Catching up #2 - Food porn
beah and I planned to bracket our day of Museum-going with good food. The choice for breakfast was easy: Nothing beats Flour. We had their amazing breakfast sandwiches, and I ate what I feel comfortable describing as the best sticky bun I've ever had. My father, always a connoisseur of sticky buns, would have approved heartily. Apparently I was fortunate - the website suggests that the sticky buns are so popular that reserving one in advance may be necessary.
For dinner, we decided to cruise the South End in search of new and interesting food (having considered Aquitaine and decided we could afford to be adventurous instead of going to a standby, even if it's one we both quite like.) Which is how we wound up at Stella at Blackstone Square.
We started with drinks - beah's Prosecco seemed particularly bitter, though she did mention at some point that it was growing on her - and she did make it all the way through the glass. My mojito was smooth and expertly mixed.
She started with the Caesar salad - a basic appetizer, and well rendered. Stella gets points (or loses them, I suppose, depending on your taste) for making their Caesar with honest to god whole anchovies, which seems to be an ever more rare thing. I started with the beef carpaccio with pickled shallot, shaved Parmesan and Dijon vinaigrette, which was tremendous - the dish did an excellent job of making a good balance out of a set of strong flavors.
Strangely uninspired by the main dishes, we both opted for pasta dinners. I had the Stella homemade gnocchi with tomato, basil and reggiano, which was another hit - the gnocci were huge (well, for gnocci - each was probably about the size of my thumb) and had been pan-seared a bit to give them a golden brown outside. They nonetheless were very light and fluffy, and the sauce of tomato, basil, and balsamic reduction was quite good. Really, my only complaint was that for a main dish, the portion size was fairly small. beah went with linguine with asparagus cream, poached egg, truffle and thyme, which was exquisite - not just "a cream sauce with some bits of asparagus", the sauce was an intense blend of asparagus and thyme flavors, and the pasta was done just right. The egg added a nice grace note to the whole thing.
My dessert was chocolate mousse - well done, but nothing earth shaking (and the almond biscotti with were somewhere between wood and marble in overall hardness, which was a bit of a disappointment. I mean, yes, they're biscotti, but this is ridiculous) beah had the cheese plate, which I did not partake of, being pretty well stuffed by that time, but which she wasn't hugely impressed by - the Gorgonzola was a big win, but the goats' milk cheese wasn't worth finishing, and the third cheese, in spite of receiving one of her higher accolades for aroma (it was described as "it smells like when you leave a pair of sweat socks in a locker for too long") was only fair to decent on flavor.
Good: Service was incredibly fast and very attentive (we literally had appetizers within 3 minutes of ordering them.) Prices were not cheap, but not entirely unreasonable (including drinks, 3 courses, tips and taxes we walked out for less than $60 per person)
Bad: Hard ceilings, granite tables, hard floors and hard walls, along with an entirely unnecessary music system meant it was extremely loud - and that before we got seated between two parties intent on impressing the whole restaurant with just how much fun they were having.
Joe Bob says check it out - but maybe save dessert for somewhere else.
For dinner, we decided to cruise the South End in search of new and interesting food (having considered Aquitaine and decided we could afford to be adventurous instead of going to a standby, even if it's one we both quite like.) Which is how we wound up at Stella at Blackstone Square.
We started with drinks - beah's Prosecco seemed particularly bitter, though she did mention at some point that it was growing on her - and she did make it all the way through the glass. My mojito was smooth and expertly mixed.
She started with the Caesar salad - a basic appetizer, and well rendered. Stella gets points (or loses them, I suppose, depending on your taste) for making their Caesar with honest to god whole anchovies, which seems to be an ever more rare thing. I started with the beef carpaccio with pickled shallot, shaved Parmesan and Dijon vinaigrette, which was tremendous - the dish did an excellent job of making a good balance out of a set of strong flavors.
Strangely uninspired by the main dishes, we both opted for pasta dinners. I had the Stella homemade gnocchi with tomato, basil and reggiano, which was another hit - the gnocci were huge (well, for gnocci - each was probably about the size of my thumb) and had been pan-seared a bit to give them a golden brown outside. They nonetheless were very light and fluffy, and the sauce of tomato, basil, and balsamic reduction was quite good. Really, my only complaint was that for a main dish, the portion size was fairly small. beah went with linguine with asparagus cream, poached egg, truffle and thyme, which was exquisite - not just "a cream sauce with some bits of asparagus", the sauce was an intense blend of asparagus and thyme flavors, and the pasta was done just right. The egg added a nice grace note to the whole thing.
My dessert was chocolate mousse - well done, but nothing earth shaking (and the almond biscotti with were somewhere between wood and marble in overall hardness, which was a bit of a disappointment. I mean, yes, they're biscotti, but this is ridiculous) beah had the cheese plate, which I did not partake of, being pretty well stuffed by that time, but which she wasn't hugely impressed by - the Gorgonzola was a big win, but the goats' milk cheese wasn't worth finishing, and the third cheese, in spite of receiving one of her higher accolades for aroma (it was described as "it smells like when you leave a pair of sweat socks in a locker for too long") was only fair to decent on flavor.
Good: Service was incredibly fast and very attentive (we literally had appetizers within 3 minutes of ordering them.) Prices were not cheap, but not entirely unreasonable (including drinks, 3 courses, tips and taxes we walked out for less than $60 per person)
Bad: Hard ceilings, granite tables, hard floors and hard walls, along with an entirely unnecessary music system meant it was extremely loud - and that before we got seated between two parties intent on impressing the whole restaurant with just how much fun they were having.
Joe Bob says check it out - but maybe save dessert for somewhere else.