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Simply June 

EVOO @ Cambridge, MA

The husband and I picked EVOO for my birthday treat. The husband had wanted to bring me to Sorellina, an Italian restaurant which was given thumbs up and a must try by few of our friends. Dining at Sorellina will set the husband back easily $200 for some appetizers, entree, dessert and wine. Since the husband has gotten me a very nice birthday gift, I decided to be considerate and suggested we look for other fine dining place with an affordable prix fixe menu.
EVOO came up in the search and we can’t ignore the great reviews it was given by diners. And with a 3 course prix fixe menu of $38 (add $17 for wine pairing), this had to be the place!  Oh, and they try to use local ingredients in their daily menu. We were ecstatic to try out their eclectic menu.

We’ve looked at the menu online and somewhat made up our mind on what we were going to try. Upon arriving at the restaurant and being seated (a plus for the husband for making reservation!), we noticed we were given a daily menu. Some of the stuff we had seen online wasn’t there and was replaced by equally delicious selection.
Some bread and especially yummilicious grissini, olive oil & balsamic mixture was brought out for us to snack on.

All 5 of us took the prix fixe 3 course meal with wine pairing. It was a no brainer for us! There were about 7-8 kinds each of appetizers, entrees and desserts to choose from their prix fixe menu. Here’s what we ordered:
1) Vermont Goat Cheese Pierogi with Roasted Garlic and Crazy Ben’s Locally Foraged Wine Cap Mushrooms (Bottom Left). Steve ordered this and if not for the goat cheese, I would have ordered this too! It looked so good, I think it tasted as good as it looks.
2) EVOO’s Country Pate with Pickled Fiddleheads, Boozy Fig Jam, Whole Grain Mustard and Grilled Bread (Bottom Right). Rob ordered this dish, and it must have been good coz he cleaned the plate.

3) Red Hot Oven Baked Pete & Jen’s Rabbit Empanadas with Peppered Celery Root Salad and Cilantro – Pumpkin Seed Puree (Bottom Left). Rabbit seem to be the thing for the husband, he will order rabbit if it’s on the menu. “Pete & Jen’s Rabbit” sounded like somebody’s pet, don’t you think? The husband thought the empanadas were just ok. I bet if it was fried, it would have tasted better. Who doesn’t like fried stuff?

4) New Jersey Asparagus soup with Parmigiano Reggiano, Red Chili Flakes and EVOO (Bottom Right). Seyda and I went for the soup. Seyda liked it, I wasn’t quite sure if I did. I love creamy smooth soup and this was something I did not expect. There were chunks of roughly pureed asparagus and it wasn’t creamy like how i like my soups. =)

5) Seared Golden Tilefish Fillet with Organic Potatoes, Fiddlehead Ferns, Wild Ramps, Cilantro, Curried Potato Broth and Minted Carrot Salad (Bottom Left). Seyda ordered this for her entree and I remember her loving her fish dish. It does look very good from the other side of the table. The skin of the fish looked like it was fried to crisp golden perfection.
6) Donnie’s spring Dug Parsnip Biscuit filled with Slices of Brown Sugar Cured-Hickory Smoked Leg of T’s Pig, Quick Pickled Sweet Onions, Equinox Farm’s Spinach and Caramelized Pig Gravy (Bottom Right). When this was first served to Rob, we all teased him that it was one heck of an expensive burger. =) It surely looked like a burger but definitely does not taste like your Mickey D’s or Burger King! It was delicious although we had a hard time trying to guess what was the grainy stuff in the gravy. r

7) Seared New Bedford Day Boat Sea Scallops with Smoky Pig’s Skin Risotto, Equinox Farm’s Spinach, Fennel, Crispy Onions and Sweet Pepper Vinaigrette (Bottom Left). This was mine, all mine and I love it. The sea scallops were huge, fresh and seared to perfection. The risotto; full of smoky pork flavors. Everything paired well together with my wine. =)
8) Turf in Surf; Crisp Fried Spicy Chicken Sausage Stuffed Chesapeake Bay Soft Shell Crab with Adobo, Smooth and Creamy Potato Salad and Spring Vegetable Slaw (Bottom Right). The husband and Steve ordered this and it looked SO CUTE when it came!! Portion was small, but it was good surf and turf!

