Bina Osteria (Avery and Washington Sts., Downtown)

Bina Osteria is ripe for stereotyping and prejudgment.  Between its trendy white interior and close proximity to the Sports Club LA, one is bound to think this place is going to be high on price and low on quality.  Add that to its claim to be an Italian restaurant, and Carlo and I, though curious, were planning on avoiding it, at least for a while.  But much to our surprise, my mother-in-law said she wanted to try it for her Mother’s Day dinner, and that’s how we ended up there on Saturday night.  Even more to our surprise, we were really impressed by the food.

The meal started with a frizzante red wine and a brief scuffle over whether we should get the 14-course tasting menu or order a la carte.  My father-in-law was adamantly against the tasting menu, which meant my mother-in-law insisted that we order it.  Being Mother’s Day, my mother-in-law prevailed and we embarked on what turned out to be a long, delicious meal.

More on the wine before I start on the food.  The wine I just mentioned was a 2006 Castello di Luzzano Oltrepo Pavese Bonarda from Lombardia, which was the perfect apperitivo.  It was mildly fruity, mildly frizzante, but unlike Brachetto (the other sparkling red that has been popping up in restaurants all over the place), it was dry, and not too expensive at $42/bottle even in a restaurant. 

For the meal we drank a 2006 Statti Gaglioppo, a calabrese wine in honor of my calabrese mother-in-law, which was also inexpensive at $46/bottle.  Initially it tasted and smelled a lot like banana candy, but it mellowed out and became a drinkable floral wine.  It’s nice to see wines from far-flung parts of Italy making it onto menus and it’s also nice to see that even the less expensive wines at Bina have been selected carefully.

Now onto the tasting menu.  Most, though not all, of the dishes were smaller versions of existing menu items.  We started with rustic country bread accompanied by lard and sea salt followed by two amuses bouches: an oyster with cherry gelee served in the shell (see below) and a spoonful of ricotta, salt and oil and a little shot of fizzy grappa cream.  A nice start to the meal.  The oyster tasted like real cherries and oysters, a combination I have never experienced.  I thought the ricotta was a perfect combination of creamy and salty, though I was told by my Italian compatriots that they’ve had better.  The grappa fizz was reminiscent of cream soda with a kick.

Our appetizer was called Seriola Marinata, which consisted of CleanFish yellowtail, pinenut confit, avocado, and peppercress.  The nice piece of fish on top of fresh avocado on top of a sheen of spicy/oily, almost arrabiata-like, sauce was delicious and different.

The Seriola was followed by THREE, yes THREE, pasta courses, and unbelievably, the table liked all of them, hardly complaining at all.  The first was perfectly prepared fresh gnocchi with calamari, clams, chorizo, and Meyer lemon confit.  The gnocchi were light and chewy, and the seafood balanced well with the spicy chorizo.  We voted on our favorites at the end of the meal and this one got the most mentions, a shocking revelation coming from my never-pleased-by-restaurant-pasta Italian family-in-law.  The gnocchi was followed by two “Spaghetti alla Carbonara” with house-made pancetta, slow cooked hen egg, and pecorino foam and two braised rabbit  tortellinis.   And for the final pasta course, we had Risotto with crispy sweetbreads, morel mushrooms, and aspargus. The house-made fresh pastas were excellent in both pasta dishes, as were the accoutrements, and the risotto was perfectly cooked al dente with lovely fresh morels and asparagus.  Though I think three good-sized pasta courses in a tasting menu might be a mistake, we loved every bite of them.

Onto the fish/seafood courses.  The first one was Atlantic Halibut coated with smoked potato ragu, beet pearls, and watercress (see below).  Carlo said this was his favorite.  I was losing steam at this point.  The potato cream was delicious and balanced nicely with the sweet beets.  Our other sea-faring course was Lobster with Lardo, garden salad gazpacho, picked ramps, and Clear Flour croutons.  This was my least-favorite dish of the evening.  The lobster was a little rubbery/stringy and I just wasn’t hungry anymore, meaning that I was only interested in eating really superlative food.  Carlo ate mine for me, so it wasn’t bad, just least favorite in a great meal.

Two more savory courses:  Foie Gras with English pea puree and morel mushrooms and Vermont Lamb with baby artichoke, taggiasca olives and Piquillo peppers.  I thought both of these dishes were excellent, which is impressive, because I was so full and tired at this point and I didn’t want to eat anything else.  The foie gras was silky and the peas were bright green and flavorful.  The lamb was perfectly cooked, moist and tender, and the accompaniments were very nice.  I just couldn’t eat them.

