Chowdown Showdown: Taste of Yorkville Edition

For a full list of specials offered Saturday for Taste of Yorkville, .

Rob says: Kendall Pub offers for your approval a $3 "Baby KP burger," with a side. The bartender mentioned that the sweet-potato fries were a hot item. So I grabbed the slider sized burger with American cheese and those sweet, sweet fries. plies the beef for Kendall Pub, so I guess it's as much of an endorsement of Dave's as it is of Kendall Pub when I say, "I want more."  

The burger was just so tender and juicy, I felt like my mouth was living in the 1980s with a heated water bed. Oh, and sweet potato fries? I'd never had them before. They're sweet. I can't say exactly why, but they taste like Christmas.   

Jillian says: Oops. Cobblestone's free wine tasting is from 6 to 8 p.m. But we got a peek at the new seating area, which ultimately will be space where people can make meal reservations.

Also exciting: Cobblestone will be selling t-shirts that say "Bacon is the new black," through the holiday season.

Rob says: River City is sticking to the basics. Coffee. There's also a brownie truffle, and a chocolate covered pretzel. That's not why you're going to come down, though. River City Roasters is about coffee.  

Now, I've never been a huge coffee connoisseur, but the regular black cup frankly doesn't taste like Yorkville. As I sat in the corner of the dining room looking out over the Fox River enjoying sip after sip of this black gold, I felt as if I was in a rustic lodge in the middle of the Northwoods.  

What I mean is that this coffee kind of gives you a hug, and warms you up. You don't ingest this coffee, as much as it nestles itself in your stomach. I'm typing an extra 100 words a minute right now because of the caffeine infusion, but I'm not sure I've ever had coffee I want to put in to a keg strapped to my back as much as this cup right now. COME HAVE A CUP!

Rob says: Alright, now I love some Mexican food. I am a little less joyous of the Christmas music. It's just not a believable fusion, for me. Burl Ives doesn't really complement spiced meats tucked into tortillas.  

However, for the dollar-fifty and the extensive choices on the Taste of Yorkville menu, they could play a Russian March and I wouldn't care. I had one beef, and one chicken taco - and I had several smiles and satisfied grunts along the way. 

The beef taco was predominantly flavored by the fresh veggies, but the chicken taco tasted of chicken. Both of these tacos were festivals of flavor. Jingle Bell Rock is playing right now. It's distracting. 

Anyway, if you plan on getting disgustingly full on Taste of Yorkville foods - make sure you get to Casa Santiago while you still poses the ability to enjoy tastes and textures.

That ends our personal tour of the Taste of Yorkville, but the event runs until 10 p.m. Saturday