VELA RESTAURANT, WELLESLEY

Many of you might know that I've been searching for a place to relocate my shop. And a couple of weeks ago, that search took me to Wellesley. Unfortunately the space I saw was rather disappointing, but since we were in the area, I had planned to have dinner at Vela Restaurant. I'll let you all know right now that Vela is owned by Jayna's friends, Jess, and Jess' husband, Frank, is the chef. And Jess did get her wedding favors from my store, so this review may be a little biased.

Vela is in a bit of an unusual location. It's actually located in the basement of an apartment building. And even though the actual size of the restaurant is surprisingly large (taking up the entire basement), it is a little hard to find initially. And you enter the buildling like any other resident of the building. Luckily, they have outdoor seating, which is very nice in the summer. But we opted to stay indoors. Outdoor seating is wonderful and all, but service can sometimes be quite slow and I was hungry and tired.

The decor of Vela is also pretty nice. It has a modern feel to it, but you can certainly tell that they did a lot of the work themselves. It wasn't as finished and polished as some other restaurants, but I kinda liked the idea of the owners working on the build out and design (Jess goes to the GSD with Jayna). The restaurant was pretty empty when we arrived (it was a weekday evening), so we were seated quickly and given menus. I found our waiter to be kinda too casual and friendly, but Tom thinks i'm just being weird.

At any rate, I ended up ordering an appetizer of seared scallops over fava beans, peas, cherry tomatoes and shitake mushrooms, with truffle zabaglione.I really really liked my scallop appetizer. The scallops were seared perfectly and the accompanying veggies were all exceedingly tasty and well cooked. Meanwhile, Tom ordered the mushroom lasagna crispy layers of potato with spinach and wild mushrooms, balsamic reduction.

I had seriously considered ordering this appetizer above my scallop one. (So i was glad when Tom chose it). And i did enjoy the mushrooms a lot. However, I didn't really detect the layers of crispy potatoes and the appetizer was so huge and packed with so many mushrooms that we ended up not finishing eat. A smaller portion would've been more ideal.Tom also got the baby spinach with beets and crumbled gorgonzola, which I also think he liked.
For my entree, I got a half portion of the homemade fettucine with cockle clams and crab meat, garlic, white wine and chili flakes just because i wanted some homemade pasta. And I was happy to see that you can get all the pastas in a half portion, cause then I don't have to eat too much.
The pasta ended up being just ok. I thought it was a bit too watery, the crab meat was overcooked and there were way too many clams. Actually the entire thing tasted very clammy. So I wasn't a huge fan and wished I'd just gotten the entree portion of the scallop appetizer.

Meanwhile, Tom was enjoying a huge piece of meat, the veal chop milanese style with italian slaw. (ok, don't ask me while he orders so much food and ends up not finishing most of it. And then he complains about my making him fat. If only I could press upon him the need for a bit of moderation.)He really liked the veal chop. And I actually liked the coleslaw on the side. I wish I could figure out how to make it at home for myself.

By this point, we were stuffed, so we passed on the desserts. Overall, it was a highly enjoyable experience, though a bit on the pricier side. The prices of appetizers and pastas were all pretty reasonable, but once you got to the meats, it jumped into the high 20s-mid 30s, which is quite a lot for a causal night out. But if you're celebrating a special occasion and want to get off the beaten track, I certainly suggest taking a nice drive out to Vela and enjoying a lovely meal.