But that didn’t mean I was not up for our THREE, yes THREE, desserts.  The first was Moscato d’Asti Mousse with orange sorbet, honey cream, and sumac meringue served in a champagne flute.  Wow, I am going to replace root beer and vanilla ice cream with Moscato and orange sherbert from now on (see below).  This was really good and refreshing.  Next we had “Composition of Rhubarb” with a lemony butter cookie, rhubarb sorbet, lemon meringue, and candied elderflower.  Another beautiful, refreshing delicious dessert.  And finally we had the obligatory tiramisu, which was basically mascarpone cream and chocolate gelato on top of some coffee cookies.  I ignored the cookies, which were a little too crunchy to eat easily and stuck to the creamy stuff, which were both rich and delicious.  My in-laws tittered about how it wasn’t really tiramisu while they licked their plates clean.

And then we rolled ourselves home, full and looking forward to going back to Bina, but perhaps for the four-course prix-fixe menu next time.

The only real drawback to the meal was its four-hour duration.  Yes, we did order 14 courses of food and should expect to sit there for a good chunk of time.  But there were long lulls between all of the courses, which was nice in the beginning when we were getting warmed up, but as we got fuller, drunker and more tired, we grew a little impatient and disinterested in the food.  We attribute this to the restaurant being fairly new and unaccustomed to customers who take them up on the tasting menu.  This will undoubtedly improve as more and more Bostonians take notice of this great new addition to the city’s fine-dining repertoire.

 

The World’s 50 Best Restaurants

Everyone sets arbitrary goals for their life.  Some people want to visit all 50 states, others want to read the entire Babysitter’s Club series, while others aim to finish a 5K without crawling at the end.  For Carlo and me, we want to eat all of the world’s best restaurants.  And lucky for us, there are a lot of publications that try to establish which ones they are.  A couple years ago, we plucked one arbitrarily off the internet and we’ve been slowly but steadily picking off the restaurants.  A couple weeks ago, Restaurant Magazine, our ranker of choice, issued its 8th annual list of the world’s 50 best restaurants.    We pay little attention to how this list is compiled, and admittedly, many of these restaurants are on the list on account of their fanciness as much as on account of the quality of their food.  But whatever, it’s fun to have a goal and we’ve rarely had a bad meal when eating off this list.  Unsurprisingly, picking a list is the easier part of achieving this goal.  If you peruse this year’s collection, you’ll be shocked to notice that not all of the restaurants are in the greater Boston area.  This means that we have to plan and travel and reserve embarrassingly far in advance.  And since both of us work, this can be a tricky proposition.  Another impediment is that the list keeps changing without warning.  So I had Gordan Ramsey checked off (May 2004) and this year they took it off the list!  Carlo and I just this week made reservations at Chez Panisse, and they bumped it to the 51-100 list.  And most problematically, we don’t live in Spain, where most of these places are located.  So as in reaching any goal, there are a lot of struggles along the way, but the important thing is that we’re making progress.

 

Garden at the Cellar (Mass. Ave., Cambridge) and Sweet (Mass. Ave and Marlborough, Boston)

Garden at the Cellar is having an identity crisis.  The food is original, delicious, and well-presented – thanks to Will Gilson who was a semi-finalist for the James Beard Rising Star Chef award.  Unfortunately, the atmosphere and service are part airport bar and grill, part college town watering hole.  That is to say, the only decoration is an electronic beer sign and the service, though friendly, is inattentive and absent-minded. It feels as though an excellent chef was just plopped into a nondescript local bar and the two haven’t totally adjusted to each other yet. Though there were several employees milling about, and only 6 diners in the restaurant when we arrived at 5:30pm, it took them a few minutes to acknowledge our conspicuous presence and ask if we wanted dinner.  We did, and we were told we could choose any table.

The menu at Garden at the Cellar is enticing: chickpea fries and pork belly and foie gras with donuts!  The only disappointment was the wine list.  It was very reasonably priced, but also very limited in selection.  There were fewer than 20 wines, none of which were particularly interesting, to choose from, which was surprising since the name of the restaurant is derived from The Cellar, the wine store it is connected to.  The variety is irrelevant though if you order wine and it never comes, which is what happened to us.  We ordered the cheapest bottle on the list ($24), a Primitivo, after quite a bit of discussion and thought.  But our waitress never brought it.  She did remember it about 3/4 into the meal but, at that point, we didn’t want it. Carlo did get the cocktail he ordered, a basil lemon drop.  It tasted metallic and took a long time to arrive because, our waitress informed us in a very friendly way, they couldn’t find the simple sugar.

