Irazu is a Costa Rican restaurant in the Bucktown neighborhood about 3 miles northwest of downtown Chicago. We got takeout from Irazu for dinner last night. It’s a cash-only place (which is often a sign that a restaurant means business!) and there’s always a long wait (especially on a Friday night) which is why we didn’t dine in. For an appetizer, we ate fried yucca with garlic oil (which is actually a garlic paste). The yucca is a starchy vegetable but more dense, meaty and sweeter than a potato. The garlic sauce complemented those flavors very nicely. For our main courses, Ben had chicken with rice (which came with plantains and a cabbage salad) and I had pork chops. Ben said the rice was tasty except he found little chicken bones in his dish. I ate pork chops with onions and Costa Rican rice which made a great combination. The pork was a little dry but still very tasty because it was well-seasoned. I like the beets in the cabbage salad and the light, sweet vinaigrette dressing. They also serve these crazy smoothies–we had an oatmeal smoothie which had a sweet molasses, cinnamon flavor and could be a meal by itself. Irazu is better than Chinese takeout any day, but driving on Milwaukee through Wicker Park is very slow and annoying. Best to take the highway and exit at Armitage. Lastly, the guy who works the front register (and takes phone orders) at Irazu is very nice. He’s been there for a long time and is always friendly and gets our orders right.