Eat. Watch. Do. — Asador Bastian review, Italian beef at Navy Pier, plus Dollywood must-dos

It’s Thursday, Chicago.

Like those possibly neglected plants on your windowsill, we’re glad sunny skies are greeting us. Heating up the grill soon? If not, we have a review for a restaurant with sizzling Spanish-style shareable steaks, along with delectable drinks and desserts.

There are also some more low-key spots to enjoy, like Superdawg Drive-In, which celebrated 75 years of business in Chicago this week, and Ciccio Italian Beef, a newcomer with an old recipe at Navy Pier.

And now that it’s getting warmer outdoors, amusement park season is back. Read why thousands of Chicagoans flock to Dollywood in Tennessee each year, almost nine hours away by car, to experience a theme park like no other.

Have a great weekend, we’ll see you here next week.

— Lauryn Azu, deputy senior editor

Asador Bastian, the newest project from Doug Psaltis and Hsing Chen in the historic Flair House building, is decidedly not a steakhouse. The restaurant is modeled on the asadores of northern Spain and serves a single cut of beef: a thick bone-in rib eye called a txuleton. Read Nick Kindelsperger’s review, and why you should save room for dessert, here.

The movie “BlackBerry,” out this weekend in theaters, “recalls the betrayal of trust between old pals and startup founders depicted in ‘The Social Network,’ which remains the gold standard in the realm of freely fictionalized tech age cautionary tales,” writes Tribune film critic Michael Phillips. The movie chronicles the rise and collapse of the software company Research in Motion and their clicky lil’ wonder, the BlackBerry. Phillips praises Glenn Howerton’s performance. Read his entire review here.

Eat. Watch. Do.

Weekly

What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life … now.

Celebrating 75 years of business this past Tuesday, Superdawg Drive-In is commemorating the occasion with $10 gift card giveaways throughout the month. Tribune food critic Louisa Chu spoke with the family behind the business and how they honor the legacy of the newlyweds who opened the first location back in 1948.

A musical adaptation of Mark Twain’s 1884 novel “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” “Big River,” is at Mercury Theater. Curtis Bannister plays Jim, “who truly is as fine a Jim as you’ll ever see or hear,” Tribune theater critic Chris Jones writes. Mercury Theater artistic director Christopher Chase Carter foregrounds Jim in the musical and makes other updates in a way that helps the show meet the present moment. Read the rest of the review here.

Some Chicago LGBTQ bars have dropped Anheuser-Busch products like Bud Light and Goose Island after comments the brand’s CEO made that appeared to reverse its support of the LGBTQ community in the wake of the controversy spawned from an ad featuring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Read here about the stances of North Side bar owners and the smaller brands they’re showcasing instead.

Shawn Okpebholo, a Wheaton College professor and composer, “writes the kind of music that begs for the stage,” Tribune critic Hannah Edgar writes. He will be getting his operatic break thanks to Chicago Opera Theater’s Vanguard Initiative with “The Cook-Off,” an opera set at a TV cooking competition where contestants compete for best mac n’ cheese. It premieres Thursday night at the Athenaeum Center for Thought and Culture. Read his interview with Edgar here.

If you haven’t visited Navy Pier lately, you may have missed a new Italian beef spot, Ciccio Italian Beef, that serves one of the city’s best, according to critic Nick Kindelsperger. In an unexpected twist, it also might be one of the city’s oldest recipes. Read more about the beef, served “slightly thicker, yet stunningly tender and almost steaklike,” Kindelsperger writes, here.

Writers Theatre in Glencoe announced its 2023-24 season led by new artistic director Braden Abraham. The season kicks off with “Eurydice” and ends with Katori Hall’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “The Hot Wing King.” Read more here.

When it’s time to take a break from working 9 to 5, this summer thousands of Chicagoland residents are packing up and heading south to Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Read about how you can plan a trip and what makes the “smaller and more manageable Disney World” truly special here.