B&G Oysters Ltd.

B&G Oysters Ltd.
550 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02118
www.bandgoysters.com

Note: This dinner took place on November 12, 2007.


Char's View:
I have not always enjoyed raw oysters, but many years ago, I did become acclimated to them and developed an appreciation for oysters. Last night, Vichu and I went to Barbara Lynch's B&G Oysters in Boston's South End. For those of you who are true followers of the Boston food scene, Barbara Lynch is also the executive chef at No. 9 Park, the chef/owner of The Butcher Shop, caterer of Niche Catour, and owner of both Plum and Stir. Quite an impressive metropolis if you ask me. I had to say that I quite enjoyed the atmosphere in B&G as it was much like Lynch's other spots: small, cozy, and busy enough to keep you entertained.

We sat at the oyster bar of course and throughout dinner, got to view the talented chefs masterfully shuck oyster after oyster. When presented, they place all the oysters around the edge of a circular tray perfectly chilled with the normal cocktail sauce, horseradish, and lemon slice. They make sure to include a small list of the oysters you selected and arrange them in that order.


Now, being new to the oyster world, I can't really give you an accurate comparison of all these oysters. I can however tell you that we picked the Falmouth, Island Creek, Fancy Sweet, Malpeque, Fanny Bay, and Gold Creek varieties and as you went clockwise slurping these little suckers, they got brinier as you went with an almost a tiny leady aftertaste. I decided I really liked the Falmouth though, they had just the right amount of "ocean" to them and I think I could have eaten like a dozen all by myself.

For our starters, I had the lobser bisque and of course some sips of Vichu's clam chowder. The bisque was yummy! Just the right thickness and creaminess with a hint of smokiness. It was swirled with oil (How can that not be good?) and garnished with small cubes of green apple. I had to say that I thought the green apple was a nice touch. The sweetness and tartness of it complemented the lobster quite nicely I thought. The clam chowder on the other hand does not get as high of a review. In fact, I don't even remember it and probably only had one clam if that.

For the entrees, we ordered the Seafood Caciucco and Lobster BLT. The caciucco was a very good tomato broth with different pieces of seafood in it. The whole dish was a bit overseasoned and I didn't really enjoy trying to identify all the seafood before eating it. The dish also had a few olives in it which looked shriveled and dried. Upon eating one, I made a face at Vichu and politely spit it out into my napkin. The salt content of that one olive was completely concentrated and really ruined the dish for me. Vichu's lobster BLT was a welcome diversion. Although it wasn't completely spectacular, it helped to soak up the salt that was left in my mouth.

All in all, I'd go back to B&G if I was only having wine and oysters with a side of the lobster bisque.


Vichu's View:
Eat oysters only in months that end in “r” so the saying goes. With the advent of overnight shipping and oyster farms this isn’t necessarily true anymore, but it’s a good excuse to get some. Char and I went to the B&G Oyster House in the South End of Boston to grab some of these delicious bi-valves. The entrance alone will give you a clue that B&G Oyster house isn’t going to be your typical dining experience. If you want to eat here you’re going to have to go in through the back. The entrance leads you into a backyard/courtyard area that during the summer you can descend a flight of stairs and enjoy a very pleasant outdoor dining experience or stay on the same level and gain entrance to the restaurant.

When you enter the restaurant you’ll notice the restaurant is dominated by a large bar on the right with seating all around and lining the walls on the left are the dining tables. It has a modern chic feel to it with the walls and ceilings covered in slightly varying shades of ashy colored wood paneling. We were seated at the bar right in front of the Oyster/cooking area.

The wait staff dressed in white shirts and dark, pants were a capable crew refilling water when it got low and were swift to get us food when the kitchen presented it. My only issue was our waitress was a tad hard to understand and had a bit of trouble understanding us.

Since we came for oysters we asked the waitress to pick out 6 of the most popular oysters they were serving. They brought Falmouth, Island Creek, Fancy Sweet, Malpeque, Fanny Bay, and Gold Creek oysters with a mix of cocktail sauce, horseradish and lemons. All the oysters were super fresh iced nicely and exhibited the differences in where they were raised and their species specific characteristics. I’m not going to go into each one because honestly my oyster palette isn’t that refined and I’m not willing to butcher the reviews. I did, however, enjoy the Falmouth oysters best for it’s very clean oceanic taste and crisp texture. So we ordered a couple more and they didn’t disappoint.

For the meal itself we ordered lobster bisque and clam chowder to start. It was a cold day so warm creamy soup was really going to hit the spot. The bisque was an interesting interpretation; the soup was a combination of lobster broth and smoky chili, interspersed with chunks of lobster meat and little cubes of apples top off with a smoky chili oil. The soup itself was very tasty, an interesting combination of flavor and texture, a tad too smoky obscuring a bit of the lobster essence, but I enjoyed it. The only turn off in the entire dish was the cubes of apples. They added an interesting taste and texture change to the soup but was a bit too prevalent in the chowder almost hijacking the dish itself. A couple for interest isn’t bad, but a handful is a bit much for me. Overall I would order this soup again.

The interpretation of the clam chowder was interesting but not necessarily the way I would have gone with the dish. The broth itself was thin, like watered down cream and didn’t have such a pleasant mouth feel. The broth had what I think was meant to be a pleasant amount of acid to brighten the flavour, but goes overboard into “oh that’s just a strange aftertaste” territory. The ingredients inside the soup were also very distracting, there was just to much bacon (lardon), my jaws got tired from chewing on soggy pork. The onions also came in largish dice which if cooked until melting would have been great! But sadly they were more on the al dente side adding a distracting amount of oniony taste to the soup. The potatoes, however, were a perfect dice and was cooked perfectly I really enjoyed them in the soup, and I would have told you about the clams but I don’t think I had a single one in my chowder. I think this soup suffers from an over-interpretation of chowder and poor execution; I didn’t enjoy it and would probably not order it again.

