Bin 36

Awesome wine flights, we all found something we liked. I call this a win-win.

Located in the heart of Chicago, I was amazed it doesn't cost an arm and leg to get a drink, though it can add up fast if you like to try a bunch of hors d'oeuvres. You know the more I think about it... Go and get self-schooled on wine and cheese!! Definitely, a cool, new learning experience, opening up my already expansive palate of guts and offal. I admit I discovered some pretty fantastic cheeses from this place that I thought wouldn't care for. Dinner, on the other hand, was not as impressive.

Somehow our reservations got messed up, but they were incredibly accomodating and made sure our group of 12 got a table on a Saturday prime time of 8:30.

Came here on a Thursday evening to enjoy some wine and cheese. Got two wine flights, one white and one red. Both were really fun and delicious. I appreciated that they matched each wine with an appropriate coaster that explained the wine, where it was from, and what flavors to expect.

As for the cheeses, they were very small portions, albeit delicious (and I order cheese plates fairly often). They serve it with only a few crackers, so we had to ask for more even though there was not very much cheese. They should work on this cheese to cracker ratio-- it's very important!

As for ambiance, it's a little lacking. Felt a bit generic, a bit well lit, and a bit impersonal. Not very cozy for a wine and cheese place. Our waitstaff was attentive but very basic. Did not really explain things and the bus boys were a bit over-eager to clear our plates.

Decent place but not rushing to go back. I think there are lots of wine/cheese bars with more character than this one.

You go on a date and it just doesn't sizzle the way you wanted it to? And then you notice something... like say, a slight murky scent that might be the whispers of B.O.? But everything was pretty much fine and dandy and so you just never set up a second date? And maybe pretend that you lost all of your contacts when your cat accidentally, on purpose, but still just pretend knocked your phone into the toilet? Bin 36 was like that for me.

My company was five stars. We each had a glass of wine with our sandwiches, so that could have been enough to nudge this review up a notch. Oh - and my friend was very obviously in love with Bin 36 and so that makes this review all the more awkward.

Bin 36 is spacious with tons of natural light. I LOVE that. But maybe it was the natural light that made me see that there were a LOT of crumbs on the bench and table. And I wondered how we could possibly be seated in a practically empty restaurant at a table that hadn't been properly cleaned from the night before? That's GROSS. After the server (who was very nice but a tad flighty) visited our table a couple times and still didn't bother to wipe it down, I ceremoniously swept the crumbs onto the floor.

I really liked that each menu item coordinated with one or two wine suggestions. It was very easy to locate the wine pairing on the facing page and read the description. I also liked that a little paper description was given to each of us upon receiving our wine. My friend told me that Bin 36 offers frequent wine classes and encouraged me to take one.

My friend adored her $5 grilled cheese sandwich. She said that it was like French Onion Soup but in sandwich form. I am making a point that it was $5 because although the server identified the sandwich as their special, she neglected to say that "special" meant that it was $5. There was a sign on the wall that said as much but it was behind me and I didn't realize until examining the receipt.

My own sandwich was a turkey club and it was not special. In fact, the three slices of bread and generous portion of turkey was very difficult to eat. And my first bite tasted weird. My friend looked at my sandwich and said that she would have deconstructed it before eating it because the meat was heaped together in the middle instead of evenly distributed across the plain of bread.

The one part of our lunch that was really amazing were the fries. They were skinny and crispy. I think they had truffle oil on them and had some sort of green seasoning. I ate all of them before even touching my sandwich. My friend also ate all of hers.

The server brought us the wrong bill. I saw that our lunch came to over $60 and then I carefully examined the components and realized the mistake. Of course she was apologetic and corrected it. Normally I wouldn't even mention such a little mistake except that I really don't think she was that great of a server. She was friendly and nice, but she could have wiped down the table, explained the specials better, and brought us the right bill. There were only two other tables besides ours so... yeah.