Time to let you in on one of Boston’s best-kept secrets. You know Toro, Ken Oringer’s tough-to-get-in tapas place on the far end of Washington Street? Turns out they serve lunch. Yes really. For a while. No, I don’t know why you haven’t been there yet.

I’ve been there, as recently as, oh, yesterday. And it’s hands-down my favorite lunch escape, being just a few blocks from work and home to some truly delicious food. Start with the house salad. I always do.

No dried-out mesclun mix here. You’ll get tender young greens—arugula, dandelion, red-leaf lettuce—plus avocado, sunflower seeds, and nutty chick peas. I’m not a dainty salad girl, but this one could certainly stand in for a full meal.

But why stop there, when you could have a seranno and mangheco sandwich with tomato tapenade, a chorizo sloppy Joe, or, my fave, the tortilla sandwich with alioli and tomato bread? It’s a more potent comfort food than any mac n’ cheese I’ve tried, and it comes with some nicely spiced sweet housemade pickles.

Wash it down with the kalamansi limeade or some wine, or a cocktail if you’re the mid-day booze sort. By now you’ll be too full for dessert, but there are “Celine’s Cookies” (oatmeal chocolate chip, named after Oringer’s wife who he seems totally nuts about, which is very sweet).

So go. You’ll thank me later. Plus, it was kind of quiet yesterday, and I’d really, really hate to see them cut lunch service because of the b.a.d. e.c.o.n.o.m.y.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 at 4:01 pm and is filed under Lunch, Restaurants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted by Amy Traverso on 12/3/08 in Lunch, Restaurants 3 Comments »