what better way to welcome in the new year than with a very nice tangerine and thyme cocktail! brian has created, yet again, a fantastic libation! we call it the "T-n-T"! it was a fantastic drink to sip on while we planned out our dreams for yo soy! this is the year we hope to ramp up the frequencies of our dinner parties and get our name out to the universe in hopes of opening the doors to a restaurant of our dreams! "UNIVERSE CAN YOU HEAR US! WE ARE ALMOST READY, GIRL!".

So, please send us emails and let us know if you would like to be invited to our next dinner! it is planned for the end of january, and on a sunday evening. The time frame of our dinners are usually three hours in length, starting at 7 pm. we will post an update within the week with the exact time and date, and with the food menu (and the end of the meal performance!).

we hope everyone had a safe and amazing new year's eve, and we cannot wait to share with everyone more of our passion in 2010!

toast, toast! clink! clink! 

happy new year!

dinner on sunday was awesome! all of the culinary stars aligned themselves to create an extraordinary evening that night! 

we started out with everyone meeting at 7pm and greeted our guests with a cocktail to loosen up just a bit. We made a manzana & pear margarita with aleppo pepper and s&s rim. Fortunately, it was enough to convince non-tequila drinkers to be swayed the other way with it's surprising smoothness. I am hard to please when it comes to margaritas, since I hate the sour mix that 95% of people use when making margaritas and the horrible tequila that is often used. It is so simple to use a more fresh approach with lime and homemade simple (which is one to one water and sugar) and a good 100% blue agave tequila. So, for the apple part of our margarita we added a mexican soda called sidral mundet, which is an apple flavored soda dating back to 1900! And for a slight pear note we added goya brand pear nectar. I am a huge believer in semi homemade, I like the idea of starting with a familiar item, and then tweaking it by adding your own special touches! We also had roasted cumin corn cups with sauteed hongo and coconut garnished with fresh chopped cilantro as a pairing to the "greet and meet" cocktail.

we decided after last dinner to do certain courses "family-style" in order to provoke interaction between guest and create a feeling of "sharing". that being said, we also did not want to create a hazardous environment, so the first course of piping-hot tortilla soup was served individually! For the recipe we used vegetable stock as the base, and added a puree of rice to thicken the broth, and added that truly "tortilla-soup" flavor with roasted poblano peppers and cumin with dashes of lime juice and fresh avocado. we baked fresh corn tortilla strips and added them on top of the soup for a texture balance and flavor additive to the soup. we decided to add the chicken (which was roasted with simple salt and pepper) underneath the tortilla strips vs cooking it into the soup itself so that it still retained it's nice poultry flavor vs taking on all the spices that the soup was cooked in. We believe it creates a more "layered" taste to the soup instead of a one-dimensional flavor profile.

We then switched to "family-style" mode with our winter inspired tacos! we came up with the idea after naming off flavors that we wanted to try together, and then thought of a medium for them to be used in, and all of a sudden we thought... TACOS! it is a classic fave! so the tacos consisted of cubed roasted butternut squash topped off with roasted apples and bacon and as the finishing note to be a play on lime and cilantro (typical mexican last minute squeeze-on-before-first-bite situation) we added a dash of chimichurri. it added the same aspect, but with a twist, and pleasing to the eyes as well! 

The 3rd course was also a play on seasonal items, and it was a turkey milanesa with mixed greens tossed in a chili-orange vinaigrette! So, typically when you order milanesa at a mexican restaurant it is chicken or beef, not at all having the option of turkey. So, we thought it would be a great way to add seasonal with traditional. the turkey was dry rubbed and then left to brine for over 24 hours! the turkey was then tenderized and coated with panko instead of typical bread crumbs, thus allowing the coating to be more crisp! We then fried the turkey crusted with panko, and then finished them off in the oven, which also allowed the finished product to be less of a greasy mess. The dish was finished off with patatas bravas, which are spiced potatoes in paprika!

lastly we have the fourth course which was the mexican bread pudding made with white raisins, cinnamon and a bit of piloncillo and garnished with semi-sweet chocolate! it was a hit!

for the closing part of our dinner we like to invite local talent to entertain our unexpecting guests, and in this case it was stephen leonard! He is currently on an album for the National Equality March cd, and has his own cd which is about to be released this week! needless to say, everyone that was in attendance was blown away by this talented artists' voice ad his stunning ability to sound so clear and precise with just him and a guitar, sans any electrical equipment! I want him for every dinner!

To finish off the entire evening of food, and entertainment, we all played a couple of rounds of loteria, which is mexican bingo, that proved itself to be as amazing to play now than it was when i was 7 years old. The evening was wrapped up as tight as a tamale and it was by far, an unforgettable and amazing evening. So a huge, huge thank you to patrick powers from pns explosion podcast, chef radhika, and chef rafael and chef li as well as jen and steven for coming out to the dinner! yo soy is always full of delicious surprises and each one of you guys helped make the evening special! Also a huge, huge thank you to josie flores for helping us with this event! without you this dinner would not have gone as smooth as our margaritas were!