For the main course we ordered Caciucco and B.L.T. with lobster. The Caciucco was an interesting tomato based broth with a variety of seafood interspersed through out. The seafood was slightly overcooked but not yet rubbery and the broth was quite tasty. The only thing that brought this dish down were the olives! What the heck were they thinking!!! Did they even bother to taste them? If they did what the hell were they thinking?! I tasted the olive and my head almost imploded from the salt; I could feel the osmotic pressure of every cell in my head trying to release enough water to dilute the olive’s salt content. Maybe another olive perhaps or maybe soak it in something before putting it in the dish. Overall if you avoid the olives this dish was excellent.

The B.L.T was really uninspired it gave off the “just pile on the ingredients on a bun and serve it” vibe. Goodness it’s a B.L.T. with lobster it should be out of this world, but alas it was not so. The bread was soft but uninteresting, and the lettuce was actually on the limp and looked worse for wear and tasted limp. The tomatoes were almost non-existent, and they’re supposed to be the clutch ingredient in a B.L.T. It adds the interesting contrast, the tangy kick that unites all the ingredients, but sadly went almost unnoticed in this sandwich. The bacon was very good but there was just too much of it, the lobster was also piled on but no one really bothered to season it. A perfect sandwich is a combination of excellent bread and the right balance of ingredients, this sandwich focuses on all the luxury ingredients but ignores what makes a B.L.T. a B.L.T.

Overall I would come back here and maybe order something different to eat, and definitely for the oysters!

Kelly's Roast Beef

Kelly's Roast Beef
410 Revere Beach Boulevard
Revere, MA 02151
www.kellysroastbeef.com

Char's View:
Now I have lived in Boston for seven years and heard about this fairytale place called Kelly's Roast Beef that serves the best roast beef sandwiches. Unfortunately for me, I don't have a car and even though the chain has 5 locations, I can't get to any of them! Luckily, Vichu and our friend, Mary Ann decided to make my dreams come true.

Vichu and Mary Ann agreed that the Revere location had the best food out of all the locations so even though it was a pretty brisk night out, we headed down to Revere Beach. This location is only a stand and has no seating, but a big menu!

Being as that we were breaking my Kelly's Roast Beef cherry, I just kept it simple, a small roast beef sandwich with a touch of BBQ sauce and a small coke. Man! This was a meal and a heavenly one at that. The ratio of roast beef to bun was perfect and the roast beef was cooked perfectly so that with every bite, it is exactly that. A bite. Not a stringy, jerk your head back, pull out the rest of the sandwich filling kind of bite. The BBQ sauce added a little bit of wetness and sweet tang to the sandwich, but you could definitely have it plain and be just as happy. The bun gets toasted with butter so it has a little bit of a crispness and the sesame seeds just make the sandwich complete.

We didn't get to eat on the beach (I was told we'd be attacked by seagulls) but Mary Ann was gracious enough to let us use her BMW as our luxurious dining room. (Shoutout, Mary Ann!) All in all, if you haven't been to Kelly's Roast Beef...find a way to get there! If you don't have a car, you FIND someone to get you there. Which won't be too hard because anyone who's been there will suddenly get a craving when they hear the name and if they haven't been there, they'll thank you for making them take you there.

Vichu's View:
Revere Beach’s Boardwalk use to be Boston’s very own Coney Island but sadly it is now miles of beachfront condos stretching for as far as the eye can see. Every once in a while a small seasonal beachside stall would pop up with the sole purpose of feeding beach goers during the summer. One of these places is the venerable Kelly’s Roast Beef, a throwback to the hay-days of Revere Beach Boardwalk. The only thing that one might find strange in late October is why Kelly’s on the beach still open? Well it’s because the food is so damned good, people continue to make pilgrimages to this location despite having other Kelly’s locations to choose from, and no beach goers to support business.

When you first see the non-descript one story building that is Kelly’s standing in the shadows of the condos that tower behind it you might just drive right by it without giving it another thought. The only thing that might draw your attention is the neon sign out front announcing Kelly’s Roast Beef. You can walk up to the 4 windows and order what you want but where you eat it is your business. You can walk across the street and eat in a pavilion or sit on the seawall and enjoy your food but in late October, a BMW 740il seems to do the trick (Thanks Marianne for driving us!).

Kelly’s menu is surprisingly diverse ranging from burgers to roast beef to fried clams to New England lobster rolls. Anyone who comes here (minus the vegetarians) will find something on the menu they’d enjoy. My personal favorite and what I ordered was the large roast beef as rare as they have it with barbeque sauce. The roast beef is served on a nice soft buttered bun topped with sesame seeds grilled to perfection. The roast beef sandwich here is just incredible. I’ve never had a bad one, every time I have one I think wow that’s a really great sandwich! The combination of the melt in your mouth roast beef and the slight tang of the barbecue sauce offset by the sweet buttery bun is just a perfect comfort food. Just describing the food is making me drool. I love this place!

Char's Kitchen

Char's View:
I decided that since Vichu is always gracious enough to invite everyone over to his house for dinner (not to mention I blogged about his last one) it would only be fair if I cooked him dinner. Wish me luck!

I decided to start us off with grilled proscuitto wrapped plums on a bed of greens with gorgonzola and balsamic dressing. I have only made this dish one other time and it was based on a dish I had at Union (South End). I'd have to say that the first time I recreated it was much better. This time I didn't grill the plums long enough so they were still a little bit to firm.

