157 East Ohio St.
Chicago, IL
Neighborhood: Streeterville
Sayat Nova's website
We always try to experience new food and culture here in Chicago, and recently we gave Armenian food a try. We decided to go to Sayat Nova, an Armenian restaurant in the Streeterville neighborhood. Armenian food is similar to Greek, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine. A sampling of Sayat Nova's menu includes kebabs, cous cous and lots of lamb.
Seeing as I've never had Armenian food before, I decided to try a little of everything with the Armenian Combo, which consists of cheese boereg (baked phyllo bread stuffed with creamy melted cheese), sarma (grape leaves stuffed with minced lamb and vegetables), eggplant and kufta (Armenian-style meatballs made of minced lamb and topped with a yogurt sauce). It may not sound very appetizing, but the kufta was actually pretty amazing. The sarma was also delicious and the boereg was flaky and gooey, a perfect combination. The one thing I didn't care for was the eggplant which was soggy and bland.
Armenian Combo
Jenn got the Vegetarian combo: cheese boereg, Armenian spinach, taboule, rice pilaf and hot plaki (a sort of pureed tomato soup with beans). Each dish was flavored with the right amount of spices and all the vegetables were fresh. Each of our meals also came with a house salad of fresh greens topped with a unique mint vinaigrette dressing.
Vegetarian Combo
We also had to try the Armenian beer known as Kotayk, and while it was a pretty ordinary tasting lager, we can at least say we've tried Armenian beer. We finished off our meal with some pretty amazing paklava.
Paklava (aka baklava)
Our only complaint was in the value department. The dishes were each $16, which wasn't too bad because it was quite a bit of food and very filling, but we had ordered the cheese boereg appetizer, thinking it could adequately be shared by two people. The $5 appetizer consisted of a single measly boereg, and needless to say, we were a little disappointed. While it may not be the best value out there, Sayat Nova offers an authentic and delicious array of Armenian cuisine that is definitely worth checking out. We give Sayat Nova an 8.3 out of 10.
Quality of Food: 8.4
Value: 7.7
Atmosphere: 8.4
Customer Service: 8.6
Overall: 8.3
