Our second team dinner was at Ditka’s Restaurant. Yes, that Ditka.
It’s primarily a steak spot. Also, there’s lots of drinking. And plenty of TV’s for sports watching.
We ordered a bunch of oysters to start. These suckers were huge, like they were on steroids!
The angus prime rib. It is heavy aged and slow roasted, served with burgundy mushrooms, horseradish cream, and au jus.


The tomahawk! It was a special that night and beyond expensive. Look how caveman this thing is!
The filet, 8 oz. of center cut prime.
The Filet Medallions – 3 Ways. We have horseradish, blue cheese, and oscar styles.
I was the lone weirdo who did not get a steak. Yeah, at a steak house. Whatever. I got the Blackened Mahi Mahi. There were two healthy sized hunks of grilled fish with two different sauces – cilantro pesto and smoked tomato. Oh, and a bunch of mixed rice. I loved this! I liked both sauces but definitely preferred the smoked tomato. The rice was also a winner.
We also got a few sides to share. The truffle fries were kind of amazing! The sweet corn dish with cheese was even better. It was sweet, it was sour, it was awesome.
The smashed sweet potatoes with bacon was also good. I am a huge fan of all their sides!
Last but not least, we all ended up sharing this giant piece of chocolate cake. Oh, it was delicious, and there was still some left over.
Also, earlier in the trip, I went and had some pierogi at Pierogi Heaven. These were, by far, the best pierogi I’ve ever had. I tried potato with cheese and sauerkraut. They’re served with bacon and lovely sweet caramelized onions. I imagine they’re just like your polish grandmother would make!

Every time I passed Ladder 15 during the day, I’d say to myself “oh, that’s where Ladder 15 is”. Every time I passed Ladder 15 during the night on a weekend, I’d shudder and run past it as quickly as possible. It’s as if it has dual personalities. I wanted to go and check out their burgers, which have been raved about. So on an early evening on a sunday night, we ventured in. It’s fairly quiet on such a day.
K got the classic burger with bacon. It’s made of prime sirloin, comes on a tall brioche bun, and is served with delicious fries.
I came for the Burger 15. In addition to said prime sirloin and the same brioche bun, it’s topped with a ragu of short rib, mushrooms, onions, marrow, and a truffle sauce. Man alive, this thing was tasty. But not necessarily tasty in a burger way. To me, it was more akin to a hot roast beef sandwich or something. It was just so darn wet, with all the dripping short rib and everything. The juices essentially disintgrated the bottom bun, so I was really left with a whole bunch of innards and a half soggy top half. I don’t like mushrooms, but I barely tasted any here. I really didn’t taste much onion either, now that I think about it. But I certainly tasted lots of wet, shredded short rib, along with the actual burger bit. It was really great, but I can’t compare it to a regular burger. Point is, I liked it! And their fries are darn good too.
But the real mystery at Ladder 15 is why do they put water ice cones on top of all the bottles of booze? Service was ok. The food took quite awhile to come out. But I blame that on us both wanting our burgers medium well. I know, it’s sacrilegious, but I just can’t do bloody burgers! With these burgers being good, I really want to try the tuesday night prix fixe now!

I  hope y’all know that Philly Fringe is going on right now. In case you don’t, give it a go! After checking out a fringe event, we mosied, and we actually mosied, over to Standard Tap. I’d been here for drinks, but never food. I guess it’s been a long time coming. Their menu changes frequently and is written on chalkboards. Man, I have terrible eyesight. I always have to walk over and stand right in front of it. They had a wide range of options available, but in the end, we both went for the burger. People rave about it, so I had to check it out.
The burger! It’s served with cheese and a thick slice of seared onion, mushrooms, lettuce and tomato on ciabatta bread. You also get a heap of fries and some pickles. The burger is really good! It was juicy and cooked to what I asked for, and the toppings were good. The giant slice of tomato was incredibly flavorful! The fries are great too. My only problem was with the bread. The outside of the bread is so hard and inflexible that when I was trying to bite into the burger, the inflexibility of the bread made all of the innards be pushed out. So it often ended up being a mess. M just ignored the bread completely and just stuck to the innards. I also would have preferred that the onions were cooked more, but that wasn’t a big deal. All in all, a very solid burger.