Russell House Tavern – Harvard Square

The best time to go to Harvard Square is in the summer, where the warm weather makes for great al fresco dining, and the school term isn’t in session, so the wait times for tables aren’t as inflated. Yue had mentioned Russell House Tavern a few times, but I’d never been before, so we thought this past weekend was a good time to try it out. We sat out on their patio, and managed to get in just before the dinner rush. The menu is pretty varied, has a few interesting entrees, a raw bar section, small plates, and flatbreads. The cocktail menu is likewise diverse, with a good selection of vodka, rum, whiskey and gin drinks, for whatever your fancy might be. They also have a robust beer and wine menu, but it skews towards the hipster-y crowd, meaning it’s heavy on IPAs and light on anything actually palatable. They do have some interesting local craft brews and at least one good stout, but if you’re a dark beer fan like me, you’re better off looking elsewhere (and probably not in Cambridge at all, if we’re being honest).

Yue and I decided we’d do some shareable plates, so we ordered calamari, because Yue can never resist it when she sees it on the menu, a flatbread pizza with steak, blue cheese, arugula and fresh cherry tomatoes, and tuna tartar. The tuna was served mixed with a chipotle spice, giving it a sharp twist on the tongue. Yue thought it was a bit much, but I found it pretty enjoyable. If spicy isn’t your thing, it’s probably not to your taste, but if you’re looking for something a little more exciting for your palate than the standard elevated American pub grub Russell House trucks in, it’s a solid option.

The pizza was good too, and very summery. I don’t know if Russell House changes their menu seasonally, and if this is a more seasonal addition, but it definitely fit this past weekend, and the ingredients were very fresh. The calamari was also quite good, even if it was buried under a large pile of arugula.

For dessert, we hearkened back to our NOLA trip about two months ago and ordered a pecan bred pudding. This was probably the highlight of the meal, and a great cap to a filling dinner.

Boat House Restaurant – Tiverton, RI

This weekend was Father’s Day, and like all holidays entailing filial devotion, that means a trip down to Rhode Island to see my family. For anyone wondering, we would spend a few of these with Yue’s family, except that they’re about 4000 miles away on the other side of the planet, which means a day trip to visit them is mostly out of the question.

My family had heard good things about the Boat House in Tiverton, and it’s location seemed ideal for an early summer lunch. But between the time my sister made the reservation a few weeks ago and last Sunday, my parents found occasion to go there ahead of time, not once, but twice. So while it was a new experience for my sister, Yue, and I, the view of Narragansett Bay was practically old hat to my mother and father.

But my parents never pass up an occasion to eat fresh seafood (because they’re stereotypical Rhode Islanders), or a chance to take a drive down the coast in their new convertible (because they’re recently empty nesters and can have all the nice toys my sister and I long denied them by dint of our existence), so to the Boat House we went.

The dining room looks out over the Narragansett Bay, and we were fortunate enough to have a beautifully warm and clear day, so the ocean views were unimpeded. We started off with an order of lobster fritters, tiny spheres of fried dough with lobster meat baked in, kind of like the clam cakes you can buy for a song anywhere on Rhode Island’s ocean coast, except that you only get them when someone else is footing the bill.

For our main course, my parents both ordered the catch du jour, fresh striped bass pulled that morning from the ocean between Galilee and Block Island. I’m not much of a fish person myself, but even I would admit that it looked appetizing. For ourselves, Yue ordered a lobster roll, because it’s summer, and what else is one to do in the Ocean State? The answer, dear reader, is do what I did, and order a sandwich made with thin slices of steak, caramelized onions, and a spicy house mayo, all served on a toasted roll.

My father doesn’t really have a sweet tooth, but one of the few desserts he will spring for is a strawberry shortcake, and since the Boat House has one on their dessert menu, that’s exactly what we ordered. The shortbread cake was served with a healthy dose of whipped cream and a scoop of strawberry sorbet, which was just the right thing to clear the palette after the main course.

The Boat House is pretty far from our usual orbit, requiring a trip down through Providence and then several other outlying coastal towns to even get in the same neighborhood, but for the sake of my dad (and good food), it’s an odyssey worth undertaking.

