upstairs again; tomatoes at craigie; a new find

this year, upstairs on the square must have a new chef, because the food is a lot more exciting and adventurous than it usually is. it also appears to be suffering a bit business-wise, even though the food is better than it has ever been; so i'm doing my part towards the country's economic recovery by having had lunch twice at upstairs in the past two weeks. the first time wasn't particularly worth talking about - a clam chowder that tasted mostly of creme fraiche and a fish sandwich on too-thick bread - but the second time was really quite wonderful. i went with my mother and sister, and we had:

- chilled yellow tomato soup with a hint of scotch bonnet; crouton of wild salmon and avocado tartare

- antipasti of lourdes' mozzarella; peach and sweet summer pepper relish

- lemon tagliatelle; chiogga beets & greens, lobster knuckles, sauteed cod cheeks

- bbq pork piadina sandwich; giardiniera of farmer's market vegetables, crisp onion strings

- cheeseburger on a potato roll; gruyere, niman ranch bacon, cucumber pickles

- market fruit galette; candied almonds

- crema catalana; cinnamon & orange, pecan shortbread cookies

the tomato soup was absolutely delicious - i often find tomatoes to be too sweet, but these were sweet and plenty tart. the addition of the scotch bonnet is also quite wonderful - adding a crucial bit of warming heat to the cold soup. the avocado was delicious, but unnecessary.

i had the bbq pork sandwich as my main course - it was also quite good. it turns out that a piadina is a sort of italian flatbread, slightly thicker than a tortilla; this one was corn-based. the bbq pork was great - a lot of bbq flavor, a bit of char - and i think that it may have been cooking in the grill we saw right at the entrance to the restaurant, as the smoke from the grill matched the smoky flavor in the pork. the giardiniera, which is an actual name for an italian side dish that is a fancy name for pickled vegetables, was forgettable and a bit too vinegary for my tastes. the crisp onion strings were absolutely delicious - very lightly battered, razor-thin slices of onion - basically, ephemeral bits of onion essence.

i had a bite of my sister's lemon tagliatelle, which is fresh, house-made pasta. not as delicious as the lobster dish i had a few weeks ago, but still quite good. i also had a bite of my mother's burger, and i may have to amend my decision to name craigie's burger as the best burger around here. i've had the upstairs burger before, but long ago enough that craigie had replaced it in my esteem. however, now that i've had each burger within a week of each other, i can safely compare them. while it was worth the wait for the tomato in craigie's burger, the upstairs burger actually tasted beefier and more satisfying. the upstairs burger also earns some brownie points with its inclusion of homemade mayo for the burger or fries (mayo with my fries is one food-related affection that i've developed in my grown-up-adult phase of life). i also prefer upstairs' thick-cut fries over the shoestring fries at craigie, although this time, at least craigie had regular potato fries (i am not a fan of sweet potato fries). there is just no way to effectively eat shoestring fries; it robs you of both a high rate of potato consumption (a debatable loss), but more importantly, of the satisfaction of chewing a mouthful of potato. and that is definitely a crime.

unfortunately, although the first and second courses were delicious, dessert was disappointing. i generally caution against dessert at upstairs, unless you choose the butterscotch pudding, which is absolutely wonderful. both desserts were clunkers - the galette wasn't sweetened enough (and i'm pretty sensitive to overly sweet desserts), its crust was completely soggy, and it came topped with whipped cream that was whipped almost to the point of being butter. i really wanted to send it back, but i never know what the etiquette is for that type of thing. the crema catalana was better - it was basically a spiced creme brulee, and the shortbread cookies were good, but it was overall an average dessert.

as a side note, exciting news! i have now been to craigie enough times that i apparently am a trusted enough customer that they don't require me to secure my reservations with a credit card. i'm moderately flattered.

***

also last week, i did restaurant week lunch with my sister at asana, which is in the mandarin oriental hotel on boylston. the entrance is unmarked as far as i could see, both from the street entrance and from the hotel entrance; much as it may denote high levels of cool, i am not a huge fan of such displays. luckily, the food was wonderful, and the decor is quite nice design-wise - simple, with accents of texture and volume.

per the restaurant week menu, we had the following (the simplicity of the way the menu is worded masks some of the preparation techniques):

