BOSTON: DAY 2

Part of the reason why you're not going to see a lot of food places on this recent trip to Boston is that we went to a lot of our old favorites that I blogged about when I lived in Boston - India Quality, Clear Flour Bakery, Shabu Zen, etc. But I did manage to try a couple of new places. First up, the Natural Bean Coffee Company.

As Leah and I wandered down Newbury Street in the pouring rain, we spotted this new coffee place and decided to check it out. (Uhm, did I mention the large sign outside offering free coffee? And did I mention the pouring rain?) We stepped into this basement space to find a very hip, modern coffee shop. And their whole thing is to have organic, natural coffee, and compostable cups, and stuff like that. We both ordered free coffees and took them to the tiny seating area in the back to enjoy it.

The seating area only holds 3 tables, but it's quiet and was a nice place to take a break from the rain. Of course, all the compostable utensils, the bins to separate compost, recycling and trash - they're all things we see on a routine basis in the Bay Area. But I guess it's new to Boston, and if it encourages other businesses to do the same thing, I think that'd be great.

My second new food experience took place later that night. It seems that a Bon Chon Chicken has opened in Boston. Or rather, they're selling Bon Chon chicken at a lounge in Brighton. For those of you who don't know, Bon Chon Chicken is a Korean fried chicken chain with locations in NY. I'd heard of their chicken before, but never tried it. Of course, my friends had already tried it and were raving about it. So despite having stuffed ourselves on shabu, they insisted on order a take out order to chicken just so we could try it.

We ended up taking the chicken over to the Super 88 food court, cause there was seating there. The packaging was quite fancy:

And here's the chicken. It really was pretty good. Crunchy, sweet, a littly spicy. I definitely saw the appeal. And I liked the little tub on pickled daikon that it came with. I think I ate more of that than the chicken.

So we had additional good eating experiences in Boston and I look forward to having more Bon Chon chicken in the future.

BOSTON: DAY 1

Ok, so you all know that I'm engaged. And this is the meal that I had prior to being proposed to. Now, this wasn't the meal that we were supposed to have. I was supposed to have flown into Boston on a red eye to land early Sunday morning. And I made reservations at Craigie on Main - it's a restaurant that I never made it to while living in Boston, and with it's relocation to Central Square, I really had no reason not to go. Except my flight got cancelled. So I didn't land until 8:30pm on Sunday, so we didn't have dinner at Craigie on Main. Instead, we went back to the hotel we were stay at (the Hotel Marlowe in Lechmere) and went to the hotel's restaurant, which happens to be Bambara.

When I was living in Boston, Bambara had just opened and it was a pretty popular spot. But I never went. On the evening we went in Boston, it was pretty late, and the restaurant was fairly empty. All I really wanted was a quick bite before going to bed, and this was more than I really wanted to spend on dinner, but oh well, I was tired and didn't care.

So first we got some rolls with butter:

Then, I got some mini lobster rolls (hey, I was in Boston. I had to eat lobster at least once!) Unfortunately, I forgot to take pics of them, but there were 3 mini lobster rolls on a plate, served on toasted brioche buns. They were really good. So good that I ate all of them and forgot to share one with Tom.

For my entree I got a seafood risotto with aspargus and some nice big prawns on top.

It was very good, but kinda heavy and full of butter. I didn't end up finishing the whole thing. The other thing I thought was really good were the fries (they come with Tom's steak frites).

These were well cooked, crispy and they had a nice touch of fresh rosemary. I like them a lot.

Service was uneven, though. It was a big, empty restaurant with not a lot of staff, so when we brought the wrong bill, Tom had to get up and find someone to get the right one. (we would've gladly paid the wrong bill, it was 1/3 of what our bill was). Overall we had a nice dinner there. It was on the expensive side, but I wouldn't mind eating there again, as long as someone else is paying.

MY LAST POST AS A RESIDENT OF BOSTON

My last post from Boston is dedicated to my favorite eating buddy, Leah. (Sorry Tom, Leah’s favorite food of the year so far was not Brooklyn pizza.) I’m actually typing this from the airport while waiting for my plane to depart. FYI- Logan does have wifi, but you gotta pay $7.95 for a day pass, which is why I’m typing this on Word.

Leah and I have had some great meals together over the past few years, whether it’s been an ice cream cake for four (which was consumed by the two of us- hey it was hot out!) or French fries and mac and cheese at ES. And though we’ll be having many meals again in the future, it’ll be a lot harder now that there’s a continent between us.

So before I left Boston, Leah insisted that I try Picco, the pizza place in the South End.

She loves the pizza there, and though I’d wanted to go for some time, somehow, I never made my way over there. (I’m much more likely to have brunch than dinner in the South End.) Finally, early on a summer evening, we headed over there. When we arrived, they had the outdoor seating set up, and since it was pretty early, we had our pick of seats. We peeked inside, and I was immediately captivated by a large black chalk board listing all the homemade ice creams that were available. We chose to sit outside, and looked over the menu, but as the sun started to set, it really started cooling down, and we retreated inside. (The waitress didn’t seem too thrilled, since she’d already taken our orders, but whatever).

