Cafe Selmarie

Gene, Greg and I gave Cafe Selmarie a try today. This didn't go over so well with Gene and Greg because they had to come ALL THE WAY up north. It's really not that far. They were just being whiners. However, the Chicago marathon was going on today and I had no desire to fight the mega-crowds cheering on all those runners. Plus, I heard trying to cross the street was frightening. So we stuck to up north.
We had a short wait for a table today which was fortunate because we were super hungry. Greg was running a few minutes behind so Gene and I decided to start out with some "appetizers" while waiting. Gene got a multi-grain pancake, which he said was "not bad for a multi-grain". He opted out of the $1.75 pure maple syrup and stuck to whatever was on the table.  Tasted like syrup. Good cheap syrup...yummm. I got a croissant which was ok. A little crustier than I prefer though. I also started with a spiked hot chocolate. It's starting to get chilly up here so I thought some hot chocolate was exactly what I needed to warm me up. Except it wasn't very hot. It was in a large wine goblet. So it couldn't have been too hot. I got it with Irish cream. I don't think I like spiked hot chocolate. The liquor takes away the sweetness of the chocolate. In the future, I'll keep it plain.
When Greg arrived, we went ahead and ordered - Italian Benedict for me, Huevo Rancheros Benedict for Gene and a pesto-chicken scramble for Greg. The food was pretty tasty. The Italian Benedict was really good. The salami and pepperoni added a nice spiciness to the meal. The sauteed potatoes were just ok. Nothing special there. Gene agreed that the food was about on par with Sola. Greg had a hard time measuring up to his fancy Wagyu beef but that was expected.
Overall, we gave Cafe Selmarie a 6. The atmosphere was nice - a sunny, well-lit room that never got overwhelmingly loud. The menu was small but covered the basics. But there really wasn't anything that special or amazing about the place. Average with good food.