Category Archives: RC

Thanks to Claire Blais for providing the post this month for RC.

GUEST BLOGGER ALERT! Kara chose to be a responsible human being and spent August RC night working with her group on a school project, so I volunteered to write the blog post for this month.  I offer the unique perspective of being terrified of the main entrée: traditional Peking duck (which you have to pre-order).

Quack, quack

ChinaKing in Chinatown is renowned for its Peking duck, which they present whole according to Chinese tradition, then return to the kitchen for preparation three ways: duck tacos, homemade udon noodles stir fried with duck, and duck/tofu soup.

• Peking raviolis
• Scallion pie
• Pan fried wontons
• Jellyfish
• Beef tendon
• Fried rice
• Beef, Pepper, Onion Chow Foon
• Bean sprouts with pork
• Fried pork chops
• Bok choy

Duck ready to be tacos

Ray “painting” his tacos

The damage
$23 each – might be an RC record! (bring cash, it’s also BYO wine)

The rundown
China King (no web site, but here are links to reviews in Boston magazine, Boston Globe, and Yelp)
60 Beach Street, Boston

July RC found us on my side of the river, at Puritan & Company in Inman Square. I have been a fan of Garden at the Cellar for a long time, so I was excited about checking out Wil Gilson’s (fairly) new place. Puritan & Company describes itself as serving modern American cuisine, “with particular emphasis on traditional New England fare”.

I loved the space (and the wine list), but unfortunately they have some issues with the air conditioning and we went on a super HHH (hazy, hot, humid) day. It was a bit uncomfortable, to say the least.

Behind the bar

We ordered oysters to start, two kinds that I cannot remember. I think they were both Wellfleet, but don’t quote me on that. We all definitely had a preference for one over the other. Julie thought the one we didn’t like was bitter. Our other appetizers included cherry tomatoes & stracciatella, roasted beets, smoked duck rillette, and heirloom grain risotto (which is a main dish). The portions were small and the plates were very pretty, which is not typically what I would expect for “traditional New England fare”…I guess that’s the “modern” side.

Cherry tomatoes & stracciatella with basils, sunflower, sourdough

Roasted beets with farmer’s cheese, arugula, pistachio

I surprised myself by actually liking the duck. I always remember how much my grandfather loved duck, but it’s not something I would tend to order. Ah RC, so good at making us try new things.

Smoked duck rillette with pumpernickel, whole grain mustard

We couldn’t wait to dig into that risotto…everything was delicious, but if I had to pick a favorite, I think that would be the winner.

Heirloom grain risotto with peas, mustard greens, lemon, parmesan

For dinner I ordered the chicken, which was very enthusiastically described by our server as chicken three ways. The breast was torqued with the skin on, the thigh was deboned, and the drumstick was brined and then fried. She had me at fried. This dish sold out, so it must be pretty popular. I cleaned my plate, but was wishing there were more veg.

Free-range chicken with sunchokes, brussels, fingerlings

The other entrées ordered were the scallops and the lamb…yum yum yum.

Seared dayboat scallops with zucchini, brown butter, amaranth

Assiette of lamb with peas, carrots, potato, lamb jus

For dessert we ordered a “cherries jubilee” special dessert. It wasn’t really cherries jubilee, but I didn’t pay attention to what it actually was. Bitter, smoky, cornbready, and savory were all adjectives used to describe it…which probably doesn’t help you figure out what it was! Whatever it was, it was not nearly as delicious as the milk chocolate pots de crème. I loved the salted caramel crunch topping!

Milk chocolate pots de crème with salted caramel, honey, hazelnut

Great pick Kim!

The damage
$89 each

The rundown
Puritan & Company
1166 Cambridge Street, Cambridge

June RC kind of snuck up on all of us…but we were lucky enough to have a special guest (Dave) and to celebrate the Lawson’s last RC. The restaurant, jm Curley, was rated #32 on the Eater 38 Essential Boston Restaurants list (January 2013), and written up as “an industry approved classic”. Sounds like our kind of place.

