Your Chowder hounds have sniffed down the best culinary events in town. Check back every Thursday for your weekly prix-fixe of foodie festivals, cooking classes, wine tastings, and more.

Aug. 29-31
Restaurant Week extended at Stix
Stix is offering Restaurant Week lunch prices for dinner, now through Sunday. For only $20.08, feast on a summer mesclun salad or gazpacho with a choice of “flash fried” salmon, chicken breast under a brick with cheddar mashed potatoes, or a flat iron steak with potato confit, braised greens, and chimichurri.

Aug. 29-Sept. 6
Aura Extends Restaurant Week for Two More Weeks
Aura is offering their prix fixe lunch and dinner menus through Sept. 6 for $20.08 (lunch) and $33.08 (dinner). The dinner menu includes three courses, with a first-course choice of an heirloom tomato salad, steak and peaches, or watermelon gazpacho; a second-course of grilled Kajiki, Australian lamb loin, or all-natural sirloin, and for dessert, an organic coffee parfait or braised cherry tart. Includes Saturdays!

For a list of other places that have extended RW, click here. (more…)

Maybe it’s just a lingering patriotic buzz brought on by too much late-night Olympic and DNC coverage, but I’ve been prone to small stirrings of civic pride in visiting my new neighborhood mini-grocery—and a top-notch addition to the overall city food scene, by the way: City Feed and Supply, on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain.

With its cheery red, white, and blue trim and bounty of homegrown goods, this bigger, brighter sibling to the cult-favorite original (near the Stonybrook T) is fast establishing itself as a beacon for the hungry, the eco-conscious, the huddled vegans yearning to eat dairy-free. (more…)

When is it too soon to review a restaurant?

Understanding how unexpected kinks and snafus can muck up even the most well-planned restaurant opening, when should responsible media claim the soapbox and pronounce judgment?

There used to be a consensus: give a place two or three months, visit it a few times, and then write your review. But that was before the rise of food blogs and chat boards. Now, there’s such a rush to be first on the scene that I won’t be surprised to discover a Blackberry-toting neighbor liveblogging the next big opening party.

All of these questions came into focus yesterday as I contemplated an undercooked piece of pork at the new, reopened Marliave.

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When Chowder attends a tasting dinner, the liquid accompanying the food is typically a form of alcohol. We’ve done wine tastings, beer tastings, even tequila tastings, but last week we attended a coffee tasting dinner at Sauciety.

The event was held by Starbucks to herald the arrival of Clover, a new high-tech coffee machine, along with several small-batch varieties of coffee specially purchased for the device. We happily sipped on a cup of El Salvador Pacamara as a barista demonstrated how the Willy Wonka-esque machine works.

“This is highly caffeinated,” she explained. Since an evening cup of regular-strength coffee keeps us up well past our bedtime, we made our peace with the prospect of a restless night ahead.
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Clearly, there are certain comestibles for which Bostonians have a higher-than-average tolerance. There’s the obvious (lobster). The gimmicky (cupcakes). The artery-clogging (everything deep-fried).

As of this week, I’d like to add a whole category to that list: dessert. (more…)

Your Chowder hounds have sniffed down the best culinary events in town. Check back every Thursday for your weekly prix-fixe of foodie festivals, cooking classes, wine tastings, and more.

Aug. 23, 3-6 p.m.
Free Beer Mess!
The Wine Gallery
Sounds like our freshman year. We weren’t quite sure how to handle it. Hence, the mess. But now that we’re older and wiser, The Wine Gallery trusts us with more than 50 free beers to sample from multiple New England brewers. You have three hours to get your beak wet.

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We were devastated to learn that Jamaica Plain’s Cafe D was closing. The popular spot sold its last fish taco on Sunday, promising a “bright future” on its website.

Not that Cafe D’s past was particularly dim. Owner Doug (”D”)Organ says he didn’t have any rent or landlord issues like his old neighbors Milky Way and Bella Luna.

“Jamaica Plain is very diligent about the neighborhood. They think, ‘You’re failing because we’re not supporting you.’ Once they understood that I’m moving on to do something more personal, they’ve been very supportive,” Organ tells Chowder.

Could be, could be. (Partings are always perfectly amicable, aren’t they?) All we know is that as soon as we heard the news, we were chomping at the bit to find what was taking its place in this neighborhood long on Indian food, Latin flavors, and youngster-targeted dives. A French boîte, perhaps? Another quirky seasonal café?

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Two good reasons why you should be glad to be living in Boston this week (aside from the fact that it’s been, what, five days since the last thunderstorm?):

1) Yesterday marked the opening of Ana Sortun and Maureen Kilpatrick’s long-awaited bakery/cafe Sofra (the name in both Turkish and Arabic, signifies a picnic or a sort of communal table) on the Cambridge/Belmont/Watertown line.

The concept had us from the start: The same Greek/Turkish/Lebanese flavors of Sortun’s award-winning Oleana (where Kilpatrick—also a repeat winner—is pastry chef), only with a more casual spin. And maybe less trouble nabbing a table?

Fat chance. (more…)

Keeping track of Boston’s dining scene can feel almost as daunting as eating all the great local veggies while they’re still in season. Chowder scours the Internet for the latest good news, bad news, and what must be one of the highest-calorie diets ever.

Good News
The prix fixe fun of Restaurant Week can be had for the entire month of September at the 33 Restaurant and Lounge. The three-course menu features Beef Tartar with aioli and fried capers, Slow Roasted Salmon Confit with braised parsnip puree and smoked tomato vinaigrette, and Summer Berry Panacotta with vanilla anglaise for only $33. Diners can pair their meal with a flight of wines.

Zagat Buzz reports that the Craigie Street Bistrot’s move to Main Street in Central Square is on track for an October opening. (more…)

With all of this summer’s restaurant events and openings, it’s safe to say that I could use a little exercise. So this weekend, my s.o. and I grabbed our bikes and headed to Provincetown by ferry for a car-free Cape weekend. (The goal: Burn calories, not gas.)

Of course, working up a sweat and gorging ourselves on the town’s best eats are not mutually exclusive endeavors. (more…)