Harvard Square
Food porn of the day: Ten Tables Cambridge
I had some photos knocking around on my ever-trendy (and broken) Macbook, unshared, so here they are – the remnants of a meal from several months ago at Ten Tables, on the fringes of Harvard Square. I already posted the dessert portion – chocolate terrine with thai basil ice cream – which was my favorite course of the night. It combined the silkiness and unexpected flavor of the ice cream with the edifying crunch of sea salt sprinkled on the terrine. I found the grilled octopus too heavy on the vinegar, but the housemade sausages were juicily gratifying. I didn’t see stars (after all, this post is coming way too late), but was glad I gave it a try.
Find it!
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5 Craigie Circle
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617) 576-5444
Oggi’s “to die for” slice of the day
Steak pizza with fried shallots? It sounded promising, and it was indeed pretty tasty.
The shallots added a lot of textural interest – plus they were kind of fun to eat, but didn’t actually add any positive flavor to the slice. They’d clearly been sitting on a pan for a bit, so they weren’t crunchy, and had been overcooked so they actually tasted bitter. As always, though, this place really kills it with their flakey, sesame-seed sprinkled crust. Divine.
I ended up not finishing the slice (I wasn’t that hungry) and gave it to this homeless woman with a broken arm who made me feel so sad that I wished I had just bought her an entire pizza pie.
Sublime fried eggplant salad at Cafe Algiers
Algiers is the kind of place that I often throw out as a good first date location: it has charm, a bit of old world romance, and that je ne sais quoi flavor of bohemian Cambridge before the Gap moved in. However, I always throw in a word of caution that the prices are uh, pretty inflated. You pay for ambience in the form of 5 dollar coffees and $3.50 plain bagels (!). (They might even charge extra for cream cheese.) Their food menu are dependable Middle Eastern dishes at higher than the average cafe price points – expect to drop at least $13-14 for a decent entree. For drinks, I recommend their mocha arabica – muddy, chocolatey, and comes in its own pot.
Fried eggplant salad
I have a secret love affair with eggplants, so I went for a fried eggplant salad, which seemed like it would be delicious (it was) and the word “salad” in it made me feel better about eating fried food when I should really be on a strict beauty queen diet. It came with a basket of Syrian bread, making for absolutely luscious, sensual, interactive eating: cutting up the salty, flavor-soaked eggplant, wrapping it up with feta cheese and dressed greens, and eating it one mini-wrap at a time. The waitress came right after I had mopped my platter spit-shine clean with some bread.
“You came just in time,” I told her. I might have actually licked the plate.
Find it!
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Algiers
40 Brattle St
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617) 492-1557
My favorite secret study spot in Harvard Square: Karma Tea
I may regret letting this one out of the bag, but Karma Tea on Mass Ave is a truly magical study nook. While it may be better known for the yoga studio attached to it, the floor-to-ceiling windows, rock sculptures, and comfy faux-suede chairs are every bit as zenergizing as the physical exertions in the studio upstairs. They carry vegan muffins from Veggie Planet (haven’t sampled these, but “blueberry lime” sounds intriguing) and I’ve enjoyed their cupcake treats in the past. Recently, I had a hibiscus elderflower lemonade which tasted similar to a cranberry lemonade with a more floral note. $2.25 netted me a giant, elegant iced glass of it. Did I mention there’s a great outlet board to plug your laptop into AND free wi-fi? Magic, indeed.
HUDS food cart column in the Crimson
Check out my review of the HUDS food carts in the Crimson’s Fifteen Minutes today… the print version is accompanied by a smiling photo of me cluthing two desecrated halves of whole wheat bread.
Anyway, in the spirit of supplementary online content, here are the photos taken of my two meals.
Probably more entertaining would be the outtakes for the column’s photoshoot, where I start snarling as I rip apart bread and throw it up in the air, all expertly captured by photog Terrell Woods. (Who is great! Go see him give a tour with Unofficial Tours sometime.)
So yeah, moral of the story is: eat a wrap, or better yet, walk a little farther up Oxford and get some greasy Chinese food. Seriously.
The site of the unholy chicken salad sandwich…
It seemed ok at first glance.
Don’t be fooled by this photo – that bread is sawdust.
I fared much better with this tasty beef kebab wrap.