Onto the food.  We decided to get two small plates, four appetizers, and to share an entree because the former two lists just looked so good.  For small plates, we got chickpea fries with lemon zest and parmesan and other various toppings I can’t quite remember.  Wow, they were delicious.  Chickpea flour is really underused.  A beautiful golden color, creamy, unique, best dish of the night.  We also got White Bean Puree, which was very good, but not as original.

White Bean Puree and Chickpea Fries

We each ordered two appetizers, with the hope that they would come out two at a time.  We should have said that, and we didn’t, and they all came out at once, and it was annoying.  If you’re in a bar and your buffalo wings come out with your burger, who really cares? But if you’re in a place that serves interesting, delicious food, then having to shovel it all in before it gets cold really undermines the chef’s efforts. We ordered Cod Fritters with chives, remoulade and citrus, Handmade Burratta with spiced date purée, Za’atar, lemon oil, Seared Foie Gras & Doughnuts with various forms of rhubarb, and Pork Belly with spicy beans. The cod fritters tasted fresh and were hot and crispy on the outside and the seared foie gras and rhubarb and donut combination was original and delicious–tart, sweet, and fatty all at once.  The Burrata was a little too sweet and though the pork belly was great, the beans were so spicy that they contrasted in a weird way with the rest of the sweet-ish food.  But overall, we were impressed.

Burratta from Somerville

Pork Belly

Cod Fritters

Foie Gras, Donuts, Rhubarb

And finally, we split the Pork Weiner Schnitzel with poached egg and artichokes and lima beans.  Our shared entree was just as good as the appetizers.  Deliciously well-seasoned schnitzel, though the artichokes and lima beans were a little salty as was the sauce they were sitting in.  And our poached egg came out in a bowl after we were half-way through the dish because someone had forgotten to put it on the plate.  We would not have remembered this had they not brought it out, but they did, and it just reminded us of their sloppy service.

So despite the strange ambiance, the meal was great.  Though again, we were in a restaurant that does not take reservations and thus does not offer dessert.  I will also point out that we had arrived at the door of the restaurant, consumed a cocktail and seven different plates of food, paid and left the restaurant, in an astounding 58 minutes.  There will be no lingering in Garden at the Cellar, they want you out of there ASAP, yet another thing that undercuts the quality of the food.  The Garden’s only saving grace was that they give diners a little bit of chocolate at the end of the meal.  Enough to not make me hate them, but certainly not enough to satiate one’s need for dessert.

So at this point, it was 6:28pm and we decided to set out for Sweet, a cupcake bakery in the Back Bay that we had heard has phenomenal cupcakes.  Being a lover of the bus, I thought this was a great opportunity to hop on the #1 that heads straight down Mass. Ave.  We walked over to the stop in Central Square and began patiently waiting for the bus.  Which didn’t come.  And the crowd got thicker and thicker.  I do recommend the Central Square bus stop if you’re looking for a bit of post-dinner theater on a Saturday night.  After a 15 minute wait and the third time a seemingly drunk man who kept engaging me in conversation about his best friend’s girl yelled angrily at me to stop looking at him with my “deer eyes” we decided to walk into Boston, which is really not that far.

It wasn’t worth the walk.  We paid $7 for two semi-dry overly frosted, though pretty, cupcakes.  The place is also trying too hard to be cool.  It’s all white and they have a big flat screen that was playing American in Paris.  Odd.  To be fair, we got there at the end of the evening and they were out of nearly every kind of cupcake they have, so maybe there are better options.  We got the dark chocolate with chocolate frosting and the vanilla with chocolate frosting.  Just not worth it; better value for your money with Duncan Hines.

 

Ten Tables (Craigie St, Cambridge)

Though our last visit to Ten Tables was sort of a bummer, we have not given up on it and were excited about trying the new location in the former Craigie Street Bistro.  The quarters are tight even in Ten Tables’ new establishment, but there is enough space not to feel like you’re going to knock wine and people over as you walk to the bathroom.  Ten Tables has done a nice job with the decor; it’s both sleeker and more inviting than Craigie Street was with better (lower) lighting and leather banquettes.

Feeling celebratory, we started the meal with cocktails.  I got the KK, named after TT’s proprietor Krista Kranyak, and made with passion fruit juice, ginger, and champagne, an unfortunate choice for a preprandial drink.  It was all passion fruit and ginger and no champagne, which was the opposite of what I was hoping for.  It wasn’t bad; it was just meant for brunch.  Carlo’s drink, the Gaston 76 made with White Lillet, Cucumber and Tarragon on the rocks, was the perfect summer late afternoon cocktail, cold and refreshing and only a little sweet.  And while we’re discussing pre-dinner fare, the bread was also really good, chewy and soft and reminiscent of the best of Iggy’s bread.  The only downside  of the bread course was that we didn’t get much oil and no matter how clean we licked its plate, no one brought us more.

