Soul & Smoke - Avondale at Rockwell on the River — Restaurant in West Chicago Township

Today is now Thursday and my issue from Monday is still unresolved. Sunday I ordered Turkey Tips and a 6oz Gumbo. Turkey tips were pretty basic but the gumbo was on point. Full of sausage barely any chicken for chicken Gumbo no okra really or anything else but I appreciated the flavor and spice and I love sausage. Monday I decided to order a larger portion on the Uber eats app 16oz this time and maybe I'd get more of the other ingredients. I paid 21.00 for a much lower quality and such a small portion of Gumbo. Barely any chicken or sausage or any other ingredients that Gumbo typically has the gross part is there was two pastie chunks of what had the consistency of flour I could have screamed. I called the restaurant Monday and explained that perhaps the rue wasn't whisked fully or something but it was two brown pastie chunks in my Gumbo and I had to stop eating it. I was promised a refund and apologized too. I told the guy hey I ordered uber eats is there anything I need to do...he said no we can issue the refund I see your name here on caller ID I actually made your bowl so I take full responsibility. He explained the Gumbo is made offsite in another kitchen and they just pretty much warm it up....Wednesday comes a young lady gets on the phone and says they can't issue uber eats refunds...and I was furious because now it's two days later and I can no longer report in the app. She said she'd call the manager and have them call me. Nobody call. Uber eats issued an apology...no refund was issued and I was literally left with a bad taste in my mouth. I called the restaurant because I liked the flavor of the Gumbo and I wanted them to know they might wanna stir it more because there was chunks of paste from the rue in my portion...it's Thursday and the lack of care will prevent me from patronizing this place. I gave it a second chance, do I really need a 3rd to figure out there's no charm considering my second try was worst and I spent more money... I typically deal with refunds through the uber eats app but it was the employee that offered to resolve the issue directly. I called because it was that disturbing to have pasties chunks in a soup...

Early in the day, I texted karaoke buddy who moved to Chicago many years ago and ask for recommendation for food and fun as I was spending the day in the city. I Checked my phone when I landed and it seemed communication ceased with no suggestions given. I googled Black owned bbq places and saw Soul & Smoke but was discouraged by the traffic I had to go through to get there. By the time I picked up my rental, there was a little traffic so I headed to Avondale. I didn’t expect the “ghost kitchen” but I was familiar with them so I ordered the all day pulled pork sliders with cornbread and a brisket sandwich. Let me start off saying, please didn’t ever send anyone off without napkins or even wet wipes. I started with the brisket sandwich. I opened the compostable container and saw a huge delight. I picked up the monster sandwich and thought about how I would attack it. My mouth would not open wide enough to get good first bite. What I managed to get was a sample piece of the top soft brioche bun (I think) and the moist brisket with sauce. Let me tell you, it was tangy, not overly spicy and quite tasty. There was so much meat to compliment to bun. I took one bite after the other. I chose mix of lean and fat for the brisket so I was trying to see if I’d end up with more fat than lean. Not the case. I save to rest for the next morning. Not onto the sliders. Rather than saying Lunch All Day, you should say, Lunch for TWO DAYS!! The apple slaw added a hint of sweetness. The pork was not dry at all, and I had it the following afternoon with out heating it up. The corn muffin was dense and delicious. I’m grateful my buddy ghosted me, lol, because this place right here is on the list, forever! I plan to get some sandwiches to take with me back to CT. I just hope I could restrain myself...

We have been on a BBQ comparison journey - so we ordered a meat sampler so that we could see if this is someplace we want to return to in the future. Starting with the brisket, it was a bit fatty and it was tinder, but it was a littletoo fatty than we are custom to eating. It tasted OK but we weren’t overly impressed with the brisket. The rib tips were not thrilling either they were tender, but unless you put some sauce on it and we had the tangy sauce, we didn’t find them flavorful at all. The pulled pork was kind of dry, again not very flavorful. Everything was tender, so it wasn’t a matter of how it was cooked or smoked, but just not seasoned as well as we would like. The nduja sausage was good and spicy. That was very tasty. We liked that. The portions are also smaller than portions we’ve gotten from other establishments so maybe it was because it was the meat sampler it was just that a sampler, but we thought there should be a little bit more since I spent $50 and all I got was a meat sampler nothing else . Basically, our rule is if you have to add the sauce in order to get flavor than it’s just OK so that’s our assessment. The atmosphere is nice. I picked up for lunch but being on the river we can see that it’s in a nice location although it was difficult for me to find because it has signs but they are not as helpful when you get into the parking...