We did not share/try each other’s entrees or appetizers but we surely pass the plate around when it  came to desserts. I unfortunately forgot to take with me their dessert menu. The name/description is to my best ability.
9) Chocolate Banana Pudding (Bottom Left). This was pretty good, although the chocolate flavors were stronger than the banana.
10) Warm Chocolate Truffle Cake with Toasted Marshmallow (Bottom Right). This was sinfully delicious. Very dense and rich with a slightly goey chocolaty “filling”. I would recommend this if you’re a big chocolate fan.

11) Strawberry Rhubarb Oat Crisp with Sour Cream Ice Cream (Bottom Left). I’m not a big fan of rhubarb so this is something I wouldn’t order. It is good if you like rhubarb. The sour cream surprisingly tasted better than expected. It reminded me of frozen yoghurt.
12) Sticky Toffee Parsnip Cake with Prune Raisin Ice Cream & Spiced Walnuts (Bottom Right). This was the yummiest dessert that night. Well, at least Seyda and I agree that I picked the best one. The prune ice cream was creamy good. The parsnip cake surpassed my expectation of a “vegetable cake” and was so rich and yummy. Spiced walnuts were the best I’ve tasted.

Service that night wasn’t the greatest for a fine dining restaurant. I guess, the casualness in the restaurant down played the service. The 3 hostesses were not very professional and looking at them work standing around looking awkwardly pretty doing almost nothing were to me a waste of resource. The place weren’t that big to need 3 hostesses. Our wait staff were also so-so; nothing to shout about. The one who brought us our wine pairing was so busy she didn’t quite stop and explain the wine nicely to us. She tend to walk away as she tells us the wine we were drinking.
Despite the somewhat poor service, EVOO scored an above average in my books. I give the place 2 thumbs up for its creative and quite delicious menu. The service does have room for some improvement. Portions were just nice if you take a 3 course meal, with no left overs to take home unlike when we dined at L’andana Grill. L’andana has one of the best service, and yes bang for my buck!! I do like that EVOO uses local produce and tells you where they got them from. =)
Head over to EVOO’s for some modern American cuisine! You’ll be surprised with their eclectic MENU.

350 3rd Street
Cambridge, MA 02142
(617) 661-3866

Simply June 

Garlic Bistro @ North Chelmsford, MA

The husband and I are believers in giving second chances. Some times it works out ok, sometimes not. Unfortunately Garlic Bistro disappointed us the second time around. =( We first dined at Garlic Bistro about 2 years back and our whole dining experience wasn’t that great. Hence, it took us 2 years (or more) later to gain courage and revisit the restaurant; mainly coz the 3 other Thai places we called were closed.

When we first ate at the restaurant, I remember that it was one hot summer. The restaurant did not turn on its AC, had it’s door wide open. We were sweating while eating our not very great Thai food. Everything was overly sweet and with bead of sweats flowing down the forehead, we weren’t enjoying ourselves.

This time around, the restaurant was empty when we arrived there at dinner time. A waitress and presumably the owner/manager were the only ones in there. We decided to do take out and asked for the menu to browse. The owner kept insisting us to dine in and to take a sit, etc . The owner was a bit over friendly, it got a bit intimidating.  We decided to just stand, look at the menu, order, leave and come back later. We already knew what we wanted to order. We picked up the food in 10 minutes, went back home and was quite disappointed.

Here’s what we ordered:

1) Duck Green Curry – Green Curry in coconut milk with sliced bamboo shoot, eggplant, zucchini, green pepper, string beans @ $13.95 (Bottom Left). The portion was significantly small compared to our favorite Thai place; Rostip. The knife skill seem to be missing, with all the vegetables cut up into large slices. The little and thinly sliced duck meat look liked it was steamed; hence the lack of flavor. The green curry did not have much flavor and at $14 for this entree that does not come with free rice, it was SO NOT WORTH IT! The dinner portion was like Rostip’s lunch portion (maybe even less).

2) Crazy Noodle (Pad Kee Mao) – Rice noodle dish; stir fried with chicken in hot chili sauce with string beans, onions, red pepper and hot basil leaves @ $10.95 (Bottom Right). This one was also a let down with knife skills missing. Everything was large, and it seem to me not much love was put into cooking this noodle dish. The noodle again for about $11 was very little for the amount we paid and compared to other restaurants. Noodle was a little on the hard side. There were more chicken and vegetables than the noodle. Flavors were again missing from this dish.

 

3) Golden Bags – Ground shrimp, water chestnut, mushrooms, Thai spices; wrapped with tofu skin and served with sweet plum sauce @ $6.95 (Bottom). I thought this was the best dish of them all. The “bags” were filled with shrimp (and perhaps meat). The husband however thought this was also a little on the bland side.