And on the subject of service, when we arrived, it seemed rather confusing and lacksadiscal. The restaurant wasn’t busy, but it was hard to be sure who was going to seat us, who was going to take our order, etc., and not one of the staff members really stepped up- Leah had to ask someone if we could sit outside. Leah said this was basically normal for Picco, so don’t be too surprised if the staff members are inattentive.

Ok, but onto the fun stuff- the pizza. Leah always orders the veggie pizza here. She also got a Caesar salad because she loves that the lay white anchovies on top of the salad. The Caesar actually did look pretty good, but I wanted to save room for the ice cream, so I ordered a pizza margherita and I also ordered Tom a steak and cheese pizza to go. (He was working at home and couldn’t join us.)

We’d moved inside, and the restaurant was empty, but slowly starting to fill up (it’d be mostly full by the time we left). Here’s a shot of the interior- lots of red and polished wood.

It’s actually smaller than you’d expect, but that’s another reason why it gets so crowded later on. Another waiter had taken over indoors and we were served our pizzas. Here’s mine:

And here’s Leah’s:

And the verdict: It was actually quite excellent pizza. The crust was well charred and the interesting thing was that it was almost like eating bread. The crust was similar to a bread from Clear Flour- with its texture, crackle and the large bubbles inside. I really enjoyed my pizza, and I think it’s far better than anything else we’ve got in Boston.

I also tried a slice of Leah’s pizza and I was surprised by the fact that I really enjoyed that, also. I didn’t think I would since among other things, the veggie toppings included eggplant and fennel, neither or which I like, but it worked and I would actually order this pizza in the future. As we ate, the restaurant started to fill up, and the staff seemed to snap to attention and started being much more speedy than before.

After pizza, it was time for some ice cream. I had been staring at the big black board for quite some time, so I’d decided I’d be getting 3 scoops. I got chocolate, caramel and espresso. Meanwhile, Leah also got three scoops, but they were the polar opposites. She got peach, peanut butter fudge and I currently forget the other flavor. Oh, and the came with free sprinkles. I got chocolate, and Leah got rainbow.

The ice cream is all excellent, but it’s grown up ice cream. The flavors are so deep and intense that it’s hard to eat a lot of it. It’s like really good dark chocolate, you can eat a square and be happy, rather than eating the whole thing. The espresso was my favorite, and the chocolate had the lovely nuances of whatever chocolate they had used (as in, it didn’t just taste like chocolate, you could get other flavors from it). I managed to finish a few spoonfuls of each, but was done for the night.

Meanwhile, maybe because of the table switch, they had forgotten my pizza to go. The waiter rushed over and offered a discount, but we didn’t feel like waiting for it- I just gave Tom the slices I had left (which he quickly polished off when I got home). I was really glad I tried Picco, but I was even happier with the company. It’ll be hard to find another eating buddy like Leah, who will agree to eat McDonald’s chicken nuggets because there’s a buy one get one free deal or someone just as enthusiastic about fried chicken. I guess I’ll just have to scope out some places to take her out West- like Betsy’s Bakehouse, with its fried chicken sandwich and spicy coleslaw.

As for the rest of you, I’ll soon be adding posts about my dining adventures from the East Bay. I hope you’ll all come out and visit us, so we can have some more great meals in CA.

MY FIRST TRIP TO DORCHESTER

Our friend, Sam, is in Boston right now. He's one of those people who comes in and out of Boston, but since he's unemployed right now, he's here for the forseeable future. I know there's a large Vietnamese population in Boston, but I'm not quite sure where to go. So taking advantage of the fact that Sam was in town (he speaks Vietnamese fluently and lived there for quite some time), we asked him to take us to great Vietnamese food in Boston.

So Sam picked a restaurant in Dorchester called Pho 2000. Looking up the address in Google maps, Tom and I decided to drive locally, so I got to drive through Dorchester for the first time, which probably wasn't the greatest idea, but it was still light out. (We ended up taking the 93 on the way back). Since we got there early, we got to look through the menu. Lots of stuff you'd typically see on any Vietnamese menu (pho, bun, etc.) . The surroundings were very hole in the wall. It's great cause there's parking across the street, but when we entered, Tom and I both detected the smell of garbage and the smell of incense- it wasn't the greatest way to start off. But when Sam arrived, we let him and his friend order for us. There were 7 of us at dinner, so it was a lot easier to eat family style.

