Bub City, a new southern-themed addition to the Lettuce Entertain You brood, is less Nashville than it is Nashville. You know, the TV show: the shiny Connie Britton and Hayden Panettiere vehicle, where nuance takes a backseat to the cheesiest kinds of pleasure. Prime-time TV actually provides a good sort of analytical tool to think about this new theme park of a restaurant, which is located on North Clark Street next to something called “Dragon Ranch,” a Billy Dec business that, I can only assume, serves spit-roasted lizard and baked beans from the can. I digress: actually, Dec’s thing advertises “moonshine and BBQ.” Somebody involved with Bub City had the eminently good sense to refrain from calling anything here “moonshine,” confident that simple whiskey would do.
Or get a real salad. The El Paso incorporates corn and black beans with a creamy ranch dressing. It’s cool and acidic and a nice complement to all the heavier food on the menu, where veggies are otherwise scarce. There’s the de rigueur green beans (with “onion crunch”) and fried pickles; the kitchen also tries its hand at oven-crisped collard greens, so slick with oil it’s like licking the Gulf of Mexico. Coleslaw, meanwhile, advertised as “nice,” isn’t really—dressing too sweet, cabbage too pulverized. If you’re ordering off the “SIDES MATTER” menu you’d do better with buffalo tots, doused in hot sauce and sprinkled with blue cheese. They’re great.
435 N. Clark 312-610-4200bubcitychicago.com
