Pagu – Central Square

If you’ve been following our Instagram, you’ll have noticed that we went dark for a little while last month, and then started posting a bunch of dishes geotagged to locations in China. Yue and I had a pretty tumultuous September, between our trip to China and settling in after our move, so we haven’t really been out to eat much, and so we let our activity here lapse a bit. I made the decision not to write up any posts about the food we ate in China, not in the least because I couldn’t keep the names of the dishes in my head. But now we’re back and in the swing of things, so hopefully this space will be back to the usual level of activity shortly!

But now that we’re back in Boston, Yue and I are looking into restaurants we haven’t been to yet, because before we left we fell into a bit of a rut. We’ve both heard about Pagu through the grapevine, and we’ve walked past it a few times on our forays to the Central Square bars, and since we were feeling small plates over the weekend, we decided to finally give it a try.

Pagu is an interesting sort of Asian fusion, combining Japanese-style dishes with Spanish spices in tapas-style dining. The menu is fairly eclectic, and divided up by category, so you can easily skim through the more traditional meat, vegetable, and cheese dishes, but also the Japanese-inspired dumplings, rice, and noodles. We tried a few of the dishes, but there were a few more we were interested in sampling, so we’ll have to make a return trip at some point.

We started off with an order of wafflettas, which you can see in the bottom right picture. They’re made from a combination of melted mozzarella cheese and caramelized shallots, which give it a crispy exterior shell and a creamy and savory interior. We followed it up with an order of delicious curried crab cakes.

We also ordered a fried chicken cutlet made with a special house sauce, and that proved to be the highlight of the meal, with a great balance of flavors and a spicy note to add a bit of nuance. We finished off with an order of mushroom mazemen, a kind of ramen in a thick sauce rather than broth. The earthy flavor of the noodles was a fitting end to the medley of different tastes we tried out, and Yue is bound to be favorably inclined to any restaurant where she can get both fried chicken and noodles.

Pagu is worth a visit if you happen to be in the neighborhood, especially since Yue and I find restaurants in Cambridge to be more lackluster than otherwise, so we’re always happy to find a diamond in the rough. It’s probably best to make a reservation, as tables tend to fill up fast, though we managed to grab seats at the bar.

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.

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.

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).

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.

Buttermilk and Bourbon – Back Bay

This weekend, my little sister was on her spring break from college and came up to visit. After several months of subsisting on unappetizing dining hall food, I decided to take her out for some soul food. We went to Buttermilk and Bourbon, located on the Commonwealth Ave Mall, for some New Orleans-style tapas, and came away feeling stuffed and satisfied. The general rule of thumb I try to abide by is to order about two dishes per person when ordering tapas, but with food as heavy as what Buttermilk and Bourbon serves up, we only managed five.

Like all good southern comfort food, Buttermilk and Bourbon specializes in heavy and/or deep fried fare, and interesting twists on old favorites. To start off, we ordered a bowl of Cajun guacamole, served up with blackened shrimp and barbecue kettle chips. The cool guacamole helped serve as a counterbalance for some of the spicier stuff we ordered later on.

My sister absolutely loves mac and cheese, so Buttermilk and Bourbon’s aged Gouda macaroni was a must. It’s served with a generous helping of creamy melted Gouda along with bits of pork and capped off with hot Cheetos to give it a bit of extra texture and flavor. The first time Yue and I tried this place out over the summer, it piqued our curiosity, and we were pleasantly surprised by the taste. My immediate thought after trying it was that I had to get my sister to try this, and when I pitched it to her for dinner, her response was, predictably, “You had me at mac and cheese.”

We also ordered pork croquettes and a plate of fried chicken, served with a bit of sweet and spicy sauce, because no Cajun style meal is complete without something fried and battered. We rounded out the rest of the food with a batch of honey-glazed biscuits with a cinnamon spread. They were absolutely delectable, though I’m a sucker for anything honeyed.

