December RC – Yvonne’s

70% of the RC crew

December marks the close of a decade of Restaurant Club. To commemorate and celebrate, we headed to an early bird, Saturday evening, holiday edition of RC at Yvonne’s, which just opened in September. And Boston magazine has called it Boston’s most instagrammable new restaurant. If it is still open in 2027, it is likely where we will go back for our reunion month. Yvonne’s took over the space of the iconic Locke-Ober, which was open from 1875 to 2012. As Locke-Ober, I missed my chance to go…and by missed, I mean I could not seem to get my butt there in the 12 years that I was living in Boston while it was still open. My bad.

Table crack

I wish I had been able to record all of the conversations during the meal. Apparently on Saturdays we are funnier. Here’s a few of my favorite quotes of the evening, and the dishes that inspired them.

“What kind of restaurant is this?” “Hodgepodge”

Yvonne’s calls itself a “modern supper club.” What the heck is a supper club? Wikipedia’s answer is that it is a dining establishment that also functions as a social club. More recently the term has been used for secret, underground restaurants. The space itself is really beautiful. We had a drink in the library room, which has a separate cocktail menu from the main restaurant and bar. The shelves are chock-full of books and there is cool and interesting artwork on the walls…Clint, Jackie O, JFK, and Marilyn to name a few.

Hush puppies and provoleta

“Would you like a 95 dollar cocktail?” “Ok”
“$95 for crack seems like a good deal”

Farro and arugula salad

The cocktail menu includes what they call “large format cocktails.” There are four options, each for $95. We ordered the Crack krakatuk which was privateer and foursquare rums, calvados, smoked cinnamon, lemon, and champagne. It came in a very large bowl with a spigot so we could help ourselves. Luckily we had an extra empty spot at our table for seven, and that’s where the punch bowl got to spend the evening.

Other fun cocktail-related things to note: the 1989 cocktail is totes named after T. Swift and the champagne glasses are very sexy.

“I’m a very abnormal person, like the restaurant.”

“We’re weird about portion sizes. Everything is either too small or too big.”
The menu is divided into five sections: Snacks, Toast, Stone Fired pitas, Social plates, and Feasts. The food arrived in that order too, just fyi, since I’m going to be talking about things out of order.

Pork belly

From the Snacks section, we tried the Buttermilk hush puppies and the Provoleta, which was skillet cheese with Liz’s chimichurri, and grilled bread. I liked the bite of melty cheese I got to try…they were not kidding when they called it a snack (though we were trying to share things seven ways). And remember, I’m not too hard to please when it comes to cheese and bread. I could live without the hush puppies.

More hamachi toast please!

Skipping ahead to the Social plates, we ordered the Seared king trumpet mushrooms, the Farro and arugula salad, and the Pork belly “sisig.” The salad was the most memorable of these dishes for me, and I’m not just saying that because a summery version of it was recently listed by Zagat as one of the “10 best thing we ate in Boston in 2015.” That salad had corn, farro, smoked blue cheese, pickled peach, and pistachio. Our salad had farro, arugula, butternut squash, smoked blue cheese, pickled apple, and pistachio. Yum.

“Another order of hamachi toast? No?”

Lamb sausage pita

From the Toast section, we pitted the Kentucky “prosciutto” against the Hamachi crudo. Those quotes around “prosciutto” are theirs, not mine, probably because it was a toast with Father’s country ham, beer cheese, and pickled onion. Italians everywhere might have just died a little inside. The hamachi crudo came with avocado, passion fruit brown butter, and porky cashews. Hamachi toast for the win…I loved it and I think the table was pretty unanimous.

“It’s not an Asian thing” (said by an Asian)

Avocado pita

Two out of three Asians at the table preferred the lamb sausage pita over the avocado pita and since I was one of the two and this is my blog, I get to say that I thought lamb sausage > avocado. The lamb sausage had spicy tomato sauce, zucchini, harissa-fennel pickles, yogurt and feta. I do think it suffered from a shortage or uneven distribution of lamb, which may be way most of the rest of the table thought avocado > lamb sausage. The avocado  had oregano, Robinson family Swiss, cherry tomatoes, garlic oil, arugula, and pistachios. Now don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t turn the avocado away, it just wasn’t as memorable for me. Also, if you’re wondering about “pita,” think flatbread.

“These meats and starches are delicious”
“It’s not fat, it’s flavor”
“You know it’s good when you’re eating off the tablecloth”

Beef matambre

And then we come to the Feasts, which are for 2+ persons and range from $70-110. They are big (and they come on really beautiful platters) so I’d say you’d want at least four people in on that action…or be prepared to take a lot of leftovers home. We went with the Grilled beef matambre and the Grilled “viper” chop.

The beef matambre was a red chile, salami and provolone stuffed flank steak that came with chimichurri, Parmesan polenta, and rib sauce. The chimichurri sauce was so good we had to order another bowl of it. Oh and the steak and polenta were quite tasty too.

Pork “viper” chop

The “viper” chop was a 24-hour pork short rib that came with kimchee fried rice, spicy “Muchim” sauce, crispy shallot, and sesame. The pork was pretty fatty…I mean flavorful. But the winner for me was definitely the rice. It was amazing, and we wanted to eat every last grain, even if it was on the tablecloth. We were told that kimchee juice was the secret ingredient.

“Joanne Chang’s homemade oreo is way better.”
The service declined a bit once Joanne Chang and Christopher Myers arrived to a cozy corner booth for six. I get it. They’re kind of a big deal and I would want to make sure their dining experience was tip-top priority too. Since I had a great view of their table, I did notice that they ordered the same $95 crack that we did, as well as the sparkling rose that some of us were drinking. 

Dessert spread

Unfortunately, the desserts themselves were also kind of a letdown compared to the rest of the meal. We ordered one of each, which included a few regular-size and several snack-size desserts. They were so unmemorable that I don’t really even remember what they were…I do remember a boozy choco taco (that I didn’t like), a cookie that reminded me of a Christmas cookie, and homemade oreos. And yes, Joanne Chang’s homemade oreo is way better. My advice, skip dessert and eat more meats and starches, especially that rice!

And that’s a wrap on RC for 2015…great pick Jimmy!

The damage
$131 per person

The rundown
Yvonne’s
2 Winter Place, Boston
@yvonnesboston