Poached Pear And Radicchio Salad

This salad starts off with an interesting kick. The charred radicchio was under the bed of lettuce and spinach and adding a smoky depth to the dish that I found a little bit undesirable. The poached pair was a lovely mild, sweetness. Combined with the blue cheese crumbles that topped the salad resulted in a delightful pairing. The salad ended up being a little too acidic for my liking with the radicchio and vinaigrette overpowering the sweetness and the savory funkiness of the pears and blue cheese. Standout ingredient: The blue cheese crumbles stole the show on this dish! It's the best vegan blue cheese I've ever tasted. @iszy and I liked it so much, we tried to buy some to go!

This salad for the October tasting menu had some really great components. Unfortunately, I think it's just hard to follow such an amazingly balanced soup, so this salad felt unbalanced and a bit too acidic. This salad contains Pinot Gris poached pears, balsamic grilled radicchio, mixed greens, champagne vinaigrette, and hazelnuts, and house-made bleu cheese. The grilled radicchio contributed a lot to the acidity because of the char from the grilling. The vinaigrette and greens didn't help much with that. However, this salad contains the best vegan bleu cheese I've ever had! I really think they should open up a vegan cheese shop because this is just incredible! In bites that had the bleu cheese, the acidity was tampered down by the earthiness and savory notes. The poached pear was also great at providing balance in the bites it was present due to its sweetness. So I feel a good way to improve the salad would be to increase the ratio of pear/bleu cheese to radicchio/greens. #salad #eatyourveggies #vegancheese #finedining #chicago #glutenfree