December RC – Ward 8

Bacon cashew caramel corn

December 2014, the conclusion of another successful year of RC – nine years in the books. Wow! This was also Lorelei’s initiation, aka first pick. She chose Ward 8, which is the space where Nebo used to be (Nebo moved to Atlantic Ave). We had 90% attendance this month, and all the gays got the pink drinks!

In general, I am a “starter” person…I am often perfectly happy to have an appetizer (or a few) as my dinner, and I think this would definitely have worked for me at Ward 8. It also may be a function of having eyes too big for my stomach, or wanting to try everything, but I could have easily gone without ordering an entree.

Maple chili duck wings

Braised short ribs

So what were these appetizers that filled my belly? We started with bacon cashew caramel corn x 5 orders (they are small!), 5 layer dip with crisp tortillas, maple chili duck wings with celery chips and ranch, and the fried cheese steak dumplings with siracha aioli. I had never had duck wings before, which seemed to be the consensus around the table…and I was impressed; it was my favorite of the starters. The bacon cashew caramel corn was yummy, though I wanted more salt. Perhaps our dish didn’t have as much bacon. You’ll see later on that we found some other creative uses for the popcorn (aka with dessert). I do think it is something that could have been on the table when we sat down (like their version of bread), rather than a starter to order off the menu. The cheese steak dumplings sounded interesting and different, which is why I wanted to try them. And they were interesting and different, though possibly a little too “fried”-tasting. After all of those starters, I should have just skipped to dessert…but we didn’t.

Lobster “hole”

For my entree, I ordered the braised short ribs with cauliflower puree, green beans, and friend leeks (as did three other people at the table). The short ribs were cooked very nicely but were a bit under-seasoned. Without access to salt on the table, there wasn’t much we could do about that. Two people ordered the lobster “hole” (fresh shucked lobster, black truffle mayonnaise, griddled bread, sweet potato fries, and salad). Yes, the web site calls it a traditional lobster roll, but Jimmy found the “hole”. There were also orders for the grilled shrimp salad, the sole francaise, and the steak frites:

• Grilled shrimp salad with bibb lettuce, roasted fennel, carrots, onions, oranges, avocado, and cucumber yogurt dressing
• Sole francaise with Beluga lentils, broccolini, and lemon butter fried capers
• Steak frites with sauteed mushrooms and onions, seasoned fries, and blue cheese butter

There’s the hole!

Mac & cheese

The mac & cheese was my favorite of the entrees I tasted (disclaimer, I did not try the sole or the shrimp salad). In the chicken poutine dish, the chicken was a little dry but the polenta fries were yummy.

Dessert!

If I was full after the first course, I was super full after the entrees. But somehow I still managed to fit in some dessert. There’s a separate compartment in my stomach for dessert…well at least that’s what I like to tell myself. We ordered the valrhona chocolate cake and multiple orders of the vanilla soft serve with assorted toppings. The chocolate cake was flourless cake with coconut and cream cheese filling and cherry berry compote. There was some disagreement about the compote…some people loved it (this jam is #bae) and some people were unimpressed. Jerel and I shared a dish of the soft serve with bourbon-butterscotch and peanut butter cups. The yogurt was tasty but the bourbon-butterscotch was disappointing, mostly because we wanted MORE of it, and we wanted to taste more bourbon! A couple of smarties in the group requested a DIY order of the soft serve with the bacon cashew caramel corn on top…that was definitely a winning combination!

Great pick, Lorelei! We also learned a new hashtag, #bae, before anything else.

The damage
$75 per person (maximum of 5 credit cards per table)

The rundown
Ward 8
90 North Washington Street, Boston
@WARD8Bos