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

Gridiron Goodies to Go
Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 9 a.m.-7 p.m.
Verrill Farm

Verrill Farm’s selection of gridiron goodies includes sesame chicken fingers, teriyaki beef skewers and home made French onion dip and guacamole. The finger foods are available at the deli now through Sunday for your game day party. Other game day take out options.

Fireside Chats at The Fireplace
Jan. 31, 3-4:15 p.m.
Chat it up with wine and food enthusiasts (and warm up by the fire) on special nights when chef-owner Jim Solomon invites wine experts, brewers, vintners, and special foods purveyors and producers for laid-back discussions.

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After a delightful lunch at the local mid-tier sushi joint (Symphony Sushi, over at 45 Gainsborough), Chowder stopped in at one of several local Starbucks coffee shops for a little pick-me-up. Actually, a substantial pick-me-up, in the form of an Iced Grande Ice-to-the-Top Quad (which, for those not schooled in the ways of ‘Buckssprech, simply means four shots of espresso over lots of ice in a medium cup).

Chowder’s lunch date, however, was having none of it. “That would keep me up all night!” she predicted, before asking the cashier, with an achingly non-Starbucksian brogue, for “a small decaf.”

When the barista shook her head, Chowder imagined for a brief moment that, much the way the French shower disdain upon non-Francophone tourists, our order taker was not-so-subtly registering annoyance with this blatant affront to the local vernacular (after all, when in Rome…). Would we be forced to translate on the fly? “Euh, comment dit-on, ‘un Tall, Room-for-Milk Decaf, s’il vous plaît?’”

But the truth, it turns out, was much more surreal. “We don’t brew decaf in the afternoons anymore,” she deadpanned. Say what? (more…)

In these tough economic times, it’s nice to live in a city that boasts a decent crop of midpriced restaurants serving above-average food. But of that handful there are perhaps just a few that on one of the coldest nights of the year can not only fill you up with an excellent meal but also leave you feeling truly warm inside. Jamaica Plain’s Bon Savor, a cozy neighborhood haunt just a hop, skip, and a few bites down the road from Ten Tables with just as few seats is one of them.

Helmed by Ibonne Zabala and Oleg Konovalov, the French-South American boîte—previously just a French resto—has in the past year seen both a revamped interior and menu, which now features an eclectic but well edited selection of seafood and red meat, vegetarian/vegan options (think chickpea soup and a portobello ‘hamburger’), and melt-in-your-mouth crepes for both dinner and dessert. The restaurant itself is homey and attractive, with rusty red walls, candlelit tables, and cheerful art lining the wall; it feels honest and simple and comfortable. The food is all of those things, too—with plenty of colorful departures from the ordinary. (more…)

All right, enough already. Chowder certainly has a soft spot for comfort foods, but eventually, one tires of the same old, same old. And I’m not just talking about mac-and-cheese or meatloaf entrees.

No, lately we’re starting to wonder what’s up with all the uninspired appetizers, salads, and bar menus.

Maybe it’s the winter doldrums setting in—me getting cranky, chefs having to cook sans fresh, local vegetables—but I can’t seem to open a menu without seeing the same old stuff. The most common? Sliders (Kobe or otherwise), truffle fries, beet salad, tuna tartare, beef carpaccio, steamed mussels, fried calamari, and—a newer addition to the fallback-menu-item lineup—arancini. Really, is there nothing else to eat? (more…)

Radius, Via Matta, and Great Bay Prix Fixes
Mon.-Sat., 5-10 p.m.
Sharpen your knives and become a serial diner. The Radius group has put together prix fixe dinner menus at Radius ($45 per person), Via Matta ($40 per person), and Great Bay ($35 per person), with menus changing weekly. On Jan. 28 at 7 p.m., Via Matta will also hold a Sustainable Seafood Dinner w/Browne Trading Co., which is a five-course dinner themed on sustainable seafood practices. But that one will cost you a Benjamin.

Bonny Doon Wine Dinner
Jan. 23, 6:30 p.m.
Aura Restaurant, Seaport Hotel
Randall Graham, founder of Bonny Doon Vineyards in Santa Cruz and self-proclaimed “vitizen of the world,” will host a special wine dinner at Aura. Chef Rachel Klein has created a three-course pairing menu inspired by the winery.

Tastes of the Season Prix Fixe
Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar
Through Mar. 19, Mon.-Wed., 5-10 p.m.; Thurs.-Sat., 5-11 p.m.; Sun.,4-9 p.m.
Business dinner on the cheap? The three-course, $35.95 winter prix fixe menu includes a choice of a Caesar salad or New England clam chowder, and a choice of three entrées: Cabernet braised New England lamb shank; spicy grilled shrimp (served in a tomato pesto cream sauce with a crispy risotto cake); or, Filet mignon Vigneron in an olive Dijon butter with mushrooms forestiere. Close the deal with warm cookies with milk. (more…)

It’s not easy being Asana. Or Gallery Café. Or Intrigue Café. Or Henrietta’s Table, even.

All (for the most part) excellent restaurants, serving cuisine on par with the more celebrated eateries around the city. Yet they consistently get short shrift. What gives?

The problem, of course, is that all four spots, installed as they are in hotels, toil in the shadow of marquee restaurants helmed by celebrity chefs right on premises. Like a talented middle child with a more-glamorous big sister, Henrietta’s Table gets overlooked in favor of Jody Adams’s glitzier Rialto a few steps across the hall at the Charles Hotel. At the Boston Harbor Hotel, Intrigue becomes invisible next to Daniel Bruce’s Meritage. Gallery competes, albeit much more casually, with Dante de Magistris’s eponymous Dante at the Royal Sonesta. Poor Asana suffers under no less than Frank McClelland’s L’Espalier at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel (plus Sel de la Terre, just down the hall).

