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!
9.19.2007
9.18.2007
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.
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.
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