Central Square
Valentine’s Day in Boston ideas: Shoulda put a ring on it
Since my foray in Jewish speed dating clearly hasn’t earned me a date for Valentine’s Day, I’m turning all my brilliant ideas over to you, dear reader. This list of a sugar-themed crawl of Cambridge is meant primarily for the adventurous and thrifty, a winning combination in my eyes. I realize that my awkwardly inserted mentions of makeouts perhaps should be cut. I’ve spent too long with my Macbook to know what you crazy kids do these days.
Or, if you’re sexy singleton, a la Bridget Jones and pre-Big-and-wedding Carrie Bradshaw, try my “For all the single ladies” v-day list. Except I’d probably switch out the movie options – I just don’t watch enough quality cinema to know of movies where men turn out to be evil puppy-eating beasts – a much better ointment for the soul than some 40-something tearing up as her man abandons her at the altar. Buzzkill, much?
I’ll be hitting the gym, regardless.
Tony Maws’ Fried Pigs’ Tails at Craigie on Main, Cambridge
Despite ordering very, very little at Craigie on Main (a cocktail and splitting an appetizer), my dining companion and I were treated like long lost family.
I probably have not been so coddled and swathed in love since I wore Mao-printed onesies as an infant. Despite explicitly only ordering drinks, we sat at a table, had a full bread basket brought to us, and finished off with two complimentary petite madeleines (which were unremarkable, but a nice touch).
Parked with one drink each and their famous fried pigs’ tails ($11), we camped out for three full hours.
If this were my restaurant, I probably would have kicked me out.
This is probably why I don’t run a restaurant.
Craigie, for the uninitiated, is a chef-owned restaurant that focuses on nose-to-tail cooking and local sourcing. The chef, Tony Maws, won Food & Wine’s Best New Chef last year. He worships at a porcine altar. I was told they now serve half a pig’s head. (Mark my words, I’ll be back to eat it.) When I ate there before, we were served a stuffed pig’s foot; a risotto dotted with cocks comb and blood sausage; and cured pork jowls. There’s obviously tamer stuff like a reputedly excellent burger, but for someone who is all about the quirky eats, the menu is my idea of Disneyland. I literally squeal and flap my hands – it can be quite embarrassing for my friends.
During our three hours, our waiter doted on us like the kindest and most selfless of grandfathers.
“Do you like your drink?” he asked, looking concerned. I had finished perhaps a quarter of it. It was very strong.
“Oh yeah, it’s fine,” I replied.
“I noticed you haven’t drank very much of it,” he remarked. “Just want to make sure…” Then he offered to make something else if this one didn’t tickle my pathetically-unable-to-imbibe fancy.
I said something about having the alcohol tolerance of a malnourished toddler.
Fried pigs' tails
Those famous fried pig tails? Each bite was unnerving. I hadn’t realized that a pig’s tail is mostly uh, fat. Think of it like a petite, very fatty version of a chicken drumstick or a spare rib – a small bone encased in a rich, lip-smacking casing of fat that leaves you feeling a bit stickier for the wear. Pile them up like ruby jewels, top them in a crown of delicately sliced onion rings, and sauce them in fine ethnic fashion (Vietnamese – garlicky, a bit of a chili kick), and you have what Food & Wine declared one of the best dishes under $12 in the country. I think the dish could have benefited from some extra dipping sauce on the side for the condiment-obsessed. It was the kind of thing where you would want to knaw endlessly on one tail, probably no more. I love fat as much as the next human being, but really, I wasn’t kidding when I said these babies just seem to dissolve into a fatty uber-substance upon mouth contact. I began slowing down around pig tail #4.
When we finally left – it was around midnight – I walked out in a kind of golden haze. Part of me wonders if my blogging ways might have accounted for the superlative treatment. (It turns out that an acquaintance actually works there.) I’ve done a proper meal of a tasting menu there when I just started blogging and had great service, but I’m curious to know what your experiences have been.
Which doesn’t take away from the fact It was a magical evening that utterly overdelivered on service. Which makes up for all those times elsewhere when I sulked into an improperly dressed salad, or tried to flag down an errant waiter.
Hospitality industry, you redeem thyself.
