Chill Restaurant and Lounge

Chill Restaurant and Lounge is exactly the type of place I would not of visited of my own accord before my blogging days. I would of passed it off as some sort of night club that did their food as an afterthought. Definitely not the type of place I’d consider for a lunch. Luckily, I’ve had a couple of meals with Ben from Chowtimes and he mentioned Chill as a spot he’d like to visit. As it was my turn to choose a venue, I picked one off of his list. You can check out Ben’s post on Chill here.

When I arrived at noon, Ben had grabbed a spot by the windows on a raised platform. I’m guessing that’s where the stage is for the late-night music. The room was empty save for one table. It turns out those folk were Ben’s co-worker’s. One of them came over and whispered something into Ben’s ear. Even though I didn’t understand what he said, I was pretty sure it was about the food. Sure enough he said something to the effect of “The food is hard to eat.”. I’m not exactly sure which items he was referring to. It certainly wasn’t any of the one’s we ordered.

To start, we decided to try something from their unique and varied beverage selection. I went with the Plum Lemon Green Tea. A bit tart for my liking but very refreshing nonetheless. Ben’s choice was what I should of ordered.

The Hawaiian Holiday is a banana, coconut and pineapple smoothie. This looked delicious. Next visit, I’m havin’ a couple of these with a double-shot of rum!

On to the food!

Before our visit I checked out Chill’s website and saw they had a special March New Tapas menu. Unfortunately, only one of the five items was available at lunch. Oh well. Back to the regular menu. First off we chose the Kong-Pow chicken. After having an excellent Kong-Pow Chicken at The One last week, I was only hoping for mediocre. This was a close second. Loaded with tender chicken and packed with a ton of flavor.

The Chill Calamari. Sometimes deep-fried squid can be hit or miss. This version was bang on. Lightly seasoned with a good bit of chewiness. Unfortunately, I got the photo after a couple of pieces were eaten. The portion was quite large for the price of $4.50.

The House Special Sizzling Chicken was another delightful and delicious surprise. The moist thigh meat is slathered in garlicky soy with scallion and nice, long strips of ginger. I’m really starting to like the menu here.

Golden Sand Shrimp. Ben mentioned in his post that these were his favorite of the day. Although I like the amount of garlic and chili, I thought the amount of batter was a little much. They’re quite light and crunchy but, to me, the excessive coating obscured the shrimp.

Chill Pork Rolls. Amongst the five dishes we chose, these really stood out. Fresh cucumber wrapped in tender, steamed pork slices swimming in a garlic soy paste. Nicely conceived and well-executed. At $4, this is a steal.

This really was an enjoyable restaurant experience. I wouldn’t hesitate in ordering any of these items again. Can’t wait to try the Chill Ahi Tuna Wrap with seaweed!