Category Archives: RC

Hello summer! For June we went to La Brasa, which was included on Food & Wine magazine’s May list of 8 Amazing New Grill Restaurants. Can you think of a better way to welcome summer?

La Brasa opened in late April, though it has been in the works for two years (and a dream for 15 years according to our server, Shyne). It is headed up by Chef Daniel Bojorquez and Chef Frank McLelland. It is not just a “Peruvian chicken” restaurant. The major unifying theme here is the grill. Everything is cooked over an open flame. And even the name, la brasa, means “ember” in Spanish. And yes, our adorable server’s name was Shyne, with a “y” according to my receipt.

It is a big space with big windows, good music (a lot of old school rap, so not everyone is likely to have the same opinion about the music), and comfortable bar stools. Claire liked the way it smelled. No one was a fan of the corporate bathroom…I did not experience it but I heard there was a fear of not being able to find the way back to the restaurant. There is also a market next store where some goat milk caramels and honey were acquired. Apparently the honey is from a protected bee colony in Somerville (or something like that). They also serve “drinks on tap” and a “Paloma for four”, which we ordered times two for the table. Mark appreciated the strong carbonation (crisp! effervescent!) and the proportions.

Meat cart!

Rib roast

I’m not sure how often they change or update the menu, but there were two handwritten additions: soft shell crab and an oyster po’ boy. We ordered both for the table to share as an appetizer. Of course whenever I see an oyster po’ boy on a menu, I can’t help but think of the amazing oyster slider at Island Creek Oyster Bar. They set a high bar over there. This oyster po’ boy was for sure not a slider – it came on a brioche bun and had some thick slices of crispy bacon. The soft shell crab came with chorizo and black eyed peas. We also ordered the Swiss chard pie (with Colorado chile, coddled farm fresh egg, Spanish ham, and piperade) as a starter, which is listed under “Vegetables” on the menu and was a Shyne recommendation. 

Hanger steak

For my entree, I was leaning toward the barbecued beef brisket (with charred green tomatillo barbeque sauce), but when two other people at the table ordered that, I changed my mind and decided to go with the La Brasa fried chicken (with escargot-brown butter vinaigrette, parsley and horseradish). Definitely a good decision…it was probably my favorite dish, and one of the most memorable as I think back on the meal. The pork milanese (which was bone-in and served with mushy peas) was a favorite for some people, as well as watercress salad in siracha vinaigrette with coriander and egg noodles, and the meat cart. The meat cart was table-side rib roast priced at $3.50 an ounce. Kim asked for 6 ounces, and he just happened to cut 9 ounces…which we took anyway. It was served with cilantro chimichurri and a veal demi-glace red wine reduction. The cilantro chimichurri was amazing…we had to ask for more! Btw, this whole cart thing must be the new hip thing to do at restaurants. 

Fried chicken

Lucky for us we got to try all of the beef dishes when a skirt steak (marinated in soy with snap peas, baby lettuces, and salmon roe) that we didn’t order arrived at our table disguised as the hanger steak. Ok, it was not really disguised, but Shyne told us it was the hanger steak so we dug in….whoops that was supposed to go to another table. I also enjoyed the grilled hanger steak (with tecate-braised farro and roasted green garlic) and the barbecued beef brisket that I came so close to ordering.

Watercress with “egg noodles”

Unfortunately, the desserts were underwhelming. We tried the butterscotch pudding (not very butterscotch-y), the triple cheese cheesecake with spiced stone fruit, and the market sweet-treats. The sweet treats were probably the best, and included a goat milk caramel, strawberry licorice, dark chocolate, and some sort of cookie.

Overall it was a great meal; great choice Kim! According to the wisdom of Julie, “The drinks were cold. The food was hot. Love that.” And Shyne shone…he was super fun to chat with and made great recommendations.

The damage
$90 per person

The rundown
La Brasa
124 Broadway, Somerville
@LaBrasaBoston

Ready for ramen!

For this month’s RC we headed to Sweet Cheeks for their ramen night…if you can manage to go out on a Monday night, I highly recommend it. You won’t find anything about it on their web site, but they will tweet about the ramen flavor o’ the day. We arrived by 8 and there was already a line (it’s always a good sign when there are lots of Asian kids lining up for ramen). Seating doesn’t start until nine, but the outdoor bar and shrimp chips helped to pass the time.

Teriyaki wings

Lucky for us the ramen of the week was fried chicken with house kimchi, soy sauce, egg, and “more yummy goodness”. The broth had been cooking for three days and we got to select a spice level (mild, medium, spicy)…I went with medium and it was just the right amount of spice for me. 

