Giving Raw Food the College Try

I began to worry after I’d eaten my seventh banana in two days.

I had embarked on a three-day raw food veganism challenge, relying on fruit, salads, and some unroasted convenience store nuts to fill my uncooked days.

I had no blender, knives, or kitchen. I did, however, have a lot of homework, social commitments at restaurants, and HUDS produce. I already knew that gourmet raw food—which I had sampled at all-raw Grezzo in the North End—was a sensory delight. But my DIY approach smacked of banana-infested, blender-lacking monotony.

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Food porn: Dinner at Helmand in Kendall Square, Cambridge

Time for tapas at Ken Oringer’s Toro in Boston

The streets are slush. It’s late, past 9pm, and the MBTA’s  1 bus is late, too – lumbering around the corner like the crankiest of grandfathers, bearing nothing but ill will and obligation. It wheels through Cambridge to Boston, ribbed rubber floor collecting more slush as passengers board. My dining partner boards at Commonwealth and Mass Ave, half grin, hat pulled over eyebrows. Off we go. 

It’s late, but Toro is busy. It is a Tuesday night, the kitchen closes in a half-hour, and the place is still humming with all the might of a scenester beehive. We wait as diners linger. Waiters zip through the crowd, dropping off fried treats: a platter of patatas bravas, crisp and golden, in front of a lucky diner at the bar. I’m jealous.

The bartender offers us a drink menu; I peer at it, but want to hold every last inch of stomach space for the food. The hostess apologizes for the wait and brings a peace offering: two perfect bites.  I miss the explanation, but pop it into my mouth. Not bad. Then our table opens up. 

I like Oringer’s restaurants a lot so far. Viscerally speaking: they’re slick, they’re full of people, and they have plenty of offal on the menu. He has this way of knowing, mysteriously, precisely what I want to eat. Or maybe he teaches me. The lows are not so low, and the highs are very high – an octopus dish at Coppa, recommended by the waitress, was so well composed it sang. My favorite bartender, Asher, keeps vigil over the swank environs at KO Prime and mixes a mean martini. Tonight, it’s a chance add-on of Erizos En Suquet,  a catalan stew of sea urchin, lobster and crab meat. It comes red, velvety, and proves luscious on the tongue.

Another standout is the crispy veal sweetbreads with blood orange and cinnamon, as delicious as it is beautiful. My first taste of sweetbreads, actually, and I suspect one that will ruin me. Beef hearts, mentioned by a reader, come sliced paper thin on bread, pronounced as innocuously tasty as beef brisket by my dining partner. I had been hoping for some sinuous veins. The corn, recommended by Ming Tsai, is like no other corn I’ve ever had. It’s perfectly charred, slathered in aioli and then topped with soft, aged cheese, two wedges of lime to add a bright zing to the fat-on-fat. This is a vegetable that no diet would allow. 

Crispy veal sweetbreads with blood orange and cinnamon

Not just any corn

The only disappointment is the beef shortrib, which came bland and undersalted.

The pork belly, however, is at no loss for flavor. The top layer is caramelized to a deep hue and a even better crunch, reigning over a loosely plated dish of escargot strewn through a soft landscape of apple, pumpkin, and a surprising addition of smoked maple crumble; it dissolves in your mouth as readily as the pork fat. 

The diner next to me strikes up a conversation when she sees my camera. It turns out we’ve communicated via Twitter – she’s a writer for the Herald. Small world. 

We’re easing into home stretch. Dessert is sugar-crusted churros and chocolate sauce. I eat most of it, my stomach groaning. I look at the faces of diners as I walk out, wondering if they’re floating a little. It’s back to the streets, and this time, a cab. 

Find it!

———–

Toro

1704 Washington Street
Boston, MA 02118
(617) 536-4300

1am at IHOP in Harvard Square

As sweet as a toothache - harvest nut pancakes at IHOP with apple compote topping

The crowds at IHOP at 1am are slicked in glitter and glisten with booze. There’s an overlit garishness to the place, from the orange neon chrome of the coffeepot to the candy hues of flavored syrups. Diners congregate over sugar-sogged pancakes and chicken tenders while waiters dance anxiously around them – the picture of well-meaning inefficiency.

You order the harvest grain ‘n nut pancakes with apple compote topping. When the waiter leaves, you spot a girl. She’s crammed into an opposite booth, her arms spilling out of a denim vest and day-glo green tank top. Her calves are shoved into black wedge boots whose tops skim her knees, yearning to kiss the hem of her skirt which lies an ocean of thigh away. It’s hard to tear your eyes away. She gets up, there’s a spring in her step, her chin is lifted; she is proud. You sort of admire her.

The pancakes come. The apple compote is as sweet as a toothache, sweeter than apple pie filling, and so sugary it almost burns you. The cream on top is a relief. You search out the bits of crunch in the dough and for once, you do not reach for the syrup. You think about chain restaurant food and the lowest common denominator that it must appeal to.

There is nothing accidental or personal about this food. It has passed through thousands of other lives and Friday nights, every bit as overbearingly sweet.