- heirloom tomato and lemongrass soup; watermelon, flowers

- ahi tuna sashimi; wasabi greens, yuzu vinaigrette, squid cracker

- bento box; asian bbq beef, sticky rice, wakame salad, steamed pork dumplings

- atlantic salmon; mizuna, citrus, mint, basil, sake vinaigrette

- grand marnier parfait; marinated raspberries

- jivara chocolate tart; roasted banana ice cream

i was slightly underwhelmed by the tomato soup that i had, although this is more due to my cultural conception of what a tomato soup should be. this tomato soup was more of a tomato consomme, in which the tomato juice is extracted from pulped tomatoes. it wasn't like v8 tomato juice - rather, the consomme is to v8 as fresh orange juice is to oj from a carton. it has a wonderfully fresh, delicate flavor, but i think my liking for florals in my food is pretty limited, so i was less a fan of this soup. (the two notable floral concoctions i've had were the lemonade from cafe baraka, which has rosewater in it, and the floral scent-infused sea bass chowder i had at alinea.)

the tuna sashimi that my sister had was really delicious - a good balance of ingredients in addition to very good tuna. as usual, no ability here to taste yuzu.

main courses were really good - the salmon i had was seared on one side, skin-on on the other side. the sear was very well done technically - the salmon was perfectly cooked, the sear perfectly crispy. the salmon was unadorned, really, save for the grapefruit - grapefruit with seafood is a favorite combination. i can't remember what salmon is usually paired with at restaurants, but it seemed to me that mashed potatoes and salad were slightly out of the ordinary. it was a well-orchestrated trio - the mashed potatoes were similar to the salmon in richness, while the mix of arugula and mint acted as a refreshing foil to that richness. it's not often that one gets mint in a salad, instead of as a garnish or in a pesto, and i was somewhat surprised to find that it pairs so well with arugula - the peppery flavor of the arugula and the coolness of the mint are well-balanced. i did also have a dumpling and a bit of beef from my sister's bento box, which were good and excellent, respectively. the beef was very complex in flavor, the spices balancing out the sweetness of the sauce. you could also tell that the way the beef had been cooked in the sauce was a distinctively asian preparation, not unlike char siu pork - it wasn't beef in sauce, but rather, the sauce had been reduced and the beef seared and cooked in it for some time.

it seems rare to me that restaurants do both sweet and savory well, but the desserts here were really impressive. i find that it's more difficult to find good places for dessert in the boston area than for dinner, so it's great to find a place that does everything well. the parfait that i had came in four small cylinders laid on a plate like logs, their tops scattered with a smattering of raspberries that had a sheen of some kind of "marinade" (like a syrupy reduction of sugar or wine), and a traditional caramelized-sugar tuile. the cylinders were the "grand marnier parfait" and tasted like a semifreddo, but firmer - as if it had been firmed with whatever the molecular gastronomy types use to solidify frozen things. the end result was that throughout eating the dessert, it didn't melt, still tasted cold, and had the slightest bit of chew to what appeared to be a soft ice cream. well, it was delicious - just a very simple preparation to end an excellent lunch. my sister's dessert was equally good - the jivara, i believe, corresponds to a specific blend of valrhona chocolate; both tart (of the dense, flourless-chocolate-cake ilk) and the banana ice cream were great.

in addition to lunch, we had a couple of tonics - i can't quite remember what they had in them, but they are wonderful, simple yet complex concoctions. it's the sort of non-alcoholic tonic that makes you feel like you're just as appreciated as someone who's drinking an alcoholic cocktail (plus, it was lunch on a weekday).

the service here is also pretty good - inobstrusive, but attentive. it's the type of place that's the dressy, hostess-pulls-out-your-chair-for-you type place - the high-end type of place that is welcome but atypical for the casualness of life in boston. i'm pretty sure that the last place where my chair was pulled out for me was per se in new york. the dining room has well-lit high ceilings, and the high-end finishes of the decor and silverware really make you feel like you're in a luxurious setting. then again, the sumptuousness of a weekday three-course, two-hour lunch certainly contributed to its air of luxury, too... (for those of you who are always conscious of food portions, the portions here are generally spot on - not too much, not too little, erring on the side of slightly generous (especially for lunch).)

i remain somewhat amazed by the discovery of a new place that's so good - simple, adventurous, delicious. i'm pretty hard to impress, food-wise, but i was impressed; it's rare that a new place is so good. i often feel belittled at nice restaurants because i appear to be young or inexperienced in the realm of good food, but the service here is fairly unpretentious. it was pretty empty at lunch on a friday afternoon - about a third of the dining room was occupied - so the scene when it's busy might be off-putting, as it seems like it's an upscale/hip enough place to attract the correspondingly pretentious crowd. however, on this day - a beautiful sunny day - it was quiet and relaxing.