We started off with this fantastic Vietnamese type coleslaw.There was coleslaw, shrimp, mint, basil, peanuts, peppers- it was salty, sweet, spicy, sour, and cool- really the perfect thing for a warm winter night and my favorite dish for the entire night.
Soon, more food started to arrive- more than could fit on our small round table. The first was a tofu dish, that you can see to the right of the picture. And in the back you can see a chicken dish. Both were quite good, but nothing truly amazing.

The special dish of the night was this fried catfish. Sam said it was really traditional and hard to find in Boston restaurants. (It's listed on one of the special menus that aren't translated into English). So you get to cut chunks of the catfish. Then you're given packets of rice paper and a bowl of really hot water. You dip the rice paper in the water to soften it, and then make your own wrap. You put in catfish, a selection of veggies, rice noodles, wrap it all up, and dip it into the sweet sauce (that contained apples among other things).

My first wrap wasn't so great. The big plate of veggies they gave us contained this strange vegetable that I'd never seen before. It's a Vietnamese vegetable that smells and tastes exactly like fish. Like stinky fish. It was surprising and I put it in my wrap without trying it first. Needless to say, it wasn't a great idea. It kinda ruined my first wrap.

My second wrap was a lot better, but this still wasn't my favorite dish of the night. Everyone else seemed to enjoy it, though. And it did feed all 7 of us. The good thing about driving to Dorchester? Our entire meal cost us $13 per person. Overall, we had an enjoyable meal, though probably more for the company than the food. I'm glad I got a chance to eat more authentic foods, but I don't think I'll be driving down to Dorchester again to find it.

DIM SUM AT HEI LA MOON

Is it bad when it's only 9:30 and I already feel like having ice cream? Maybe it's because the sun's shining outside, or it's knowing that I've got a pint of Haagen dazs coffee ice cream sitting in my fridge. I'll try to hold off, at least until 10.

At any rate, I have been back for nearly 2 weeks now, and we've had a few meals out. One of the first was dim sum at Hei La Moon. Normally we go to China Pearl for dim sum, and the only time I've tried going to Hei La Moon, it was so full that we retreated to the Pearl. But I knew that there must be a reason why people would wait in line to eat at Hei La Moon (oh, and they are owned by the same people who own the Pearl), so we headed back over there on a Sunday morning. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Hei La Moon, it's actually on the other side of Chinatown (the one closer to South street station). Here's a shot of the exterior.

You can recognize the place pretty quickly because there are people standing outside waiting for their numbers to be called. When we arrived, there was a small crowd, but it wasn't too bad. As I waited to be given a number, I noticed that all the numbers before us were for small group (2-4 people) and since we had a larger group, I figured we'd be getting a table faster. And I was right. After waiting outside for less than 10 minutes, out number was called and we headed inside.

We were directed to the downstairs dining room, and I immediately noticed that Hei La Moon is a lot newer, cleaner and more organized than the Pearl. The other thing I noticed is that there were a lot more large parties of non-Asians eating at Hei La Moon that at the Pearl. Tom and I were there early, so we ordered first. We got an order of egg rolls and an order of fried shrimp rolls, which were both pretty good. When the group arrived, we ordered more. Like the fried shrimp and the fried calamari. At the Pearl, they would have these out on hot stations, which you'd visit and pick up yourself, but at Hei La Moon, they're pushed around on the carts. Again, these were pretty good, though a little colder than I would've liked. And here's a final shot of some other items.
Overall, I thought the food at Hei La Moon was really good- better than what you'd get at Chau Chow or Empress Garden. And much cleaner and a nicer atmosphere. I'd put it on par quality wise with the Pearl, but the Pearl does have greater selection of food. There really weren't many desserts at the Hei La Moon, and I ended up going to a local bakery for a sesame ball afterwards. It'd be a great place to take out of town guests, or for people who have never been to dim sum before, so I certainly suggest that you try it out if you haven't been before.

A TRIP TO THE FARMER'S MARKET

Ok people. I'm taking a break from finishing Harry Potter to write this post. (I figure if I read non stop all day today, I'll have a shot at finishing.) So last week, Tom and I made a trip to the Brookline Farmer's Market. For some reason, I only make it once a year (probably because I usually don't have a Thursday off), and this time it rained. But that didn't stop the farmers from setting up, though it did seem like there were fewer vendors than usual.

The market is stocked with fresh veggies, but we we didn't buy any because we still had our order from the CSA, that keeps our fridge fully stocked with fresh veggies every week. (I've already found 3 good CSA candidates in Berkeley. And they're year round. HAHAHA.)

Ok, back to Brookline. Here is a crate of globe zucchini. I thought they were cute. And probably fun to stuff.

Here's a shot of one of the farm stands.

Tom and I did pick up a few things, like a turkey pot pie from Bob's Turkey Farm. We've never tried one before, and we're having it for dinner tonight, so I'll let you know how it is. They do have a sign that says the turkey pies don't contain veggies, which is a first for me (an all meat turkey pie?) but we'll have a side salad.

