The A-Team of Spring Produce on One Plate

Spring is the most fleeting season in Chicago, so people appropriately go ballistic for spring produce, stampeding through farmers' markets like it's a Beanie Baby fire sale, ca. 1996. Some of the most prized spring possessions are asparagus and strawberries, though it's not often they're found on the same plate. Well, 2Sparrows is serving up a spring sucker punch via an off-menu special showcasing this springy duo (with a cameo appearance from ramps!) for as long as the ingredients are available locally. It's like The A-Team of spring produce on one plate.

The only thing better than an asparagus salad is an asparagus salad pimped out with four different preparations of asparagus. The versatility of the ingredient is what chef Gregory Ellis loves so much about asparagus, enabling him to showcase it in multiple ways on one extraordinary dish. There's pickled asparagus, shaved raw asparagus, grilled asparagus, and an asparagus cream sauce, all mingling in beautiful aspara-harmony on a lustrous plate with a rosy strawberry vinaigrette. Ellis even adds a few ramps when he can get his hands on them. Hazelnuts provide a bit of toasty crunch, and it's all capped off with a poached egg. Being a brunch-centric restaurant, I would expect nothing less than a poached egg on just about everything. The special will be available for a limited time (naturally), pending ingredient availability. The cost is $12, not that you can put a price on such a spring-tastic creation.

(Asparagus salad with strawberry vinaigrette, ramps, and a poached egg)