Review of Shine Restaurant in Lincoln Park

I love trying new places all over the place.  While I think that there is nothing better than a home cooked meal, going out is awesome!

So I came across Shine Restaurant while in the city with a couple of friends.  We were at 1154 Lill shopping for a new purse---> don't you love it!  It's the Sandra purse.  I love Lill!!!

So anyways, we were walking around, looking for a place to eat...  We were going to try Toast b/c I've wanted to go there for forever, but they had a crazy 1 hour wait and we were STARVING!
So we walked down a couple of store fronts and there was Shine.  I've heard of them before and we all like Asian food, so we stopped in.

We were sat at a table close to the open window, which was nice since it was sunny out.  It was a tad windy that day, so at points, it was chilly, but still decent enough not to need to move.

What we ate:

Spring rolls: crispy egg roll stuffed with shrimp & chicken

,

Crisp lettuce wraps: beds of chicken snow peas, red peppers, scallions, sprinkled with pine nuts and a spicy plum sauce

Volcano Roll: a combination of tuna and avocado with special strawberry sauce, served with sprinkles of tempura, topped with fresh tobiko (we had our sans tobiko, none of us are fans of fish eggs!)

I don't like shrimp so I skipped the spring rolls, but the girls loved them.  The lettuce wraps were good, but I wish the lettuce they gave us was more green.  The volcano roll was delicious!  The tuna was fresh and the avocado was creamy.  The strawberries were an amazing addition, nothing I ever would have thought of.  The Tempura on the outside was the perfect touch.  All around, my favorite roll ever!




Our main dishes were... ok.  Honestly, I think we should have just gotten a bunch of appetizers.  


Garlic Sauce: zucchini, peapods, chestnuts, onions and mushrooms in spicy sauce with beef.  (I had mine sans mushrooms)

Spicy Kung Pao:  diced vegetables and roasted peanuts in spicy szechwan sauce with chicken

Harvest Stir-Fry: a seasonal medley of steaming vegetables in light sauce with chicken

We all thought the Kung Pao was the best of the three.  It had the best flavor of them all.  I wish I had gotten that instead...  Mine wasn't really super enjoyable, kinda boring actually.  And there was bamboo shoots in the mix, even though it wasn't on the menu.  I'm not a fan, so I picked around them.

The plus side is that they had super fresh veggies and the meat was not mystery meat like some hole in the wall places... Although, if you ask me, those place are the best! 

Either way, Shine is def a place to try.  Especially the appetizers!  Next time I go, and believe me, I will cuz I loved that roll, I would love to try the satay, tempura, soft shell crab appetizer, fresh duck wraps, hamachi carpaccio and the oyster shooter.  Yummm....
Oh and about 100 more rolls.  Please and thank you.  :)