Kie-Gol-Lanee — Restaurant in Lake View Township

This is one of my favourite finds in Edgewater/Lakeview! My family and I decided to go family style to enjoy multiple Oaxacan dishes!

The mixed seafood soup broth is heavenly and seafood is fresh. The grilled season whole fish (when I went was Branzino) was flaky and tender with just the right amount of char from grilling made this skin crispy. Something I for one particularly enjoy.

Perhaps my favourite dish is their lamb shank in mole sauce. The lamb is cooked perfectly that the meat flakes off the shank with ease and is tender and juicy! The mole sauce is the best I've enjoyed at any Mexican restaurant in Chicago. This is a must-try!

Save room for desserts! They make the best Tres Leches Cake! I sometimes order this to-go because I crave it after other meals inhave around the city!

Their flan is delightful and sometimes is just the sweet note I need. And their Mexican hit chocolate is thick, creamy, and decadent.

The ambiance is simple and has hints of Mexican decor all around. I enjoy at night as the music isn't too loud so you can still enjoy chatting with your table without screaming. And it is cozy and comfy dining on good sized tables. Be aware there aren't many tables. So go early or get a reservation. Pricing is what I would expect for a fine dining, sit down service Mexican restaurant in Chicago. Be prepared to spend, but what you do, is worth it!

Service is impeccable! They are attentive and make you feel welcomed! I loved that one of the servers even helped my elderly mother get in the car when I pulled back up to the restaurant!

I will definitely be a...

Huge disappointment. I really wanted to try their food as Oaxacan cuisine is one of my favorite. Came here for brunch/lunch, ordered an arachera steak tlayuda. To my disappointment it had no taste. Plain, flavorless $30 dish. It tasted exactly the same as the free starter that they served for the table( chips and beans with cheese sprinkles) minus the steak, which pieces were veeeery small and roughly 4 oz total spread by small pierces all over. So you just basically biting on the corn chip covered with a thin layer of bean spread, cheese and … tasteless lettuce… Steak was flavorless! No marinade whatsoever. Also not once I was served lettuce on tlayudas when lived in Oaxaca… this is a cheap filler and is not authentic..

The server was nice enough to offer and replace the dish, however after dropping a menu at the table for me to select another dish, didn’t come back to re-take the order for another 20 minutes. My friend ended up finishing his dish before the server took my order to recook it. At that point I was stuffed with free corn chips, took the food to go and left. Will not come back and definitely don’t recommend. Downtown prices, not suitable for Uptow or justifiable by the poor service and mediocre food.

Ambience is nonexistent. Basic tables, back room has poorly placed wallpaper, which I had to stare for a while since I really didn’t end up eating but mostly waiting, random decorations having NO relationship with Oaxacan culture. The wallpaper had pics of alebriske and that’s enough where the touch with the region...

What makes a restaurant experience enjoyable is highly subjective and involves numerous variables. That said, the physical space is tasteful with cultural music. It still uses paper menus which many may still prefer. It also has one of the nicest restaurant bathrooms of recent memory because it is tastefully decorated, is very clean and in very good condition. Unfortunately, the food part of the experience is where the relatively low score comes from. The chicken soup is what was ordered. It was not in the Starter/Appetizer section and was instead in a dedicated Soup section. The portion size was not described on the menu, only the ingredients, along with a price of $15.00. Considering it was not in the Starter/Appetizer section, a decent sized bowl was expected. What was received was best described as a cup. The soup was indeed prepared as described and had an overall deliciously spicy flavor and medium consistency although the tiny portion size was shocking for the price. It is worth trying again to see if portion sizes are more commensurate with pricing. A recommendation is to describe the physical size of the portion and put it under the Starter/Appetizer section should the tiny portion size remain. The entrée bowl of soup was $15 and it was a tiny cup of soup smaller than an appetizer probably about 4 1/2 ounces of soup. That is...