Onto wine…we made a bad choice.  Okay, I made a bad choice.  As a small, easily-intoxicated person, I am trying to push for more half bottles and carafes in Boston restaurants.  And by “trying to push”, I mean I like to order them.  Ten Tables offered a house wine, which is something I frequently and successfully order when traveling, as well as a few half bottles.  Carlo was adamantly opposed to the half bottle on account of it being a rip off.  Since we can usually only drink a half bottle anyway, I don’t see the problem in paying $23 for a decent but overpriced bottle.  I still get what I want and so it’s a win if it’s even marginally cheaper than the whole bottle we may have ordered.  Carlo wouldn’t hear of it so we compromised on the horrible barely palatable half carafe of house wine for $14, which tasted like it came out of a box of Franzia or possibly a jug.   Carlo pointed out (after we ordered) that the reason house wine is good when we travel in Europe is that we are drinking in the vicinity of a vineyard.  We should have asked what it was before we paid for it.  We didn’t.  You get what you pay for.

Onto the food.  A lot of it was good. Some of it wasn’t.

For our appetizers:

Spicy Steak Tartare: Pickled hon Shimenji Mushrooms and Watercress

Carlo ordered Spicy Steak Tartare.  This was the loser of the appetizers from my perspective. Though Carlo thought it was tasty on the whole and liked it better than what I ordered, to me, the flavor of the pickledness was overwhelming and came across as almost sweet.  It wasn’t bad; just not re-orderable.

Fluke Crudo with chives, olive oil, sea salt and citrus

My appetizer was fresh and well-seasoned and overall tasty.  This is not an original combination but it was done with fresh and flavorful ingredients and was exactly what I wanted. The picture makes it look really busy, but flavorwise it did not come across that way. Carlo thought the grapefruit dominated everything else on the plate, though I chalk this up to him not liking grapefruit.

Entrees:

Portuguese Monkfish Stew with Wellfleet Littleneck Clams, Fine Herbs, Garlic Aioli and Piment D'Espelette

Meh.  The broth and poached Monkfish were flavorless and there was a big gob of aioli in the middle of the bowl that did not stir in well.  The only good part of this was the clams.  They were good and were basically all I ate.

Housemade Boudin Blanc with Hudson Valley Duck Confit, Mustard Cream Lentils, Endive and Apple

Best dish of the night.  I did not try all of the components, but the Boudin Blanc itself was flavorful and unique and something I would order over and over.

Desserts: Carlo and I both thought our own dessert was better than the other, which I guess is a good sign. I had the chocolate terrine with Thai basil ice cream and sea salt -  the perfect complement of rich creamy chocolate, salt and sweet basil.

Warm Sticky Toffee Pudding with Homemade Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

To me, this was a sickly sweet mess, but Carlo liked it so much he couldn’t keep his hands still for the picture.  It tasted good and I would have been happy with it had it been mine, but it had none of the balance of the chocolate dessert.  To each his own.

Overall, Ten Tables delivers with just a few mis-hits.  Unfortunately it’s out of the way for Bostonians, a bit of a walk from Harvard Square T and has only four parking spots, making a visit difficult.  It’s a place I would happily go to if in the neighborhood, but I am not sure it is good enough to merit a special trip, especially considering it requires risking a parking ticket.

 

Franklin Cafe and South End Buttery (Shawmut Ave., Boston)

Franklin Cafe

Carlo and I have had a visit to Franklin Cafe on our to-do list for quite some time.   What has been holding us back is my uncanny inability to wait for anything.  Franklin Cafe does not take reservations and unless I’m on vacation with no place to go on a nice day, I cannot stand to wait for a table for more than 15 minutes.  So to circumvent my disability, we went early on a Saturday evening, arriving at 5:45pm to find a single unoccupied booth in the back.  Phew.

We started the evening with cocktails.  This is not our usual habit, but FC is known for their drinks list so we thought we’d throw caution to the wind and have some liquor.  It was a mistake.  Carlo ordered a blood orange martini with Charbay Blood Orange, Vodka, OJ, Campari, which he found overly bitter.  He liked my Spiced Pear made with Grey Goose Pear, Fresh Apple Juice, Ginger, which was reminiscent of cider and would have been more appropriate as a warm drink by the fire after a day of skiing.