It also has some great rules, including:

• No loud shrieking, shouting, bellowing, whining, barking, nose blowing, flatulence or obnoxious cellphone use.
• No groping, grab ass, mauling, sucking face, canoodling or heavy petting.
• It’s food and drink, not life and death. Don’t take yourself too seriously, we don’t.
• …Just don’t be a douchebag.

We started with the free stuff..sarsaparilla beer nuts and tropical gingerbread popcorn with coconut (hands down the most delicious free popcorn we’ve ever tasted).

Free snacks!

For appetizers we ordered the cast iron cornbread (with butter, honey, black pepper), the cast iron mac & cheese (with cottrell old yankee ale, cabot sharp white), the fried pickles, and the beet doritos. I was excited for the beet doritos since I am committed to figuring out how to make beet chips this summer. However comma, I didn’t fully read the description and the beet doritos were actually corn tortillas with beet powder, citric acid, salt, & “the things that make chips great”. The mac & cheese was super cheesy, delicious, and filling…perfect for sharing. 

Mac & cheese

The cornbread was very ______ (insert the “m” word that I dislike). 

Juicy cornbread

Three of the six of us (including me) ordered the burger, which is a 9 oz natural angus burger with cheddar, griddled onions, pickles, pop’s russian, and fries. They do a daily burger special, but we all decided to go with the “regular” version.

Burger-licious

The other entrees were the porterhouse pork chop, mussels and the pickled-deviled eggs (two appetizers), and the house cured salmon sliders and fries (also two appetizers).

Mussels

Salmon sliders, side o’ fries

jm Curley, getting it done à la Mayor James Michael Curley. Great pick, Kendrin!

The damage
$44 each (including tip)

The rundown
jm Curley
21 Temple Place, Boston

Last month we experienced Asian tapas in Chinatown Shōjō, and this month (my pick!) I decided to take the club for Spanish tapas in Brookline. In the space formerly occupied by American Craft (and Roadhouse before that) Barcelona Wine Bar opened fairly recently.

You can study your pig parts at the bar

I arrived early and decided to have a glass of wine at the bar, which was accompanied by a complimentary order of arancini (a fried Italian rice ball) with truffle honey. Who doesn’t like free? I’d say dinner was off to a great start!

Free arancini and delish wine

For large parties they offer three prix fixe options in addition to the regular menu: tapas alone ($35), tapas plus paella and mixed grill ($45), or tapas plus paella and mixed grill plus charcuterie ($55). We decided to go for the $45 option and then order some charcuterie from the regular menu, which is more economical because the meat+cheese is $17.50 for three choices. We are so frugal! And at the end of the night, they ended up giving us the charcuterie for free, which was a lovely surprise.

Meat+cheese

We are all very good eaters, so we were worried that there wouldn’t be enough food with the prix fixe option – that was not something we needed to be concerned about. The tapas were amazing and we were pretty full after that. I think we would have been just fine with the $35 option. For a party of nine, they brought out three of each tapas dish. We started with mixed Spanish olives and spicy eggplant caponata. I think even an eggplant hater would have liked this eggplant dish. Up next was bunuelos de bacalao (salt cod fritters), truffled “bikini” (grilled ham and cheese), and kale salad. I was so confused by the name of the grilled cheese, but it turned out to be my favorite dish of the night. The kale salad was cold and oily. 

Truffled “bikini”

The last round of tapas included broccolini (which I loved), chorizo and sweet-sour figs, whipped sheep’s cheese with pistachios and smoked paprika, grilled hangar steak with black truffle vinaigrette, and crispy calamari with smoked pepper aioli. The hangar steak was my second favorite dish of the night.

