Let's talk cephalopods!

[Blumie]

What are your favorite Boston-area octopus dishes??

[yumyum]

The octopus salad at Farm Grille in Newton is delicious.

Also, if you want to take a spin making it at home, Carl carries previously frozen octopus from Portugal that is very very tender and easy peasy to make in your kitchen.

[powerfulpierre]

The former Ming's (RIP) off Albany St (?), made the most wonderful salt encrusted baby octopus. Whole, about 2-3 inches long, they were a real treat. In their latter days the place was a dump but still had some real gems.

[robwat36]

An Erbaluce app of grilled octopus with blood orange and fennel. Not sure how often they do it.

[Jenny Ondioline]

I had a Charles Draghi baby-octopus app at Marcuccio's back in the day that was superb. The man knows how to cook octopus.

[Parsnipity]

Definitely Cragie's grilled octopus with hearts of palm. Second place is Oleana's appetizer- looking at the menu, they've changed the supporting players but any octopus coming out of that kitchen is likely to be delicious.

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Oleana
134 Hampshire St., Cambridge, MA 02139

[loper]

I'm wondering if others are with me on not being all that into Craigie's take on octopus. It is certainly effective, and the beaten, slow cooked tentacles are definitely "tender", but I found the texture somewhat grainy and generally off-putting when I tried it. For me, octopus needs to still have some snap to it I guess. I also wonder how Mediterranean octopus with hearts of palm became a staple for a place purporting to be uncompromisingly dedicated to local and sustainable cuisine, to paraphrase...

I love the whole marinated baby octopus wherever I can get them...

[Parsnipity]

Yeah, I had to stop myself from writing a side note about whether we should be eating hearts of palm. I see your point there about local/sustainable. However, I love the texture of Craigie's octopus. So we'll have to disagree on that count. I'll take mine just a big chunk on the plate, hold the palm.

[cpingenot]

I don't know if there's a huge difference between "octopus" and "squid" in this context, but I understand that squid are supposed to be very sustainable.