Unfortunately, this place does not deserve the phrase third time’s a charm! With small portions, expensive prices, bland dishes……I doubt we’ll be going back to Garlic Bistro. It’s sad, coz this place is so much nearer to our place. The portions were so small that we did not have leftovers unlike when we get takeout at Rostip where dinner entrees are worth 2 meals! And I’m not a fan of Asian restaurants charging extra for plain white rice!

If you want to give Garlic Bistro a try; check out their menu HERE. Maybe it’s just us not liking the food there. They have a big dining area and there’s plenty of parking in the plaza area!

121 Drum Hill Rd
Chelmsford, MA 01824
(978) 454-8337

Bar Lola @ Boston, MA

Tapas, Sangria and Live Flamenco! This is as Spanish as you can get outside of Spain! We love Tapas and fell in love with Flamenco especially after our trip to Barcelona last year. Seyda told us about Bar Lola and live Flamenco there. We decided to check it out and really enjoyed the whole experience. Sorry, my pictures weren’t the greatest. Poor lighting + Shaky hands = BAAAD picture!

The house Sangria was pretty yummy. We has front row seats and had direct view of the Flamenco performance. Although the performance was good, it would have been better if they were actually on the stage. Their outfits fell a little short compared to the traditional Flamenco dancers; no long  flowy dresses.

Here’s what we ordered for Tapas. We picked 2 Tapas each and pass it around the table.

1) Calamares Fritos Tenerife - Fried calamari with mojo ali-oli & Lola’s tomato sauce (Bottom Left). I don’t think this came with the tomato sauce, but the mojo ali-oli was awesome. The calamari lightly coated in batter and fried to golden brown deserves 2 thumbs up!

2) Bunuelos - Seasoned vegetable & cheese puffs (Bottom Right). This was light and very flavorful. I forgot was the the dip/sauce that came with it though. I think bell peppers were one of the key ingredients in this puff.

3) Vegetarian Crepe (Bottom Left). I can’t seem to find this on their online menu now. I forgot what was in the filling  (beans perhaps?) except that it was a vegetarian crepe. The crepe itself was however nice was thin.

4) Langostinos Rebozados - Prawn fritters with a savory mango & scallion sauce (Bottom Right). The batter was rather thick (but fluffy) on this, but it was nicely seasoned and deep fried till crisp. Fried seafood are generally good in my books. =) I can’t help dipping my fritter in more yummy mango sauce!

5) Crostones de Cangrejo con Salsa de Piquillos y Gambas - Maine crab meat, sofrito and cheese crustini’s with a piquillo-shrimp sauce (Bottom Left). Crabcake and sauce was good. Lump crab is definitely not used in this cake.

6) Spinach Dip with Pita Bread (Bottom Right). Again, I can no longer find this on their online menu. I don’t care much for this dish. For some reason, I did not like this dip; maybe it’s the cheese that they used.

7) Pato con Naranjas Valenianas - Roasted duckling with Valencia orange sauce (Bottom Left). Duck is one dish that the husband will order at most Tapas (and any other restaurants). This was good. The orange sauce was light and refreshing. The duck was moist and delicious.

8) Pinchos de Pollo a la Mostaza - Chicken skewers with mushroom-mustard sauce (Bottom Right). While the husband usually order a duck dish, Rob will usually order chicken. The grilled chicken skewers were not bad, although I’m not a big fan of chicken breast. The white mustard mushroom sauce were creamy good; I can’t get enough!!

9) Flan Al Caramelo - Caramel Custard and Sugar Biscuit (Bottom Left). I like that they put in a little more effort to make the dessert look pretty. Seyda ordered this and the flan was light, smooth and delicious. The turn off was the hard sugar biscuit on the base. It was quite inedible.

10) Budin de Pan - Bread Pudding with Mango Sauce (Bottom Right). A nice slice of bread pudding drizzled with mango sauce, sprinkled with berries and topped with whipped cream. My kind of dessert and I love it!

 

11) Tarta de Queso - Fresh White Cheese Tart with Berries (Bottom Left). The husband ordered this and we all agreed that it was the BEST dessert that night. I’m not a big fan of plain cheesecake, but I actually enjoyed sampling this. This cheesecake was nothing like the dense and uber rich New York cheesecake. It was light, almost fluffy, and was perfect with the berry sauce. I’ve never had a cheesecake like this and would definitely eat this again!

12) Tara de Chocololate - Chocoloate Tart with Passion Fruit Cream (Bottom Right). It sounded good but this was quite a let down. I think this was maybe store bought. The chocolate tart was quite frozen, it was kinda hard to dig in.