Broccolini

Whipped sheep’s cheese

Hangar steak

And after that, came our main courses…because we were still SO hungry (not). Mariscos paella (with prawns, squid, clams and mussels) and the Barcelona mixed grill (with NY strip, chicken, pork chop, gaucho sausage)…we sent some great leftovers home!

Barcelona mixed grill

Mariscos paella

Despite how full we were, there is always room for a little sweet and we got sugar cookies with dulce de leche for dessert. There is room for improvement on the presentation of the dessert, but it tasted delicious.

Sugar cookie sandwiches

The damage
$78 per person

The rundown
Barcelona Wine Bar
1700 Beacon Street, Brookline

RC had a baby! Congrats to Denise and Mitch, and a big welcome to Capri Olivia Lawson who was born on March 26, 2013.

Sunny Capri!

And this month we headed to Chinatown, but not your typical Boston Chinatown restaurant. Great pick Mark!

The cocktails are handcrafted (they make the infused liquors), unique, and delicious. My drink of choice was the Purple Heart (blueberry infused vodka, St. Germain, lemon). They also play old kung fun movies on a tv behind the bar.

We started with small plates…many of them, possibly almost everything on the menu:

• Tempura housemade pickles with whole grain mustard aioli
• Warm glass noodle salad with toasted peanuts, chicken, lime chili vinaigrette
• Suckling pig bao with smoked bbq sauce, homemade kimchi
• BBQ pork rib with sweet chili glaze, frisee fennel salad,
• Szechuan pork stuffed calamari with soy-ginger tomato sauce
• Duck fat hand-cut fries with sriracha aioli
• Salt and pepper calamari with gremolata, roasted pepper aioli
• XO fresh corn with soy, housemade XO sauce

My favorites were the warm glass noodle salad, the calamari, and the ribs. Yum. I was super excited for the corn, but wasn’t a big fan. We were hoping to try the Damn! Damn!! Noodles!!!, but they are only on the lunch menu.

Warm glass noodle salad

Salt and pepper calamari

After all of the small plates, I wasn’t even that hungry for an entree, but I still managed to enjoy the pulled pork ravioli. I was definitely a member of the clean plate club…delish! My fellow RC’ers ordered the steak frites (with kimchi butter and lemongrass-infused demi-glaze), the pistachio crusted tuna steak (with wasabi risotto, honey-soy glaze, and pumpkin croutons), and the pan-seared salmon (with dashi glaze, crisp Japanese eggplant, and miso mustard). I believe the Japanese eggplant was substituted out for spinach by someone who is anti-eggplant.

Char siu pulled pork ravioli with house smoked bacon, Chinese celery, and shaved Pecorino

The only dessert on the menu was something called “chocolate sesame balls”. Lucky for us they had a special 4:20 dessert, a brownie with toasted hemp seeds, Ben and Jerry’s half-baked ice cream, and whipped cream.

4:20 dessert

The damage
$63 each

The rundown
Shōjō
9A Tyler Street, Boston

This month we headed to Farmstead Table in Newton, a cute little place right by the Newton Centre T stop. The space was hot, as in temperature hot, and our server didn’t seem to find us very amusing. He was very very anxious to take our order, but then kind of disappeared once he took the order. He even forgot to bring the bottle of wine that we ordered, and said he thought we wanted it with our entrées. Perhaps he was new or having a bad day…I’d give him a pass.

My winner in the appetizer round was the crispy calamari with Eva’s pea greens, lemon aioli, and chili oil. We also tried the homemade potato gnocchi, the farm greens salad, and the golden beet carpaccio.

Crispy salt-and-white-pepper calamari

I had the day-boat fish for an entrée, which was haddock with parsnip puree, white asparagus, mushrooms and pea greens. I kind of stopped listening after the server said “parsnip puree”.