Clear Flour has a booth, too. So of course, Tom couldn't resist picking up a loaf of bread. He picked up a sourdough loaf, which was pretty good (though not so great the next day).

Finally, Tom got a pie from the pie guy. They have mini pies, so he got a strawberry-rhubarb one. When we got home and tried it, I wasn't a huge fan. I don't particularly like cooked fruit or rhubarb. Tom thought it was OK, but find the crust a bit old and dry. It probably would've been better had it been fresh.

And that was our trip to the farmer's market. About a week from now, I'll be FREE!!! And I'll be able to go to any farmer's market that I want. So perhaps I'll be reporting on those in the future.

FIREFLY'S BBQ, QUINCY

We ate out a lot last weekend (we're making up by mostly eating at home this week). Friends were in town, some friends were leaving town. You know how it is. That's what summer in Boston is like. This time, we were going out to eat because Evan, Tom's friend, was leaving to join the Border Patrol, so I suggested the we got to Firefly's all you can eat Sunday BBQ brunch.

We'd never been to Firefly's before. They have 3 locations, with the closest in Quincy (a 20 minute drive from Boston with no traffic), so we headed down there on a Sunday morning. We got there a little before they opened. I'd heard that there were long lines, so we wanted to get there early. Plus, by going early, it insured that the food would be fresh, and not dried out, after sitting on the hot table for hours. I snapped this pic as we sat outside, waiting for Evan and Stephanie to arrive. And no, we weren't the first ones there.

When we entered the restaurant, we realized that it's quite large. After Evan bantered with the hostess(saying he liked space and large tables), we were seated at a large empty room by ourselves. The room was off the bar, and was usually used as a performance space. We were given a big table and had the room to ourselves most of the meal. Unfortunately, the buffet was in the other room, but we ended up being quite lucky, cause our room seemed to be the only one with air conditioning. It was a sweltering, humid day, and you could feel the temperature rise every time we stepped out of our dining area.

After we were shown to our table, we immediately took off for the buffet. As I mentioned earlier, because we went right as they opened, a lot of the food was freshly cooked. Even the veggies were crisp, and those are usually the first things to go bad. I overheard a waiter mention that 90% of Firefly's menu was on the buffet, so this is a great way to try out their stuff. Here's a shot of the sides: mashed potatoes, veggies, mac and cheese, corn, beans, etc....

And here's a shot of meat: brisket, grilled pork, ribs, friend and bbq chicken, etc...It really was a generous spread.

Here's my first plate. As you can see, I picked a lot of sides. The veggies, garlic mashed potatoes and corn were all really good. The mac and cheese was dry and bland. I also got a couple of pieces of bbq chicken. The white meat was dried out, but the dark meat was quite flavorful and tasty.

They also have a nice condiment and BBQ sauce bar. Here's the one in our room. You can try 6 different types of homemade sauce (which are all served warm). And the condiments including things like pickled veggies, beets and peppers. In another part of the restaurant they also have a hot sauce bar with all different types of hot sauce. I thought Evan would appreciate that feature, but I think he was too busy eating to try them out.
And here's Tom's first plate. You'll notice it's all brown because he wanted to try a little bit of EVERY type of meat on the buffet. Sigh. For the pork and beef eaters, they all agreed that the brisket was very good.

We did go back for seconds and after that, there was a small dessert selection- brownies, red velvet cake and watermelon. This ended up being perfect because we were stuffed. I actually had too much watermelon and ended up groaning the whole way home. (We didn't eat dinner that night).

Overall, the Firefly all you can eat brunch is a fantastic deal. It's just $13/person and the food is quite good and plentiful. I think we'll be back so. Maybe I'll organize a group trip down...

HARRY POTTER AND AN ORDER OF PIZZA

Sorry, I know I'm being goofy, but the last Harry Potter book comes out today at midnight. Anyhoo, last week we went and saw the fifth Harry Potter movie and after, we decided to grab dinner in the neighborhood. Leah had told me that Cambridge One had opened in her building (The Trilogy, right across the street from the movie theatre) just a week ago, so off we went to try it out.

I knew that the entrance was on the Boylston side of the building, so it wasn't hard to find, but for people who've never been there, is is a little hard to locate. You can only enter through one door on the far right of the restaurant. Here's a shot of the interior.

If the minimalist decor looks familiar to you, it's because Cambridge One is owned by the same guys who own Audubon, Middlesex and Miracle of Science. The large restaurant was virtually empty when we entered, a little surprising considering a Sox game was about to start. Clearly, the word isn't out yet that this place has opened, but I'm sure it'll fill up once people find out.

We were quickly seated at wooden booths with large slate tables, which oddly enough, are all set up on 6 inches of concrete. I don't know why it's necessary to do this. It doesn't making sitting any more comfortable, and it's pretty awkward when you're trying to sit or get up.