It is a limited ramen night menu, but luckily their amazing biscuits were still on the menu. Of course biscuits and ramen go together! Our server played a mean trick on us and told us they were out of the biscuits. Then he started laughing and said “Just kidding…that was so worth it!”. We also got shishito peppers, teriyaki wings, and smoked pork belly (which you order by the pound).

My favorite part was the fried chicken. And the broth. And the noodles. And the mushrooms. And the egg. Ok…I loved every part of it. It was absolutely delicious, and way better than dorm room ramen (per Julie Spanos).

Great pick Kendrin!

The damage
$32 each plus whatever drinks we ordered at the outside bar while waiting in line

The rundown
Sweet Cheeks Q
1381 Boylston Street, Boston MA
@sweetcheeksQ

“World famous” pickle pot

April was my month to pick our restaurant and I was Twitter-stalking two restaurants that were supposed to open in “early April”: Bostonia Public House and Bastille Kitchen. I was a little nervous that neither would open in time for the April 23rd date that I had chosen for RC, but thankfully Bostonia Public House opened its doors on April 17th. And then I was nervous about first week jitters. 

Yummy polenta fries

I arrived early and was able to snag one lone seat at the full bar. Maybe it was because the seat was on the corner, but I waited at least 10 minutes before I even made eye contact with a bartender. Since I was about an hour early, I did not bother to check in with the host about my 7 PM reservation – and little did I know that my fellow RC’ers also arrived early, checked in, and were seated. I drank wine, but I heard that the $14 cocktail was watered down.

Our server was very eager (perhaps over-eager) and perhaps tried to be a little too chummy with us. After asking him a few questions about the menu, our takeaway was that he claimed that everything on the menu was “world famous”, for example, the world famous pickle pot and the BPH burger (it’s not called a hamburger or a cheeseburger!). We found it hard to believe that *anything* was world famous (yet), since they’d only been open for a week.

(Undercooked) pork and (overcooked) beans

We started out with that world famous pickle pot, as well as Parmesan polenta fries, tater tot poutine, salt and pepper fries, warm lump crab dip with crispy potato chips, and the Berbere spiced pork ribs with almond quinoa. The pickle pot was more like an “onion pot” and we shared that constructive feedback to our server. He said that other people had said the same thing and he was going to take it off our check. The polenta fries were super yummy – light, truffle-y, airy and perfect. I also enjoyed the house-made crispy potato chips and the fries…we were there just two days after the marathon so I may have been in carb re-loading mode. The ribs would have been better if they had more seasoning (ie, more flavor), but the almond quinoa was so good that it would be great as a side on its own. 

Crab crusted cod

For the entrees, we tried the Berkshire pork loin (with “Bostonia” baked beans, apple fennel slaw, sherry reduction), Georges Bank scallops (with artichoke, merguez sausage, white beans, pequillo pepper, harissa oil), and the native MA crab crusted cod (with asparagus, leek & potato succotash). It’s not often we have multiple people order the same thing. I went with the cod because our server said it was their signature dish (I think he refrained from calling it “world famous”). I really liked it and would consider it the winner, but it was difficult to identify the crab in the “crab crusted” dish. The pork was too rare for Julie, even though she requested it to be not pink. Luckily it was a huge portion so she was able to eat around the edges of the pork slices. The consensus on the beans was that they were too smokey and overcooked. The scallops were good, though there were a lot of white beans…and they were the largest white beans I think I’ve ever seen.

Deconstructed Boston cream pie

Sweet potato doughnuts

For dessert we opted for the “Bostonia cream pie” (vanilla custard, chocolate ganache, almond sponge cake crumble) and the Berkshire bourbon glazed sweet potato doughnuts. It seemed out of season for the apple crisp and the milk and cookies didn’t sound that exciting. The quotes are very appropriate for the “Bostonia cream pie” as I think it is trying to be a deconstructed version of the traditional dessert, but I just thought it was odd. The doughnuts looked heavenly, until someone cut into one and said, “Wait, is this filling or is this raw dough?” After everyone at the table cut into one, and double-checking the menu description, we determined that it was indeed raw dough. More constructive feedback for the server and chef: your doughnut is raw. The server insisted we wait while they cooked up another batch and it was worth the wait…the doughnuts were delicious, especially the glaze. We may have tried to eat the glaze off the raw doughnuts while we waited for the second batch to cook.

There is a lot that’s good, and there is a lot that has potential. They do carbs and cod well but everything with crab was underrated, and definitely not “world famous”. There was also a theme of undercooked (pork, doughnuts) and overcooked (beans), but hopefully they will be able to work out those new restaurant kinks.