Day-boat haddock

Two people were torn between the grilled Delmonico steak (with mashed potato, haricots verts, cabernet demi) and the lamb burger (with salsa verde, goat cheese, brioche roll, and salad of curly spinach, pickled beets, and walnuts), so they decided to share. The kitchen split the dishes for them, and that small but thoughtful gesture never fails to impress (for me anyway). The word at the table was that the cow was mightier than the lamb. I also heard that the herb-basted roast chicken (with roasted baby sweet potato, shitake greens, roasted chicken jus) was “bland”.

We also ordered a couple “For the Table” items, the curry-fried chick peas and the red beet pickles. I wanted the pickled beets to be a little more sour, and our server to be a little more sweet. But I guess not everyone can be as charming as Ming Tsai (no post last month, I was so bummed to have to miss RC at Blue Dragon). But the fried chick peas might have been my favorite part of the meal. Who knew you could fry a chick pea? And I loved the little Le Creuset dishes they arrived in!

Curry-fried chick peas

As I write this more than one week after we went, I am finding it hard to remember anything about the desserts. Based on photographic evidence, I know we ordered three desserts:

• Caramelized apple bread pudding with ginger essence caramel, vanilla bean ice cream, and walnuts
• Banana almond tart with brown butter filling, caramelized bananas, butter almond ice cream, and lime zest
• Sea salt baklava with pistachios and almonds, orange blossom honey, and apricot sorbet

Baklava

The damage
$66 each

The rundown
Farmstead Table
71 Union Street, Newton

We kicked off our eighth year of RC at Hops n Scotch, the former home of Finale in Coolidge Corner. They aim to “satisfy people’s hunger for life’s simple pleasures” and have more than 80 varietals of beer (including 40 taps) and more than 100 scotch, whiskeys, and bourbons. I tried a Mayflower porter and then switched to wine (a nice big glass of Picket Fence pinot noir from the Russian River Valley).

Since I can never pick just one, my three favorite appetizers were the house made beer bread (griddled Allagash White beer bread with house pimento cheese), the black eyed pea hummus served with house made potato chips, and the pecan stuffed dates wrapped with bacon. I also liked the seared scallops with cilantro lime pesto. The hush puppies were kind of dry, and I could have lived without them.

Beer bread

Never turn down a hot date

For my entree, I ordered the beer braised short ribs with mashed potatoes and green beans. It was not amazing, mostly because it was so salty. In the words of Julie Spanos, “it’s weird that the green beans are saltier than the French fries.” I might have had a little plate envy for the grilled cheese. It’s made on Texas toast and comes with cheddar cheese or pimento cheese (ask for both!), onion jam, carrot soup, and house made chips.

Grilled cheese and carrot soup

Other entrees ordered were the grilled chicken club sandwich (minus the club), the catfish po’boy, beef stew, and shrimp etouffee. For dessert, it was a unanimous decision to go with the homemade brownie.

A fun and yummy pick, Mitch…welcome (officially) to the club!

The damage
$44 per person

The rundown
Hops n Scotch
1306 Beacon Street, Brookline

December RC was quite an adventure, and I dedicate it to our dear friend Eric, who is one of the founding RC members. I still remember hatching this idea with him, and seven years later we’re still going strong. Though he can’t make it in person since moving to DC, he is with us in spirit every month.

I can’t lie, I might have had a sneak preview of First Printer, well maybe two sneak previews. But neither of the previous times were quite as memorable. The evening started out with the restaurant having no record of the reservation Rob made over a month ago. He had reserved the “vault”, a private space in the back, but since they claimed to not have our reservation, the vault was booked by a book club. Luckily they were still able to accomodate us at a regular table, and the server tried to redeem them by buying our first round of drinks.

For appetizers we ordered the hushpuppie of the day (which were salmon, and just ok), the mussels, and the fried chicken and waffles. We also got some $1 Island Creek oysters. They serve $1 oysters after 10 PM and our server said she could “pretend it was after 10″…I think she was still trying to win our favor after the reservation mix-up. I liked the idea of the mussels in theory (Pretty Things Jack D’Or, house ground chorizo, garlic confit, tomato confit, charred cipollini onions, and grilled bread), but in reality they weren’t my favorite…though others at the table seemed to really enjoy them. The chicken and waffles (buttermilk fried chicken, maple bourbon butter, homemade marmalade), which is an entree, was probably the highlight of the meal for me. That was some pretty delicious fried chicken.