craigie on main

restaurant openings in my neighborhood always cause me some pain along with the joy. i very much like craigie street bistrot, and am quite happy that now it's around the corner on main street. at the same time, i really am not that happy that craigie street is what moved in on main street, because its prices are so high that it's not affordable for the vast majority of the neighborhood. while i don't object that much to the influx of well-heeled yuppie/upper-middle-class strangers coming into the neighborhood - who are we kidding, i mind a whole lot - it's more that i think that restaurants that purport to be so neighborhoody should pay more attention to who lives in the neighborhood. it just doesn't seem ethically right that a restaurant should locate itself in a place where most of the diners are not natives (unless we're in new york). not even brunch is affordable! contrast craigie on main with tosci's - tosci's is a true neighborhood place where you can sit, linger, and brunch for not too much. i just feel that craigie is being a little insensitive.

ethical tension aside, craigie on main is pretty good in the food and service department. first, let's do a couple of notes about decor. overall, quite nice - easy to hear, nice colors, no clashing, etc. but the two-tops are spaced too close to each other. i mean, really - i'm not a huge person, and i had trouble getting in and out of my seat because it was back to back with the seat behind me. you know how you feel like the restaurant doesn't think you're going to be that profitable for them, and they give you the most rotten tables? that pretty much sums up how i felt about that table. and the table size is fine - all the plates fit - but the spacing is pretty much horrible. also, i kind of like having the kitchen out in the open (concerns with food odors saturating your clothing aside), but it leaves the entryway space feeling really cramped. i don't know who their designer was, but they did not do that great a job - good idea, middling execution. i wonder if the draft from the door affects temperatures in the kitchen, or if it's far enough away?

anyway, the food. we came because they had a restaurant stimulus menu - a $35 3-course prix fixe. it was relatively unexciting, though, and the first course was crispy smelts that i wasn't sure i would like, so mary and i ordered a la carte. usually craigie street has a $30 3-course prix fixe, so i'm curious to know if at craigie on main, it has been edited out. because i would certainly go more often if there was a more affordable option.

appetizers: i started with grilled octopus with chorizo cream, cipollini onions, and hearts of palm. i'm not a fan of hearts of palm - they just taste bland to me - but the rest was an excellent combination. i haven't had octopus that many times - i can probably count the number of times on one hand - and the last one i had was at babbo, and it was fantastic. this one was excellent as well; the chorizo cream was a particularly good pairing. i find the difference between the textures of squid and octopus to be really intriguing - you wouldn't expect such similar creatures to taste so different. mary had the cream of cauliflower soup with rabbit sausage and a bit of brussels sprouts. the soup was pretty delicate in flavor, but was fantastic in combination with the rabbit sausage; in turn the rabbit sausage was definitely the best preparation of rabbit that i've had - i don't typically like rabbit because i find it bland.

by the way, bread service: generally blah. the bread was fine, but i don't see why craigie street always insists on serving butter that's too cold to spread.

for main courses, i had the slow-cooked sea trout with frizzled ginger, rock shrimp, and mussels, all in a bit of serrano ham broth with almonds (hot ham water, anyone?). i assume that "slow-cooked" means "sous vide" and i'm coming to understand that i don't really like the texture of things that are cooked sous-vide. i think i prefer food, or at least meat, with texture and chew to it, rather than it being food for babies and people with dentures. however, the flavors of this dish were really excellent - better than the octopus, i would say. everything was very complementary, and the rock shrimp were almost as good as the ones i had at babbo (the last place i had rock shrimp). the trout didn't taste overly trout-y (as mackerel sometimes taste overly mackerel-y), and every time i have mussels, i increasingly realize that i really like them.

the surprise of the night was dessert - gingerbread pain perdu, and it was a knockout! I don't typically think of dessert being a strong suit for craigie street, but this was the best thing we had all night. it was two triangles of cake that had a lot of egg in it - enough for a very moist, almost custardy way, but custardy in a cooked in a hot water bath for a while, rather than a typical creme caramel custardy-ness. it's difficult to describe, and i'd be curious to know what the preparation was. whatever it was, the slight crunchiness of the very top layer was absolutely delectable, and it was fantastic with the ginger ice cream. it was kind of like a ginger-spiced version of sticky toffee pudding, minus the copious amounts of caramel sauce.

service was excellent - it seems like the restaurant is really trying to please diners so they come back, in these difficult economic times. well...i mean, my views on this are pretty clear. i wonder if it's just not economically feasible to lower prices, or if there's a certain level of produce quality that can't be trimmed in any way to make the restaurant more affordable. regardless, it's nice to have some seriously good food in the neighborhood - it's definitely better than everything else (with the exception, perhaps, of salts, a restaurant i haven't been to). let's just hope that someday the locals will be able to partake.

