Just so we’re clear, despite its name, which means “father” in Hebrew, Aba is not an Israeli restaurant. Israel is too polarizing: too much nasty politics, too much war and death and religious strife, too many things you’d rather not argue about when you’re about to spend a lot of money on a really nice dinner. So even though hummus, falafel, labneh, kefta, and a bagel are all on the menu, Aba is a Mediterranean restaurant with, our waiter informed us, “a California accent.” I think what he really meant is that Aba serves the cuisine of a mythical golden land where all is peace and prosperity, where the land and seas offer nothing but bountiful harvests, and where the inhabitants end each day with a glass of wine on the terrace where they can admire the city lights and congratulate themselves on how marvelous their lives are.
The one exception was the hamachi, served raw, sitting in a puddle of aji amarillo pepper sauce and sprinkled overenthusiastically with coarse salt. I was also slightly disappointed by the Everything Jerusalem Bagel because it hadn’t been boiled and therefore wasn’t properly chewy, but it came with a side of labneh topped with a lovely dab of honey to cut the sourness. And because Jerusalem is in Israel, which, in the Bible, was described as a land flowing with milk and honey. But I digress.
But if there was, I didn’t see it. Instead we ate our scallops slowly and sighed and dreamed of a life in which we could eat such scallops regularly. And then we realized that each scallop was $9, which put them into the realm of luxury, and this made us sad. And so we ate more bread. v
302 N. Green 773-645-1400abarestaurantchicago.com
