Donatella is in running about, brow sweating. She is everywhere, in the kitchen, in the front, pouring water, fetching glasses and cursing in Italian at Paolo, the round faced twenty-something in the kitchen. Its a loving scolding of course and always in pursuit of true Italy in heart of the American Midwest.

This spring Evanston has been treated to something great, a long awaited Italian BYOB amidst a slew of mediocre Asian places. Donatella’s on Sherman is the reinvention of her long adored establishment on Howard Street, closed in 2008. I first visited on opening night, then again with my family and friends over Northwestern graduation weekend. By the end, Donatella was teasing me as if I had known her since childhood. Its that Italian way.

On that first visit, Sandeep and I walked in around 8:30 with three bottles of wine, two for us and one for the staff. I mean, how were we to know which we would like more with the food, the red or white? I fell in love with the place right away.  Sponge painted walls, tiled tables and hanging philodendron plants wrapped in a perpetual Tuscan afternoon.  The espresso maker humming away behind the case of buffalo mozzarella, imported artichokes and paper thin prosciutto proudly displays to hungry patrons.

We really wanted to order the whole menu, but settled on the seafood mixed grill, mushroom pasta featuring homemade linguini and five different mushrooms, beef carpaccio with arugula and finally white wine steamed mussels. Yep, we were indulgent.  Tender and well seasoned with fragrant olive oil, oregano and lemon, the octopus in the mixed grill was the stand out for me.  At the end of the meal, the flushed and tired staff shared their champagne with us, and we toasted to their future.  Not a bad introduction to the new Italian eatery.

Following its grand opening however, Donatella’s was bashed by Yelp and Urbanspoon for disorganized and slow service, no bread and butter upon sitting down and subpar food. Didn’t deter me and I dined there twice last week, once with my immediate family, and the following night with a group of 12. I was not disappointed, on the contrary, I wish I could go back and have those artichokes again….

In fact those ‘chokes are special. Unhappy with the quality of the cured veg she could find in Chicago, Donatella phoned home to an Italian producer.  She now imports artichokes and other Italian treats for special plates like this one, featuring burrata cheese (think mozzarella with a creamy center), prosciutto and speck.

The night of the 12 people, we basically ate the whole menu– and the vast majority was delicious. My salmon crudo, and dad’s lamb were stellar.  Of course you can’t bat 1000, and there are flaws. In general, there is a smidge too much oil, the mushroom pasta lacks the lightness that spring weather demands and, to be honest, I do always ask for bread.  The meal might not explode your brain with haut cuisine chemistry, but Donatella’s adorableness and dedication to your enjoyment will surly make you and your tummy smile. Also, each time I visited the service has improved, which bodes well for the coming days.  Its sad that Donatella arrived just as I was leaving. When I visit Evanston, I will have to stop in for a seafood mixed grill and panna cotta which can only be described as manna from heaven.

The Facts
Donatella’s
1512 Sherman Ave
Evanston, IL 60201
328-7720

Open for Lunch and Dinner

Muah, molto buono!: Seafood mixed grill, mussels, antipasti appetizer (or whatever includes cheese, meat and if you’re lucky an artichoke), panna cotta

Meh: Lobster pasta special with brandy and cream…gross, brandy. Mushroom Pasta.

Extra Reasons I like it: Outdoor dining; Donatella; BYOB (if you forget, Sandeep with deliver wine from Vinic straight to your table. Seriously, he runs it over on foot).

Why venture to Central Street (If you happen to live in Evanston, IL.) for your weekend BYO plans? For a little-known Thai restaurant that serves gingery tilapia and lets you tipple in peace. At Thai Pinto, it’s offbeat dishes that shine: the soft shell crab, the whole fish or the cheap and generous sushi rolls. And, of course, it’s BYOtastic.

In daytime, light streams into floor-to-ceiling windows, warming the white-walled, 20-seat restaurant with a happy charm. The atmosphere is friendly, the service not oppressive. It’s a perfect lunch spot, ideal for a serene date with a good book.

My first visit was a business meeting of sorts. Over edamame and a steaming plate of crab-eggplant curry, we discussed matters of grave importance, like New York’s latest fashions and the best way to cure a hangover (something I would come to need after my second visit).

I tend to avoid soft shell crab. Something about the texture (or the taste) of eating shell soft enough to bite through rubs me the wrong way. I’m no convert, but this might have been the best soft shell crab I have ever had. The crustacean’s golden flour crust stayed crispy on top. It soon began to soak up the delicate curry sauce on the bottom of the plate, creating a wonderful ménage à trois of texture: crunchy, succulent and smooth. The best part? The eggplant had been generously snuck all around the crab. It should have been cooked just a bit longer, to remove more of the vegetable’s natural starchiness, but the taste meshed well with the brininess of the dish.

(These are Thai eggplants! YUM)

It would be a shame and a travesty to visit a BYO restaurant and not participate in the BYO-ness of the place. In this spirit, I hauled three friends up to Central Street in the middle of a torrential rainstorm to eat some dinner and do a little sipping. Ok, a lot of sipping.

“So you would like wine glasses as well?” our emotionless waiter asked when he spied the three bottles of wine we’d brought for our four person meal. (Yes, yes we would.) The rain poured down. We were not leaving anytime soon. As we were the only guests—it was a Monday night—the nearly silent staff didn’t seem to mind. So eat and drink we did.

Four is the perfect number for dinner. It lets you explore the menu. Unlike most Thai or pan-Asian restaurants in Evanston, Thai Pinto offers sushi. The unagi roll we sampled was an eight-piece log of freshwater eel. Now, you can get much better sushi in Evanston. But Pinto’s trumps what you can get at Norris or Whole Foods, and rivals Sashimi Sashimi.