Next, I made a beef tenderloin with a port balsamic glaze. The steak and glaze were underseasoned, but the meat was cooked just right (I guess you can't really go wrong with steak). For the side, I made a potato gratin with gruyere and creme fraiche. For inquiring minds, both of these recipes can be found on Epicurious.com. It said to generously salt and pepper the potatoes. Well, I have always been a generous person so needless to say, the gratin came out oversalted and the gruyere didn't help its case.

For dessert, another Epicurious find. Phyllo nests with strawberries, whipped cream, and honey. This was essentially a disaster until Vichu saved it for me. The nests were a lot more work intensive then I thought they would be! However, the final product I would have to say was really good! I wished I had made more than two!

All in all, I wouldn't say I knocked Vichu's socks off, but I didn't kill him either!

Vichu's View:
As I was climbing the stairs to Char’s apt I could already smell the yumminess that I was about to partake. The beautiful smell of potatoes baking with cheese; enough to sent your salivary glands into overdrive and make you drool like a Basset hound with glandular problems. Growling stomach in tow I was about to be plied with a most excellent meal miraculously produced in a tiny kitchen. We started off with a salad of mixed greens topped with grilled Prosciutto wrapped plums and gorgonzola cheese, followed by a pan seared steak topped with a port balsamic and pan juice reduction, with a potatoes au gratin side (the source of the drool worthy smells) and for dessert a caramelized phyllo basket with whipped cream, strawberries and honey.

The salad was pretty basic, with mixed greens and dressed in balsamic vinegar and oil and topped with Gorgonzola cheese. Nothing really out of the ordinary, but I enjoyed its simplicity. The part of this dish that stood out for me were the grilled Prosciutto wrapped Plums. They was quite tasty! I have never really been a fan of cooked fruits but in this case it was good. The salt and porkiness of the proscuitto really went well with sweet acid fruitiness of the plums. I’ve always been a big fan of the proscuitto and fruit (melons, figs, mango etc…), my-oh-my what salt cured pig does for fruit is amazing, now I’ll add grilled fruit to that list.

What can I say about the beef other than a Texan cooked it! Must be something in the water that makes them one with beef! Seasoned and cooked with amazing precision, my steak was tender with a crispy, and tasty crust cooked to an excellent medium rare. The port based sauce worked beautifully with the beef, lending an extra dimension of taste and aroma without killing the beefy essence. If you own a steak house in Boston, you should think about hiring her as a consultant. The potatoes au gratin side was also quite good, although a bit heavy on the salt and a tad oily. But overall the potatoes were cooked to perfection and the salt and oil most likely came from the cheese, thinking less cheese and it would have been perfect.

The dessert was simple elegant and very tasty. I won’t say this for too many strawberry based desserts, I’m not a huge fan of strawberries (actually commercial strawberries, I love wild strawberries but I can’t seem to find them anywhere in the US), I find them kind of tasteless and uninteresting, but in combination with caramelized phyllo, honey, and whipped cream it was yum!

The overall meal was excellent and if I die tonight I’d die fat and happy!

Myers + Chang

Myers + Chang
1145 Washington Street
Boston, MA 02124
www.myspace.com/myersandchang

Char's View:
So Chris Myers (who own Radius) and Joanna Chang (who owns Flour) decided to open a place in the South End creatively titled, Myers + Chang. I've never eaten at Radius but I am obsessed with Joanna Chang. She opened a Flour Bakery and Cafe over in the Seaport District where my old office was located. I had sent her an e-mail to see if she would be open to apprenticing me and when she politely declined, I figured I would apprentice myself by eating at her bakery every day for lunch. (I highly recommend the BLT's, her cheddar scallion scones, banana bread, and *sigh* if I have to...her cupcakes.)

When I first walked in, it was definitely much more casual than I expected it to be. Rows of high tops and high chairs, some tables, and an iPod dock in the wall! Think dirty Chinese restaurant, but super clean, dark, and trendy. The mirrors on the back wall have painted "Confucianisms" on it. I decided to sit at the food bar while I waited for Vichu and so I could stare...I mean, watch the chefs cook. The kitchen is open and right on the other side of the food bar so that you are face-to-face with the chefs. But more about that later...

There's not really courses at this restaurant, more like you order and they bring it out as it's ready. Don't expect big dishes to come out, but Vichu and I got surprisingly stuffed with the dishes we did order! (The same phenomenon that happens when you eat dim sum!)

The first thing (and most important at the end of a Friday) to come out was my white sake sangria. I can't usually handle sake but this taste like pure fruit juice or even better, like the lychee juice you can get in cans from the Chinese grocery store. The waitress was even nice enough to bring me a little sip before I committed to an entire glass.

Next up, were the spicy schezwan salt and pepper shrimp and the king's fried rice. The spicy salt and pepper shrimp came out complete in shell AND head! Now that's Chinese style. It was crisp and flavorful (maybe a bit too salty) but not spicy...at first! The after taste definitely made me reach for my water glass, but all in all, tolerable. And that's coming from a girl who does not like spicy food all that much. The fried rice was very good. It had bits of bamboo shoots, carrots, chinese sausage, and edamame in place of the typical peas. I do not like peas. My mother used to put them in everything. I would use my chopsticks to pick out each and every single pea. These would then make the transfer into my mother's bowl. And yet, the vicious cycle just kept going throughout my childhood. So edamame was a welcome substitute!

Very quickly after the first two dishes, we received the next two: double oyster omelette and braised pork belly buns. Now, oyster omelettes are usually pretty hard to find served anywhere (or maybe I just don't know how to look for it) but when I saw it on the menu, I begged Vichu to order it. It was made with farm fresh eggs and very fresh oysters. It was cooked to perfection, the eggs were just fluffy enough and the dish was salted just right. Now braised pork belly buns are another Chinese thing that you don't often see served at restaurants. My late grandfather used to make these all the time when he came to visit (I believe we had them every night for dinner one week) and these definitely made me miss him. Traditionally, you eat the braised pork belly slices in Chinese buns along with some sour pickled cabbage. Instead, this modernized version had a nice (not too fatty) braised pork belly and cucumber drizzled with just the right amount of brandied hoisin sauce. The only weird thing that threw me off was the lettuce, but I didn't mind it too much.