Parish Cafe – Boylston Street

Just a stone’s throw away from the public garden, not far from stairs to Arlington station is the Parish Cafe, serving up interesting and inventive sandwiches that show off some of the best of what the Boston culinary scene has to offer. That’s not hyperbole or an idle boast, Parish’s sandwich menu is made up of creations designed by local chefs of national renown. Some of the talent featured are the head chefs at some other places Yue and I frequent, like Hojoko, Sweet Cheeks, and Flour Bakery, and others that have been on our radar for a little while, like Deuxave, Bondir, and Blue Dragon. Their menu is actually pretty handy for planning your next epicurean excursion, now that I think about it.

I ordered the Kenneth, concocted by Parish’s own chef, a simple but summery sandwich made with grilled chicken and a bleu cheese pesto mayo, topped by an assortment of summer vegetables and plenty of onions. It was a bit messy, and the open face of the sandwich meant that it started to fall apart in my hands, but it was just the right kind of fare for the turn of the season. Yue had the Mexican Meatball, designed by the chef of the Tip Tap Room, a slightly spicier take on a meatball melt featuring cilantro infused meatballs, a chipotle and jalapeno mayo and pepperjack cheese. She definitely got the better dish this time, and I highly recommend the sandwich.

Parish is ideally located for a quick bite after a day of lounging and dog watching in the public garden, or a stopover on the way to a Sox game at Fenway. They also have a fairly robust beer list (though for some inexplicable reason, no Sam Adams) and some inventive cocktails and mocktails. Yue and I have found ourselves saying that we need to go back to several places lately, but after the trouble we went through narrowing down what we wanted off of Parish’s menu (so many good options to choose from!) it’s a safe bet that we’ll be back here sooner rather than later.

75 Chestnut – Beacon Hill

When I think of Beacon Hill, I’m more inclined to think of it as a place with fashionable boutiques and good Instagram pictures, and not exactly a dining hot spot. I know there are a few restaurants and pubs in the neighborhood, but I’ve never really been there at a time that would have been convenient to have something to eat. Still, 75 Chestnut has been on my radar for a little while now, and this weekend seemed like a good time to go and check it out.

Tucked one a side street just off Beacon Hill’s main thoroughfare and featuring well-manicured window boxes, 75 Chestnut’s dimly lit interior has comfortable booth-style seating along wood-paneled walls. It’s a tasteful fusion of all the aspects one could expect from a comfortable Boston Brahmin haunt. The food reflects this, being an upscale take on American comfort foods. 75 Chestnut has a solid array salads, sandwiches, and entrees that, while nicer than the standard pub grub fare you could expect at a local bar, are still quintessentially American favorites. They also have a sizable cocktail menu made up of just the sort of drinks you would expect a place like this to have, with a focus on gin and whiskeys, along with seasonal drinks (currently strawberry-based summery cocktails and sangria).

The whole menu looks really good, but eventually we each settled on a single dish. Yue had a New England-style seafood soup, with a full-bodied red broth full of shrimp, scallops, chopped potato and haddock, while I chose the honey Dijon pork chop, served atop a bed of fingerling potatoes, mushrooms, carrots and asparagus. Yue and I have been eating a lot of eastern food lately, so I was happy to have a change of pace to such solid, hearty, American fare. The portions are a good size, enough to fill you up without overfilling you. We’ll have to go back, if only to try a few other things on the menu that caught my eye, and next time we’ll hopefully get to sit near the large picture window that takes up much of the front of the restaurant.

75 Chestnut makes for a good lunch or dinner stop if you have been wandering Boston all day, or are looking for a quiet place to grab a bite after work, away from the hustle and bustle of the happy hour crowd. It’s just a stone’s throw away from the Charles River, which makes for a nice after-dinner stroll.

Citrus & Salt – Bay Village

Summer is here, more or less, and to celebrate the arrival of the disgustingly hot and muggy weather, Yue and I went out in search of some summery food to fit the season. We had heard about Citrus & Salt for a while, and despite being close to where we work, we had never made the quick trek over, due to a mixture of bad weather the last few weeks, or just a craving for other foods. But this weekend we finally made it, getting in just before the Friday happy hour crowd.