So, for the ones who did not get to make it to this one, be on the look out for the january yo soy dinner, and email us straight away so that you may reserve your seat now!

xoxo,

Mikey + Brian

So, 4 days from now, we are going to have our monthly Yo Soy dinner, and we are stoked!! We have a full table of 12, and there is going to be some great conversation, as well as food all over it! Our great friend radhika is going to be there with nick! she is kinda shy about critiquing our food, so we enjoy having her over...haha, just joking, she will give it to us good!

Another guest at the party is patrick powers from pns explosion podcast. We love having locals over, and we also love the challenge of having to create a menu for people with dietary restrictions! ( well, let's not get carried away with that last statement, brian is going to kill me for saying that!). He has a penchant for naming smaller episodes of his podcasts amuse-bouches, and i was immediately moved to have to get him to one of our dinners! i think he knows it means amusement for your mouth, but their podcast is an amusement for my ears! i look forward to talking about 80's movies and food with him! 

And speaking of amusement for ears, Stephen Leonard is going to be dining with us as well! I love this guy! his voice is a-m-a-z-i-n-g! I first heard him at a prop.8 rally here in chicago, and was so moved. Since then I have seen him perform at Wild Pug, and recently i heard he did a show at Schuba's, and he also has some music on itunes! He is going places, people, but first he has to dine with us! We are also excited that he will be able to perform for us after dinner! Just picture it, wine, full bellies, and a strumming guitar with an angelic voice floating around the room, umm-umm, the neon green room, that is. you will see what i mean when the pictures are posted!

The table is also going to include 2 other executive chefs and also someone interested in possibly hosting their own "underground" dining event! so, all in all we are squirming around with so many food ideas, just wanting to cook everything that comes into our noggins, but we have narrowed it down to a meal that could fit 4 courses! so look forward to pumpkin, butternut squash, cinnamon, turkey, sweet potato, bread pudding, and did i forget to mention wine? 

And for those that could not make this dinner, be on the lookout for a possible impromptu dinner that we are known for doing during these cold months! 

xxoxo,

mikey + brian

We are excited to be planning our next dinner on Sunday December the sixth! We have been ramping up on what the season is offering us and the techniques that befit these ingredients. So as the weather cools down, we slow down in the kitchen. Slow braising, roasting, curing and pickling will be surfacing more and more as we tumble from fall into winter, and with this the pantry will be stocked with beautiful squashes, hearty root vegetables and comforting fruits. The dinner on the 6th will be a four course affair for $50, we are  tentatively looking forward to starting off with adobo rubbed squash and apple with crispy pancetta, moving into a salad with spice roasted pears and moving into a slow-roasted pork dish in the 'cochinita pibil' style, a popular Yucatan dish flavored with annatto paste and citrus. Dessert will revolve around spiced chocolate, with a few surprises! For any non-meat eaters don't be intimidated by the menu! We always offer vegetarian dishes and welcome you to enjoy dinner with us. For any more questions please feel free to contact us through the site, To reserve a seat send us an e-mail and we will proceed from there. We look forward to meeting you all and sharing this meal with you! Cheers!

We here at yo soy, and by we I mean just brian and I, are deciding it is still early enough in our endeavors to upgrade our concept. We love, love, love the idea of experimentation, and felt that we were somewhat limited by strictly chinese and mexican combinations, so we decided to open it up to unlimited possibilities. Yo soy is now Mexican. Inspired! I feel liberated and excited! It's the same feeling when I play and win loteria (hence the photo)! We celebrated by having friends over for dinner last night by having a tasting of what's to come. we served a comforting soup called fideo which is vermicelli noodles cooked with roasted cumin and tomatoes topped off with fresh crisp tortilla strips. We then presented brian's fantastic empanadas filled with all spice, ground beef and carrots as well as a touch of manzana vinegar. The sauces for the empanadas were homemade chimmichuri and also a chipotle garlic with tamarind. We had mexican rice as well , which is white rice sauteed with fresh cilantro, cumin, garlic and onions and then all steam cooked together (there are tons of variations on this recipe). And then for dessert, which was an experimentation on my part, was peanut butter and ghirardelli cocoa flan with cajeta drizzled atop. It turned out amazingly paired with port from our favorite neighbor, and wine store, kafka! After dinner we decided it would be appropriate to play my favorite past time game, LOTERIA! A blast was had by all as we drank the night away with fantastic wine and port, and toasted each other every time el boracho was pulled from the deck of cards! We could not have had a better relaunch dinner, well, unless we had live mariachi's! But we will put that idea in our back pocket for one of our upcoming dinners later down the road!

Which leads me to touch base on that subject. We have been advertising in the Chicago Free Press for a couple of weeks now. And We have been delighted by the responses we are getting, and want to address the date that we are toying with. We are trying to navigate things around our working schedules, as well as the upcoming holidays. We will send out emails to those who have patiently waited (thank you!) for this dinner. We will send out an email to you with at least a 2 week notice. And for the people who have just seen the ad, and want more information, we have the info. posted under the "goodies" blog from a couple of weeks back. Also, I am excited about the entertainment that will be at our dinner table. We have confirmed a soprano singer as well as her pianist, and some local podcasters thrown in the mix as well. There is one other person I am trying to get to attend, and don't want to scare him off by naming him, so stay posted to watch what happens! So, once again, thank you to the individuals who have showed interest in attending, please stand by and I promise to get in touch with you in the next week with an exact date!

xoxoxo goodies!

mikey & brian