Sunday, June 20, 2010

Geja's Cafe

Type: Fondue
Fancy Shmancy Factor: 4/5
Price: $38-55 for 4-courses
Quality for Price: 3/5
Ambiance: Intimate, romantic
Neighborhood: Lincoln Park
Other: No children under 10

Normally I am not a big fan of going out to eat and then having to assemble my meals or cook for myself. I love fajitas, but there is something daunting about the idea of sitting down at a restaurant, having them bring you ingredients
, and constructing the entree yourself. Fondue is one step less. They don't even cook the food for you. That being said, just as I will occasionally order fajitas at a Mexican restaurant, I will make an exception for fondue. Or, at least, for Geja's Cafe.

Geja's
is probably one of the more 'fancy' or 'romantic' restaurants we've been to since we started the FoodLovers blog. When I say 'romantic,' I mean it in the traditional, carriage-ride-through-the-park, candlelit-dinner type of way. We had a Groupon and it was my birthday, so it seemed like an appropriate place to celebrate. Geja's caters to people that want a sure-fire romantic experience. It's not the type of place you bring a friend for dinner just to catch up or a group of people for dinner before going out on the town. Let's put it this way: if you bring someone to Geja's, you probably like them as more than just a friend. Because of this, it might not be the best place for a first date. I would say a first date to Geja's might be a little overboard, akin to taking someone on a twilight riverboat ride the first time you go out or showing up at their door with a dozen roses. Granted, some people might be into that, but I tend to think that style of courting isn't as popular as it once was. Just be warned: you might come off as a little over-zealous.

The ordering process is fairly simple. Essentially, you pick the meats you would like and they bring you out a salad and a cheese fondue course with bread and fruit. They also bring out another pot of oil and set it over a fire at the table to prep for the main course. The 'meal' shows up on a large tray with the raw chicken, filet mignon, and lobster meat (in our case), eight dipping sauces and an assortment of raw vegetables. We had color-coded fondue forks so we knew which ones we had placed in the sizzling pot of oil and could retrieve them when we figured they were probably done cooking. Since we had, in a sense, become the cooks, we received training in how to cook our meat. It went like this: "Chicken is three minutes, filet is two minutes, and lobster is one minute. Enjoy!" It was probably the most nervous I've seen Kristen with food since our first sushi experience. It's been a few days, though, and so far no salmonella symptoms.

Perhaps the best part of the meal came at the end when we were almost too full to enjoy it. When our server brought out the pot of melted chocolate, we somehow managed to stretch our stomachs a little more for dipped marshmallows, pound cake, and fruits, which we finished off with some espresso.

Overall, eating at Geja's is an experience and that is one of the biggest selling points. It's one of only a few restaurants in Chicago like it and the atmosphere and novelty is something that you pay for. However, for special occasions or a romantic night out, it is hard to match or beat. Just about the only thing more romantic than feeding each other bites across the table is the spaghetti scene in Lady and the Tramp. So this just may be the closest to "perfect date restaurant" that we've come! But something tells me that we'll keep on searching anyway...

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