Citrus and Salt specializes in coastal Baja-style Mexican small plates, and we found that three plates (plus a dessert) was just the right amount for two people. We started off with their house-made chips and guacamole. The chips were dusted with jalapeno powder, giving them a bit of texture and added flavor. Usually when ordering a dish like this, Yue and I look for something unique about the guacamole, while the chips tend to be whatever; this time around, the guac, while good, was nothing special, but the chips really made it stand out.

Our next dish was a pair of fish tacos, with beer-battered cod topped with radish flakes and a green tomato salsa. While the tortilla was probably a little too small, and made eating them a little messier than they ought to have been, the tacos were quite well-prepared, and served as a good palate cleanser between the guac and the next course, a plate of pasilla-braised beef served over mashed butternut squash, wild mushrooms, and a prickly pear reduction. The beef was soft and pulled apart easily to melt in our mouths, and the sweetness of the mashed squash paired well with the earthier taste of the wild mushrooms.

After all that, we felt we still had a bit of room left over, so we ordered a plate of churro bites, which came with a vanilla dulce and a warm chocolate mezcal. After the saltiness of the rest of the meal, it was a welcome taste shift, but it was enough to tip the scales for us to need a walk through the South End afterwards.

Citrus & Salt makes for a great place to grab a bite with friends at the end of the week for Back Bay professionals, or for a fun date night. The decor is interesting, even if it does look like it was pulled from an Anthropologie catalogue. We sat at the bar, which was fine with us, and while we beat the rush, there seemed to be a lot of empty tables as the crowd came in, and the restaurant was directing people to bar seats instead. I don’t know if they had a lot of reservations, or if they were saving them for a slightly later dinner rush, but it struck me as a bit odd to have so many people vying for space at the bar when half the tables in the restaurant were empty.

That all being said, if you’re looking for some lighter fare and a glass of sangria, Citrus & Salt is definitely worth checking out.

Maison Soule – French Quarter, New Orleans

The French Quarter is packed full of dining options, but I think my favorite place we ate (besides my birthday dinner at Muriel’s) was Maison Soule. Tucked away on a cross street in the French Quarter between the riotous Bourbon Street and the gallery-packed Royal Street is Maison Soule, an unassuming hotel with a small bistro on the ground floor. When we found it, it was almost empty, and gave us a quiet place to get our bearings and plan our night out.

Yue ordered a crawfish etouffe: shellfish served over rice with a roux sauce, it’s name coming from the French word for “smother”. The salty red sauce was quickly absorbed by the rice once mixed in to help balance out the flavors of the dish. It’s a distinctly Creole dish, rarely found outside New Orleans, and Yue and I are always up for trying some of the local flavors.

I chose something a little less overtly NOLA, but still with its roots heavily in colonial French cuisine. Ever since having a wild boar crepe on a family trip to Quebec nearly a decade ago, I’ve always had a soft spot for savory meat-based crepes, so when I saw a duck crepe with raspberry vinaigrette on the menu, I knew I had to order it. The side of garlic fries was an unexpected but welcome bonus, especially when I realized I could dip them in Yue’s etouffe.

The red drink in the background of the crepe picture is a sazerac, a particular pride and joy of New Orleans, and reputedly the original American cocktail, made of whiskey, bitters, sugar, and just a bit of absinthe. It’s said that the sazerac was created in pre-Civil War New Orleans by a local bar owner with bitters imported by a local apothecary, the sort of man who would prescribe you the cocaine you needed to get the demons out of your blood, or however they balanced your essential humors back in the 19th century. It’s a simple cocktail, not entirely unlike a Manhattan, making it well suited for drinking along with dinner, or for a stroll down Bourbon Street, where the blood alcohol levels are made up and open container laws don’t matter. As a fan of whiskey-based simple cocktails, this became my New Orleans drink of choice, though now that I’m back up north, I’m quite content to slide back into my Manhattan-sipping ways.

For dessert, we had the old New Orleans staple of bread pudding. Unlike the one we profiled for Muriel’s, Maison Soule’s pudding is firmer, and their drizzle is caramel rather than rum based. Yue was less than impressed with the texture, preferring the softer pudding, but I had no qualms with Maison Soule’s, nor with their presentation.

