Rhapsody Café brings its wide-ranging menu to Gurnee

"What can you give me for $10 here?" a patron asked Ramon Abarca, chef and owner of Rhapsody Café in Gurnee. The question no doubt reveals a certain mindset about the culture of eating establishments in and around the area.

The Gurnee dining scene, unfortunately, is largely made up of fast-food spots and chain restaurants strewn about to satisfy the mass tourism demand of Gurnee Mills and Great America. Bringing a food revolution to a place like this - even one modest step at a time - can prove to be a bad roller coaster ride.

Opened for eight months, the second Rhapsody Café (the first one is in Deerfield and doing quite well) attempts to avoid being pigeonholed by swaying past any category. On the one hand, Rhapsody is in a strip mall, with a diner layout and feel - an open, carpeted dining room with green booths, jam at the table, an all-day breakfast menu that features eggs done a thousand different ways and the inclusion of soup or salad with your dinner, as well as various potato incarnations.

But on the other hand, you have high, exposed duct ceilings from which stream long singular lighting fixtures made of stained glass. Classical music plays in the background. The restaurant also features a chardonnay tasting done by Ramon himself should you be unsure of which to go with, and a rather wide-ranging dinner menu with the sort of idiosyncratic quirks (Cornish hen with poblano pepper cream sauce), aplomb (black pepper filet with sauteed mushrooms and red wine reduction and potatoes) and variety (from Italian to Mexican to American) that you are likely to see in downtown boutique eateries.

Fresh wild fish is also on the menu in several incarnations - from salmon to tilapia to Alaskan halibut, which again points to a chef's dedication (5 a.m. fish market trips are not for everyone).

A grilled, buttery shrimp scampi with garlic overtones and plump slices of portobello mushroom topped with fresh Parmesan is one of a handful of dinner appetizers (others include a caprese salad and nachos con chili).

Homemade lentil and chicken noodle soups precede entrees, but contrary to popular culture, this time it's the lentil that provides the heart and soul.

The vitello di Carciofi is two thin, slightly resilient veal cutlets sauteed with - as the name reveals - large pieces of artichokes, as well as sun-dried tomatoes and kalamata olives, all covered by a transparent white wine garlic sauce and surrounded by crisp, firm zucchini and squash.

We fall in love with an ostensibly far simpler dish, however. A hearty - and we mean hearty - bowl of bow-tie pasta is tossed in a deliciously creamy homemade pesto sauce that you will most definitely be writing home about, interspersed with pieces of tomato and mushroom. Without being overpowering in any way, the pesto defines the dish and carries it through beautifully.

Rising amid the culinary chains of Gurnee, the family-friendly Rhapsody Café and Abarca have their work cut out for them if they want to bring about a much-needed shift in palate. But then again, no one said the revolution would be easy.

<p class="factboxheadblack">Rhapsody Café</p> <p class="News">1475 N. Dilleys Road, Gurnee, (847) 623-6200, <a href="http://www.rhapsodycafe.com" target="new">www.rhapsodycafe.com</a></p> <p class="News"><b>Cuisine:</b> All-day breakfast; American, Mexican, and Italian-inspired</p> <p class="News"><b>Setting:</b> Upscale café, with an ode to diners</p> <p class="News"><b>Hours:</b> 6:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 6:30 am to 8 p.m. Sunday</p> <p class="News"><b>Price range:</b> Entrées $14.95-$28.95</p>