Category: Restaurants & Stores

Visit #2 to the Friendly Toast in Portsmouth NH found the frosty-drink machine in good working order, happily, and we had a selection. The blueberry-raspberry smoothie was lovely, pure fruit, not too sweet. The vanilla milkshake was perfection, as expected. But the mojito milkshake is where the real action is. Milk, sugar, lime juice and finely minced mint — it’s like minted, melty lime sherbet. Tangy and delicious. Worth not being able to finish the monster sandwich that accompanied it.

Restaurant Week in Boston, and the only place we wanted to go was Upstairs. Mostly because we hadn’t been since it changed names & locations, and curiosity was getting the better of us.
This is a weird restaurant. The upstairs “formal” dining room is entirely pink, and decorated to a finely-pitched blend of Legally Blonde, Gustav Klimt, Alice in Wonderland, and the Magic Kingdom. It scared us, until we’d gotten outside a nice stiff cocktail, at which point it became cuddly and amusing, a bizarrely appropriate counterpoint to the extremely Cantabridgian ladies populating the room. And don’t even get started on the precisely matched set of 6-foot, vaguely exotic metrosexuals comprising the waitstaff. Where do they find them? Is there a casting call?
All this frippery aside, the food itself is wonderful. The portions are small, so you can indulge while still fitting into your size 2 togs from Jasmine/Sola — which is good for food sluts like us who will take your 3-course prix fixe and raise you a couple of desserts and maybe a cheese plate.
The roasted black cod, with crabmeat stuffed into a tiny, tangy heirloom tomato, was dreamy as that sablefish always is. The steak frites was very nice, but those weren’t no frites; they were dainty little homefries. Thank god the waiter (under interrogation) provided full detail on the dish, so I could change my order to the cod — when I order frites, I expect double-fried crunch action on those potatoes. Desserts were uniformly terrific, particularly the pistachio tea cake and sicilian lemon sherbet and buttermilk ice cream. But the best in show was the heirloom tomato soup, soft and warm and chunky, with bits of bacon and some kind of elusive flowery note that we couldn’t pin down — we suspect it’s allspice in the bacon cure — so very, very tasty!
It’s spendy, so I’ll probably be limiting my visits, but I’d go back for that food. Next time, though, I’ll be sitting in the much-manlier downstairs room; a girl can only take so much pink in a lifetime. *shudder*

None of us had been there ever, so we went over to the crab-fest at Magnolia’s restaurant in Inman Square, all agog at the prospect of some fine crab-tastic eats. And the crab was good but not great, which made us all sad. Smallish portions, which we all liked, and they have shandy, which is always fun. But nothing grabbed us — the flavors were okay, the preparations were okay, the decor was okay. We felt bad to dis a place for being merely adequate, but life is really too short to waste time on anything less than spectacularly delicious. Sigh.

Had lunch today w/ RWW at Sabra in Newton Center, on Union St across from the T stop. Vastly superior to the other Sabra branches I’ve been to. This one has a lunch buffet full of delightfully tangy sour salads. Skip anything with rice in it, because they refrigerate the rice and it gets all hard and dry, but vegetable salads are all winners. Raw spinach w/ a lemony dressing, cooked string beans in tomato, cabbage slaw, cooked greens (possibly escarole), tabbouleh to die for (mostly parsley, as it should be), fattoush with lots of sumac. And some kind of delicious appetizer made of what seemed to be sorrel cooked and wrapped up in pita, then sliced into bitesize bits. And a very nice grilled chicken in some runny, savory sauce, and sauteed chicken livers, and a lovely soft bean soup.

Another from our friend, littlelee:

Prologue: “A” Gets a Reservation. “A” strikes up a conversation with her coworker who loves to talk about food! Turns out she worked for Artisanal (woo hoo!) and we can get a reservation for Friday night, when “J” will hit New York.

Act I: Friday Night. 3 very hungry people looking forward to a wonderful dinner at Artisanal – the reviews are excellent, the place is packed, and we all love cheese.

Act II: Appetizers. We had a wonderful waitress – cheerful, French, attentive – everything was perfect. Delicious cheese puffs came in a paper cone with some of the strongest drinks ever. They were the only drinks we’ve ever paid $12 for that were actually worth $12. (In fact, it is a miracle we can remember the meal…) The Artisanal Blend Fondue (not too stinky!) with apples and bread arrived in due course – we had no compunctions about ordering two separate cheese-based appetizers. At this point, after pouring the wine, our beautiful French waitress informs us that as she is in training, she has to leave for the evening. At this point, they really should have sounded the death knell on dinner, but we were oblivious…

Act III: Entrees? We were exposed like Kate Winslet on an iceberg to the horrors of “team serving.” No fewer than 7 different waiters, and 2 managers “helped” us with our meal. Needless to say, the raclette (yes, another appetizer) arrived 1 hour after the wild mushroom risotto (shared by “A” and “J”) and the hanger steak (“C”). Not only that, but it took no fewer than 3 requests – of different people – before we got that raclette. Now, this didn’t make us as upset as you might think, because the food was fabulous (and hey – we were still doublefisting!)

Act IV: Deserted with Dessert. We didn’t learn. and we ordered dessert anyway, from waiter #7. We got a baba rhum (wonderful), and the piece de resistance, the cheese plate. As “J” described it, “transcendent.” (Def: Transcending the Aristotelian categories…) We picked one creamy (Stanser Flada from Switzerland), one tangy (Tourmalet from France) and one STINKY (Il Caprino Tartufo from Italy). “J”s reaction to the latter: “Barnyard.” “A’s” reaction: “Public bathroom.” They were not kidding when they described it as stinky cheese. It was gross, but oddly compelling, and the next day when “J” was in Princeton she walked by a freshly fertilized garden and thought to herself, “Now what does that make me think of? Oh – right! The cheese!” After getting 1/6 of the bill knocked off because of the poor service the night was complete.

FIN