We were given menus and our drink orders were taken. What Cambridge One is known for is its grilled pizzas. As in, the pizzas are cooked on an open grill (I think Otto in NY does the same thing). While walking to the bathroom, you can see the grills in the open kitchen. There are 4 of them, each with their own little booth, and you can feel the heat radiating off. You could also see all the bored kitchen employees and servers, who had nothing to do.

You can order either a half or full pizza, but unlike most places, you really don't derive any benefit (cost-wise) of ordering a full pizza. The half pizzas are priced at 50% of the full sized pizza+$1. So we all decided to order our own half pizza, and share if we felt like it. There are also appetizers like salads on the menu, but we skipped those. So here's Tom's half lobster pizza. It was the most expensive one, coming in it $13. (not terrible for dinner).

I actually liked it more than the pizza I ordered. There was lobster, green onions and some cheese. The crust was pretty good when it was nice and crunchy (along the edges) but grilling the pizza means that the crust needs to be thin. Which means that they can't hold a lot of toppings, or wet toppings well. Towards the middle of the pizza, the crust got pretty soggy.

And here's my pizza.

It's got thin slices of potato and two types of cheese. It was pretty good, but Tom and I ended up trading. After eating the half pizza, I was still kinda hungry. Turns out the one half isn't really enough for dinner. So we opted to go to Star Market across the street to buy some ice cream. (The only dessert on the menu was Toscanini's Tiramisu ice cream, and at $5 a serving, it cost more than our 6 pack of Klondike bars). Overall, I welcome Cambridge One in the neighborhood. It's certainly a better alternative to any other pizza that we've got in the area (though that's not saying much). But I think Tom and I would still prefer a pie for Upper Crust (yes Leah, I know you hate it, but we do enjoy that place) or even better, a Brooklyn pizza.

KO PRIME

A little while ago, I wrote about going to a party at KO Prime with Leah and my initial impression of the place. So on Friday, Leah, Tom and I decided that we needed to have an actual meal there, and we headed downtown. Leah knows Ken Oringer, the consulting chef, and we both name Jamie, the chef de cuisine. Unfortunately, neither of them were there that night (which was kinda surprising on a Friday night, only a few months after opening.) Sorry, no pics for this post. It was really dark inside, and as the evening wore on, at 8pm, it was still more light outside than it was indoors.

Upon arriving, we were shown to our seats quickly. As I've mentioned before, the decor is very cow oriented. The have these strange leather place mats at each seat, which kinda bothered me, because it kept slipping around. Leah and I also pondered a strange composition placed in the ceiling. We didn't really think it related to steaks, but oh well.

When we were handed our menus, we were also greeted by a very very enthusiastic, cheery waitress (but you know, it's that fake kind of cheeriness that's kinda annoying). Unprompted, she started going through the favorites and recommendations on the menu and the scurried off so we could actually peruse the menus ourselves. Not surprisingly, there are lots of cuts of meat, but there were also a bunch of interesting appetizers, sides and some fish entrees.

For Tom, the highlight of his meal were the appetizers. He ordered a half dozen of Wellfleet oysters, which had been recommended by the waitress. He also got the Crispy Veal Sweetbreads (listed as McNuggets style). He said the oysters were very good (though the shucking could've been done better, there were pieces of shell) and the veal McNuggets were just funny cause they were also served on little sticks (but both Tom and Leah found them well cooked).

Meawhile, I got the asparagus with poached egg and hollandaise. The eggs was well poached, so that when it broke, all the yolk leaked out on the asparagus. But it was a heavy appetizer. I was kinda full after I finished it. And Leah got the lobster bisque, which she also enjoyed. I found it far too salty the last time I'd tried it, but Leah likes salt and she found it quite good.

Onto our entrees. As you all know, I don't eat beef, so I ordered the duck breast au poivre. The waitress let me know that it'd be prepared rare, and I said I didn't mind. Meanwhile, she failed to ask either Tom or Leah how they wanted their steaks done. Sometimes chefs do this because they feel that the meat should be cooked to a particular temperatures, which is fine , except...Tom's NY strip steak ended up a bit overcooked. He said it was a good piece of meat, but he found it too hard to cut through. Meanwhile, Leah had ordered the skirt steak and she found it quite tasty. I'll also take note that both Leah and my meals come pre-sliced. Oh, and I did like my duck breast. It wasn't stellar or the best thing I'd ever had, but it was well prepared. I'll also let you know that if you want a side with dinner, you're gonna have to order it (unless you count the 5 cipollini onions that came with Tom's dinner a side). We shared a side of fries with ricotta salata, but we agreed that they weren't all that great. The fries were cut too large, so didn't come out crispy and the ricotta salata really didn't do anything.

