Put Some Spring into Your Step With Morton's New Seasonal Offerings

Morton’s of Chicago have always highly regarded for their generous portions of high quality food. This is well known. But it’s what they do with these generous portions that truly sets them apart. We had the pleasure of experiencing, first hand, this classic American style steak restaurant and their bountiful new spring menu, and were nothing but impressed with their offerings.

We started things off with a hearts of palm salad (RMB 118), tossed with baby arugula, and mango in a homemade honey sesame dressing, garnished with toasted almonds, fresh watermelon, and chives. It was a refreshing mix perfectly suited to the season, and the fruit was as ripe and juicy as it gets this time of year.

The salad was followed with an even more pleasing set of grilled oysters (RMB 380) coated with garlic herb butter. These were a real crowd pleaser, blinding diners with their appetizing buttery luminance. At this point we had to remind ourselves that there will still three more courses to come, so it was imperative that we not fill up on these delicious little fellas, as difficult as such a task was.

Next up, the main attractions, which included an olive-crusted Alaskan Halibut (RMB 368) with spinach in garlic beurre blanc sauce and a 14oz Bone-in Filet Mignon (RMB 688), which we chose over the M9 Wagyu New York Strip (RMB 728), because with a 6oz difference in size, it's not every day that we get to gorge ourselves on grain-fed beef. The steak was cooked just pink enough to remind us that we were indeed consuming what was likely a very happy cow, up until the very end. Being a carnivore has its delicious benefits, and the juicy bone-in filet did not disappoint.

We capped off the Morton’s experience with their new blueberry white chocolate bread pudding (RMB 168). Frankly, I’ve always liked bread pudding, but I never knew I could love it. We took each spoonful and smothered it in the fiercely-rich combo of white chocolate ganache, Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream, and drizzled bourbon, delicately rolling it on our tongues so that each flavor could be identified and experienced separately with oral precision.

If you couldn't already tell, at this point our meal was complete and we were all feeling the decadence of the Morton's menu. 

The truth of living in a city with such a long and diverse culinary history, that’s both affordable and delicious, is that you tend to neglect your own foodie heritage, like in this case, massive steaks, because it is just a little outside your monetary comfort zone. On the other hand, experiences like this are essential in grounding your tastebuds, and Morton's is like a little (or in this case, a gigantic) slice of home in filet-form. For that reason alone, if you're in serious need of reconnecting with this timeless tradition of a classy steak dinner, we recommend a visit with every fiber of our being.

More stories by this author here.

Email: danielkippwhittaker@thebeijinger.com

Photo courtesy of Morton's