The dish to follow that was the tea-smoked pork spare ribs. They came crusted in peppercorn and fell right off the bone...but not in a good way in my opinion. It was almost like beef jerkey and the peppercorn did not really add a good texture or for that matter, a good taste.

Being at a Chinese restaurant, you can't not order potstickers! Vichu and I decided on the Mama Chang's pork and chive variety. (We also got to see Mama AND Papa chang who were dining a few stools down from us!) Good thing Mama Chang left before I tasted these dumplings though. I didn't like the flavor of the pork and I felt like the wrapper was nice and crispy but the inside left much to be desired.

Now for the embarrassing part, seeing as we were sitting face-to-face with the chefs, they basically watched Vichu and me snapping photos of all the food and smelling our food and eating our food very slowly. Well, the head chef that night must have been so amused that he sent over complimentary traditional scallion pancakes. So...I proceeded to take another picture. See what I go through for our loyal readers? The scallion pancakes were good...because they're fried and anything fried is good. There really wasn't much flavor though unless you dipped it into the slightly sweet soy sauce and the scallions weren't in the "traditional scallion pancake" but rather sprinkled on top. However, thanks to the chef who sent them to us! The gesture was certainly a welcome one.

Another thing in keeping with Chinese restaurants is that there is no dessert menu. But instead of giving the boring plate of sliced oranges at the end, the waiter brings you a little tiny ramekin (okay, like half a ramekin) of tapioca pudding. Another hard to find treat on Chinese menus! I LOVE this stuff. It is my world and usually comes at the end of a big family meal at a Chinese restuarant. It's usually a little more soupy and can be served chilled or warm. I'd usually polish off my bowl and then turn the lazy susan and eat all the bowls of the people who were too finicky to try it. At Myers + Chang, it had a thicker texture but the tapioca was cooked perfectly tender and the small slice of mango was a nice sweet kick. I only wish they gave you a bigger portion of this!

Basically, I think that Myers and Chang have a winner here that will be sticking around for a while. They put enough of a twist on Asian food to keep people coming back. They do not take reservations but they do do take-out and as heard through the grapevine, will begin to do delivery. I don't know that I would make it my new hang out spot, but the service was good and the atmosphere fun.

Vichu's View:
I’m going to talk about this restaurant in terms of atmosphere and the food. Overall I liked the atmosphere better than I liked the food. The restaurant and everything about it comes across as very campy, almost a parody of the Asian culture which the food celebrates. When I say campy I don’t mean in a bad way, but in an endearing kind of way. It’s like a geek who watches too much MTV and goes out and tries to emulate cool but just overdoes everything (I will deny any allegations to having ever done this, even if my brother claims to have pictures). From the website to the Chinese newspaper placemats everything has an aura of geeky chic overdone.

The first thing you notice when you arrive at the restaurant are the giant magenta stenciled dragons intertwined with pseudo Chinese patterns done in gold that runs the front of the restaurant. As you enter you see the hostess stand to your right and a long bar height table on your left with enough seating for about 8. Behind the bar height table you have the individual dining tables that line the outside wall of the restaurant. The heart of the restaurant, however, has to be the open kitchen/bar surrounded by stools where guests can sit and watch their food being prepared. The open kitchen is a nice touch; it definitely adds a lively atmosphere to the restaurant itself. The decor was an eclectic mix of modern and practical all with a slight Asian twist.

We got to sit around the center bar that surrounded the kitchen, so we had dinner theater; the chefs were all very efficient and worked like a seasoned team in the somewhat crowded kitchen. I love to watch people cook so this was great! The waiters were very friendly and efficient, my water glass was never empty for long and once a plate was empty it would be whisked away promptly. So the front of the house gets high marks for being casual but very skilled at what they do.

On to the food… I’ve never really been a fan of restaurants that try to specialize in more than one type of Asian cuisine (in this case, Chinese, Thai, and Vietnamese), for some strange reason they all fail to capture the essential differences in each distinct culture, and usually produce an awful interpretation of each. Myers+Chang didn’t try to reproduce the authentic dishes; they just borrowed the flavor profiles from these cuisines and created new interpretations and presentations of them. Some of these interpretations were successful some not so much…We ordered the: tea-smoked spare ribs, spicy Szechwan salt and pepper whole shrimp, braised pork belly buns, mama chang’s pork and chives dumplings, kingmain’s fried rice, double oyster omelet, and the chef sent us a dish of yellow chive pancakes on the house (apparently because we looked like we were enjoying eating). Each dish came when they were done and in random order, so I’ll review them in random order.

The tea-smoked spare ribs, was actually my least favorite dish, over-spiced with five spice killing most of the nuances of tea smoking. The whole peppercorns on top of the spareribs were also a bit much… I would like to enjoy my meal without the fear of cracking my teeth on whole peppercorn. The meat was falling off the bone, but about as dry as I’ve ever had pork. So I wouldn’t really order this dish again, it sounds very good on paper but just about everything was wrong.