Table faves
Parmesan polenta fries
Almond quinoa (that was served with the pork ribs)
Native MA crab crusted cod
Berkshire bourbon glazed sweet potato doughnuts (the cooked ones)

The damage
$77 each (even with the comp’d pickle pot and sweet potato doughnuts)

The rundown
Bostonia Public House
131 State Street, Boston
@BostoniaPublic

Market cart

M.C. Spiedo (pronounced Spee-aido) is the newest venture by Mark Gaier and Clark Frasier. Mark and Clark are James Beard Best Chefs of the Northeast 2010 and the duo behind Arrows and MC Perkins Cove in Ogunquit, Maine. Also, I dare you to try saying “Mark and Clark” without smiling.

The inspiration behind the menu is the chefs love of the Italian Renaissance, especially the old world flavors of Florence, Bologna, and Venice. The restaurant is named for the style of spit-roasting or rotisserie cooking that was popular at that time. This apparently translates to “no sauce”.

Beautiful burrata

One of the other “concepts” of the restaurant is the “market cart”, which they bring table-side with a variety of items from their antipasti menu. This way you can have a little snack before you order. We snagged the deviled eggs, burrata, and prosciutto from the cart. But since we were a table of seven, we wanted two orders of everything and then had to wait for them to bring over the second order. We also decided to try the sparkling rose that was on the cart, but we wanted a bottle. So the cart concept didn’t work so well for us. And yes, the server did use the word “concept” when explaining all of this to us.

We were very intrigued by the meat pie, described as:

Grand Pie 

Pies such of these were served at the royal courts of central Italy and built to inspire and display culinary talent. Our pie is from original recipes of the time, and with its mixture of spices, sweet and savory flavors, it exemplifies the grand creations of this era.

Meat pie

Tagliatelle with guinea hen

We were going to order one pie for the table to share as an appetizer. Our server convinced us to order two (plus two additional Leonardo’s notebook salads) since the portion was “only” half a pie and each person would only get a couple of bites if we only ordered one. I guess she didn’t realize that we were also planning to order entrees and a few bites was all we really wanted. Also, “half a pie” is actually quite large. So one order would have been more than sufficient and I would not have missed the salad. Julie and I both wanted salt and pepper for the salad, which were nowhere to be found on the table and we felt bad asking. The meat pie was an interesting dish, with layers of meat and tortellini. As someone said, “I’ve never had tortellini in a crust before”. There was little sauce to be found, and the spices made it slightly sweet, which turned out to be a recurrent theme.

Schiacciatta pizza

Since we were up-sold on the meat pie, I liked that the pasta dishes had two size options. I also love to see homemade pasta on the menu! I ordered the half portion of M.C. tagliatelle with guinea hen, oranges, cipollini onion, almonds, and lacinato kale. I think it was too sweet and had a little too much going on. It was a telling sign when I didn’t feel like eating my leftovers the next day, because I heart leftovers! Two people ordered the spit roasted suckling pig with house sausage, shelling bean macaroni, and a farm egg which I heard needed more pig and more sauce. The tagliatelle Bolognese was reported to be perfect though. The lasagna was also sweet, but “delicious” and “really really good”…it might have been the winner (a toss-up between the lasagna and the meat pie).

For the non-pasta people, Leonardo’s veal burger (with Fontina cheese, prosciutto, and golden raisin mostarda) was dry and not memorable, though the French fries were delicious. The Schiacciatta pizza had a greasy crust, but otherwise Claire felt like she was in 18th century Italy. The walnut paste really looked like sausage. 

Chocolate hazelnut torte

We also ordered the oven baked crepes with gorgonzola dolce stuffing and arugula (under the small plates section of the menu) to share, which I really liked. The other sides were ordered were a bit underwhelming. The polenta fries were yummy and came with housemade ketchup, though the jury was out on the housemade ketchup…I didn’t really like it but some people enjoyed it. The brick oven Brussels sprouts “look like they’ve been beaten to death”.

For dessert (where I like my sweets), we tried the chocolate hazelnut torte and the orange granita with anise seed cookies.

Overall, except for the company, everything was a little too sweet. Sweet pick Mark!

The damage
$70 each

The rundown
M.S. Spiedo
606 Congress Street, Boston
@MCSpiedo

C’s vs. Raptors

A special thank you to guest blogger Mark Douglass for writing this month’s RC post! I couldn’t make it this month because I was recovering from going to the Celtics game the previous night, and since I have no photos of RC to share, I am sharing my fabulous view of the game from one of the executive suites. I also have attempted (and failed) to go to Society on High — the bar was full and the restaurant was hosting a private event the night I went. It doesn’t sound like I need to keep this restaurant “on my list” of places to check out.