 

I forgot the prices of the Sangria ($24 per 1 L pitcher?) and the Tapas. They were slightly higher ($1-2 more) than the other Spanish restaurants we’ve been to. On average I think it was about $8-9 per Tapas. However, if you factor in the free live Flamenco….the whole experience is pretty worth while. We spent about $77 per couple. Not bad for a night of entertainment, drinks, food and company!

Service was overall ok. Nothing too spectacular, although with our “front row” seats, it was quite hard to hear what the wait staff was saying!

If you’re perhaps interested in learning the Flamenco, check out Flamenco Boston. She’s one of the Flamenco dancers at Bar Lola that night. She/They seem to be performing quite regularly at Bar Lola, so check out their next scheduled performance.

Don’t forget to check out Bar Lola’s delicious menu. Bar Lola is just located a street from Newbury Street. So, get your shopping done and head over for some dine and wine!. Plenty of metered street parking on Newbury Street, but it’s also usually quite hard to get coz of the many shops and restaurants there!

160 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02116-2707
(617) 266-1122

Revisited: Rostip Thai Restaurant @ Dracut, MA

Remember in my previous post, I was boasting about the yummy Thai food @ Rostip? Well, we went back there again probably about a week or so after I wrote about it. This time, we ordered lunch take out to see how the portions were.

Food was again very affordable and the portion was quite good for lunch (especially for the price we paid); with 3 entrees costing us about $21. Here’s what we ordered:

1) Pad Kee Mao (Drunken Noodle) – Wide flat noodles stir fried with carrots, string beans, bell peppers, basil leaves, broccoli and chicken in a hot chili basil sauce @ $5.95 (Bottom). The portions was surely huge for a $6 noodle entree. While it might be slightly on the greasy side, I love it. The husband said they might have use a little too much of oyster sauce; it tasted a little salty to him. 2) Panang Curry (Shrimp) – A thick red spicy curry with coconut milk, green peas, bell peppers, basil leaves and finished with a touched of shredded lime leaves. Garnished with steam vegetables  @ $6.50 (Bottom Left). The lunch entree came in a nice container with 2 compartments, one for rice and another for curry. This curry was a little sweeter than the green curry we ordered, but still yummilicious!

3) Green Curry (Duck) – Green  chili curry with coconut milk, string beans, bamboo, peas, basil leaves and bell peppers @ $6.95 (Bottom Right). This was the second time that we’ve ordered this dish and still loving it!! This was recommended by the friend who introduced us to Rostip. The curry was so aromatic and flavorful, the duck (fried or roasted) was just perfect.

Rostip is certainly high in our list when we are craving for Thai food. We’ve recently tried another Thai place nearer to our place and totally did not like it. I will blog about the misadventure of that one day where Rostip and 2 other Thai places were closed! And we just had to get Thai food after building up steam talking about Rostip Duck Green Curry!!!

The Asgard @ Cambridge, MA

Sorry for my long hiatus from the world of blogging. I’ve just been busy with work and was also lazy to update the blog when I get home…….

Anyway, here’s an Irish Pub we ate at a few weeks back. Asgard, Irish Pub & Restaurant is located in Cambridge, MA and offers both indoor and outdoor seating. We sat outdoors coz we had Brady with us that day. We soon found out that apparently, the city of Cambridge does not allow pets on the premise. We had to tie Brady up to a tree nearby and keep a watchful eye on the poor confused guy.

Anyway, I did not take much pictures due to poor lighting and shaky hands. =( Here’s what we ordered;

1)  Artisan Cheese Platter – A combination of imported Irish Cheese, sliced pears (canned), mandarin oranges (canned), pickles and assorted cheese @ $14 (Bottom Right). I only like the Dubliner in the selection.

 

2) Bangers 'N Mash - Grilled light-seasoned pork sausages served on Colcannon mashed potatoes with onion gravy and topped with onions straws @ $14 (Bottom Left). I’ve always heard about it, never had it and so wanted to try it. It was a great choice. The pork sausages were so juicy, flavorful and filled with porky goodness! I also learn a few days later that Colcannon mash potatoes is actually mash potatoes with cabbage, an Irish dish. Yums! I could use more of the gravy though.