And finally, onto dessert. We were all stuffed by this time, but I insisted that we share some, because that's what I do. We ordered two desserts to share, mint mousse with warm chocolate ganache center and a dessert featuring lemon curd. The mint mousse dessert was a disaster. Mainly because the chocolate ganache was burnt, and you could taste its bitterness the second you put it in your mouth. I let the waitress know, and the manager had it removed from our bill. Meanwhile, the lemon curd dessert was quite good. The lemon curd sat a top a little piece of cake and that formed the base for a tall cookie tower. The tower was filled with fresh summer berries, and the combination of it all was very enjoyable.

I felt the pacing for our dinner was a little rushed. With our 7:30 reservation, we were out of there before 9pm. It was enjoyable dinner and great to have an adult meal with Leah and Tom, bu I don't think any of us will be rushing back. It was solid food, but nothing stellar, and it was quite expensive. (Entrees range from mid 20s-mid 40s). Certainly a great place to go if your parents are in town, or if you're entertaining clients.

SUMMER RESTAURANT WEEK 2007

Oh crap people. I just remembered that the list of restaurants participating in Boston's Restaurant Week 2007 was published last week. Here it is. Sorry, it just slipped my mind with the 4th and the trip to NY. At any rate, I'll take a look see and decided what's worth going to. We probably won't be visiting very many, tho. Tom and I gotta save some $$ before our big move out west.

DON'T WAIT UNTIL RESTAURANT WEEK....

I was surfing around online and started thinking, I like taking advantage of prix fixe menus in NY, some of the best restaurants have them. (I'm a big advocate of Enoteca at Del Posto's prix fixe and I look foward to taking advantage of the Jean Georges one next month.) An even better time to do prix fixe is during lunch, when you still get three courses, but it's even cheaper than dinner. Same ambience, same service. So I started thinking, where can I get a great prix fixe in Boston. I've done some surfing around, so here's a listing of places I have tried or want to try, with links for your convenience. All these place offer 3 courses.

Ten Tables. Currently one of my favorite places to eat in Boston, I always forget that they have a prix fixe menu on Wednesday nights cause I've never taken advantage of it. On Wednesday nights, the deal is any three courses for $25. That is an amazing deal for a place of this quality. But any night of the week, they have the vegetarian tasting menu for $25, and I've been quite happy with that. Oh and on the first Tuesday of every month, the have a 4 course prix fixe with wine pairing for $45.

Sel de la Terre. I haven't been, but Leah really likes this place, so I was happy to see that they have a daily lunch prix fixe for $21. You get two different choices for each course and they only offer it Monday-Friday, 11:30-2:30, but I'm looking foward to trying it out soon.

Sandrine's Bistro. I ate here many many years ago, while still a high school student and visiting colleges. Little did I know that Raymond Ost is quite a famous chef. I haven't been back since, but I think I'll have to after taking a look at their prix fixe menu. Actually, I'm more interested in their dinner prix fixe for Restaurant Week in August (yes, they already have it online and it looks delicious) , but their lunch prix fixe seems to be the best deal of them all, coming in at just $19.

L'Espalier. One of the best restaurants in Boston and it has a prix fixe menu? Who would've thought. The chef, Frank McClelland just won a James Beard award this year, and amazingly enough, you can have a prix fixe lunch for $24. You'd better bet I'm gonna be taking advantage of this one shortly. The menu looks great, and a steal considering the prix fixe dinner is $75.

Craigie Street Bistro. Amazingly enough, I still haven't not made it to Craigie St. They're probably the most famous ones in the city for the myriad of prix fixe menus. And they do have them every night of the week. I'm not going to sit her and describe them, just click on the link and check it out for yourself.

I know I focused a lot on lunch(just trying to list the best deals), but many of these places also offer prix fixe dinners. If you wanna check out one helpful site, here's an article on it from the Globe. Otherwise, as I mentioned earlier, Boston's Restaurant Week will be taking place in August. They haven't published the list of participating restaurants, but as soon as they do, I'll let you know. Personally, though, I'd rather try one of the places listed above, it's probably a more pleasant experience than getting squeezed in with the herds during Restaurant Week.

BRIGHTON CAFE

Once again Tom and I were searching for a place to have breakfast more or less in our neighborhood. I don't know why it's so hard to find a decent breakfast place (meaning it's open before 11) that doesn't require a 45 minute wait (Zaftigs) in our neighborhood. So when Tom suggested the Brighton Cafe, I figured, why not, we'd been to almost everything else around. Plus, it's conveniently located blocks from the Whole Foods, where we were going for our weekly grocery shopping.

If you recognize the pic below, it's because the cafe is located diagonally across the street from Tasca. (the tapas place I reveiwed a little while ago). It's a fairly large space and we walked in, the tables were filled mainly the students and a few locals. What's also a little unusual is that the whole place is run by Asians. You don't normally see Asians running diners, but whatever.

So Brighton Cafe serves breakfast all day at dirt cheap prices. I don't think anything on the breakfast menu was over $8. And after checking out their lunch menu (made up mainly of burgers and sandwiches) nothing topped $7. So that helps to explain why this place is so popular with the student crowd. Service was pretty prompt, so we placed our orders.

