Restaurant Week

~ A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart who looks at her watch. ~

I am trying very hard to become a gourmet. Boston's Restaurant Week (or two) has helped me toward my goal. In every season (or so it seems) there is a "restaurant week" here in Beantown, where numerous restaurants all over the metropolitan area have special menus: for lunch, two courses for $15, for dinner, three for $33. You pick each course from a pre-set menu, which can often be found on the aforementioned website. This past week, I have gone out to eat four times, three of which were at restaurants participating in Restaurant Week (let it not be said that I wasted my spring break).

On Wednesday, I went to a lecture about Renoir at the MFA which was delightful, especially because the lecturer, the curator at the Frick in NYC, was British. Doesn't really matter what's being said, I'm happy to listen to a Brit talk for an hour. Not that the lecture wasn't interesting because it was fascinating, but I was talking about eating copious amounts of food. SO. After the lecture, my darling friend and I headed to Brasserie Jo, right across from the Prudential Center. It was late (8:30pm) so the place was nearly empty. It was cute, though, with a Parisian cafe look about it. I ordered the grilled octopus (appetizer), the suckling pig (entree), and the baba rum (dessert). The octopus was interesting, much more dense than squid and with a fishier flavor. The sauce for it was delicious, as were the banana (?) chips that were on top. My suckling pig had a strange flavor, which might be because I was expecting something Asian, as I'd never had suckling pig outside of Asia. The Boyfriend, when sampling the leftovers, said it tasted like Italian porchetta, which was a fairly accurate statement. It was good, just not what I was expecting. The baba rum, a type of rum cake, had pineapple on top and was most excellent. Overall, on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd rate this place at a 6. Not a crazy fan, and probably wouldn't go back to pay regular prices.

On Thursday, I went with a large group of friends to Dante. On my scale, this was a 9.5. It was outstanding. The service was excellent and the food was divine. I had gotten there early, and along with two other friends who were on time, we waited for two more members of our party. The waiter didn't seem to care that we were just sitting there, though we did order to extra (off the RW menu) appetizers (calamari and arancini, both excellent). When our friends did arrive, we took forever to order, but once we did, everything came out in good time. I ordered spaghetti carbonara (appetizer), parmesean-crusted veal (entree), and a chocolate tart (dessert). Everything was superb. The Boyfriend got some kind of steak and it was so tender and flavorful it practically melted in your mouth. The other dessert offered was panna cotta, which was also perfect. I usually don't like it, but Dante's offering was incredibly creamy and accented beautifully with blood-orange gelee. I would probably go back here and pay ridiculous amounts to eat their food again.

On Friday, after my interview, which I will write about later, I went out with The Boyfriend and a few other friends to Teatro before going to see Handel's opera Agrippina. I'd rate this one an 8.5. It was also wonderful, but we were in a rush so we didn't get to enjoy it as thoroughly as I would have liked. This was also the one place I've gone in the past week that didn't have a RW menu, which was a bummer. Oh well. We ordered pecorine boschetto, a type of cheese that came with a truffle marmalade, and truffle fries as appetizers (delicious) and I ordered sea shell pasta with lobster in a lobster stock sauce (also sinfully delicious). We didn't have time for dessert, unfortunately. I'd like to go back, but the prices were a bit steep. The food, however, was wonderful, so who knows...?

Saturday was terrible. We went to Forty Dalton, which is in the Hilton near the Pru. The food was ok; I had a salad (appetizer) that was nothing special, mustard-crusted pork (entree) that had waaaay too much mustard on it, and chocolate pots du creme (dessert) that supposedly had Bailey's in it. The lobster mac and cheese, which a friend ordered was, admittedly, quite delicious, but our service was terrible. We were seated around 5:45pm and got our first two courses in a fairly timely manner. Then, while we were eating our entrees, the waiter disappeared for about 45 minutes. My friend was dying of thirst and after not too long we were all ready for dessert. I was particularly concerned since I wanted to be at the symphony by 8:00pm, which shouldn't have been a problem, given the time we were seated. In any case, our waiter came back eventually and I had to scarf down my chocolate mousse then rush to Symphony Hall. Definitely not going back there.

So, eating is now my hobby, apparently. I have one more place to try, then I'm calling it quits. Being on spring break is expensive!

Next up, the interview...

ciao