3) Beer Battered Fish & Chips - North Atlantic cod fillets dipped in our beer batter and fried to a golden brown. Served with Kinsale fries, house-made coleslaw and tartar sauce @ $14 (Bottom Right). The husband and Rob ordered this. It came with 2 large pieces of quite delicious fresh fish in a not-too thick batter. The chips were not too bad too I think. I liked that they served the entree on a newspaper like paper. =)

Service was decent. Nothing too spectacular, not too shabby either. All of us did enjoy the great food and company. Although, I was feeling quite uneasy having Brady tied to the tree and him trying to get our attention.

I will definitely return to Asgard for some yummy pub food….minus my four legged companion =) Check out their menu HERE. Don’t bring your dog, unless you’re wiling to tie her/him to the tree!

350 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139
(617) 577-9100

Rostip Thai Restaurant @ Dracut, MA

Review of this place should come sooner. We fell in love with this place and have gone back about twice in less than 2 weeks. A friend of work mentioned Rostip to us some time last year but never quite gave us the name or exact address of the place until a few weeks back. When we finally have the name and address, it took us 2 tries to actually try out the place. The first time we were there, they weren’t open. We finally went there during one lazy weeknight and decided to dine in.

The place is small, but decently decorated. There were more take outs then dine in customers; we were the only dine in patrons that night. Here’s what we ordered:

1) Shrimp Tom Yum Soup (Bottom Left)– Famous Thai hot and sour soup seasoned with exotic Thai herbs, lemongrass, lime juice,  mushrooms, cilantro and scallions @ $3.25. This came with 3 large succulent shrimp. The soup wasn’t the best I’ve had, it’s just average. It could use more lime or tamarind juice and definitely more cilantro. I do however like that they cooked the mushrooms thoroughly instead of serving the mushrooms almost raw like many Thai restaurants do.

2) Crab Rangoon (Bottom Right) – 8 Wontons stuffed with cream cheese and shredded crabmeat, fried until golden brown and served with pineapple sauce @ $4.75. When the order came only 6 pieces was brought to us. While I really liked the filling, they could fill up more. Not sure about the presence of crabmeat either. I was glad we did not pay for the dish when the check came. The nice wait staff told us the crab rangoons were on the house! Yay!

  

3) Pad Thai (Bottom Left) – The most famous Thai rice noodle stir fried with shrimp, chicken, egg, bean sprouts, minced turnips, scallions and crushed peanuts @ $7.95. This was pretty good and for $7.95, it was bang for the buck!

4) Red Duck Curry (Bottom Right) – Red chili curry with coconut milk, bamboo shoots, string beans, peas, basil leaves and bell peppers with roasted duck @ $12.95. We LOVE this dish and I really appreciate that the curry comes with a serving of white rice at no extra charge. Substitution/extra order would be charged accordingly of course! The curry was rich, thick and so aromatic. The roasted duck meat (boneless) were sautéed with the curry and vegetables were aplenty! This was just perfect! And yes, portion was humongous too!

  

5) Thai Ice Coffee @ $1.50. This was the most inexpensive glass of Thai Ice Coffee I’ve ever had. Huge glass for less than $2 is my cuppa “coffee”! If you’ve never had Thai Iced Coffee, you gotta try it! And it was cute our straw was decorated in a rose origami. =).

There was so much food that we even doggy bagged the Pad Thai and the curry home, and ate it for another dinner! =). Great prices, delicious Thai cuisine, friendly service…it wasn’t a surprise we decided to go back there again.

It was take out this time and we ordered the Chicken Mango Curry (Not Pictured) – Chicken sautéed with sliced mango, carrots, snow peas, bell peppers, onions and string beans in House special yellow curry and coconut milk @ $7.95 and Green Duck Curry (Not Pictured) – Roasted Duck sautéed with green chili curry with coconut milk, bamboo, string beans, peas, basil leaves and bell peppers @ $12.95. We prefer the Green Duck Curry better than the Mango Curry. Maybe it’s because we’re a big fan of roasted duck. =) We were given some Thai rolls (Spring Rolls), FREE! The vegetarian spring rolls here delicious and the fact that they were again on the house made me a happy customer! We again had so much curry that we ate for lunch the next day. All I had to do was cook more rice!

What are you waiting for? Head over to Rostip’s for some delicious Thai food, excellent service and bang for your buck! I recommend the Red and/or Green Duck Curry!

Let me know if they throw in some freebie with your meal. I’ve never had a restaurant being so generous during my first 2 visits…I hope they keep serving me some free food the next time we’re there! Writing about the duck curry is making be salivate….maybe I can convince the husband to go this weekend!

7 Broadway Road
Dracut, MA 01826
(978) 275-9902