The Szechwan salt and pepper whole shrimp was completely not what I expected. It was served in a bamboo steamer basket lined with newspaper and finished with a sprinkle of cilantro. First off the presentation was very cool the newspaper was optically a very nice touch, however, food wise it’s never a good idea to serve food on printed material. Even though this is probably not real newsprint, the combination of oil, paper, and ink produces an adverse smell that makes the dish less appetizing, also as the dish cools the newsprint sticks to the food; very unappetizing. When I took a bite into the head of the shrimp (I’m gonna assume like all other salt and pepper whole shrimp, I’m suppose to eat it whole) I was kind of surprised by how limey the dish was. Where was the salt, and pepper? It more closely resembled a really condensed tom yum soup rather than salt and pepper seasoning. I had quite a bit of time to ponder the interesting nature of the citrus and shrimp because the shells were quite chewy. The reason they deep-fry this dish in Chinese restaurants is because they want a crispy shrimp shell that behaves almost like a shrimp cracker. They also flavor it with salt and pepper so no liquid gets on the shrimp shells and makes them soft again. Overall this dish was quite tasty, sadly the concept was probably not thought out as well as it could have been. Salt and pepper shrimp should be crispy and crunchy like potato chips with a yummy shrimpy center… not so much a soggy chewy piece of shrimp shell that’s flavored nicely…

The braised pork belly buns were quite interesting. It was more of a pork belly taco rather than a bun. A filling of roast pork, picked cucumber, and crisp lettuce was stuffed in a soft Chinese tortilla that’s been folded in half! A very cool concept; but the different elements of this dish kept fighting each other. The Chinese tortilla had the familiar flowery sweetness, but rather than a pillowy soft container of porky goodness it was a dense, funny textured, holder of porky oddness. The roast pork was a bit salty while the picked cucumber was under seasoned bland and limp, and the interplay of the slightly tough pork and soft cucumber was a huge turnoff.

The following three dishes mama chang’s pork and chives dumplings, kingmain’s fried rice, and the double oyster omelet were all quite tasty but all suffered from what I’d like to call wok burn. Wok burn is that strange bitter taste that a wok (or actually the oil in the wok) leaves when the cooking oil overheats degrades. What a shame these dishes were some of my favorite minus the bitter annoying aftertaste. The pork dumplings were well made and tasty and went well with the soy sauced based dipping sauce. The friend rice was an interesting mishmash of different ingredients; it was like a treasure hunt trying to figure out what everything was. I discovered cubed carrots, edamame, cubed Chinese sausage, scrambled eggs, and cubed bamboo shoots. The oyster omelets were quite tasty, and the oysters were cooked perfectly. The Siracha sauce overpowered the oysters, but went great with the scrambled eggs! These dishes I think were really successful concepts unlike the previous three but executed rather poorly.

Now on to my favorite dish of the evening, the yellow chive pancakes. It wasn’t my favorite dish because it was free but because it was well conceived and well executed. This dish reminds me of Indian (American Indian) fry bread stuffed with tiny cubes of Chinese sausage. What in this dish is there not to love! I love fry bread, and when you stuff it with something as yummy as Chinese sausage it just elevates the dish to another level, add the sweet soy sauce dip and it’s a dish worth coming back for. This is probably the only dish I would recommend from everything we ordered or didn’t order.

So would I eat at Myers+Chang again? I’m not sure that I would. It was a fun dining experience but the food was sadly disappointing.

Vichu's House

Char's View
So every year for the past four years, Vichu has a tradition of inviting his closet friends over for a feast specially prepared by him. I had the honor of attending last year and this year. Let me just say, his cooking is amazing and it really boggles me that this guy doesn't have his own restaurant yet!

I also want to take this time to insert a disclaimer. Most of you will continue to read this review and think, "Man! Who does this girl think she is? Her friend has prepared this amazing 5-course meal when you usually eat Ramen for dinner and YOU have the nerve to critique HIS food. You'll never get invited again." I was asked to write this review and one day soon, you'll read a review of my cooking from Vichu. So all is fair on The Foodie Trail.

Our amuse bouche for the evening started off with a salmon tartare and red onion creme fraiche on a black poppy seed tuille. (I helped with the creme fraiche and the tuille) which I must say were both excellent. The salmon tartare was fresh and minced to perfection and the whole amuse bouche was a savory melt in your mouth kick-off to the meal. We then moved on to two different soup-in-a-soups. (Vichu had a fancy name for this that now I can neither recall or spell.) But basically, he had prepared two different soups which he gelatinized. After putting a couple of cubes of the gelatinized soup in little finger bowls, he poured a Japanese broth over them to create a whole new soup. The first was a beet soup (a reprise from last year's dinner.) I don't normally like beets (brings me back to my days of studying abroad in Sydney where the Aussies love to put beets on everything) but once the Japanese soup was poured on top, the two flavors surprisingly had a great chemistry together. The second soup was a cauliflower curry which again had a wonderful flavor when blended with the Japanese broth. I would have to say that the third course was my favorite of the whole evening. Vichu had overcome his anxiety of boiling the live Boston lobsters and created a butter poached lobster with a papaya slaw. Presentation of this dish made me proud as he placed a beautiful, narrow rectangle plate before us. One end had a ring of the papaya slaw which had just enough lime juice to make the side a perfect blend of sourness, sweetness and spicyness and when paired with the neatly piled lobster on the other end, made me want to say that that was a perfect ending in and of itself. But having the Asian M.O. of not wasting any part of those poor lobsters, he used the claw meat to create lobster roll sliders. This was simple enough, he blended the lobster meat with home made aioli and celery and placed the mixture on French cheese puffs. I think I could have eaten like a dozen all on my own. Next was our palette cleanser, a sangria of sorts. I believe it was red wine gelatin with an Orangina sorbet on top. I was a little skeptical and the red wine hadn't quite gelled properly but it was sweet and really did reflect a good Sangria. Our fourth course, was a beautiful braised ox tail and gnocchi. Of course, Vichu made gnocchi from scratch. I expected the ox tail to fall off the bone but instead it was a little tough. (I, however, will take the blame for that seeing as was in charge of searing the ox tail before it was put in to braise. I have my mother's genes and might have overcooked them prior to the braising step.) I also think the dish could have benefitted to have the onions chopped smaller rather than the large strips to help aid the texture of the dish and it could have used less sauce or a good loaf of beautiful bread to sop it up with. The dessert I'm sad to say was a bit disappointing. We had a grapefruit sorbet which was just a bit too tart for my taste and finished it up with an earl gray ice cream which is always amazing when Vichu makes it but just doesn't go well on the palette after having grapefruit.