Sweet and salty fried goodness

For my entree I was sold on the lobster roll after being informed that the restaurant has a lobster tank, so anything with lobster is super fresh and cooked to order. The lobster roll was tasty, but nontraditional (there was mustard in it) and impossible to pick up to eat.

Lobster roll with two ginormous pieces of bread

Other entree orders included

• Pan Seared Atlantic Cod & Root Vegetables (rainbow carrots, yellow ahd chioggia beets, turnips, parsnips, daikon radish)
• Pan Seared Scallops (butter bean, edamame succotash & piquillo pepper vinaigrette)
• Grilled Shrimp & Grits (sharp cheddar grits, spiced lobster jus) — they fly the grits in from South Carolina, and apparently they should also need to fly in some salt
• Sweet Lobster Chowder (fresh local lobster, new potatoes, corn, chive)
• Vegetable Conscious Flatbread (mascarpone spread, roasted mushrooms, caramelized onions, charred peppers, augula, and chili oil) — this is what I’ve had both previous times I was here, and I’m two for two in thinking it is weird that it is called “Vegetable Couscous”

The excitement really started when the fire alarms went off, which might be a fairly regular occurrence based on the not surprised reaction of the staff. Luckily we were just about finished with our entrees, though not our wine. Since everyone in the restaurant had to go outside and wait for the fire trucks to come, they gave us paper soup cups so that we could finish our wine outside while we waited for the alarms to get turned off. Two fire trucks arrived with several fire-people and yet they could not seem to figure out how to turn off the alarms. By this time we had finished our wine and wanted to leave so we settled our check outside, and they did not do anything to compensate for the inconvenience of the fire alarms.

Fire trucks!

The damage:$52 per person (complimentary first round of beverages)

The rundown:
First Printer
15 Dunster Street, Cambridge

Why is an unassuming little diner/restaurant in Watertown that’s been around for 25 years all of a sudden getting so much buzz? It made Boston’s top 50 this year and was written up in Bon Appetit. The answer, I presume, is the new Executive Chef Tim Maslow. Maslow the younger moved back from NYC (where he was working under David Chang at Momofuku Ssam Bar) to take over Maslow the elder’s restaurant Strip T’s. So of course we had to check it out.

View from our table

The restaurant is tiny, which also (I assume) makes the kitchen tiny. With a table of 11, our server warned us in advance that the appetizers might not come out all at once, which was fine with us. My favorite appetizer was the grilled romaine with oxtail. It’s something I would never have ordered on my own, but I’m so glad that I tried it.

Grilled romaine with oxtail, poached egg, and chili vin

I also really liked the fried Japanese sweet potato wedges and the clam toast. The clam toast didn’t look that pretty, and we had to turn to our friend Google to figure out what guajillo was (it’s a chili pepper), but it was yummy though a bit salty.

Clam toast with spaghetti squash, guajillo, and crab oil vin

We also got the bay scallops (confusing) and a dozen Wellfleet oysters with seasonal garnish. I don’t remember what the seasonal garnish was, but I wasn’t a big fan.

Charred Nantucket bay scallops with papdi, dates, and yogurt

Back to the small kitchen phenomenon, about half of the entrees came out luke-warm, unfortunately. Claire and I shared the skirt steak and the mussels. I ordered the skirt steak medium rare and apparently Claire got the perfectly cooked half, but I still enjoyed it.

Grilled skirt steak with pears, turnips, and mustard

Steamed PEI mussels with potato puree and crispy herbs

I overhead that the tilefish had “too much going on”, and the boudin was flavorful but very spicy. I also tried a bite of the fish n’ chips and that was delish.