So too with Clink, the “other” restaurant at the Liberty Hotel, where Lydia Shire’s Scampo brings in nightly crowds of avid foodies and fabulous lobby revelers. Clink, just upstairs, gets its share of business, but not the serious gastronauts that—given the sophistication of the menu—it should attract. Luckily, the intoxicated drop-ins expecting typical pub grub can at least order the sliders (though, in this case, their stuffed with ground veal, ricotta, and sage, so they’re hardly typical…). The rest of the menu, though, is about as far from bar food as one can get.

Therein lies one of a few serious hurdles facing Clink: It’s doing really serious food in a not-so-serious setting with an unbelievably unserious name. (”Clink” sounds like the punny name of some wine bar in a suburban Holiday Inn—though, in that case, it would probably be possessified as “Clink’s”—not a gastronomic oasis in a hip urban hotel.) (more…)

Maybe it’s just us feeling old, but we at Chowder don’t spend a whole lot of time in clubby lounges. Those so-called hotspots where the house DJ goes by first name? Not really our scene. So when an invite to a media dinner at “Boston’s newest nightlife destination,” Bond, crossed my desk, I didn’t exactly whoop out loud. The location, in the Langham Hotel, was also suspect. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually had fun in the Financial District, which normally clears out at 7 p.m.

But curiosity won out, and come Thursday, I found myself sipping bubbly in the Dom Perignon VIP lounge, a balcony that overlooks the cavernous Jeffrey Beers-designed space. The Champagne lounge bit is an ostentatious exercise, for sure. But Bond is hardly bashful, and—somewhat unnervingly, given the economic climate—its theme is cold, hard cash.

Blown-up $1,000s, $100s, and $50s hang from the walls, replacing the murals that dominated the former restaurant, Julien; giant crystal chandeliers, another vestige of the old restaurant, hang conspicuously above the carnival-colored, revamped space, once the home of Boston’s Federal Reserve Bank.

And yet money doesn’t buy everything. (more…)

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

L’Andana Prix Fixe
Mon.-Thurs., 5-10 p.m.; Fri., 5-10:30 p.m.; Sun., 5-9 p.m.
Back away from Boston (come on, you can do it) for your first visit to Burlington’s L’Andana. Chef Jamie Mammano is serving a three-course prix fixe dinner menu Sunday through Friday, featuring Tuscan-inspired appetizers, entrees, and desserts for just $39.

Beer Summit Winter Jubilee
Jan. 16, 5:30- 9 p.m.; Jan. 17, 12:30-4 p.m. and 5:30-9 p.m.
The Castle at Park Plaza
A visit to this brewski convention is as close as you can get to hooking up to a beer IV. Sample heady delicacies from more than 60 of the world’s best brewers, including Alagash, Dogfish, Harpoon, Saranac, Long Trail, Trinity Brewhouse, and many more.

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Photo by James Ringrose

At the end of the day, the food is what really matters, right?

Not the following peripheral issues, which distracted from the main event at the press opening for Sensing, at Battery Wharf, Monday night:

1. That you have to drive to the outskirts of the North End to get there.

2. That the generic hotel-restaurant decor looks so “retro” (circa 1998).

3. That Guy Martin, the celebrity French chef “helming” the place, admitted he’d be skipping town before the restaurant even opened to the general public, last night. (He’s got the new Tokyo outpost of the place to attend to, bien sûr.)

4. That the “translator,” a manager who provided a seemingly memorized English version of the non-anglophone chef’s opening remarks, kept referring to said chef as “Mr. Mar-TAIN.” (Don’t professional interpreters have to learn, uh…pronunciation anymore?)

5. That the plate of small bites that opened the meal are referred to preciously as “snackings,” presumably to keep provincial Bostonians from getting confused that they were smaller than appetizers. (That must be how they eat over there in FRANCE!)

6. That the females at my table—whose gender otherwise doesn’t cross my mind, given that we’re professional colleagues—got their bread…and wine…and food before I did. (And that the waitstaff resorted to conspicuous acrobatics to make it happen.)

No, none of this should matter. So we’ll go straight to the food, which isn’t bad. Not bad at all. (more…)

Upscale dining in Norwood that’s actually worth it—who knew? Located just steps away from the Norwood Central commuter rail stop, is Olivadi, an upscale casual restaurant with a menu of family comfort food specialties from the Calabria region of Italy.

Set in a Tuscan-inspired dining room, the space is flanked by an open-concept kitchen that showcases the heart of the restaurant—the brick oven, a sophisticated bar, and art gallery-worthy walls.

The restaurant opened in October with renowned restaurateur Bruno Marini at the helm, who was previously general manager at the Federalist XV Beacon (before it was Mooo), and who also worked closely with Lydia Shire at the gone, but not forgotten, Biba and Pignoli. Chef Daniele Baliani also came to Norwood from Shire’s Pignoli.

Moments after we were seated, a basket of warm bread and brioche crackers appeared with a cannelloni bean and olive spread. We devoured every morsel before the first course arrived. Fried calamari ($10) was sweet and tender, moistened by a choice of marinara or creamy white sauce. The grilled cheese bruschetta ($9), on the other hand, was somewhat disappointing: two small slices of bread, one topped with goat cheese, the other with (out of-season) tomato, atop a bed of flavorless greens. (In a moment of buyer’s remorse, we wished we’d selected the butternut squash and mushroom risotto instead.) But the entrees more than made up for it. (more…)