All in all, Vichu is an amazing chef and deserves 3 Michelin stars in my book! And as for the rest of you, you'll just have to wait until you get invited to this annual dinner!

Vichu's View
Dinner at Scott’s is an annual dinner party where I invite all my favorite people and torture them with my cooking. Luckily someone always steps up and does the bartending, which goes a long way in proving the adage “with enough alcohol anything is palatable”. I would like to take this opportunity to thanks my friends for still being my friends, and for stepping up and eating the food even though a lot of the concepts border on culinary disasters…

Dinner at Scott’s IV: The Gathering

The Amuse-Salmon Ice Cream: The idea was simple, recreate a dish I enjoyed many years earlier at Thomas Keller’s French Laundry. A cornet of black sesame tuile with a red onion crème fraiche filling, topped off with salmon tartare made to look like an ice cream cone. Simple right? Oh not so… It came out as a tuile disk with the fixin’s placed on top and thanks to Charlene and her excellent plating skills the dish looked really good despite my overcooking the tuiles and not being able to make them into cornets. The taste of the dish was pretty close, but I think I might have miscalculated how much oil to put in the salmon tartare and tasted a bit oily, but overall I think I got 10% of it right.

The second course was little neck clams broiled with a bit of olive oil, lemon juice and salt, topped with some proscuitto. Sounds good doesn’t it? Well if you execute it right this dish is out of this world, clams don’t usually need a whole lot to make them good but on the same note they don’t need very much to make them bad either! These clams were a bit dull on the palette - under seasoned, and a bit overcooked, wow so only 3 out of 3 wrong with this dish. Next time I’ll add more lemon and salt and take out some of the olive oil.

I got these Little Necks from the James Hook Company in Boston. They were the hardest clams I’ve ever shucked because of how fresh and feisty they were! Opening each one was like fighting to get a chastity belt off a nun!

The third course was by far my most experimental. The idea was simple, create a neutral but tasty soup base (in this case I chose Dashi) to which you could add different flavoring cubes (concentrated and gelatinized soups cut into cubes) to and create a unique mouthful of soup with each spoonful. I choose beet and curried cauliflower as my flavoring agents, but a wide array of flavoring could have been used. I would have plated it with a small bowl of hot soup placed on a small platter with colourful flavoring cubes arranged beautifully beside the bowl and a Chinese soupspoon placed on the end. The diner could then mix and match the flavor cubes however they liked in the soupspoon and then add some hot soup base and watch and taste a new creation blossom before your eyes. Pretty cool idea huh? But alas failure! The flavoring cubes were so soft I had trouble getting them unmolded into a soup bowl, let alone placing them on a plate and having people try and pick them up. Somewhere out there a perfect ratio of gelatin to concentrated soup (holding the cubes together just enough to handle while still melting enough to dissolved almost instantly when hot soup is added) exists I just need to find it. Next time I will use a vegetable consume rather than dashi (the dashi was a bit strong for what I wanted).

Fourth course part I was my interpretation of a Lobster roll. I replaced the roll with a Gougeres and made a standard New England lobster roll filling. The Gougeres came out a bit soft on the outside but overall quite tasty (not floury, but eggy and cheesy). The filling, however, needs work… the butter poached claw meat was a bit overcooked and the mayonnaise was too thick and too overpowering in taste. I think if I dilute the mayo a bit more this might not be a bad dish.

Fourth course part II butter poached lobster tail on a papaya salad with tom yum sauce. This course was going to be a deconstruction and refinement of a Tom Yum Soup with lobster instead of shrimp, with sauce rather than a soup. Well I mucked up the sauce pretty badly so I didn’t serve it. Next time I have to start the sauce waaaay earlier. The lobster tails were overcooked and a bit rubbery but poaching in butter idea is here to stay. I like the overall taste of the butter poached lobsters but need to improve the execution. The papaya salad was pretty much how I wanted it, minus the slightly ripe papaya, which ended up being a really funny color when you add the cilantro lime marinade to it. But I think if I can find a truly unripe papaya the color won’t be so disconcerting. It’s supposed to be green and adding more green to green is fine, but adding green to slightly yellow and orange papaya makes it just an odd color.

Next time I’ll also plate the two lobster dishes side by side on a plate with potato chips and I think the presentation will be complete.

The palate cleanser was a deconstruction of my favorite sangria recipe. I made a red wine gelee to which I added Orangina slush at the last minute. However, I didn’t add enough gelatin to the red wine gelee so it was still liquid and when mixed with the Orangina slush creating a really repulsive looking liquid. Oh lordy food should never be a muddy brown. The overall taste, however, was close to what I wanted, but I just couldn’t get over the look of dish.

The main course was a simple oxtail ragu with gnocchi, which next time I will take more time to prepare. The oxtail wasn’t braised anywhere near long enough so the meat was tough and not meltingly soft as it should have been. The gnocchi itself was as it should have been (Thanks Denise), and the sauce was a bit on the greasy side. I’ve made this dish before and it didn’t end up being quite so unfinished and haphazard. Better execution next time and it’ll become the dish I remember so fondly.

Dessert was Earl Grey ice cream, which is one of my favorite ice creams and came out almost as I like it. I’ll steep the tea a bit less next time and take out some of the bitter edge.

