A Little Bit About a Lot of Things

While I have mixed feelings about Stephanie’s, I have to admit that I do love their Irish Soda Bread with the salted butter. SO good!

We arrived at about 1:30 on Friday. People were sitting outside on the patio with blankets on. I feel like, if you have to sit outside with a blanket on, is it really that important to sit outside? Kind of like people in convertibles who drive with the top down and with winter coats on. I suppose as New Englanders, we spend so much time locked up during the winter, that at the first sign on sun and we are ready for spring! Stephanie’s is the place to see and be seen, good luck finding a seat in the summer time-people sit for hours on end (people watching on Newbury or hanging out with their lap dogs). I have never been here, even when I had a reservation, without having to wait. And after waiting for 20 minutes, they try and put you at a two top that is so close to the table next to you, you mind as well ask them to join you for lunch. This time, they tried to sit us at a two top that was in line with where the servers get the food from the kitchen. We waited for a table upstairs. We sat at a four top right in the middle of the room, under the sky light, so it was nice and bright!

Shown above is the roasted beet salad ($18), roasted beets tossed with crumbled goat cheese, balsamic roasted onions, candied walnuts, orange segments, sour dough croutons, field greens and toasted mustard seed vinaigrette. Just a  really nice salad, bright, light and refreshing…however, $18 for a salad seems a little steep.

Here is the ricotta gnocchi with fresh Maine lobster ($17) tossed with sweet peas, lemon basil pesto and parmigiano
reggiano. Not a whole lot for $17, but then again, that’s what you get when you order a lobster dish. The gnocchi was delicious, very light and tender. The lobster was just so so-the dish could have been great without it. The peas were cooked perfectly-still had a little bit of bite to them and doesn’t everything taste better with cheese?

Service was so so. It’s never consistent here for me. Sometimes our server acted like they couldn’t be bothered. We had to ask for a bread basket after we ordered our meals and it didn’t look like we were going to get one otherwise. So as I said in the beginning, I have mixed feelings about Stephanie’s, and while I have some complaints about the place-I seem to end up there more often than I’d like.

Stephanie’s on Newbury

190 Newbury Street
Boston, MA 02116
(617) 236-0990

http://www.stephaniesonnewbury.com/