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Almost two weeks ago, my friend Annie celebrated her 21st birthday!  For the occasion, we went to Mercat a la Planxa (638 S Michigan Ave, http://www.mercatchicago.com/) for dinner, then The Gage (24 S Michigan Ave, http://www.thegagechicago.com/) for an after dinner drink.

Mercat a la Planxa is a tapas restaurant specializing in the cuisine of Catalonia, a region of northern Spain.  The head chef is Jose Garces, the current Iron Chef America- I thought this was pretty cool. :)  At a tapas place, sangria is a must, and Mercat has three different kinds, including a white sangria.  We tried both the seasonal and white sangria.  I liked that the seasonal sangria had pomegranate, but (since I just wrote about Moody's sangria in the last post) I think I liked the sangria at Moody's better.

The tapas are organized by heaviness on the menu.  Lighter plates are at the top, and the dishes get heartier as you move down the menu.  There were four of us, and we each picked two tapas and ended up adding another one at the end, so we had a total of nine different tapas.  They were all amazing!!!  Each dish was bursting with flavor.  I loved the Datiles con Almendras (bacon wrapped dates stuffed with almonds), the Tocino con Cidra (slow cooked pork belly with a cider glaze), and the Conil amb Chestnut (braised rabbit agnolotti- it's like ravioli).  We split every dish so we could each try all of the plates.  The amount of food we eat ate didn't seem like that much, but none of us left feeling hungry.  Let's not forget dessert- we got the Croquetas de Xocolata (milk chocolate croquettes with banana marshmallow and rosemary caramel), which is apparently their signature dessert.  It was a little explosion of deliciousness in my mouth!!

The service was good, and the food was brought our continously as it was made, so it was very fresh.  It's a bit pricey, but for a special occassion it's great.  I would definitely come back, especially for the dessert!

Our next stop was The Gage, which has is a restaurant and bar.  Annie had good things to say about the restaurant, so I want to go back to try that some time.  It was pretty busy, and we got the last four seats at the end of the bar.  Annie had the signature Gage Cocktail, made with pear Grey Goose- it was gooooood!  I had their homemade tonic water.  It was infused with an interesting mix of herbs.  I liked it.  I was going to get the Pick Me Up, which is their orange flavored iced coffee, but the bartender warned me that it was strong, so if I was planning on going to sleep in the next 3 hours, it was a bad idea, so I decided not to get that.  Maybe I'll try it when I go back. :) Since it was Annie's birthday, the main bartender/manager bought her drink and a shot of Grand Marnier.  The bartender was friendly and even showed us the sailboat he had made from a lime and orange peels.  I told him that he obviously wasn't busy enough.  :)

It was a good ending to Annie's birthday festivities- it was a Wednesday night after all, so nothing too crazy.  I definitely want to go back to try the food at The Gage and get the Gage Cocktail.