BOMB Lemonade at Baraka Cafe in Central Square
So I was supposed to have dinner at the Helmand in Kendall Square (and try their semi-famous pumpkin kaddo dish), but due to a hilarious error, that night went down like this:
Fabulous Friend: I’m so so so sorry. I thought I made reservations at the Helmand, but I actually made them at The Helmand in Baltimore. [Understandable, since he's from Britain and doesn't understand the subtleties of area code.]
Me: Oh.
Fabulous Friend: I’m so sorry!
Me: I guess we’ll get all 14 people to fit in some place in Harvard Square?
So in the stroke of time, I called my never-fail friend, “lifestyle” blogger Lena Chen who immediately made an RSVP for our outsize group at Algerian-Tunisian and North African Baraka Cafe in Central Square. Magically, it all worked out.
A tiny, charming interior - a nice option for a romantic meal.
My friend and I arrived as the rest of the group chatted outside of the door – it was located in some very random residential area about a 15 min. walk from the T station. We stood right in view of the waiters, who literally took 5 minutes to finally take note of the diners who had arrived. I guess we weren’t stampy or demanding enough. It was going to be a bit of a wait, so a small group of us wandered into Hubba Hubba, an unapologetically campy sex shop on Mass Ave where we ogled some lingerie before the owner’s friend out of the blue claimed that the Middle East sprinkled lard in their vegan food and unloaded about her chemo treatments. Back to the restaurant it was.
After we sat down, I did some camera tricks to show how to get really crisp pictures in low light situations, like this one of a salt-holder. (Not shaker. You picked up the coarse grains with your fingertips.)
Digital camera magic! Good for impressing party guests - even beats shotgunning Natty Ice.
I really have to say that I will post some pictures of the food, which was decent despite the comically, lovingly surly service, but this night was all about the LEMONADE which deserves all caps. If you do anything here, you must get the lemonade. And once you drink this lemonade, you will want to take a bath everyday in it so it can seep into your unworthy pores. Or maybe make some kind of celebrity-backed scent out of it.
If I were so religiously inclined, I might even bless my firstborn with it.
It comes with rose petals floating on it surface. Inhale the aroma, and it’s nothing like the drink mix lemonade of childhood yore – it’s sweeter, more floral, and heavier from the North African spices. Its flavor has strong notes of rosewater (which never veers into the perfumey fake territory) and spice, which underscored the flavor with a uniquely adult heft. It preferred a full-bodied sweetness to tartness, and strangely, my glass never felt cloying. This was lemonade for lovers.
I had Melkha, an eggplant dish with couscous, feta, and gruyere. The eggplant was cooked to a lusciously silky texture, but I wish they had put more feta and olives in – combined with plain couscous, it was rather bland for my tastes. By the time I realized I should salt the life out of it, I had already finished most of it.
Here are other people’s more exciting dishes:
And a fab vegetarian platter:
Baraka is worth a stop, just for the lemonade alone. It’s a nice spot to take to impress a date with your random foodie knowledge since it’s intimate, romantic, and secluded with exposed brick walls and tables that gently quake as the (somewhat surly) waiters walk past. Ok, so it took us an entire hour to get our food, but their hummus was fabulous and the lemonade! The lemonade!!
Find it!
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80 Pearl St
Craigie on Main – Blood Sausage, Cock’s Comb, Stuffed Pig’s Foot
Chef Tony Maws made an appearance at my gluttonous, over-the-top meal at Craigie on Main. He arrived, without any fanfare, at the presentation of the 6th course of a 6 course meal (a 3 part dessert was still to come, but I didn’t know it at that point). He seemed a little tired – he worked as a line cook most of the week, after all – having just exited the carefully curated chaos of an open kitchen at Craigie’s new Central Square location. (Their vacated location in Harvard Square is now filled by Krista Kranyak’s second branch of Ten Tables.)
Over by the kitchen, dishes rested briefly under glaring spotlights before being snatched up by an army of servers.
“Two runners!” a cook barked, setting down a gorgeous presentation of three cheeses as another cook deftly wiped the plate rim clean.
Maws paused briefly by our table to explain our sixth course. He accessorized his chef whites with a two day stubble. No smile, all business. I tried to take notes, but he rattled off culinary terminology too rapidly and matter-of-factly, with no sense of the intimacy of his own knowledge. His world was Craigie, and he expected that it was mine as well.
