Dante (Cambridge) a bit salty
Hit Dante during the monsoon and had the risotto bruschetta and arancini appetizers and the ravioli and crab/urchin pastas.
The bruschetta was an interesting thing to do to bruschetta...ricotta and a green garlic mixture w/ toasted pine nuts on top of a toasted italian bread slice (seemed a bit expensive for $5 for a single slice cut into 4 pieces).
The arancini was good...porcini risotto w/ a bit of mozzarella (?) stuffed inside and had a tasty honey truffle squiggle on the plate you could rub the four arancinis on.
The ravioli (a few cheese ravioli with oxtail meat scattered around it) was the main gaff of the night...we both thought the oxtail was way too salty. The waiter said the manager thought it was from the cheese but we thought the oxtail stew sauce probably reduced too far down instead. The manager was nice enough to comp a vanilla panna cotta which was good except for the odd tasting pear slices (cooked in alcohol which we didn't like).
The crab/urchin pasta had a surprising amount of crabmeat and sea urchin and was a much bigger dish than the ravioli. It tasted good, though it reminded me a lot of a clam sauce on linguini (the pasta wasn't linguini but was half the width and square in cross-section).
The view was great even w/ the storm..would have been nice to walk around afterwards but not on that kind of night :-P
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Dante
5 Cambridge Pkwy, Cambridge, MA 02142
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ipsofatso
Mar 1, 2010 02:42 PM
Chefs need to keep the salt SPARSE in their cooking and leave it on the table for diners to add as they wish. Often they become insensitive to the taste of it after being in the kitchen for too long. Its the one thing that kills too many a good dish. Its why they put it in shakers.
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I must have been there during the monsoon with you! We had a good meal with both ups and downs, the desserts were the highlight.
My DC and I split all our dishes. We started with the arancini (delicious), tried half portions of the pasta with squash and pasta with crab/sea urchin - the pasta with squash relied mostly on the sweetness of the squash which worked well but a bit boring, i wouldn't want a whole dish of that. The crab/sea urchin pasta was good, a little spicy, which I didn't expect, but great! We then had the slow roasted cod, the cod was cooked well but it itself was not very flavorful, but was surrounded by extremely tangy accompaniments (a green sauce, a brown sauce, what looked to be roasted lemon/lime/orange) which was just overpowering. They were nice/considerate enough to split the cod on to two plates for us when we told them we were splitting everything.
The desserts, however, were great! We tried the fried dough with the four sauces (delicious and perfectly fried, nice variety of sauces - caramel, chocolate (dark and rich), raspberry, some creamy peanut butter one that was not as great) and the chocolate hazelnut torte which was good, and extremely generous portions, and the orange gelato that came with it was a great contrast in flavor.
Service was good, the view is great, and the small dining room makes for an intimate setting. Would come back.
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Dante
5 Cambridge Pkwy, Cambridge, MA 02142›1 Reply
