By Michael Austin

In the West Loop, friends, there are choices.

You can’t choose your movie theater or your bookstore just yet, but with restaurants and bars, there are choices. Tough choices. There is old and new, stylish and downright….earthy.

The key to any good night out is balance. So, knowing that a visit to Reserve (858 W. Lake St, 312-455-1111), the city’s hottest new nightclub, was a must, our restaurant choice suddenly became very easy. We needed something familiar to counter-balance the newness of Reserve, something comfortable, something delicious, classic, and in a room energetic enough to prime us for our night among the undulating beautiful people of Chicago’s club scene. Where else could we go for dinner except one of Restaurant Row’s most venerable institutions? We made tracks for Red Light.

We shunned the menus handed to us, instead asking if chef Jackie Shen would simply send us a melange of her favorites. It was a very wise choice, very early in the evening. What followed was a parade of delicacies; crisp Asian beers and fancy martinis, reassuring us that chefs who really know how to cook also really know how to entertain.

Some highlights in our pan-Asian feast included a scrumptious shrimp and beef Vietnamese spring roll, a crispy Maine-lobster mango roll in a Thai chili mango sauce, and ridiculously delicious dumplings filled with foie gras and pork in a hoisin-cognac sauce. There was also a brand new offering from the chef, a “steak and egg” spoonful of tartare topped with a raw quail egg. Toward the end of dinner we were treated to a heaping mound of deliciously sweet pad Thai, and an impressive whole Shanghai-style catfish, carved up by a server in front of our eyes, drawing admiring glances from the diners seated next to us.

Then - shhhhh, we’re not really supposed to talk about this one - but the chef sent out her famous Hong Kong Jerry (named for owner Jerry Kleiner), a beef and rice dish that is so secret it’s not even on the menu. So maybe it’s not really the chef’s “famous” dish, but it is certainly one of her best.

Sure we could have had some small plates and a few glasses of wine at The Tasting Room at Randolph Wine Cellars (1415 W. Randolph St., 312-942-1313), or Avec (615 W. Randolph St., 312-377-2002). And sure we would have had fun with the carefully crafted maki rolls at Sushi Wabi (842 W. Randolph St., 312-563-1224), or in the quiet elegance of One Sixtyblue (1400 W. Randolph St., 312-850-0303), but when you have chef Jackie cooking for you, you are off to a good start, and bound for a great finish. By the way, that feast, which included a few more courses not mentioned, dessert, coffee and copious amounts of booze, totaled out at just over $300. Considering the kind of serious but accessible food Red Light serves, the attentive service it maintains, and the general merriment of the place, we call that a bargain.

When we left we were primed for Reserve, where some customers pay $2,500 for the privilege of storing their own liquor in a private locker at the club. There’s that, and there’s the bottle service, where customers can buy an entire bottle of, say vodka, for $200 or more and with that purchase comes a free piece of real estate--a table and chairs, or a banquette along the wall, with prized views of the club: its DJ booth, its well-dressed clientele.

You don’t have to be a high roller to have a good time at Reserve (even though rocker Lenny Kravitz was spotted there recently). If the bottle service option is too rich for your wallet, you can order drinks from the bar at prices comparable to those found at any upscale club. Surprisingly, the wait staff is as nice as pie, with none of the downtown attitude we expected.

We loved that the moon was high and full outside, and that red neon stripes were reflected in the window. Those stripes looked even cooler when the El rushed by at eye level. The train was a stark reminder into the early morning hours that the city and the West Loop are full or energy; as if Reserve didn’t have enough of its own.

The club’s DJs are proponents of “Mash” music, in which they spin two songs, simultaneously creating one new one. So, you might hear Nelly’s “Country Grammar” being mashed together with Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.” What will the kids think of next?, I tell you.

As our night marched on, hip-hop was slowly replaced by techno music, and naturally more people started to dance (not us). And if the beat ever got too heavy or the sounds got too loud, we could have always retired downstairs to the more casual street-level lounge, where it is still stylish, still part of the latest hot-spot, but definitely not the same experience as upstairs. We only passed through the first-floor lounge on our way upstairs and on our merry way out of the club near closing time. On our night out, downstairs wasn’t for us. After all, Jackie Shen had cooked for us. That’s a tough act to follow. There was nowhere for us to go but upstairs.