food porn: foreign & domestic

This episode of "Food Porn from Pommes Frites" is brought to you by Foreign & Domestic. This is the episode in which I knowingly became one of those people to bring you these delicious photos. I was quick with my camera and I think I only slightly mortified Tom by snapping all these pictures of my food... but when food is this pretty (and yes, it's tasty too) how can I not?

We'd been dying to try out Foreign & Domestic, which is located in the North Loop neighborhood, since we first saw the construction going up. Although I'm told it originated as a gas station, I've known this particular place as an awesome vintage store and then a skate shop, It's a pretty small space, so I was anxious to see how they'd fit a kitchen and tables and chairs and wait staff and oh yes, patrons, inside.

The solution? An open kitchen lined with bar seating and tons of little tables. I probably wouldn't recommend bringing a huge party here, but with just two or four people it's perfect. Usually, there's a line out the door but we (just two) were whisked right in.



The menu consists of straight from the farm-or-farmer's-market ingredients and vegetarians beware: although they do have a few veg options (tofu, popovers, etc), it's really all about the meat here.





We started with fried green tomatoes and gruyere popovers. I still can't believe we didn't get "That Beautiful Ass" on name alone.




For dinner, I had crispy chicken thighs (the creamed corn + green beans that came with it were awesome too) and Tom had something called "The Ripper" - the main portion of which was bacon wrapped sausage.


As if that wasn't enough meat, we also had chocolate covered bacon, for dessert, that came with a shot glass of bacon infused root beer, and super fluffy and sweet pork rinds. For me, the chocolate covered bacon was a little too much... I'm not a huge sweets person, it was more of a "I have to try that" situation.

Before I start sounding too much like a Yelp review here, let me just say that it was overall an awesome experience... and I'm excited both to see what they have to offer from season-to-season and that restaurants of this caliber are making their way up to my 'hood. They've managed to strike an intricate balance of atmosphere (that includes well designed menus and signage and super chic decor) and back it up with simple and thoughtfully prepared eats.