 Dining out as frequently as we doâfor me, itâs three to five nights a weekâitâs inevitable that my fellow staffers and I eat our share of unhappy meals.
Usually, itâs just crummy food we have to deal with. But what do you do when itâs a service glitch threatening to ruin your meal? When a restaurant flubs and knows it, whatâs the appropriate course of action? Not everyone seems to agree. Consider these recent incidents:
Flub #1: The Faux Fix
With a 9:00 reservation at a North End restaurant known for its cozy ambience and neighborhood appeal, we showed up on time and were told our table wasnât yet cleared. No worries, we said; weâre in no rush.
But 9:00 became 9:10, and then 9:30. Noticing our irritationâor maybe hearing our stomachs growlingâthe hostess apologized. âI am sooo sorry,â she gushed. âYour table will be up soon. Can we offer you a glass of wine while you wait?â she asked, handing us a wine list and ushering us to a bench outside. âI can bring it out to you. Again, weâre so sorry about this.â Continue reading “Flubbergasted!” »
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 If you think you could do with fewer college students in the area, you might want to reconsider. Technique, the in-house restaurant of Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Boston, is almost entirely student-run. Opened in March, it boasts cuisine and service comparable to most fine dining restaurants around town, but at a fraction of the price.
Continue reading “Affordable Fine Dining at Technique” »
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 When dining out, I do my best to not pig out on bread. I usually fail, and more so lately. The reason (other than my inability to leave carbs untouched)? The ever-more delicious spreads, dips, and oils that arrive alongside the foccacia, baguettes, and other fancy bread-basket fare. Continue reading “Spread’s the Word” »
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 All right, we confess: While some of us at Chowder just love knowing where our food comes from (see: farm-to-table, snout-to-tail, etc.), for the rest of us, ignorance is bliss. We don’t really want to know what’s in the new Fenway Frank; we’ll just eat it. With mustard, thankyouverymuch.
At new Chinatown seafood restaurant Jade Garden, however, ignorance proves impossible. Making our way in last week, we were greeted by fish tanks crowded with all manner of ocean wildlife, including live lobster, crab, shrimp, flounder, and colossal mollusks called geoduck. (We once saw them on an episode of Dirty Jobsâenough said.) And these critters weren’t just for show. They were dinner.
Continue reading “First Bite: Jade Garden” »
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 Formerly of downtown Boston’s Good Life, Michael Scelfo recently took on the role of executive chef at Cambridge favorite Temple Bar.
You’ve done a lot of work in fine dining, and you’ve also had experience in the American bistro style of cooking that Temple Bar is known for. How’s your new job at Temple Bar unique among the other posts you’ve held?
It’s different in the sense that it’s really a very bustling, busy place, so from a volume perspective, I have the opportunity to showcase my food to a much larger crowd. I’ve worked in much smaller places before, and it’s exciting to have this bigger venue.
Continue reading “Q&A: Five Questions with Temple Bar’s New Chef” »
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 In recent weeks, Iâve had some pretty great dining experiences around Boston. Yummy meals of late: Dining on fishermanâs-style risotto, fresh doughnuts with rhubarb compote, and rosĂ© at the bar at Tremont 647, which has a new executive chef and pastry chef; checking out Il Casale in its opening weeks (read about it here); dinner with my dad at Tomasso Trattoria (awesome Neapolitan-style pizza and to-die-for tagliatelle alla Bolognese).
But my eating RBI is admittedly better than usual. You have no idea how many half-baked meals I’ve choked down without a peep in the last several months. But we’ve been through this already; the truth is, I just have trouble sending food back.
But then I bit into a rock. Continue reading “Between a Rock and a Hard Place” »
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 If you’re a grazer like me, you want to try one of everything on the menu. And guests can do just that, somewhat affordably, at Tastings Wine Bar and Bistro. Located at Patriot Place in Foxboro, just steps away from Gillette Stadium, the restaurant serves up small plates, priced at $7 to $16 eachâthe price of a burger at one of the nearby sports bars.
With its hardwood floors, exposed brick, wine-painted walls, and hand-scraped hickory tables, the dining room feels South End cozy. Ask for the corner booth piled with comfy silk pillows, but be warned: You’ll be tempted to nap in between all the satisfying courses.
Continue reading “First Bite: Tastings Wine Bar and Bistro” »
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 When I left Manhattan for Boston several years ago, there were a few things I missed immediately. Among them, restaurants that delivered and intersections where pedestrians did not have a “DON’T WALK” sign in both directions.
At least, about six months ago, I thought I’d finally found my antidote to Boston’s dearth of delivery, at least: Foodler.com, a website that, primarily through the service Night Owl, offers delivery from dozens of restaurants around the city. And not just the usual pizza and fast-food Chinese, either. When you log in, the interface automatically brings up an entire list of restaurantsâorganized by categoryâthat not only deliver, but do so at your particular address and at the particular time you’re logged in. No more haggling with a chaos-addled phone answerer about how “…the guy came this far last time, no problem”!
Continue reading “Buyer Beware!: Night Owl “Delivery”” »
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 Chefs and restaurant owners, this oneâs for you.
On two recent outings in Boston and the âburbs, my dining companion and I found ourselves presented with really bad meals. Horrifically, inedibly bad, with dishes that were not only underseasoned and ill-conceived, but somehow managed to be both over- and undercooked at the same time. After a few bites, it was clear that neither of us was going to finish our food.
On both occasions, we considered sending the dishes back. But at one meal, the server made her “How is everything?” stop about five minutes too earlyâbefore weâd even had a chance to dig inâthen disappeared for the duration of dinner.
At the other place, we got no such check-in, and eventually had to flag down a busboy to take away our (cold) plates. By the time weâd gotten any attention, both my companion and I had lost interest in extending the meal by sending the entrees back. As we left, I felt the teensiest twinge of guilt. Had we done the right thing? Continue reading “Unhappy Meals” »
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 About a month ago I attended a very posh prosecco tasting at the Back Bay restaurant Azure. Included in the small, lunchtime gathering were about half a dozen local wine writers and food editors, who were greeted in the exquisitely appointed private dining room with a chilled flute of Mionetto Sergio Spumante to tide us over until the arrival of our fashionably late host: The winemaker himself, Sergio Mionetto.
A little before noon, Sergio finally breezed in, his charming wife and diligent translator (Sergio studied winemaking, not English, apparently) in tow behind him. For the next three hours, we sampled prosecco after prosecco, each paired with a plate of food from the kitchen, as Sergio (via translator) waxed poetic about his vision for each sparkling star.
Yes, food journalism can be a tedious chore. It was in the middle of the very first course that I became distracted from Sergio’s fascinating tutelage. The salad in front of me, though otherwise well-executed, was underseasoned. Continue reading “Waiter, Thereâs No Salt in My Soup!” »
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