Part of the problem was that we had barely made a dent in our drinks when (tasty) bread and the wine and appetizers showed up.  Spiced pear and short ribs just don’t mix.   I’ve been trying to promote (in my mind) the dissemination of half bottles of wine so we ordered the only red they had, which was a Guigal Gigondas Rhone.   It was very pleasant table wine, but probably should have been $23 for a bottle, not for a half bottle.  The appetizers were pretty good, nothing remarkable.  I got braised short ribs with turnip greens and sweet carrots and Carlo inexplicably ordered mac and cheese gnocchi with roasted tomato, sausage, and goat cheese.  I say inexplicably because it’s pretty clear that Carlo is not going to like baked gnocchi made in an American bistro in the South End.  I tried them too and they were okay but kind of mushy and covered in below average tomato sauce.

The atmosphere at Franklin Cafe is great. It’s casual with nice dim lighting, good background music, an attractive bar, friendly people, but it was increasingly evident throughout the evening that FC wanted to turn over as many tables as possible as quickly as possible.  Undoubtedly this is the goal for most restaurants, but some hide it better than others. I also felt significant pressure from all the beady-eyed staring diners-in-waiting that I had trouble enjoying my meal, which is another reason I do not like reservationless restaurants. Our waitress was amicable and not pushy, but our entrees came out as she was clearing the appetizers.   It was unpleasant to go from mac and cheese and short ribs to steak frites and roasted chicken so quickly.

Again, the food was decent.  The frites were good; the steak was slightly overcooked (granted Carlo thinks any steak that doesn’t moo is too done).  The Roquefort butter was tasty.  The roast chicken I ordered was a strange choice.  I am not sure I have ever ordered chicken in a restaurant, but nothing else on the menu excited me and I thought grapes and chicken sounded like a strange combination.  They were.  Not exactly bad, but there was no relationship between them.  It reminded me of something my parents would make in an effort to get me to eat more fruits and vegetables.  We also ordered brussel sprouts for a side; they were good.

Here is where things took a turn for the worse.  At this point in the evening, I realized just how sick and twisted this world can be.  What happened is this:  I asked for the dessert menu, and the seemingly friendly waitress revealed her true colors.  She said, without a flicker of remorse, ‘we don’t have dessert.’  What the hell kind of “restaurant” does not serve dessert?  When I walked into the Franklin Cafe, an American bistro, I had dreams of bread pudding and fruit crisps with homemade ice cream.  Maybe even something with Meyer lemon in it?  But instead, they left us high and dry, a bit empty and sad and wondering where to go.

Luckily, we were very close to the South End Buttery, a cafe and now restaurant, known for their cupcakes and for the fact that their name has the word ‘buttery’ in it.  The new cozy-looking restaurant would not let us in for desserts-only so we sat in the empty closing cafe and shared the only cupcake available, the Red Velvet with Cream Cheese frosting.  It was spectacular.  Of course we were still reeling from the catastrophe back at FC, so maybe we were under the influence of oppression, but it was a really good cupcake.  The cream cheese frosting contrasted beautifully with the bite of vinegar in the cake.  So not all was lost in the evening.

Though the Franklin Cafe had a nice atmosphere and decent food, I think that we will be more likely to return to the Buttery for cupcakes and maybe dinner than we will be to the long waits and rushed dessertless service of the FC.

 

Kingston Station (Kingston Street, Boston)

I had a “business” lunch at Kingston Station the other day, and though it was brief, I thought I’d write up a few impressions.  Overall, it’s a good place for a mid-week lunch with colleagues.  The atmosphere is casual and comfortable.  We sat at a long wooden table that my more familiar co-worker said only comes out for lunch.  I liked the table, though I might have liked it less if we had been forced to share it with others.  The service is extremely friendly though a little spacey.  And the food is pretty good to good.  I had a Nicoise Salad with seared tuna.  Though a little mushy, the tuna was good, neither the watery canned tuna nor the cooked til it’s gray tuna that one often finds on pub salads.    I wish the salad had more mixed greens; it was mostly frisee.  Other than that, I give it solid marks.  I would have preferred to order a burger and fries or fish and chips like my co-workers, but I had already spent my weekly quota of red meat and fried food.   The fried fish looked beautiful and I tried some fries, which were tasty, particularly when compared to my frisee.  The only significant disappointment was that I did not get a chance to order dessert.  It’s not that often that I am lucky enough to be offered both bread pudding and a banana split, but alas, we were not there to linger.  I will happily go back to Kingston Station to get a banana split, and next time I’ll order a burger.

