Coobah: Pan Latin Cuisine Nightclub Style

Situated on Southport area of Lakeview, not many steps away from the Brown Line stop, Coobah is a pan-Latin restaurant with some Filipino dishes. The interior is very dark, almost like a nightclub or a café-bar with a lot of dark browns mixed in with red lights, and when we came at 6 p.m. it was like almost walking into a dingy bar in broad daylight, albeit without the smoke.

In the grand scheme of things the club atmosphere makes sense and provides for an exciting dinner experience—they serve food until 1 a.m., and bring in djs playing trendy music. The dinner the crowd was mostly younger. We appeared to be the first table seated but by the time we left at 7:45 the place had mostly filled up.

After ordering a delicious mojito, we ordered a “pizza” on special. It was more of a spongy olive oil-soaked thick bread, with piquillo peppers and green onions on a bed of spicy red pepper aoli. The pizza was devoured relatively quickly, in part because we and I were both hungry but also because it was very tasty.

Automatically you are given three sauces with which you can compliment your meal: a salsa verde, a Filipino vinegar and peanut sauce, and a red pepper sauce. All sauces complemented our dishes well.

For the main course I ordered the chicken negra modelo. As the name implies there was beer in the recipe. It was boneless chicken breast served with a crispy dark beer/sweet mustard sauce. The chicken was moist inside and the exterior was perfectly crisp. The dish also came with a tortilla, smoked tomato and cheese chilaquiles.

My fiancée ordered a pan seared mahi-mahi special on a bed of chickpeas, scallions, and red peppers. The fish was cooked just right and the portion was relatively generous. We skipped the dessert as we needed to be off to a wine tasting, but felt that Coobah offers good value for the type of food, not only because its entrees are reasonably priced and portions generous but also because it is putting its toe in the water of fusion food without the downtown and West Loop fusion prices.

Coobah
3423 N. Southport
773-528-2220