I get a lot of e-mails in the summer (and around the holidays, too) that come from suburbanites who are heading into the city for the day or a weekend and want a recommendation for family dining without spending a small fortune. One of my top picks to fill that bill would be the Weber Grill Restaurant on North State Street.
The menu is broad -- from burgers to babybacks -- the prices are reasonable and the food is quite good. Matters of temperature (medium-rare, medium) on steaks and burgers can go amiss at times, especially when the place is on full spin cycle. Overall, though, the restaurant does a respectable job.
Sitting in one of the booths opposite the exhibition kitchen is better than watching the Food Channel. The flames leaping from those Brobdingnagian barbecue grills on the "line" are mesmerizing. The idea of watching your ribs or burger or steak being cooked without having to lift a finger will have anyone feeling downright catered to.
The selection of starters and salads isn't much to get all fired up about. But whenever I see pizza on a menu -- regardless of the restaurant style -- I have to try it. Weber grill does a "grill-roasted pizza" that's pretty decent; the Margherita got the nod (pepperoni and Buffalo chicken are the other options). The pizza was oval in shape and just about the right size for two to share for a pre-entree nibble. The crust had a pleasing crispness and texture (and light grill marks on the bottom), and the toppings -- classic Margherita --were slices of fresh plum tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and fresh basil.
As to the meat of the matter, the babyback ribs were terrific. The meat was succulent, tight to the bone, and the long smoking over hickory imbued a flavor that was smacking good. (Take a bit more of that smoky barbecue sauce served on the side to amp up the flavor even more.) A full slab was $21.95 (the going price these days) and included corn bread, coleslaw and baked beans, all of which couldn't have been better .
Another meaty issue to consider is the meat loaf. I love meat loaf, but the portion size here is almost too much to deal with at one sitting. Three hefty planks of meat loaf got slathered with Weber's hickory barbecue sauce, and it was smokin' good eating, especially when you factor in all of the sides that came with it. (Wish that I had taken one slice home for a meat loaf sandwich the next day.) There are combos on the menu, so you can put together a lot of the barbecue choices to get some variety.
Seafood choices include catfish, tilapia, salmon, shrimp and tuna, and none of them are given any type of barbecue (as in sauce) treatment, which is probably a good thing. Recommendation here is the grilled garlic shrimp skewers, which were quite good. Two skewers were laced with four jumbo Gulf shrimp each. And though the word "garlic" appears in the description, it was done with a light hand, which was a good thing, because the goodness of the shrimp stood out on its own. The shrimp came with big wedges of skin-on "grilled-roasted" potatoes; the texture was perfect (meaty and somewhere between roasted and baked in texture).
I would be remiss not to mention the Weber Grill hamburger. You can put this one on your top hamburger list, especially the Wisconsin burger (when it's not overcooked) with its fixings of smoked bacon and cheddar cheese. This was Black Angus beef, 10 ounces at the start, mighty good and thick. My medium-rare request was more medium than medium-rare, and that didn't help, but in some way the excellent french fries made up for the overcooking.
Desserts are but three, and of those I would suggest a properly spiced and delicious Dutch apple pie that comes with caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream, or the triple chocolate bundt cake, which was given a triple dose of chocolate -- as in chocolate cake, white chocolate chip ice cream and hot fudge. It all came together rather sweetly.