Gumbo Shop – French Quarter, New Orleans

Like I mentioned in my post the other day, Muriel’s was actually the last place we ate in New Orleans. For today’s feature, I’m turning the clock back to the first meal we ate after landing down south, Gumbo Shop in the French Quarter. Apparently a haunt for locals and travelers alike, Gumbo Shop sits right on the edge of Jackson Square, a stone’s throw away from the more touristy shops. They offer both indoor and al fresco seating, and having just landed in balmy southern climes, we opted for the latter, sitting in Gumbo Shop’s tiled courtyard surrounded by old brickwork, fountains and plants.

Dining out in New Orleans is quite a different experience from what I’ve come to expect in the Northeast. It’s one thing to take your meal on a patio or sidewalk, but so many places we saw in NOLA had elegant little courtyards for diners, something that would obviously be impractical in a place like Boston, where we spend eight months of the year wondering what it was like to feel the sun, and the other four wishing the sun would just go away already.

Since it was our first meal, we wanted something as authentically New Orleans as possible. Yue ordered a shrimp po’ boy, but unlike the standard po’ boy, the shrimp in this one were sauteed, rather than fried. I tried a bit, and I think I prefer the sautee to fried, with the bread of the sandwich soaking up some of the sauce to add an extra dimension to the flavor and giving it a bit of unexpected texture. But Yue is a bit of a purist when it comes to this kind of thing, so she was disappointed that she wasn’t able to get her fried food fix.

Personally, I opted for the jambalaya; chicken, shrimp and sausage all lightly spiced and tossed together with rice. I didn’t want something as heavy as a plate of gumbo so early in the day, with so much walking left to do, but this seemed like just the right thing to refuel after a flight and to give me a protein boost to explore the rest of the French Quarter. It was also here that I had my first sazerac, a New Orleans specialty cocktail not unlike a Manhattan, but with a bit of absinthe mixed in with the bitters for good measure.

Muriel’s – French Quarter, New Orleans

If you’ve been keeping up with our Instagram, you know that Yue and I recently spent several days in New Orleans for my birthday. While we were there, we satisfied our epicurean urges with all sorts of spicy Creole dishes and deep-fried southern comfort food. We’ll have more write ups coming for a few other places later this week, but we thought we’d begin at the end here, with the pièce de résistance: the birthday dinner.

For most of our trip, we ate when we were hungry, finding the closest place with the most agreeable menu. However, for this meal, we thought it would be best to do a little research beforehand. I’m not one to put on airs (okay, that’s a lie. I definitely am) but I also don’t like making a big fuss for my birthday. Still, I wanted something a little less casual than the average French Quarter po’boy, but something a little less black-tie than the upscale (and overpriced…) spots we saw just off Royal Street. Eventually I found the menu for Muriel’s, situated at the top of Jackson Square near the imposing St. Louis Cathedral. They offered a table d’hote menu (basically a prix fixe) that had a lot of interesting options, and they seemed to strike the balance between fine dining and French Quarter casual rather well. We sat in an indoor courtyard, with hanging plants and electric lamps dangling from the rafters over the white tablecloths, surrounded by white curtains and two hundred year old brickwork.

The menu offered three courses, an appetizer, a main dish, and a dessert, so we diversified our options to sample what we saw as the most interesting. For our appetizers, Yue had a plate of crawfish and goat cheese crepes, while I had a slice of sharp gorgonzola cheesecake. I’m used to standard-issue sweet cheesecake, so the gorgonzola variety came as a surprise. It was very sharp, but had an interesting taste and texture, pairing well with the pile of pecans and blackberries it was served with. It really was a unique dish, and definitely something I’d order again if I saw it on another menu. Yue’s crepes were savory, with the salty flavor of crawfish we were at that point used to. I get that crawfish are pretty big in NOLA, but I’ll admit that I don’t see the big deal; they just taste like salty shrimp.

Whatever, maybe I’m just too much of a Yank to fully appreciate it.

Anyway, for our main course, I had a wood grilled pork chop served over mashed sweet potatoes with a sugar cane and apple glaze, and Yue had the house bayoubaisse, a concoction of shrimp, mussels, crab meat, and seafood meatballs tossed with sausage and orzo, served in a tomato-based broth. It was pretty salty, but a little bread to soak up the broth really brought out the other flavors. In short, it was very NOLA. The pork I ordered was divine, balancing the wood-smoked flavor of the meat with the sweetness of the glaze to create an impressive medley of flavors.

