Sopo Lounge & Grill, Chicago

Posted by Lauren

K so Nicole just wrote about Wednesday’s Thai lunch, but I’m going to back it up and talk about Tuesday’s dinner. Haha we are all over the place!

Tuesday night Nicole and I ventured to the Southport area of Chicago to walk around and find dinner. Lo, from the fantastic blog Honey Nut Lo, recommended Hop Haus, DMK Burger Bar, and Cesars Mexican. If only Nicole was over 21 and ate meat… adding those to MY list of places to try next time!

We walked up and down Southport Ave and scrutinized e-v-e-r-y menu. Informed decisions are a must! While Sopo Lounge & Grill was our ultimate pick, Southport Lanes & Billiards came in at a close second!

Like Nicole’s hat? YEAH. I do too… It’s a shame she saw it at Maurices before I did…

The inside had a bar, dozens of tables, plenty of pool tables, and FOUR BOWLING LANES. How awesome? Our Uncle Chris told us that someone manually restocks the pins while you play. Retro.

Sopo (3418 N Southport Ave, Chicago, IL 60657) offered a large salad + sweet potato fries, two of our Nicole’s menu prerequisites, so it won the Southport dinner battle. We decided to take a seat outdoors (along with 100% of the other patrons) instead of eating in the dark bat cave inside.

Nicole selected a spinach salad with [missing] walnuts, avocado slices, oranges, and a balsamic vinaigrette ($9) along with an order of sweet potato fries ($4).

Nicole laughed at the size of her salad, which was barely two handfuls of spinach. Another ding: they forgot the walnuts, one of just three ingredients it was supposed to have!

Dig in!

The sweet potato fries made up for the faulty salad. The serving was generous and lightly fried. This left our fingers less greasy, but also meant that some weren’t as crispy as the others. Sad.

I chose the red pepper hummus platter ($7.50) and a chicken taco ($2). The liberal scoop of red pepper hummus ensured I’d be taking at least 1/3 of it home for the plane ride. Score!

Our waitress was great and accommodated my request for extra veggies to use up even more of the great tasting hummus.

My taco shell crumbled apart so I abandoned it and used my fork to gather the tiny chicken pieces onto pita bread with the red pepper hummus, cholula, and salsa. I like to play with my food :)

This place was great for a leisurely meal, and allowed us to reflect on the past few days. Service wasn’t necessarily slow, it was just unhurried. The weather was perfect, the food was fresh, and I finally got some quality time with Nicole!

After dinner we walked to Anthropologie, but it was closed :( Don’t let that smile fool you, I’m crying on the inside.

New red top from Maurices! Best part of the outfit: container of leftoversssss

I would recommend Sopo with reservations: avoid the tiny salad, definitely order the sweet potato fries, and dine outside with a small party of maybe two or three.

-Lauren

Question: When restaurants mess up your order do you send it back?

I vote Nicole should have asked for those darned walnuts!