great meal #1 - craigie street bistrot (long)
...i accidentally erased this review the first time i wrote it...so frustrating!
anyway, i went to dinner at craigie street bistrot with my mom, fiance, and friend sunday night. we went at 9PM to take advantage of the "chef's whim" offer, and i think it was one of great gourmet meals available in boston at a reasonable price. At $30 for three or four courses (i think they advertise 3, but we got 4), it is a wonderful meal for adventurous eaters. i was a little afraid that it was an excuse for the chef to use the weekend's leftovers...and maybe he does to an extent, but the veggies and seafood were super-fresh. in fact, the flavorful veggies were the best part of the meal!
i haven't seen a post in a while about it, so here is a brief recap of the chef's whim concept. sunday nights, after 9:00, you can go in and order the chef's whim menu and you are at the mercy of the chef. they ask about food allergies, but other than that, the servers don't know what is coming till the chef has prepared the dish. and i think everyone at the table gets the same menu.
overall, it is very well executed. the veggies were wonderful -- everything from great baby carrots to the things i hadn't tried before (cartume?). the flavors were unique and it was nice to try some things i wouldn't normally order. the wines were good values, the waiter was knowledgeable and enthusiastic, and the value was dead-on.
we started with an "assiette" of vegetables with a poached farmer's egg on top, and an asparagus puree below. cutting into the egg was the fun part -- the very yellow-y yoke drips into the veggies and asparagus puree, blending nice flavors. there was artichoke, carrots, parsnips, cauliflower, and cartume - a veggie that looks like celery but tastes like artichokes with lemon. the impressive part of the dish was the texture of the veggies - not crunchy, not mushy...and the dish was seasoned correctly. i have been to a few places lately that screwed this up...a definite faux-pas that seems to be forgotten on occasion.
next up with another melange - this time of seafood - scallop, shrimp, clams, and cockles. the scallop was cooked nicely - rare - not rubbery at all. the sauce was like a fish stock and butter reduction - i think they called it a bouillabaise but i'm not sure. it wasn't soupy, but it did have that flavor. i'm not sure if other like cockles but these were a little different -- they didn't have the taste of the ocean, which is usually what I associate with them, but they also didn't have the grainy taste i remember. kinda rubbery like calamari...but fine.
next up was sweetbreads and veal kidneys. the waiter warned us that kidneys might be on the menu... it was interesting to try them, but they were a little pink for my tastes. you could taste the flavor of kidneys - you either like them or you don't, kinda like chicken livers. anyway, they were good, but not great. the sweetbreads, on the other hand, were just right. juicy, but cooked all the way through. combined with the sauteed wild mushrooms and pureed parsnips/potatoes, it was a dynamite bite in your mouth. really felt like french bistro food at that point.
for dessert, they sent out four different desserts and we rotated them every couple minutes. one was a rhubard soup (a little too sweet to take more than one bite). the others were all sinfully good - their version of an ice cream sandwich with chocolate mint ice cream, a market fruits crisp, and mini beignets. all delicious - and the ice cream they make is even better. the beignets, especially were perfect little circles - airy and sugary - didn't feel like you were consuming massive amounts of calories.
on top of the food, we had two nice wines -- a beaujolais that the waiter recommended -- very nice with the food, a little spicy but not too much fruit -- Bernard Lavis "les Moriers". and then a half bottle of Henri Bourgeois Sancerre - a nice accompaniment for the first two courses. both wines were a reasonable price - about the normal 100% mark-up.
great meal - will be back again soon.
nomadfromcincy
May 25, 2004 11:46AM
Nice post. Thanks for taking the time to do it twice. FYI... the vegetable in question is "cardoon".
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Is CSB open Mondays?
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They're closed Mon and Tues.
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Due to a major harmonic convergence (no work Monday suspeneded his usual 11PM bedtime, and no new Sopranoes Sunday nite;)), the Commodore and I hit CSB for the Chef's Whim two nites ago...Every so often, I have to let him eat at a "real" restaurant ...
Anyway, I was glad to know they could manage special requests (no meat or chicken for me), but a little dissapointed to hear that if one diner has dietary restrictions, ALL the diners in the party must abide by them...It kind of s*cked that the Commodore couldn't indulge in his taste for flesh...:)
We had the seafood melange that_____ described, but ours had a lovely sweet pea broth with paprika oil, a sweet balance to the more complex clams....
Our second course was the show-stopper, a salad of soft-shell crab and avocado...A half a large tempura'ed SSc, served over thin slices of avocado, with some fried sage, in a pool of sage-infused broth...Flowering chive blossoms pricked things up with their scallion-y flavor...The Commodore had never had a SSC before, so it was a grat first-time (now he wants the ones from Taiwan Cafe that Rubee and Raconteur posted about...I've created a monster)
Next course was day-boat halibut...I was quite excited about this, but the halibut was a little subtle for my taste; maybe because of the way it was sliced....A thin cut, quickly cooked, I'm more used to a smaller, yet thicker piece that captures the fatty juices inside..Little match-sticks of potato sticks were scattered across the top, and there was a tangle of piquant little herbiage; I especially liked a bite that tasted sharply of licorice....BUT, my biggest dissapointment was that the chef used the same sweet-pea broth as the first course under the halibut...Such an unusual sauce used in two courses was a little lazy, I thought...In his defense, the Commodore's piece had a crustacean (but meat-based) broth, and a nugget of fried sweet breads, but if he could do two different plates, why not do meat for him? Yes, I know, chef's choice....
TC went wild for the coconut ice-cream, enhanced with a little ground vanilla bean(?) and nutmeg for dessert, along with little sugar-crusted beignets...The profiteroles filled with mint-ice cream (nice touch) were not as successful; the shells were, dare I say it? A little stale....
Since my high-end meals tend to be fewer and further between than many here, I usually walk out of a tasting or chef's menu, say, at restaurant week or other "Special Offering", starry-eyed and glowing, and vowing to come again, and splurge for the food at full-price...While the Chef's Whim here was a very good meal for the price (3 glasses of wine, T&T, and the whole thing came to $100 for 2), I have to say, that's all it was worth...It was great to get a chance to sample Tony Maws' cuisine, but in all honesty, I wouldn't consider it at the full tariff.
Link: http://www.bistrodraw.com
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I could see if it was a party of 8 that maybe one dish could not have been altered, but(assuming) a party of two and not being able to add one meat course....well I guess that is kind of lazy...
so the poor commodore didn't get his fix of flesh that evening???? :)
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I had to make up for that particular deficit...;)
Yep, it was a party of 2, and the funny thing was,the table next to us was getting some meat courses, and since they group those reservations in batches, it was definitely being prepped back there...
Link: http://www.bistrodraw.com
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