It has more variety, better ingredients and gutsier options than the usual suspects (I’m looking at you, Cozy) in Evanston.

We’d mowed through our bottle of white with the eel. Which was fine: these girls are red wine drinkers, not a bad choice for spicy food. A light Pinot Noir cuts the spice, calming the tongue. The first bottle gone, my compatriot Sara looked around the table warily and asked, “Family-style, right? I don’t know why you would come to a Thai place and not order family-style.”

I couldn’t agree more. That’s the beauty of Thai: it’s almost always shareable. Order envy? Never. We selected three entrees: coconut chicken, pepper beef and ginger tilapia.

The more we diverged from routine choices, the happier we were. The light tilapia paired well with the fresh ginger, which had been sliced into thin strips and woven in and out of a mix of snow peas, baby corn and big hunks of red pepper. A few mushroom caps were scattered about, surprising in the light dish, but their warm, earthy flavor complemented the sharpness of the ginger.

I’m under doctor’s orders not to eat coconut, but I gave the coconut curry chicken a go anyway. Not worth it. Good flavor, not too rich nor thick, but the chicken was bland. And the noodle extravangza—egg noodle in the Khao Soy curry broth and crispy noodles on top—was overkill. Three bites in and I was gastronomically bored. (Also, a little visually grossed out by the noodles.)

It got more disappointing from there. The peppered beef, which did venture away from the usual vegetable pattern with lots of cabbage and asparagus (its only redeeming qualities) was utterly unsurprising. I shouldn’t have been surprised, I suppose. This matched the pattern of my first meal: The soft shell crab had surprised, and the second dish, the Thai standard mysteriously called spicy basil, had fallen flat.

After four years repeatedly trying everything Thai in Evanston—including the old standards—I remain amazed that the most basic dishes don’t blow my mind. They should! A good pad see ewe should rock like a Bobb-McCulloch bed on Mondays and the spicy basil should be really, really spicy.

On that sour note, if your tongue is tempted to step out of your Thai box, do it at Pinto. It has more variety, better ingredients and gutsier options than the usual suspects (I’m looking at you, Cozy) in Evanston.

Dishes to dive into: Softshell Crab, Curry, Tilapia, what the owner suggests when you ask him for a strange recommendation. He knows.

Avoid like MSG in the 1980’s: salt and pepper calamari, mixed vegetable stir fry (boring), cucumber salad (sweet like candy, in a one-dimensional way)

What to drink: If you like red, a light Pinot Noir will go well with the spicy flavor and won’t knock your taste buds out of your head with tannins. If you like white, you can’t go wrong with a bottle from French Alsace or its neighbor, Germany.

But you know what goes really well with Thai food and Asian cuisine in general? Beer. Pilsner. Go nuts.

Pinto Thai Kitchen

1931 Central Street
Evanston, IL 60201
(847) 333-2976

Hours

Monday-Friday: 11:30—9:30
Saturday-Sunday: Noon—9:30

Only 7 days ago, The Stained Glass, a classic wine-lover’s outpost in Evanston opened a lower priced, beer intensive annex called The Cellar. And in five days, I’ve already been there three times, tried nearly half the menu, a Dirty Bird martini and of course, hand crafted artisan beers from around the world.

The Cellar has a great thing going. The menu has three parts, Europe, America and Other Worldly. On my first meal, my compatriots and I hit every category with a drink to match.  We started with three mini burgers: lamb, beef and salmon with shoestring potatoes.  Each meat was succulent in its individual “meatiness” and the softer flavor of the salmon was not overpowered by the lamb. Along with a glass of Leffe Blond Ale from Belgium, I was a happy camper.  I also tasted a little bit of Orrechetti Pasta with kale, white beans and veal meat balls as well as the muscles in ginger beer.

On my second visit,  I got my mouth on a few fish tacos ceviche style with avocado and red onion,  a smoked salmon flat bread with arugula and goat cheese and lastly, the increasingly popular soft shell crab Jibaritos.  This is an interesting dish-  two “buns” made of fried plantain house the crab, flash fried in his shell, with mango mayonnaise and onion.   Though it may become the signature dish,  it does need some work. A bit heavy and a mouth full of chewing, but a great idea.

Wednesday night was the grand opening.  A perfect Evanston evening: great staff, great food, delicious wine.  They were pouring a 2008 Alta Vista Torrontes and a 2006 Old Vine Malbec, both out of Argentina. From passing trays of appetizers, I sampled the bacon wrapped-chorizo stuffed dates, Cubano and Tramezzini sandwiches, tempura vegetables, more tacos and of course, more burgers.

At the end of the night (yes, I stayed the whole time) they brought out a huge bottle of liquid, a totally sexy 2 feet of something delicious.  Instead of the cliche champagne, a liquid the color of burnt carmel poured into my glass.  Smooth, rich and slightly sweet, this Belgian temptation was a tribute to the greatest beer menu I have ever seen.

Things to eat right away: Fish Tacos, mini burgers and salmon flat bread
Maybe take a pass: Orrechetti pasta (not as interesting as other things and you have to LOVE mussels to like the ginger beer steamed flavor dish (I do)
What I’m trying Next Time: Maryland Crab Cake, Braised Short Rib (with marrow potatoes!)
Other Note Worthy Crumbs: Killer date spot, the location every budding college romantic has been waiting for.

check back for photos soon!

Cheers Evanston!