Though we sat in the bar area, Buttermilk and Bourbon has a few distinct seating option. The most intriguing to me is the Voodoo Lounge, a room all decked out like a tarot reader’s parlor in the back of the restaurant. But the whole place is decked out in funky New Orleans-style decor, making the most out of the restaurant’s exposed brick walls. It’s an interesting space, and a breath of fresh air and inventiveness in a neighborhood where the food options can feel a little same-y. While variety is the spice of life, it’s hardly the only spice Buttermilk and Bourbon brings to the table.

It will, however, leave you wanting a long nap afterwards.

Aquitaine – South End

It’s been a little while since Yue and I went out to brunch, so this weekend we trekked out to the South End to eat at a place I’ve had my eye on for a while. Aquitaine is a chic French-style bistro on Tremont Street, serving up elevated French fare for dinner service and a large spread of options for brunch. It’s widely hailed as one of Boston’s premier brunch destinations, and I would have felt remiss in my duty as a food blogger if I didn’t try it out at least once.

We were seated at a corner table in the back on a comfortable wrap-around bench, and the waiter was cheerful and attentive as he took our order. We opted for their brunch prixe fixe menu (which runs until 3 pm on Saturday and 11 am on Sunday), which offers a choice between two different kinds of omelettes or a brioche french toast, along with coffee, freshly squeezed juice, and a cinnamon roll, all for about $12. We went a little later than usual, and they were out of the cinnamon rolls, but they substituted in a fruit cup, and I certainly won’t complain.

Yue ordered the omelette occidental, which is served with ham, peppers, and cheddar, along with a side of potatoes and toast. I ordered the french toast, and then we both split our orders to share. I will be honest with you, dear reader: it was the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals, possibly ever. Don’t get me wrong, the omelette was good enough, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with it.

It’s just that the french toast was simply phenomenal. Without a doubt, the best I’ve had.

The exterior crust was just solid enough to give it a satisfying texture and consistency, but the inside was warm and soft and the perfect contrast without being too sweet. We’ve been thinking about it all weekend, and we will almost certainly have to make a return trip just for that alone. I can see now why Aquitaine has the reputation it does, and I encourage all of our readers to make the trip to the South End to experience it for themselves.

Ganko Ittetsu Ramen – Coolidge Corner

It’s finally time for a write-up of a place I’ve wanted to feature on the blog for a long time. Ganko Ittetsu Ramen is just down the street from my place in Coolidge Corner and it is, hands down, the best ramen spot in the city. Tucked into the Coolidge Corner arcade, it’s right near the Coolidge Corner theater, and a bowl of steaming, flavorful ramen is the perfect thing after a movie… if you can get a table, that is.

When I first moved in to Coolidge Corner a year and a half ago, Ganko had only recently opened, and it had a more underground appeal. The wait times weren’t as long, and you could usually get a seat at the bar counter in a pinch. But awesome ramen doesn’t stay a secret in Boston for long. Now wait times at Ganko average thirty to forty five minutes or longer. Their tiny space doesn’t help matters, and so the past few times Yue and I have tried to go, the prospect of a long agonizing wait for our food didn’t really outweigh the prospect of delicious ramen at the end. But recently the stars aligned, and we were able to get a table after only twenty five minutes (most of which were spent perusing the stacks of the nearby Brookline Booksmith).

Though Ganko offers several kinds of ramen, Yue and I both ordered the shio, meaning salt. The sea salt flavored broth is augmented with thin slices of pork, sweet corn, a five minute egg, scallions and nori. This is certainly not the sad ramen you made in the dorm kitchen when you were an undergrad. The flavors blend in the broth, and the noodles are just the right firmness to fill you up and leave you sated. Now, I may be a simple man of simple pleasures, but I think there are fewer things more satisfying than drinking down the last bit of delicious ramen broth from a deep bowl. (Okay, I lied, there are plenty of things more satisfying, but it’s definitely up there on the list)

There are plenty of things a ramen place can do to throw off the balance of their food. The noodles can be too firm, or too soft, or taste too much like the miserable discount ramen you ate in college. They can add too much water to the broth, or too much salt for “flavor”. I’m looking at a specific ramen place in Boston for each one of those things, in case you were wondering. Ganko does none of these things, and as such, it deserves its crown as Table For Two’s Favorite Ramen.

Now if only they would expand a bit so I don’t have to wait so long…