 

The Hen House Wings ‘N Waffles (Mass Ave, Roxbury)

The Hen House’s signature dish is the 5-step program, where patrons choose their waffle (buttermilk, multigrain or cornbread), their butter (whipped, cajun, herb), their syrup (maple, clove honey, maple bbq), their chicken (tenders, whole pieces, wings), and their sauce (too many to list). Most people seem to go this route, scraping the chicken off the bone on top of the waffle and then smothering the melange with butter, syrup, and sauce. Considering that I do not like waffles, syrup, or any relative of bbq sauce, I am probably not the best person to write a blog post about eating at The Hen House. But here I am, and though I did not do the Program, I loved my chicken and corn bread. I got the combo meal with three pieces of chicken, 2 sides, and a drink, which cost $8 or so and was way more than I could eat. The chicken was crispy, not at all greasy, and flavorful. The cornbread was moist and delicious. My second side was collard greens, but I was too busy to notice them. I really ordered them because I felt guilty ordering only buttery cornbread and deep-fried chicken. But the guilt was unnecessary. I had gone into the meal resigned to feeling sick immediately after eating. Surprisingly, my compatriots and I felt totally fine after the meal. We even discovered, by way of a small sticker on the door out, that The Hen House is transfat free, if that’s the sort of thing you care about.

Carlo and the two friends we were dining with can vouch for the chicken and waffles. According to them, the waffles were light and crispy, though not as hot as one might like. And, with all the sweetness layered on top of the dish, the chicken needed a bit more salt. Carlo enjoyed his side of fried cabbage, as it was surprisingly comprised of equal parts bacon/assorted pork and cabbage.

The atmosphere at the Hen House is similar to that of a sandwich shop. It’s not particularly comfortable, and I don’t recommend it for a night of romance. That said, the service was very friendly, if a little disorganized. The cashier had never heard of the root beer floats that appear on The Hen House’s online menu, but after thinking it over for a minute, he said he could make one for me anyway. It’s also a little slow for a place where you order at the counter. We waited at least 10 minutes for our food, but so long as you’re not in a hurry, this is actually a good thing because unlike most fried chicken you’re going to get in Boston, this stuff is actually being made to order. The Hen House may be difficult to get to without a car (with a car its very easy – right off 93 and with a parking lot at the adjacent liquor store), but if you can swing it, it’s well worth the trip.

 

No. 9 Park (Park Street, Boston)

Carlo and I were lucky enough to receive as wedding presents several gift certificates to our favorite Boston fine dining establishment, No. 9 Park. Instead of making them last, we decided to go all out and have one big, but cheap, wine-paired tasting menu to celebrate President’s Day (thanks Abe!).

Carlo started out the celebration with a cocktail called the Dharma Bum, a new addition to No. 9’s superlative drinks menu. Carlo chose this drink not because he is a Jack Kerouac fan, but because he is a Lost fan with tunnel vision and thought this must be an homage to the Dharma Initiative. It wasn’t but it was a brilliant combination of rum, lime juice, and cardamom.

We made the mistake of checking out the sample tasting menu on No. 9’s website, and though we knew it was just a sample, we had high hopes of receiving a turnip veloute and escargot pot au feu with pork belly followed by liquid chocolate with pistachio pain perdu. Alas, as we well knew, the menu was different, though no less exciting:

Peekytoe Crab Salad, pickled Island Creek oyster, cauliflower panna cotta, creme fraiche

Unfortunately, we have not gotten over our embarrassment of taking pictures in restaurants so you’re stuck with flashless photos from a cell phone. On the left is the crab salad and on the right is the cauliflower panna cotta, which was by the far the most interesting thing we ate all night. It looked like flan but tasted like fresh cauliflower. The dish was paired with NV Nino Franco Prosecco “Rustico”.

Local Codfish, brandade, chorizo, cabbage

Carlo and I practically licked our plates at the end of this round. Those little black chunks are chewy bites of chorizo and the sauce, though not heavy, tasted like chorizo flavored butter…in other words, it was really good. The skin on the cod was crispy and delicious and the brandade tasted almost like mashed potatoes. This was paired with a 2007 Domaine de la Petite Cassagne Costieres de Nimes Rose. I am not afraid to admit that I like rose wines and this one was really delicious. It was almost like dry strawberry juice and, based on a little internet research, is pretty affordable at about $10/bottle.

Grilled Leek Agnolotti, Bouchot mussels, razor clams, saffron

Though it had a lot of potential, this was our least favorite dish. I don’t love leeks, and Carlo, of course, thought the pasta was cut unevenly and this affected the consistency of the texture throughout each agnolotto. We both cleaned our plates, so it obviously wasn’t offensive, just not as good as all the rest. It was paired with a 2005 Corte Sant’ Alda Soave “Vigne di Mezzane.”