Dessert Part II Grapefruit gelee topped with a Guwertraminer gelee, More patience in the execution I think it’ll turn out looking right. I was too hasty in pouring the Guwertraminer gelee on the grapefruit gelee causing the mixture to intermix rather than layer. I didn’t get to taste the concoction and I hope it turned out okay. I tasted them separately but not together. Note to self learn to count next time and make enough dishes for all your guests.

The Foodie Trail

The infamous red brick path of the Freedom Trail is known to Bostonians and tourists alike and leads to sixteen important historic sites that breathe life and beauty into Boston's background. But what is The Foodie Trail?

My name is Char and I have lived in Boston for the last seven years. Recently, my love of all things food has grown out of control and I've made it my mission to try out the fine culinary world this city has to offer! My brave friend, Vichu, has agreed to journey The Foodie Trail with me. Vichu has a palate like no other. He brings his technical knowledge and passion along with him to take our dining experiences to a whole new level.

We both hope that you will enjoy reading our food blog and that you'll use us a guide when you're ready to set out on The Foodie Trail!

Aquitaine: September "Tour de France"

Aquitaine
569 Tremont St
Boston, MA 02118
www.aquitaineboston.com


Vichu's View:
A couple weeks earlier Char IMed me a website and asked me, "what region of food do you want to try?" Aquitaine apparently is doing a Tour de France tasting menu where each week a different region of France would be featured. I could choose between Brittany, the Loire Valley, Burgundy, or Bordeaux… huh… where do I want to eat… I ended up choosing Burgundy mostly for nostalgic reasons. Don’t get me wrong I love the food of the other regions, but Burgundy holds a very special place in my heart. Very few things in the world could match driving through the Burgundy country side in a rusty old Deux Chevaux praying at every incline that it would make it over. If it didn’t make it, we’d flip a coin to see who the lucky person was that would get to experience glorious Burgundy up close while helping push the car over the hill. But it was all worth it! Eating fantastic foods and drinking unbelievable wines then driving off greedily to the next stop where inevitably another taste adventure waits to be discovered. Ahh Burgundy with its vast vineyards and farms that covered the country side, like a giant embroidered silk tapestry rich in colour, texture, and character. With friendly, down to earth people that if you had the curiosity, would go out of their way to show you what life in Burgundy is like.

But back to Aquitaine… Located in the South End of Boston, this restaurant is a tribute to modern gastronomy. The face of the restaurant is composed of large floor to ceiling windows that offers a glimpse inside a modern but friendly restaurant, decorated with neutral colored walls and dark leather seats. The first thing you see as you walk in the door the is the host’s station, to your right is a bar with an impressive wine rack made of dark wood that stretches to the ceiling, to your left the dining room. The hostess was very pleasant and led us to our table. Our table itself was a bit on the small side, it can be argued that the smaller table was chosen to provide a more intimate atmosphere… however, I like my tables just a bit larger. A more "come, sit, stay a while" kind of table. The linen table cloth and napkins were white, crisp and well presented. The waiters wore uniforms, that consists of a dark pants and vest (with the logo embroidered in the back) and a crisp white shirt. I often look at how presentable waiters are only because I think they represent the restaurant. If they are slobby or dirty I worry a little about what the kitchen might be like… and if I worry about the kitchen then… I worry about the food. So far my dining experience has been pretty good.

Our waiter comes by promptly after we are seated and asks if we want any beverages, we had tap water (I will probably have tap water at every restaurant we blog about, because I want to write about the food and water is the only control we have in terms of beverages), which was brought promptly. So far so good... They have an extensive wine list, which was geared very well toward the Bistro fair they serve. The pricing was a bit on the high side but I won’t begrudge them that. Once we were seated and water poured, the waiter brought an amuse. A cheesey choux puff (think cream puff without the filling and a cheesy flavoured dough) which was a bit on the bland side. I think I would have liked it better if it was cheesier or even a bit saltier. Also it tasted a bit stale, but I’m really really picky about my choux puffs. Choux puffs should be eggy, crisp, and a vehicle to deliver the featured flavour. This choux puff was a bit floury and limp with very little cheesy flavour. Uh oh… this isn’t a very good start. Then we were brought bread. It was a roll served with butter. The roll was decent could have had a better crust and the texture inside could have been more interesting. I like breads that when you tear it apart you can hear the crust rip open with a crunch that just makes you salivate. If you want to hear a perfect crust watch Ratatouille when it comes out on DVD. There’s a scene where they break a baguette and you’ll understand what I mean. (That scene makes me salivate like a Pavlovian dog with a gland problem.) The butter was served in a little crock, I wish the butter was a bit warmer so it would spread better on the bread. The butter was cold so it ended up lumping in chunks and didn’t really offer the benefits of having butter with a roll.

On to the meal itself: I started the Escargot de Bourgogne with Herb Butter and Char ordered the Warmed Goat Cheese Crotin on Toast with Pistachios & Salade de Marche. My Escargot was served in a dish designed for escargot with 6 indents that held the shelled escargots with a slight cheese crust over the top of each escargot. The crock came nested in an intricately folded napkin flower (nice touch) that held the escargot dish in place on the serving dish. The Escargot was cooked perfectly, they were tender and had a pleasant mouth feel. Although the herbed butter could have used more herbs and less butter, the concoction didn’t really add any taste to the dish just an unpleasant greasiness to the escargot. The overall dish wasn’t bad just needs a bit more flavour and less fat. Oh and maybe a bit of salt to draw out the flavours in the dish.