Tom got a stack of pancakes with ham. He decided that they weren't very good, but edible. What you could you expect for these prices?

Meanwhile, I got one fried egg, which came with a side of homefries and toast. I liked the eggs and toast, but the homefries were pretty dreary. They were overcooked and crumbled the second you tried to poke them with a fork. I covered them with ketchup and ate about half of them before giving up. You could imagine just about everything the Brighton Cafe served coming premade by Sysco and just reheated.

So after trying out Brighton Cafe, I am once again on the hunt for a decent breakfast place in the Kenmore/Brookline/Brighton area. Brighton Cafe certainly served it's purpose of cheap meals for students, but it wasn't worth the drive and I could've made a better breakfast at home (which in retrospect, I should've. I don't know why Tom wanted to go out to eat). If you have any suggestions, please keep me posted. Otherwise, I guess I'll be waiting for Z Square to open in Kenmore.

GARI SUSHI, BROOKLINE

My little cousin called me up last week for dinner. He's a sophomore at B.U. and despite living a five minute drive away from me, we never seem to see each other. So I took this as a good opportunity to try out a different restaurant close to both of us, Gari Japanese Fusion , in Coolidge Corner. Normally any restaurant with "fusion" in its name would raise suspicions, but Gari had opened around the corner from Leah's old apartment several months ago, and she enjoyed eating there, so I took that as a good sign.

When we arrived at 7, the dining room was only half filled. It's a really chic space with a modern design, but it's tiny. Including the sushi bar (where I noticed no one was sitting) there were probably 30 seats in total. And the capacity would remain at about 50% throughout our whole meal. I didn't really mind this, because the tables are quite close together, so I could imagine the place getting very loud if it were packed. The menu is full of typical Japanese sushi, appetizers and entrees, but it was interesting that for certain rolls and large dishes, they noted on the menu that it'd take at least 25 minutes or more to prepare the dish. Initially, that would discourage me from ordering the dish, but in retrospect, as long as you order an appetizer of a roll of sushi first, that is the average wait for an entree.

At any rate, after perusing the menu for a bit, I decided I wasn't very hungry. So I just ordered two rolls. Here they are below. It's the AAC- avocado, asparagus and cucumber and the crazy roll with with shrimp, lettuce, tobiko, cucumber and a spicy sauce. I thought my sushi was pretty well made. It came garnished with these pretty flower drawings made out of mango sauce, which were nice, but didn't add anything to the actual flavor of the dish. Since I wasn't that hungry, I wasn't even able to finish the two rolls.

Tom and I also shared the tempura appetizer. We agreed that the tempura was well fried. It didn't have the heaviness or sogginess that tempura can have, and they were quite generous with the serving. My little cousin (ok, he's not so little, he's 6'1" and 20 years old) had the tempura dinner which was enormous, and he also enjoyed it.

Unlike me, Tom was pretty hungry. So he ordered an appetizer of grilled ika (aka squid). Again, lovely presentation.

And he had the sashimi dinner.

Tom liked both of his dishes. He thought the fish on the sashimi was pretty good, though he had some issues with the tuna, and he didn't like the pieces of egg. He also enjoyed the squid. Overall, we agreed that Gari sushi is better than all our local sushi joints. It's far better than Ginza (which I don't actually like, but eat at cause it's close by) and it's also cheaper than Ginza. It's on par cost wise with Umi, but for the quality of the food, selections and presentation, Gari definitely wins. I'm still not a huge Boston sushi fan, but if I ever have the craving, we'll be going to Gari. Thanks Leah, for the suggestion.

A PREVIEW OF KO PRIME

The KO in KO Prime stands for Ken Oringer. His new venture, a steakhouse that took over the space of Spire, opened just 3 weeks ago. Not much has been written about it (it just opened after all), but the handful of reviews on Chowhound have been pretty positive. We (Leah, Elisabeth, Tom and I) were able to check it out last night, courtesy of Leah and a Daily Candy party. Leah had been invited to the party, and I crashed (not very difficult at these type of events) mainly cause Leah knows Ken, and we are both friends with Jamie, the former chef at Eastern Standard and current chef de cuisine at KO Prime.

When we arrived, the place was pretty packed, but we quickly spotted the display of charctuerie and snagged ourselves some seats. We snacked on small bites during the time we were there, so of course, this can't be a full assessment of the place. So first for the surroundings. I was told that the space was small and that was right on. The main dining room we were was probably 1,000 sq feet. There was a neighboring bar area, but really, there couldn't have been more then 20 tables in that space. They decorated with chic steakhouse themed decor: antler chandeliers, cow's hide rug and chairs also covered in cow hide.

