Happy Halloween…no tricks here, just a sweet treat, this month’s RC post by guest blogger Claire Santarelli! And congratulations to sycamore. for earning the #25 spot on Boston magazine’s 50 best restaurants list (much more on that to come later).
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| Not-as-good-as-the-Haven Scotch egg |
October RC, aka “was it salty???”
This month, RC hit the burbs to check out Sycamore, “newton centre’s neighborhood bistro.” It’s a tiny restaurant so they couldn’t seat our large party until 8:30 pm, which meant our large party turned into a small party. Hey – RCers need sleep, too! Curiously, a couple of us showed up at 7:30 for an aperitif, and the table was set and ready. Insert sad clown music here.
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| Roasted heirloom carrots and spicy whipped feta |
Creative cocktails got enthusiastic thumbs up all around but the clear winner was the “Ghost of Mary” – citron vodka, spicy tomato water, and a housemade dilly bean (holla at HLHW!). “It’s like a bloody mary without the chunks” and we had quite a few of them among the 5 of us.
For apps we tried Scotch eggs (tasty but not as good as the Haven), roasted heirloom carrots with a walnut-miso puree (tasty but not the best thing on the table), and the spicy whipped feta. As Spanos said, she’s never met a feta she didn’t like.
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| Root vegetable pot pie |
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| Well-fed chicken |
We ordered a good range of entrées among the 5 of us: whole wheat pappardelle with wild boar ragù (a tasty choice by RC Newbie Gina Colombo – welcome!), root vegetable pot pie, bavette steak with hand-cut fries, and Moroccan-spiced green circle chicken. I ordered poorly – my steak was my least fave of the night. The chicken was a table favorite, and apparently the chickens eat better than we do! They are fed a diet of 100% vegetable scraps from some of the top restaurants in NYC. It’s possible their high roughage diet had some unintended side effects, since Kim thought the restaurant smelled like flatus after the chicken arrived. The seasoning seemed off on some of the dishes. My guess is they are using large flake sea salt, and the result is some bites were almost inedibly salty, and some bites were underseasoned. Turns out, it’s not just Chinese delicacies that beg the question, “Was it salty???” We also ordered a side of forest mushrooms and farro risotto to share for the table. I didn’t try the mushrooms but the farro was perfectly seasoned and a nice bonus to my sub-par steak.
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| PB&J beignets |
For dessert we split an order of beignets with concord grape jelly and peanut butter caramel. Our waiter generously brought 2 replacements when Julie’s beignet was missing its jelly. Nobody wants a dry donut. We were seated by the glass windows that look into the kitchen so we were able to thank the chefs “in person” and they waved in return. Even the radicchio rabbit-ear lady!
All in all, a successful RC filled with good food, good company, good conversation, and lots of laughs. What could be better than that?
The damage
$80 per person
The rundown
sycamore.
755 Beacon Street, Newton
@Sycamore_Newton
Kara Cooks and Eats 