review: wind, rain, and almost hail... (craigie street bistrot)

craigie street bistrot / 5 craigie circle / cambridge ma / 617-497-5511 / tu-thur 6-10pm, fri-sat 5:30-10:30pm, sun 5:30-10pm / reservations recommended / entrees expensive (dinner will run you $35-70)

goodness! not that i really care, but i can assure you that after having been out in the rain on the way to and from dinner, my hair has lost everything from the post-haircut blowout except for that intoxicating stuff they spray on it at the salon i go to.

today was probably the last stop on jessica's and my restaurant tour (the money has run out, sadly - must pay my rent), and it was craigie street bistrot. craigie street bistrot had been my favorite restaurant in cambridge, and i'm happy to report that it remains my favorite restaurant.

what i had liked the first time i went to craigie street bistrot (it was sometime last fall or the one before that, with a bunch of french house people) was the simplicity of the food and the flawless preparation (a point to which our waitress at no 9 park agreed, having previously worked there). when i was last there, i had the pork rillettes (a kind of pate-confit type thing) and the roast chicken, and then we split a bunch of desserts. i remember the chicken as being the best chicken that i'd ever had; the desserts were also memorable for this reason - good ingredients.

i wasn't disappointed this time, either. jessica was a bit put off by the way our waiter and the menu were in our faces about fresh local produce; i suppose i'm just used to it now. i'm afraid i've been spoiled on good food since i last went to craigie street bistrot, so that i am getting accustomed to really good chicken. i started with the "crispy pork confit," a sort of country pate that's reminiscent of the appetizer i had at aujourd'hui. it was crispy by virtue of being pan-seared, and came with a poached egg on top, and in a shallow pool of french lentil (lentilles de puy) puree. oh, and morels - it came with morels. i love morels to death; they are my favorite mushrooms. i suppose there was a bit more pretention than usual at the restaurant - the girl who brought me my first course told me that i would maximize my utility if i broke the egg over the whole thing. as if i would have done anything else. and seeing as the egg was on top of everything, it wasn't possible to take any other course of action.

as a second course, i had the chicken. it still had fennel with it, but it was much more of a background thing; the previous time i had had it, fennel was the main vegetable with it. this chicken was roasted with tarragon (and it must have been a lot of tarragon! i had roasted chickens with tarragon about a month ago, and it was nowhere as tarragon-y). this chicken came with roasted potatoes and more mushrooms, and had a relish-type thing of golden raisins, capers, and pine nuts. it was quite good, especially the combination of golden raisins and capers - i'll have to remember that one.

and finally, for dessert, jessica had dessert grits (i forget exactly how it went) and i had the chocolate tart with white chocolate ice cream. as i had ascertained from my previous visit, the ice cream at craigie street is the best ice cream i've ever had, if not the most imaginative (the best ice cream flavor i've ever had was blueberry at tosci's when i was in eighth grade). the chocolate tart was fantastic - very, very chocolaty, and no weird floral or fruity notes. the crust was also the most delicate, thinnest crust i've ever seen on a tart - that perfect shade of golden. it was basically crispy butter, with a dab or two of flour. but it was great with the chocolate. and add the white chocolate and you have the butter, the bitter-smoky, and the softly sweet.

i would say that nothing could beat the magical experience that was my first visit to craigie street, as that visit was probably the first time i really spent a lot of money on dinner at a restaurant. but this second time was great (oh, i also had a kir royale, which was pretty good). jessica had this sweet red dessert wine with her dessert, which wasn't as good as the one we had in our wine tasting class, but which was still quite good. looking at craigie street's wine list on their website, i believe it was the 2001 domaine du traginer banyuls "rimage" (roussillon). i think i also just like the three-course dining experience in general; to me it seems to be the right way to have dinner. the american in me takes hold when i am in studio and unable to devote real time to food other than semi-palatable subs and other prepared foods from star market, but the francophile in me always aspires towards three courses.

oh, so the wind, rain, and almost hail...i had been intending to get a new umbrella and after this visit i definitely need one. i set my umbrella down on the floor in the house 5 elevator lounge, and it looks like it's some sort of sculpture - "destroyed umbrella rising out of ground." it was so windy that my umbrella finally kicked the bucket; we got totally soaked on our walk from the kendall T stop, but caught saferide back, luckily. we intended to stop by betsy's room-warming party, but got to the area too late, and it was raining so hard we conceded defeat and went home.