Prune Stuffed Gnocchi, seared foie gras, toasted almonds, Vin Santo

At this point in the meal, guests can choose whether to add an additional supplement or to move on with the tasting menu. There are always two options, the one you see above and then some variation on foie gras. Considering we were there to celebrate, we decided to get one of each of the supplements. The prune stuffed gnocchi is No. 9 Park’s signature dish, always on the menu. I don’t like it. I find it to be too sweet and creamy for pasta. Carlo enjoys it so he got this one and I got the other. This was paired with a 2005 Bastianich Tocai “Plus.” It’s great to see Friulian wines on Boston menus, but it’s unfortunate that it’s usually a Bastianich of some variation. This is not a cheap wine ($50+ per bottle). The Bastianich’s are famous and can charge a premium for it, but there are many good Friulian options out there, tocai and others, at a quarter of the price.

Terrine of Foie Gras, pistachio, grapefruit, grains of paradise

Yum yum yum. I love foie gras in any form, especially when I’m paying for it with a gift certificate. This one was served over a grapefruit gel with a little pistachio cracker on the side. The grains of paradise were all piled into one little corner and were hard to spread around, making the seasoning too overpowering in that corner and underseasoned in the other corners. That said, the grapefruit/foie gras combination was delicious so I just cut the grains off and spread the grapefruit onto the terrine. It was served with a 2006 Domaine du Traginer Banyuls Blanc.

Roasted Duck Breast, baby turnips, sesame, honey

My memory starts to get a little foggy at this point in the evening. I remember really liking the sesame/honey paste. The duck was moist and fatty in a good way. The wine, a 2006 Heinrich Blaufrankisch from Austria, was everything a red wine should be, at least a red wine I want to drink. It was purpley red and tasted like dark cherries and wasn’t too tannic.

Prime Sirloin, short rib ragu, vegetable blanquette, Perigord truffle

The tasting menu really starts to lose me at this point. I can down a dozen plates of pasta, but when I’m no longer hungry, red meat just doesn’t do it for me. I’m ready for cheese and chocolate. I still ate everything and enjoyed it, but I did not enjoy it as much as it probably deserved. It was served with the 2005 Chateau la Caminade Cahors, which was good but I was too in love with the previous wine to get excited about it.

Cheese

Cheese Accompaniments

I’d lie if I said I knew what cheese we ate. There was one that was really chalky and one that was really creamy and one that was dark blue…they were all really good and it’s fun that No. 9 let’s you try as many as you want. It was served with little toasts and golden raisins and grapes and honey.

Grapefruit, ginger, apple

This was our palate cleanser, which was tasty, but nothing exciting. The best part was that the apples were Honeycrisp, which are only available at the grocery store for a few months in the fall, but are categorically the best apples in the world (after English Russets).

Chocolate & Hazelnut Gateau, chocolate ganache, marasca cherries

Though we had really been looking forward to the pistachio pain perdu, this was a pretty good substitute. The cake was a hazelnut cream on top of a chocolate wafer. On the upper left is the chocolate ganache, which I could have eaten on its own, and then a little chewy sour marasca cherry, the original maraschino cherry (very different from the ones in the jar). This was served with an increasingly ubiquitous (as it should be) Brachetto d’Acqui.

All in all, our marathon meal was a fun way to celebrate President’s Day. It’s hard to justify spending this kind of money on a meal in any economic climate, least of all this one, but we were more than happy to do it with the gift certificate. And if you’re going to splurge on a fine dining experience in Boston, No. 9 is the place to do it.

 

Shelburne Farms (Shelburne, VT)

Shelburne Farms and I go way back. I had my first “fine dining” meal there in 1997 when I visited my brother at the University of Vermont, where we both went to college. In 1999, I spent the nights before I moved into my freshman year dorm room at the inn at Shelburne Farms. And I continued to enjoy the restaurant each time my parents came to visit.

Shelburne Farms is much more than a restaurant and hotel. It’s a 1400-acre working farm, museum, and “education center”, all perched right on the edge of Lake Champlain. When I was a regular patron of the restaurant, there was a disconnect between the restaurant and the rest of the property. The farm is a great, though historically underused, resource for produce, livestock, and cheese.  But the restaurant was a very ordinary brand of fine dining.  A few years ago, when Chef Rick Gencarelli took over the kitchen at Shelburne Farms, he brought with him an appreciation for eating local. He also made the food better and more interesting. So when my brother announced he was moving to the New Frontier after 12 years in Burlington, Vermont, Carlo and I decided to visit him one last time and to go there for a farewell dinner. We had a great meal. Unfortunately it was in August, right around the time we fell off the blogging wagon. We took a lot of pictures so we decided to post them, but I think it’s a little late to critique the food.  I’ll just say that it’s very good, and if you’re looking for a place to go this summer (they are only open April to October), spend a weekend in Burlington and pay a visit to Shelburne Farms. Make sure to go early; part of the experience is wandering around the grounds before you eat.