We definitely closed the restaurant…in a chairs already stacked on the tables kind of way. To maximize our Paetra time, we headed next door to the Joe Sent Me pub for a post-dinner drink.

Joe Sent Me

Thanks to Paetra for a fun night and a great restaurant pick. And so we say goodbye to another year of RC, which marks the end of our eighth (yes 8!!!) year. Amazing. Looking forward to kicking off 2014 with our newest member, Sonia Shah.

The damage
$40ish???

The rundown
Greek Corner
2366 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge

First dance

Musicians

•  Pulled lamb nachos with apple salsa
• Grilled octopus & baby artichoke with parsley sauce
• Smokey chipotle BBQ spare ribs
• Little gem wedge salad with bacon, blue cheese vinaigrette

Grilled octopus

Lamb nachos

BBQ Spare ribs

Little gem wedge salad

Blackened shrimp

Braised beef brisket

Skirt steak

Earth bowl

Chicken piccata

Mussels frites

Bread pudding

Chocolate peanut butter cake

The rundown
Beat Hotel
13 Brattle Street, Cambridge

Down & Brown and cheddar roll

Charcuterie and bites

Branzino

Siracha burger

House-made pappardelle

Roast chicken

Beets

Sprouts and späetzle

Chocolate cake

Pear tart

Pumpkin ice cream

Although we were all happy with the food, we were a bit surprised by the bill. The damage: $83/head. This was largely because of the sides. They recommend 1.5 sides/person (um, we love to eat, and even we thought this is overkill). Good business model for them, but I don’t think it was worth the dent in our pockets (especially when you know that Blue Dragon is just around the corner).

KT&T

In a late-breaking decision by Julie Spanos, RC went to the Kirkland Tap and Trotter during its opening week. In the former space Kirkland Café, which closed in 2007, Chef Tony Maws opened his new restaurant on September 16th. The Kirkland Tap and Trotter is his “inviting and funky interpretation of a neighborhood joint” where the food is “simple, hearty and approachable”.

Can you spot Tony Maws?

This of course begs the question of what he decided to do about the “Craigie burger” he has become so famous for? Per Boston magazine, there will be a rotating burger on the menu, which doesn’t lock him into just one kind of burger. One person ordered the burger, which unfortunately came out a little undercooked for her liking.

It’s a cozy space and a small-ish menu. Our table for seven was seated at a long picnic table – a little awkward to manage in a skirt or dress…but I think I managed to scoot in without flashing the restaurant.

I know I’m a little biased because appetizers are usually my favorite part of a meal, but I was a big fan of the appetizers we ordered. The brussel sprouts and corn were specials on the chalkboard that evening. We loved the liver spaghetti so much that we ordered a second round of it. We also went through three rounds of bread to soak up the yummy broth from the mussels.

La Quercia speck, pear, mâche, miso-mustard

Maine mussels, toasted garlic, saffron, herbs

House-made spaghetti, chicken liver, pumpkin, brown butter

Grilled corn

Grilled Brussel sprouts with duck fat

After all that yumminess, I was pretty full by the time our entrées came. There were three specials, but unfortunately the grilled pork porterhouse was 86’d before any of us could order it. That was actually my first choice because I kind of felt like ordering the chicken would be kind of boring. Lucky Wanda got the last grassfed ribeye, with grilled avocado and a super heavy duty knife.

Grilled ribeye special

The table also ended up ordering one burger, veal ribs times three, a chicken, and a choucroute. I did decide to go with the chicken, which was delicious and super juicy (my preferred alternative to the “m” word) – super not boring. It did not come with the claw foot that was pictured on the restaurant’s web site and I felt fine about that.

Fire-roasted 1/2 chicken, rapini, jus

Luckily my friends are good sharers, and I got to taste the homemade pickles that came with the burger, the ribeye, and the veal ribs.

Grass-fed cheeseburger, provolone, horseradish cream

The three orders of veal ribs all looked a bit different with regard to portion size, but they also seemed to have different amounts of fat. The quote of the night, à la Julie Spanos…”Did I eat my fat? I might have. I’m worried about that now.”

Beer-braised veal ribs, cabbage, potato

And since there is ALWAYS room for dessert, we got one of each! I think the boozy peaches were the clear winner in the dessert round.

Rawson Brook Farm fresh goat cheese, boozy white peaches

Market fruit crisp, walnut streusel, vanilla bean ice cream

Taza chocolate tarte, bourbon cream

I think if I lived closer, I would want to be a regular here. Great pick Julie!

The damage
$78 each

The rundown
Kirkland Tap and Trotter
425 Washington Street, Somerville
@tapandtrotter