Le Colonial

if you are tired of typical restaurants (the endless debate of Italian or Chinese) this is a great alternative. Good vegetable and meat options with Vietnamese influence. Not 'too' authentic if you want to try a safe dish, but there are also some unique options if you want to be adventurous.

great atmosphere - beautiful dining room with casual outdoor dining option in the summer.

Some might say I am crazy, but I enjoyed my dining experience at Le Colonial almost as Charlie Trotters. The food, service and ambiance were all sensational.

When you dine at Le Colonial you truly feel like you have stepped out of the city streets and into French Colonial Vietnam. The food is suberb and quite reasonable for the exceptional dining experience you will receive. It's best to make a reservation on weekend nights and if you do - try sitting outside on the second floor for a truly romatnic evening. This is my favorite place to dine in Chicago and I have taken many of our friends and they always come back.

Pros: Food, Ambience, and see and be scene place
Cons: Really needs reservations on weekend to get in - not a stop by spontaneously place.

This place is just more proof that you can't get good, finely prepared asian food in Chicago. I'm Singaporean, and I've eaten Asian cuisine prepared by excellect chefs from Hong Kong, China, Shanghai, Thailand, etc. often in fine dining situations. To me it's blatantly clear that the stuff that we got at Le Colonial is food that any self-respecting Chinese restaurant would be ashamed to serve.

I ordered the Sea Bass - and while I have to admit that the ingredients were of good quality, the execution was just absolutely uninspired, not to mention lackadaisical. The way they deployed the sauce just lacked any kind of fine touch, and so what should have been a clean, happily savoury dish turned out to be just over-salted and overly rich. An absolute waste of a nice piece of fish and some otherwise lovely tomatoes.

My partner ordered a kind of broth with tofu. That was absolutely mystifying. It was basically just a tomato base that tasted like it came from a can, with what seemed to be cooked-from-frozen vegetables (the kind that come pre-cubed etc.), and some otherwise unremarkable tofu. Fine the tofu was egg-ish tofu, so it was smooth and not tough, but the combination of it just made for an over-salted soup that (and I'm not exaggerating) you could have poured out of a can. Whoever let that leave the kitchen, much less get on the menu, must have testicles of pure steel.

My appetizer was barbequed pork ribs, which were okay. She got what were supposed to be "popiah", which, to be fair, we know has many many variations. But these again were nothing that you couldn't get from a half-way decent takeout place. Basically it's just a not-even-that-fancy spring roll.

For dessert I had the fried banana wanton, which to anyone else is a variation on pisang goreng. Not bad, but someone seemed to have found a new toy when it came to the powdered sugar. Still not as good as some of the well made versions back in Singapore.

As a last note, the decor is embarassing.

Pros: I could get a reservation on a Friday night
Cons: Mystifying food. Decor put together by a drunken sailor with no taste.

I was very impressed with the service and atmosphere here. They seated our party of 10 on time and the service was great throughout the night. The food was so YUMMY! We all loved it! They really made my birthday last October a meaninful one. Since then I have been back a few times and have continued to be happy with their service level and the food. I highly recommend LC for a nice evening out!