The Publican, Fulton Market

The Publican
837 W Fulton Market
Chicago

Date of Last Visit: Wednesday, December 2nd, 2010

The Victims: Two colleagues

The Damage: About $60 per person

The Background: I want so bad to love The Publican. Firstly, my friend Dave raves about it. Secondly, it bills itself as a beer-focused restaurant with a menu inspired by simple farmhouse fare. For someone like me, there’s not much not to like about that statement.

And I think I do like The Publican. Really, I do think I like it. But it’s one of those restaurants that I’ll need a second go at before I can say for sure. This was mainly because on the night that I was visiting, there was a group of radiologists standing in the middle of the restaurant. I suppose this is where The Publican hosts their groups. It was distracting. And loud. And there were a lot of them.  Maybe I’m just getting old. Can’t I just eat in peace?

We started out with an order of highly addictive spicy pork rinds. The consistency was less rind than Muncho. (For my non-US readers, Muncho is a brand of American potato chip, known for it’s lightness and un-potato-ness.) I had to wonder what these were made of…the pork flavoring was there but it wasn’t very forward. They were a tiny bit spicy, but not overly so. They were, more generally, puffy party snacks. We cleared them out in minutes.

Next came the trio of hams, which was delightful enough but I always wish that they’d leave me some signs because I can never remember which is what. One of the hams had a bit of smokiness to it. That was my preference.

Fried clams turned into my favorite dish of the night. Probably because of the dried lemon slices. And the artichokes.  I’m wondering now if this was a special because I don’t see it on the online menu. (Perhaps their menu changes daily. Not sure.) A very light dish, for something that had been thrown in the deep fryer.

Our server heartily recommended the bollito misto, but for me, there was just too much going on in this dish. Turkey. Sausage. Pork. Veal maybe even? I’ve since researched bollito misto and understand it to be exactly this…a mash-up of different meats simmered and served together. It’s just not for me.

The pork shank–what little I had of it–was lovely. The pork itself was nice and crusty and crisp on the outside, yet supremely tender inside once we dug in. One of my colleagues has a love of all things pork and unfortunately for me, the rest of this dish disappeared before I had a chance to investigate it thoroughly.

The Verdict: Like I said, I want to like The Publican. The room puts me off a little bit though, based on my one experience. And it’s hard for me to give a verdict when I feel like all I had were some pork crisps, some fried clams, and some ham. (I just couldn’t get into the bollito misto and only had a small bite of the pork shank.) Everything I had was nice enough. Really must go back for second visit to determine for sure. So on the fence!