CHICAGO — If you're looking for a new place to try this weekend, we have a few suggestions.
Kick off the weekend with meatballs. A new meatball-focused restaurant, Mondo, opened at 4 p.m Friday.
If you're observing Lent, Mondo's vegetarian and gluten-free balls combine beans, brown rice and roasted mushrooms, topped with chimichurri sauce.
The meatballs (beef, spicy pork, turkey and chicken and bacon varieties) are served six ways: bowls, sub, deuce (two balls topped with cheese on a roll), atop a big salad, sliders and "full Mondo," the latter a combination of three balls over any side dish with bread and a salad.
View the full menu here. Mondo Meatball, 1471 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Time to Get ShamROCKED: The Hard Rock Cafe Chicago, 63 W. Ontario St., will once again host its "Get ShamRocked" fundraiser for Misericordia. Enjoy Irish Car Bombs, green beer and Irish Reuben sandwiches beginning at 11 a.m. Saturday. Meanwhile, kids can get a balloon animal or their face painted in a nearby heated tent.
Quench Your Thirst with one-of-a kind house beer: Within a month of opening on the border of Logan Square and Avondale, Lost Lake head bartender Paul McGee had already brewed the tiki bar its first house beer: Lost Lake Exotica Ale, a Maibock-style beer billed as “the perfect beer-back to drink with rum.”
“The beer is medium-bodied with fruit, toast and toffee flavors coming from the malts, and finishes almost dry with a mellow noble hop bitterness and spice that leaves you wanting more,” according to a Lost Lake description.
Lost Lake Exotica Ale is available in 22-ounce bottles, featuring a label designed by artist Cody Hudson.
Lost Lake, 3154 W. Diversey Ave.
Let's not forgot about Pi Day: Scafuri Bakery in Little Italy will be offering a free slice of pie to anyone who can recite from memory the first 20 digits of pi — at least until supplies last. (That's 3.1415926535897932385. We looked it up.) For the less geometrically inclined, pie slices will be on sale for $3.99 each; whole pies for $20.
Scafuri Bakery, 1337 W. Taylor Street.
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