Shelburne Farms' Cheddar For Pre-prandial Snacking

Carlo's Beet Sangria

The First In A Series Of Amuses Bouches Small Plates

Eggs And Bacon

Savory French Toast

Falafel

Cold Beet Soup

Crispy Pig Salad

Housemade Charcuterie And Pickles

Fried Oysters On Crispy Pork Belly

Handmade Pasta Bolognese

Ricotta Gnocchi

Vermont Pig With Cattle Beans And Peaches

Shelburne Farms Lamb With Smoked Eggplant And Yogurt

Dessert (I don't remember what this is)

Little Mousse Cup With Macarons

 

Beacon Hill Bistro (Charles Street)

Beacon Hill Bistro

Carlo and I were pleasantly surprised by our dinner at Beacon Hill Bistro over the weekend.  We needed a table for 7 without much notice, and so BHB was selected out of convenience more than out of a desire to go there.  I’ve been there several times for brunch, which is not bad and certainly the best weekend breakfast in Beacon Hill (sorry Paramount).  I’ve been there a couple times for dinner, which was fine, but certainly not memorable.  After a very satisfying meal there this weekend, BHB might move up my list of go-to neighborhood places for a meal with parents or to catch up with friends, particularly since there wasn’t really anything on that list before.

For those who have not been, BHB has a relaxed neighborhood bistro feel–the dress is casual (the waiters wear black black button-up shirts and pony tails), everyone is friendly, people talk loud if they feel like it.  I’m probably not the best judge of this, but I find it to be very unpretentious, though not cheap (entrees run from low to high $20’s).  The food is bistro-style, but not as heavy as the food at a typical Parisian bistro.  The wine list was varied in price and varietal.  We have been trying to go a little cheaper on the wines lately, and I’m finding that I like bottles in the $30’s as much as I liked those in the $60’s.  We ordered a 2007 Alois Lageder Pinot Grigio from Alto Adige.  Nothing special, but very quaffable and the table unanimously agreed to get a second bottle rather than order a red.

On this particular evening, I ordered my meal very recklessly, and it could have gone badly.  You see, Carlo has started this new [annoying] thing where we [actually he] “call” things on menus, sort of like how one calls shotgun.  But we all know people that call shotgun two hours before you actually get in the car; Carlo is that kind of person.  He looks at the menu before we go out to eat and decides what he wants.  Then he quickly peruses the specials list before I’ve had a chance to set my purse down, decides whether or not to change his initial decision, and then he “calls” what he’s getting, which means that I can’t get it.  And unfortunately, 80% of the time, I would have ordered what he ordered.  So, when we got to BHB, I went sort of crazy and tried to read the menu and the specials in under 20 seconds, basically just reading for key words [ie, bacon, truffle, crispy pork belly, etc] and screamed out what I wanted as quickly as I could.

Luckily I did not injure anyone during this process, but I did order two specials without thinking, picking my appetizer because it contained the words egg and truffle and my entree because it contained the words chestnut and parsnip.  I ended up with a farm egg on sourdough toast with shaved black truffle and chestnut crusted veal chop with baked apples and parsnip on the side.  The farm egg was good, not spectacular, but good.  I am not a huge fan of shaved black truffle; cooks get a little heavy-handed with it and it starts to taste like dirt to me.  But this was pretty good, satisfying, if a little cliche.  But my entree was delicious.  There was a lot of stuff on the plate, as there was a huge portion of veal, tons of little parsnip discs, and an entire baked apple.  Nonetheless, it looked very pretty with whole red berries and shredded greens garnishing the plate, and the veal was perfectly cooked medium rare and the flavors all went together beautifully.  I enjoyed every bite of it.  Others were equally satisifed with their dishes, though I was too busy eating mine to try them, which included French-style gnocchi and a duck confit for appetizers and scallops with wild mushrooms and an herb broth and lightly fried skate wing for entrees.  It says a lot that Carlo enjoyed  his meal since earlier in the day he had decided to go on a “wings crawl” (as opposed to a pub crawl) and wasn’t feeling so hot.  My dessert was also great.  It was a play on s’mores, which included a molten marshmallow chocolate cake with banana ice cream and graham crackers on the side. The graham crackers were pointless, but the marshmallow melting into the chocolate fondant was decadent and delicious.

I hesitate to recommend BHB unconditionally.  As I said, I’ve had forgettable meals there in the past.  Either we hit it on a good night or the food is genuinely getting better and more interesting.  This meal probably took me from “skip it” to “worth a try” and hopefully after a few more visits I’ll be able to recommend it without caveat.