bellyQ

The last restaurant on the list was bellyQ in the West Loop. The food is redefined Asian barbeque. My friends, family and I actually returned here twice within a month because our first experience didn't go too well. The first visit started off with having to wait for an hour even though we made a reservation, they plainly overbooked and all reservations had to wait. While waiting, we enjoyed ourselves with their hand crafted cocktails. I had the Terrasueno, a sweet potato shochu, caramel dream Pu-erh tea, spiced syrup, ristretto and warmed water. Usually, I don't see warm cocktails on the menu, so this was a nice change. We finally got seated and we each ordered off the restaurant week menu. Unfortunately, some of us had to go with our second choices due to the restaurant running out. Some of the food was cold and didn't impress us much. I had the Pork Chop topped with salsa verde and green papaya settled on a bed of rice noodle. We started with the Thai style fried chicken, we thought anyone of us could make this because it was just fried chicken topped with the sweet and sour chili sauce we have in our house. Others had the Grilled bellyQ beef with pickled red onion and jasmine rice and Grilled duck breast. Then we ended with Vietnamese Cinnamon Donuts, which we compared to the Filipino fried sugar donuts. I wish I had better comments on our first visit, but it was below my expectations of Asian cuisine. My brother in law wrote a review on Yelp the next day and he received a response back from management and gave him a $100 credit on the next visit. So, we went again later in the month and fortunately, it was a better experience. We ordered different food from our first round. Our top picks were the baby back pork ribs and their lamb shank. Thanks to their management for listening and giving us another opportunity to try their food.