• Fish n’ chips with coleslaw, tartar, and French fries
• Roasted golden tilefish with kohlrabi, fried clams, eggplant, and pistachio
• Creole boudin with etoufee, scallops, and root vegetables

I was underwhelmed by dessert, but I often am. We ordered the brownie, mocha chocolate cake and apple cider donut. The donut, specifically the donut hole, was my favorite.

Apple cider donut (hole) with white chocolate, apples, and cheddar

My least favorite part of the meal was our server. As someone who worked in restaurants for many years, I have great empathy for servers everywhere and I also understand how hard it can be to manage a large party. However comma, our server’s downfall was her completely condescending attitude, not her attentiveness, and this really tarnished the whole experience. The thing that really put us over the edge was how we ended up with two more bottles of wine toward the end of the meal. There were two people who had been “in charge” of ordering wine, and she went to each of those people separately to ask if we wanted another bottle. She got confirmation from both and proceeded to bring and open two bottles without mentioning that someone else had already ordered a bottle. Since we were all drinking the same wine, it felt like we got duped into ordering an extra bottle.

Great pick Claire, even if it was your second choice and our server got two thumbs down…and now my number is up to 27 (of the top 50 restaurants)!

The damage:
$66 each (not bad considering we had 5 bottles of wine)

The rundown:
Strip T’s
93 School Street, Watertown

This month we dusted off our passports and headed to Roslindale for a little “R ‘N’ R”: Redd’s in Rozzie. It opened in 2011 and I’d call it comfort-y food. They call themselves “Rozzie’s original spot for local, tasty, smooth, and refreshing.”

We missed Paetra, but we also officially initiated a new person into the coveted twelfth spot…welcome to Mitch, officially! We’re looking forward to his first RC pick in January.

We started with deviled eggs, crispy avocado, hush puppies with sweet onion and bacon ragout, and the pickle plate. I asked everyone what their favorite was and it seemed to be a tie between the pickle plate and the deviled eggs. The pickles are house-made and super yummy. In the words of Kendrin, “if I could make pickles like that I might get stomach cancer.” Mitch’s favorite “appetizer” was the butter, which was also delish. I think we went through about four baskets of bread. There were also a couple of votes for the crispy avocados, which just barely edged out the others as my favorite.

Who knew you could fry an avocado?

For entrees, I ordered the Half-roasted Chicken Americana, which came with biscuit stuffing and ginger carrots and gravy. I also shared a side of the of buttermilk mashed potatoes with a friend, because I really have a hard time resisting mashed potatoes. A basic dish, but I think because I am bad at cooking chicken, I can really appreciate when someone does it well. Plus it was great the next day for lunch.

Roast chicken

A couple of other dishes that ended up in the “clean plate club” were the Scallops Trainwreck 1887 and the Marinated Hanger Steak.

Scallops with a wreckage of vegetables

Hanger steak with buttermilk mashed potatoes

Other entrees that were ordered:

• Pollock (which I think is replacing the Cornbread Crusted Hake on the menu)
• Redd’s Southern All-Star Paella which was topped with a big ol’ piece of fried chicken
• Wood Roasted Pork Loin
• Whole flounder (this was a special)

We also got to celebrate Mark and Jimmy’s wedding anniversary, with some cupcakes from Georgetown Cupcake. When you celebrate your birthday, the staff puts on nacho libre masks and sings to you. Unfortunately we couldn’t get them to do that for Mark and Jimmy, but we still sang to them. I had a carrot cake cupcake, and apparently didn’t get the memo that we were sharing our cupcakes until after I had already finished mine…whoops!

Happy anniversary!

The damage:
$42 per person (and the bill came with mini peanut butter lime cookies!)

The rundown:
Redd’s in Rozzie
4257 Washington Street, Roslindale

Georgetown Cupcake
83 Newbury Street, Boston