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.

 

Henrietta’s Table (Charles Hotel, Cambridge)

Henrietta's Table

I just don’t have a lot to say about Henrietta’s Table. It’s okay, not too exciting, not bad enough to get worked up about. I ate there a few times when I lived in Harvard Square, and I remember it as a good place to take a mixed group of eaters (e.g. allergies, vegetarians, meat eaters) because the food is pretty inoffensive and the menu is varied and the bread and desserts are good and it’s not too expensive and the service is decent and so on. I guess some of that’s still true, but I was disappointed to find that in my three year hiatus from Henrietta’s, the food has declined slightly. Not significantly, but the bread is more generic than I remember and the Barbeque Stout Braised Elysian Field Farm’s Pulled Lamb Shank with bacon and feta, which has a promising, or at least long, description, was underseasoned (though Carlo thought it was seasoned well, I disagree) and the House Smoked and Grilled Free Range Duck Breast was slightly overcooked. And finally, I was extremely disappointed to find that my dessert was bad. I got chocolate bread pudding, and considering that I love all desserts, especially chocolate, and especially bread pudding, this should have been great. The ice cream that came with it was pretty good, but the bread pudding looked like a cow chip and, though it didn’t taste as bad as I imagine manure would, I’m not sure it was significantly better. It was dry and not very chocolatey, and may have been scraped from the bottom of a pan.

The mediocrity of the food was all especially disappointing in light of Henrietta’s claim that its “mission” is to “deliver the freshest available food, through proper cooking techniques and excellent service” and it has farmlike scenes and fresh vegetables all over the website. The first part of the mission might have been achieved, and the last part is true, the service is good. The food is just a bit boring. The highlight of the meal was actually the wine, a 2006 bottle of Seven Deadly Zins, which was one of the cheaper selections on the red wine list, coming in at $38. I generally don’t like Zinfandel, but this one was special, with a finish that tasted exactly like cinnamon toast. It’s not a particularly complex wine, but definitely a delicious one.

In sum, Henrietta’s Table is fine. You probably won’t have a great meal there but you certainly won’t have a bad one. It’s generally inoffensive, that is, unless you find it offensive to spend $20 on a plate of food that is just okay.