cha fahn (closed) / 763 centre street, jamaica plain / 617-983-3575 / summer hours tues-sun 5pm- / $25 prix fixe on wednesdays / entrees 12-20 small plates shrimp summer rolls with peanut dipping sauce pan-fried spicy pork and kimchi dumplings jasmine tea wilted kale with […]
i’ve been going through the rest of my posts, editing here and there for consistency, and i came across a top ten list of yore: ten favorite restaurants in the boston/cambridge area, 2006 craigie street bistrot pigalle caffe umbra sel de la terre upstairs on […]
i’ve heard great things about hamersley’s bistro, and i’ve always wanted to have dinner there. i got my wish when i suggested it as our january cutcat dinner destination. i had high hopes when we entered and i saw that it was a restaurant fitted into an old house – the dining room is irregularly shaped, which is always fun because it subdivides the restaurant into smaller “rooms.” the decor is really nice – high ceilings, colorful but not too busy curtains, bright but mellow colors, an orange banquette along one wall. if i had to give the style a name, i might call it “new colonial.” to go with hamersley’s bistro’s “new american” food.
i would say that the food was pretty good – i thought the first two courses were really good, though the dessert was slightly hit or miss. i started with a grilled pizza appetizer with “creamy salt cod” and a black olive tapenade. i was trying to be adventurous – i don’t always like salt cod, but was intrigued by “creamy salt cod” – how, exactly, was it going to be creamy? and salt cod and tapenade? technically that should work together – those two salty ingredients combined would theoretically create an even saltier whole. i guess the bread part of the pizza tamed the tapenade, though, as did the creaminess of the salt cod. it was a little salty, but not excessively so. and the crust was perfect for an appetizer-type pizza – slightly chewy, but also very crispy, so it didn’t get soggy with the cod on top. and really, the cod was slightly salty, but the creaminess of it balanced the saltiness of the olive tapenade – i felt that the cod was there for a texture contrast, not just for flavor. not only that, but the pizza came with a small salad of field greens with some sort of very acidic but buttery (probably from the olive oil) vinaigrette. normally i don’t like my salad dressing to be so piquant, but in combination with the pizza it was really great – it’s like having wine that complements cheese. rarely does one have a perfectly dressed salad, but i would say this is it. and it was an interesting use of a salad. all in all, a really fantastic first course. (more…)
pomodoro / 24 harvard street / brookline ma / 617-566-4455 / 11am-11pm / reservations accepted (and recommended, by me) / cash only / entrees moderately expensive ($18-25) of all of the restaurants i’ve been to, pomodoro is possibly the fairest of them all. understand that […]
also several weeks ago, i had enough time (!!!) to go with carrie to the chocolate lounge at mariposa. on thursdays at 7pm, a mini-enterprise takes over the space at mariposa and it becomes a short ode to chocolate. because who wouldn’t be excited by […]
restaurant pava / 1229 centre street / newton ma / 617-965-0905 / m-sat 11:30-2:30 + 5:30-10pm, sun 11-2:30 + 5:30-10pm / reservations accepted (and recommended, by me) / entrees moderately expensive ($18-25)
yes yes, i know i’ve been remiss in updating foodlust. but in repentance, i will now add several posts (or, as many as my almost-completely-shot memory will offer up). i’ve been meaning to write a review of restaurant pava for several weeks now, especially given that i was there on nov 18 – more than a month ago.
i found restaurant pava through the boston globe restaurant reviews. i was initially attracted to the restaurant by the globe’s review of its bread, which consists of three different types: a small chewy roll studded (cliched word nowadays, huh?) with caraway seeds and golden raisins; a french bread with a supersoft inside and a supercrispy crust; and a crispy flat “bread” that was somewhere between potato chip and bread, whose main ingredients i tried in vain to guess. all this comes with a dish of extremely green, extremely excellent olive oil. back to my initial thoughts: it is almost always true that any restaurant that does its bread so well is probably not going to disappoint. cold butter can sometimes be forgiven in the case of very good food, but mediocre bread is not a good way to start any meal. (more…)
i’ve been remiss in updating my beloved blog (which is two years old!!!), and have a few restaurant reviews to offer you: caffe umbra and om for restaurant week, plus pomodoro. om: 8/18, 1p.m. 92 winthrop street / cambridge ma / 617-576-2800 / m-sat 5pm-1am, […]
carrien and i love food, but we’re also poor students. accordingly, we wanted to partake in the newly christened winter restaurant week (i guess business is slow), without breaking the bank. we settled upon lunch ($20.06 as opposed to $30.06) – which, when you consider […]
marco / 253 hanover street / boston ma / 617-742-1276 / tue-thu 5-10:30pm, fri-sat 5pm-11pm, sun 4pm-9:30pm / reservations accepted / entrees moderately expensive ($15-25)
i heard about marco from being on pigalle’s mailing list. after it got a bunch of good reviews, i thought it would be nice to try it out. we went on a sunday night, when they serve dinner family-style (which really means that the menu is designed so that everyone at a given table shares everything – the portions are in individual and family portions – not that everyone in the restaurant eats together). it was raining, but the place still filled up as we ate.
the restaurant is right on hanover street in the middle of the most visible part of the north end, but you could almost miss it. the sign is just the coat of arms with an M on it, and the outer glass door is blank – it’s the inner glass door that says “marco” on it in small white lowercase letters. you enter, and then the restaurant is on the second floor. all of this contributes to the feeling that you’re eating in somebody’s house (the building inside has the dimensions of a row house). the restaurant is tiny – it seats maybe around 20ish people – and you can see out onto the street from the tables along the windows. the interior is decorated with things like ceramic plates that say “marco” on them with the coat of arms, and there’s a fireplace with no fire, but lots of large flickering candles. (more…)
central kitchen / 567 massachusetts avenue / cambridge ma / 617-491-5599 / sun-wed 5:30-1am, thu-sat 5:30-2am / reservations accepted for parties of 6+ (recommended) / entrees moderately expensive ($18-25) i have no wish to tackle my thesis at the moment, so instead i’ll write about […]