Char’s goat salad was nice. It wasn’t over dressed with is always appreciated, the goat cheese crotin could have used a bit more flavour and maybe a bit of texture. The salad was very pleasant to eat and the walnut oil in the dressing added a nice touch. Although it would have been nice if the greens were refreshed a bit before serving. They were a tad limp on the plate. The dish was plated with Marche salad on the bottom of the plate, a round of toast on top and the Goat cheese crotin on top of the toast. The plating could have used a bit more imagination especially when served beside the escargot.

The second course we both ordered the Roasted Bistro Steak, Foraged Mushrooms, Bacon, Pearl Onions & Roasted Potatoes. I ordered the steak rare, and they hit it right on the spot. The dish was plated with new potatoes on the bottom topped with the mushroom, onions, and bacon and the steak sliced on top with a mushroom sauce drizzled around the food. The potatoes, mushroom, and bacon were excellent slightly over salted but when eaten with the steak it was just right. The steak itself however needed a bit of help. The crust was nonexistent (I believe that when pan searing beef there should be a flavourful crust that accentuates the beef and offers an interesting mouth feel), and was way under-seasoned to stand by itself. Maybe if they took a bit of salt out of the supporting cast and added it to the meat itself the dish would have been excellent. Also some parts of the beef were kind of tough, I understand that this is a function of the cut of beef and not the cooking itself. Overall I would definitely get this dish again, or maybe just the potatoes, mushrooms, onions, and bacon part.

We finished the dinner with a Home-made Éclair Filled with White Chocolate Cream & Topped with Warm Chocolate Sauce. Overall the dessert was underwhelming in almost every way. The chocolate sauce was nice and had a very pleasant viscosity, but that was about all that was good about the dessert. First there was too much chocolate sauce. It was almost as if they were trying to hide something. The choux puff for the éclair was again a bit stale, I guess the same complaints I had with the cheesy choux puffs at the beginning of the meal, with the added complaint that the filling made the choux soggy and even more unpleasant. Maybe add the filling at the last minute, it doesn’t take that much more time and the result would have been better! The filling itself had a good taste but the texture was a huge turn off. When I think pastry cream I think of a something smooth and silky with a creamy mouth feel. All I got here was something lumpy with temperature variations from one part to another that I could quite explain… So I wouldn’t really get this dish again…

Overall the dining experience was good and I’d come back again. The front of the house gets excellent marks for attentiveness and overall professionalism. The food itself was good with the exception of the dessert. The meal didn’t quite capture the romantic notion of Burgundy, but I guess nothing really will.


Char's View:
Thanks to one of the world's greatest tools (Open Table www.opentable.com) I received an e-mail about Aquitaine's "Tour de France" prix fixe dinner throughout the month of September. Each week, the restaurant will focus on a different region of France. Now, I have only been to Paris, but I heart French food and I am always up for the opportunity to explore the eateries in Boston's South End.

The first week (September 4th-9th) featured Brittany. Unfortunately, Vichu didn't make this one with me, I went with a girlfriend, but was pretty happy with the quality and decided not to cancel my "trip to Burgundy" with Vichu. For $50, I had a three-course meal with two wine pairings. My friend and I thought we had the best seat in the house (big plush corner booth that faced right out to Tremont Street) but slowly we realized that it wasn't all that great of a spot. The main doors which had been left open, let a lot of big flys come in and if they were writing a review, would say that they thought the food was good too.

The first course was pan fried melting gruyere cheese with rocket, peaches & spiced almonds. I really did enjoy the salad, it gave me inspiration to go home and try to re-create it, but still gave me a little bit of a challenge to figure out the exact execution of the dressing. The "melting gruyere" was inventive and gave the salad a little bit of a naughty ("It's salad, but it's also fried food!") feel, but after awhile, it did become a little too greasy feeling. The peaches however were nice and firm and the light honey of the dressing gave it just the right amount of sweetness, but not so much so that it was overwhelming.

For the entree, I chose the sautéed skate wing with zucchini, shell beans, mushroom & champagne beurre blanc. Now, I had never had skate before and this had a really interesting texture. It was still more on the light and flaky side as opposed to being more "steaky" and was very nicely complemented by the zucchini, mushrooms, and light beurre blanc. Myself not being all that fond of beans, I tried the shell beans but they were just too firm for me. A little bit like edamame, but I like edamame better!

To top it all of, dessert was sweet buckwheat crêpes with Nutella, crème chantilly & toasted hazelnuts and boy, was it French! What I mean by that is that it wasn't overpoweringly sweet. The crepes were light, Nutella spread just thinly enough and the creme and hazelnuts just made it perfect! This was paired with Cidre Bouché de Cru, Antoinette, Brut. This was essentially sparkling cider but gave just the right amount of sweet and bubbly to complement the dessert! All in all, great meal!

The third week (September 17th-23rd) featured the region of Burgundy. Vichu and I decided not to go with any of the wine pairings and it only cost $39 for a three-course dinner.

I started with warmed goat cheese crotin on toast with pistachios & salade de marché which was slightly underdressed and had no pistachios as promised. This was definitely a lackluster salad that I've made better versions of at home. I did get to try an escargot off of Vichu's starter plate and it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. You just have to not think about it. I would compare the taste and texture to that of a mushroom: meaty and earthy. It helped that it was drowned in butter. For the entree, both Vichu and I had roasted bistro steak, foraged mushrooms, bacon, pearl onions & roasted potatoes. When this plate arrived, the meat was prepared spot on to what I asked for, medium rare. The medley of mushrooms, bacon, and onions was overly seasoned (probably due to the small strips of side-cut bacon) but oddly, the potatoes had no taste to them even though they were part of the same medley.

The dessert was a home-made eclair filled with white chocolate cream & topped with warm chocolate sauce and it was exactly that. It didn't make me as happy as the crepes I had the first week, in fact, it left me wishing that I just hadn't had dessert at all and left my palate relishing in the tastes of the bistro steak.