Behold the place that specializes in beer! (I don't want to call it a brewpub, or a gastropub, as the former term doesn't apply, and the latter is eschewed by everyone.) As the wine bar trend appears to be slowing, a new animal has emerged in Chicago on the tails of the success of Hopleaf, a beloved beer pub and food destination. Two new beer-focused places have recently opened on the West Side, Paramount Room and Bluebird (
discussed here.). Not content to be like the Map Room, where the choice of beer is endless but food must be ordered and delivered, these places teeter on the gastropub side by offering menus elevated in creativity above the Amer-Irish pub fare of chicken wings and burgers.
Apart from decent beer selection, the connecting thread between Bluebird and Paramount Room is their collective indifference to food, in my opinion. Whereas Bluebird's offerings vacillate between the too expensive and the downright reasonable, Paramount is expensive, period. Bring your wallets, folks.
The menu contains a good deal of trendy junk food. Beer battered fried pickle spears were fine and nothing to write home about, but were priced at $7 - for
four spears. Yep, that's $1.75 per spear. Keep in mind that they are, after all, pickles. Even though shockingly gauche junk food is somewhat trendy right now, $7 is highway robbery. Apparently, overpriced junk food is the culinary trendmakers' way of selling the feeling of giving the finger to the world through food.
More on this subject - a single scotch egg is $9. The egg seemed like a micro-egg; tiny with hardly any white -- very odd as it should be hard-boiled -- but then I read the menu which claims that it's poached first (which perhaps accounts for its teeny size). In any case, $9 was too much to pay for the fleeting rebellious feeling of consuming an egg that is wrapped in sausage and panko before being fried. (By the way, The Gage's scotch egg was heads and shoulders better than this one.)
There is a small menu of interesting looking sandwiches, including a croque madame (which is a very civilized sandwich for a menu focused on naughty junk food) [$10], and a "Wagu[sic] Kobe" burger with the very trendy and rebellious fried egg option ($9). Paramount Room is following the trend set by more upscale restaurants and steakhouses of making you pay extra for sides, except even most steakhouses provide fries
gratis (or included in the price) with burgers. The major problem with doing this is that Paramount Room is not an upscale restaurant or steakhouse, and this attempt at an upcharge is just tacky. There should be a law in this country that burgers come with fries. At Paramount Room, you have to pay an extra $3 for fries, making their burger creep up to $12 in price. Those are Rosebud Steakhouse prices.
What is that, you say? "But Rosebud's burger isn't "Wagu[sic] Kobe" beef. To that I say - WHO CARES. There was nothing about this burger that had you converting to "Wagyu Kobe" beef for life. In fact, the small size means that after four bites, you're done, and out $9. (For those who have lunched at May Street Market, the burger is sized similarly.)
While everything tasted fine, much more satisfying than Bluebird, I got the distinct sense that the investors here were continually reaching into my pocket. Service was ditzy, but genuinely warm and well-meaning. The room is cozy and fun, with a steady stream of neighborhood folk coming in and out. The Dyson (TM) hand dryers in the bathroom are worth the trip for a beer alone.
Beer selection was not huge, but varied. Wine selection is fine. Cocktails are creative, although too weak.
Paramount Room
415 Milwaukee Ave
Chicago
(312) 829-6300
Edited to fix typos.
Last edited by
aschie30 on December 7th, 2007, 2:14 pm, edited 2 times in total.