Then he disappeared, swallowed by the tinny clangs and buttery aromas of the kitchen.
I had told the waiter to go crazy with bizarre ingredients, particularly strange animal parts. Maws suscribed to the local, organic, tail-to-nose school of cooking. I only made one request: the farro risotto with blood sausage.
So it wa a surprise when at this juncture, Maws unceremoniously presented us with a pig’s foot, bones and all, filled with a blend of pork and mushroom inside the skin.
It was creative, visually thrilling, and well-executed, but unfortunately, not my favorite of the bunch. I was still glowing from the obscenely delicious farro risotto (an unmitigated triumph), and the heaviness of the pork didn’t sit well. But other courses ranged from beautifully interesting to inspiring the kind of sensation that I live for: that moment, when upon first forkful, taste becomes a glorious, cosmic slap. Divinity. Taste buds serve double duty as an opera, a schoolboy choir.
That “oh my god” kind of revelation. What is this gorgeous stuff that I am eating?
And to think, it all started with three amuse bouches.
First, a geoduck (pronunciation: gooey duck) clam with orange coulis, florida pink salmon with radish and grapefuit, and finally, a house-cured greek sardine.
Then a light, fresh second course. Australian yellow tail and avocado. Like the coolness of spring and a summer morning by the sea.
After clearing our plates and delivering a new fork and knife, the waitress carted over a real knockout – melt-in-your-mouth miso black cod with crispy ginger salad. Probably the best fish I’ve ever had. It was so good I ate half of it before I realized I needed to photograph it. Unbelievably juicy, with a texture I didn’t know was achievable.
This was followed by a lull in the meal, with a well-done but forgettable tagliatelle, cockle shells, cured pork jowls (reminded me of the thin, sweet Chinese sausages my mother loved), and thistle.
Then another round of plate clearing, utensil switching, and a hint at what was to come.
“I think you’ll like the next course,” the waitress says, with a wicked gleam in her eye.
So this comes out: brilliantly done, unusual, and oh my god, was it tasty. Roasted farro, boudin noir (blood sausage), and cock’s comb risotto with a farm fresh egg lovingly dropped in the middle. She suggested we break it open and mix the yolk with the rest of the motley ingredients. It was pure heaven. The blood sausage was just right – earthy, out of the ordinary, but not overwhelming, and each bite revealed some new discovery. Ah, there’s the cock’s comb. Oh, mushrooms, with all their wonders of umami.
I wiped the plate down with a piece of bread since I was too embarrassed to lick the bowl. But I would have. I really would have.
Finally, it was when Maws appeared with the sixth course – the pork and mushroom stuffed pig’s foot. Described as a pork “mousse” it was a rich, carnivorous crowning touch.
tea infused pannacotta
Then began the dessert course. My friend tried to order hot chocolate when given the after dinner drinks menu, but was told by our completely charming waitress, “Don’t worry about that.”
She came back with two small, unremarkable glasses, filled with what looked like milk.
It was jasmine tea and rooibos infused pannacotta. Dessert is one of the best mediums of pleasure, since it is uniquely posed to distill a flavor into something purer than the original, then injecting it into a sexier medium. Like gelato. Or ice cream. Or pannacotta. Drinking jasmine or rooibos tea again will look like a weak watercolor in comparison.
Our desserts were a warm corn grits, hazelnuts, calaminthe ice cream…
… then a Valrhona chocolate terrine. Frighteningly intense, a mouthful brought on a “what did I get myself into” feeling, kind of like when commitmentphobic you realizes you’re utterly infatuated with the person you’re dating.
Finally, to cap it all off, we were handed an ancho chili and cardamom infused Valrhona hot chocolate.
Overall, the food was stunning, the decor modern and unpretentious, and I loved getting lost watching the open kitchen. The Asian female waitress was my favorite, but a different waiter bringing over every course created a lack of continuity. One waiter, in particular, was more terse than the rest, dropping off our dishes with the briefest of the introductions and no smile.
Despite those hiccups, service was charming. Dishes were well-paced. If you can do a 6 course at Craigie, go for it. It’ll be stunning, I promise.