Normally we don’t order drinks with dinner, because like all good budget-conscious Millennials, we like to get the most for our money, which means getting stiff cocktails at a dive bar after dinner when we’ve walked some of the ballast off. But this time around we thought, why not, birthday dinners only come once a year, so we indulged in a little bit of wine. Both Yue’s red blend and my Cabernet paired well with our respective dishes, their solid, fruity bodies helped to accentuate the stronger flavors of our main course, and let us pretend we were adulting a little more comprehensively than usual.

For our dessert course, we selected the creme brulee and bread pudding, respectively. Creme brulee is a bit too sweet for me, but Yue likes it and orders it whenever we can (and aren’t too full from our main course; a frequent occurrence). Bread pudding is a NOLA staple, and this one was served with candied pecans and a rum-reduction glaze. No candle for me, because I don’t like to make a fuss, but as far as birthday desserts go, it definitely ranks up there.

This was our final dinner in NOLA, and we capped it off by wandering down Bourbon Street to the Old Absinthe House, which had become our favorite NOLA bar, for a sazerac or two to cap off the night, but that’s another story for another time (that you probably already saw on Instagram anyway).

Assagio – North End

With the warm weather we had this weekend, Yue and I decided to venture out from our comfortable neighborhood Allston haunts into the great unknown… or at least the North End, which is basically the same thing. We hadn’t eaten in the North End since late last summer, and the best way to enjoy it seemed to be to make a trek all the way to the other side of the city. We didn’t really have a specific place in mind, and since we hadn’t bothered making reservations, we figured we would try our luck with whatever didn’t have too long a wait.

We wound up at Assagio, tucked behind a church just off Hanover Street, a cozy trattoria with whitewashed walls that balances the old, simple architecture of the North End with whitewashed walls that give it a modern and chic ambiance. We started with a mushroom and herb bruschetta, served on thick slices of Italian bread, and followed that up with a pasta course.

I ordered an Amatriciana, made with tomatoes, onions and bacon, while Yue went with the vongole positano, made from specialty Italian pasta and served with imported clams in a red sauce. The pasta courses are served in pans, and lived up to my high expectations for Italian food. (After growing up in a place where it seemed like every other block had an Italian place, Boston’s lack of trattorias outside of the North End is a bit of a disappointment, but I digress)

Towards the end of our meal, we were told that the restaurant was expecting a large party, and they would need our table to accommodate. We told them it was no issue and moved to another table nearby. In recompense, the management gave us each a limoncello, a plate of tiramisu, and the rather large fruit platter you see above. Both Yue and I thought that the fruit was for the 20-seat party that we moved for, so we were a little surprised when it wound up on our table.

Assagio certainly went above and beyond to earn our loyalty and gratitude, so it’s been enshrined as one of our favorite Boston spots, and one that we will certainly return to.

The Abbey – Washington Square

Yue and I are apartment hunting, which means we have less time to linger over breakfast in the mornings when we go out to look at a place. We’ve been getting lunch at pubs lately, and trying out different kinds of sandwiches as part and parcel of that. Today we were looking at a place near Washington Square and stopped for lunch in the Abbey just a little ways up the road. The Abbey is a quintessential neighborhood pub with a solid sandwich menu and draft list, and doesn’t have any pretensions at being something it’s not.

Something that irks me a little about the Boston bar and pub culture is that so many places try really hard to be a quaint local bar, but wind up seeming like they’re trying too hard. They Abbey feels like a good pub should feel, the kind of place you like to go to for lunch or a late-night stop to carbo-load to stave off a hangover. It just feels good.

For lunch, Yue ordered a fish taco while I went with one of the daily specials, turkey and Swiss on a toasted flatbread with spicy mayo, paired with an English oatmeal stout. Neither of us were in the mood for anything too heavy, and the portions were the perfect size. The menu also caters to several different vegetarian options, and there should be something to everyone’s taste. I found the food to be less greasy and heavy than other similar pubs in Brookline, and each of the different menu options was familiar but had a bit of a twist to make it just unique enough.

If you go for lunch, try to sit at a high-top near the windows for quality people (and dog) watching with all the foot traffic in Washington Square.