review: central kitchen

central kitchen / 567 massachusetts avenue / cambridge ma / 617-491-5599 / sun-wed 5:30-1am, thu-sat 5:30-2am / reservations accepted for parties of 6+ (recommended) / entrees moderately expensive ($18-25)

i have no wish to tackle my thesis at the moment, so instead i'll write about food. i had dinner with rob at central kitchen, which i had been to once before with celina back in june when i had just moved into 24. while it's not mind-blowing, it's good, solid, above-average stuff. it's a bit expensive for students, but has a great atmosphere - hip but not pretentiously so. it's a small place, balanced lighting, cool dented chrome tables.

neither of us was particularly hungry, so we split an appetizer and an entree - mini portuguese style stew (clams, mussels, and sausage in a tomato broth with bread) and mushroom ragout with ricotta dumplings and creamy polenta. the portuguese stew was good but pretty standard; the ragout was really quite good. the ricotta dumplings were an interesting idea, and really good with the mushrooms (shiitake, hen of the woods, lobster, i think...). and creamy polenta is always a good idea. it had peas in it too, which added some color and a bit of sweetness to the heft of the mushrooms.

for dessert we had an orange chiffon cake with mascarpone cream and a bit of diced tropical fruit. it was pretty good, but i wouldn't have described the cake as a chiffon cake - it was more like a lighter pound cake. the mascarpone was a great addition, and probably what made it for me. in general, it was very enjoyable, if the service was a bit neglectful at the beginning. the high point was definitely the mushroom ragout, and the portions are pretty big, so we were rather full even having split what one person would have ordered normally. i hadn't been out for a while because of studio, so it was really nice to have dinner out somewhere - it's as enjoyable as cooking dinner with friends, just different. makes me feel like i'm a normal person again, really. funny how that is.