Even though Ken Oringer is the consulting chef here, it was nice to see that he allowed Jamie's character to shine through, and many of the classics served at ES are also present at KO Prime. I've already read on Chowhound that Jamie is serving bone marrow. But he also has his usual variety of homemade charcuterie. Elisabeth, Tom and Leah snacked on plates full of stuff, while I hoarded things for them.

Of course, I would be out of luck on sampling many of the items at KO Prime, since I don't eat red meat or pork, so here a quick listing of what we did try:

Lobster Bisque: full of lobster flavor, but far too salty.

Salt cod fritters: Served with a dollop of ketchup, it was similar to the ones served at ES, but for some reason, more yellow and again, way too salty.

Tuna tartare "burrito": Pieces of tuna tartar wrapped in a thin, flaky crust. My favorite item of the night; the tuna had a nice texture and didn't taste fishy at all. Just clean and served with a delicious, savory sauce.

Shrimp ceviche on a plantain chip: I got the last one. Not very memorable, and I'm not a fan of plantains, but ate it cause I was hungry.

Mini burgers: Tom had a few of them. Everyone felt the patties were flavorful, but the buns were too big and there was just too much bread. Perhaps it was because these were the mini versions. Maybe the bigger version is different?

Kuamamoto oysters: Tiny little guys. Tom said they had alcohol in them, so he wasn't a big fan. I gave him mine.

Steak with caramelized onion on a stick: Doesn't everything taste better on a stick? Tom said he liked this a lot. (Despite the fact that his caramelized onion fell off).

There was one really nice server who kept bringing us stuff. (I think it's because she was Asian and we were the only group of Asians there. Though according to Leah, I'm not Asian- long story). So we had a fun time. The food wasn't spectacular (SALT ALERT!), but they were just little bites, and after it's been open a little longer, we'll make a trip back and I'll give you a full review.

NANTUCKET DAY 2 AND BACK IN BOSTON

We awoke in Nantucket to driving rain and high winds. We were in full Nor'easter mode, here, with the rain coming in at a 45 degree angle. We packed up and decided to head for breakfast and then to the ferry. While struggling to get to breakfast ( a mere 5 blocks away) we got completely drenched. So it was a real pleasure to enter the Fog Island Cafe, where we were immediately welcome and shown to our seats so we could take off our wet layers.

We were served coffee and given the menus. It was clear that the places was full of locals. The summer season hasn't started yet on Nantucket, and attendees of the Nantucket Wine Festival hadn't really shown up quite yet, so being surrounded by locals was quite nice. While perusing the menu, I was going through the typical dilemma of salt or sweet? Omelette or scramble? Initially I was going to order the Nantucket Fishcakes, Benedict-style, but I thought it'd be too rich. Tom ordered them instead. I think he enjoyed them a lot. They were packed with fresh seafood and crab, which I kept picking out and eating.

Meanwhile, I had a special scramble for breakfast. It featured a lot of stuff I can't recall right now, but I was won over by the mention of artichokes. It was quite tasty and the homefries were pretty good (though they couldn't compare to the ones we'd had the previous day). We didn't welcome the idea of going back out into the rain, but ran for the ferry terminal. Then it was a rocky 2 hour trip back to the mainland. I was thrilled when we finally docked and I was once again on firm ground. After that, it was a drive back up to Boston, and when we finally reached the warmth of our apartment, it was nearly 5. I was able to shower and get dry and then it was off to dinner with a group of friends at Tasca.

When we left for Nantucket, dinner at Tasca had been a group of 5. That's a pretty good number to go with, because Tasca is a tapas restaurant, so everyone can share and try lots of dishes. However, at some point the number had ballooned to 10 people. Huong had made a reservation for 8, and Tasca takes reservations up to 6:30, but the servers were quite helpful in accomadating our large number. Unfortunately, Tasca won't seat you until your entire party arrives, so around 7, we finally got to sit down. Tom and I were starving and exhausted after our long trip from Nantucket, and were eager to eat. Since there were 10 people at dinner, chaos reigned. There was no way that we could all order together, so basically people got to order whatever they wanted. Tom and I each picked 3 tapas and we tried a number of others since we all ended up sharing. Here's a pic of one half of the table:Here's a plate of roasted duck leg served over red cabbage and apples. I hadn't ordered it, but did get to try it. The duck was tender, falling off the bone, but it was also dry. It was an ok dish and it was one of the ones that went unfinished. I ordered the patatas bravas:Leek Tart:and gambas al ajillo:
My favorite was the leek tart. The pastry was crispy and the filling flavorful and soft. The gambas were also pretty good, but the waitress took it away before I could finish dipping bread into the garlic infused olive oil.

Toro is still my favorite tapas place in the city, but I think Tasca is pretty good, too. The good thing is that it is certainly less expensive than Toro, with each tapa coming in around $4-$8/plate. If you do end up going here, I highly suggest going with a smaller group, but I think you'll have an enjoyable experience either way.