend. While at Joni's we located the Weber's we wanted to eat at in Lombard and then found a hotel to stay at on Priceline.com, we even got a good rate on pretty darn nice hotel room with a continental breakfast to boot (thanks Dino for the tip). And the bonus was the restaurant was only 1/4 of a mile from the hotel room, sweet.
As soon as you walk through the doors there is a state of the art, no hold barred, stainless steel gas grill. Huh? I thought Weber was all about charcoal? I didn't travel into Chicago just to have my food cooked on a gas grill. Oh but wait as you walk in further there is what I want to see the old time charcoal grills, the original Weber grills on display.
The hostess asks us if we want to be seated, well of course. "Follow me" she says. On our way to our table we pass the kitchen.
I love the smell of charcoal burning along with food being cooked on charcoal. As you walk by you get to see all the chefs cooking in front of the Weber grills and the flames shooting up from the grills. This is charcoal grilling at its best, this is what I live for, I think I could really enjoy this.
She guided us past the bar and to our booth where we would soon be enjoying our meal. We had high definition TV all around us with basketball and football games on. Perfect. Since we walked from the hotel, remember it was only a 1/4 of a mile, we both ordered drinks. I should also mention when we walked out of our hotel it wasn't hard to find the restaurant all we had to do was follow the burning smell of charcoal.Since we were at the Weber Grill I wasn't about to order a whimpy salad or soup. I was there for something from the grill or smoker. Since I had just ate some pretty good steak the day before on Christmas I was looking for something different. My choice was a full slab of pork ribs slow smoked all day to delightful tenderness. The wife chose grilled tilapia, another good selection.
The ribs were good and maybe some of the best I have had in a restaurant. They were a little heavy on the chili powder which gave them more of a chili taste than I usually like. The bbq sauce was a bit spicy but I like it on the spicy side. The waitress explained to me they just changed the sauce recently and these ribs are the ones they cook on the competition circuit.
Overall one of my best restaurant experiences but it helps when this is one of my favorite types of food. It was well worth the side trip to go there and I will certainly be going back. I wish they would open one in the DC area so if we move back there we will have one to go to.
8 comments:
I worked across the street from the Weber Grill in Indy, but it was given terrible reviews and called a tourist attraction, so I never went.
I wish I had close ups of the food...
yeah, where's the food picture! i had ribs at mt. towne friday night. yum-um!
i am going to make dave take me there next time i am in chicago
No pictures of food. The pictures on the post come from the Weber Grill website.
The problem with chain restaurants is the ability to maintain consistent quality from store to store. The one I went to could be the best restaurant of the bunch and maybe the one in Indy is the worse, who knows. Or maybe I'm just comparing it to restaurants we have here in Wisconsin which wouldn't be much of a comparison. Either way I wouldn't hesitate to visit one again.
d wants to know what hotel you stayed at and how much?
The Hyatt Regency and I think the cost was $70.00 with a pretty darn good continental breakfast. It had two beds, a large couch, refrigerator, a large high definition TV, and plenty of room. I could have saved more money by going to another hotel with a four star rating but I wanted to stay within walking distance of the restaurant. If I had my GPS I wouldn't hesitate to stay somewhere else and drive but since it was dark and raining I really didn't feel like getting lost in Chicago that night. I am suppose to have my GPS back this week. I think you can save a lot of money by using priceline.com.
Ha ha.
So weird.
My old McDonald's in Indy was inside a Hyatt Regency.
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