January 26, 2017 Osteria Nino
It wasn’t quite outdoor patio weather, but pretty cool to check out the pizza oven at Osteria Nino in Burlington. I hadn’t visited Burlington in quite some time, so it was nice to see how many new restaurants and shops have popped up. Osteria Nino is pretty convenient to get to, it’s right off the highway and just minutes away from the Burlington Mall. There’s plenty of parking available and you should stop in to Wegmans while you’re there!
Osteria Nino is a great little casual Italian restaurant that serves lunch, brunch and dinner. We headed over for an early lunch before the rush, but the bar would be a great place to meet up for drinks after work.
They have a great patio outside for when the weather gets warmer (looking forward to visiting this spring/summer). We sat in the room to the right where tons of natural light poured in the windows (a food bloggers dream).
The lunch menu features fried appetizers (calamari, mozzarella, toasted raviolis), salads, sandwiches with hand cut truffle fries, pizza and pasta. The dinner menu is fleshed out a bit more with steaks and seafood.
We wondered if the pastas were made in house. The gnocchi was served in a light tomato sauce with melted cheese over top. Certainly a stick to your ribs kind of lunch – perfect for these cold temps.
The pizzas are wood fired and have a crisp, yet still chewy crust – thin but not too thin of a crust. Service was friendly and attentive.
They have some interesting looking wine dinners set up from now until May up on their website. They also have two spaces available for private events. Head to their website to see a 3D tour of their space.
Osteria Nino
19 Third Ave., Burlington, MA
Tags: burlington, casual dining, italian, restaurant
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January 24, 2017 Whipped Urban Cupcake Co.
Just before the holidays, I stopped over to the Boston Public Market to check out Whipped Urban Cupcake Co. and their delicious bite sized cupcakes. The only bad part about the cupcakes was that they were gone in two (ok one) bites.
Left: Nuttin Betta (from the Bougie collection), a dark chocolate cupcake with rich peanut butter frosting, topped with French chocolate sauce
Middle: Get Hyped (from the OG collection, a coffee cupcake infused with fair trade organic coffee grounds and topped with coffee frosting and an espresso bean
Right: Bite Me (from the Bougie collection), an apple spice cupcake topped with tart apple molasses, vanilla frosting, and a fresh apple slice
Cupcakes can be ordered (and hand delivered in Boston) by the two dozen and will run you $43.
Each cupcake was fresh and frankly downright adorable. I’d say too cute to eat, but let’s get real, I’m totally eating those cupcakes! The flavors are bold and you can tell that they only use high quality ingredients. Their products never contain any preservatives, additives or artificial colors (even their sprinkles are colored with vegetable and fruit juice!)
These would be great for a birthday party or a baby shower, or maybe just a night in with you, your couch, Netflix and two dozen cupcakes all to yourself.
Check out their website here.
Tags: cupcakes, dessert, shop small
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January 19, 2017 Boston Public Market Seasonal Cookbook
When I mentioned to my friend Leah that I got a copy of the Boston Public Market Seasonal Cookbook and I was going to make a recipe from it for a blog post she responded with, “I’ll be right over”. Whether it is because I have little ones at home, the fact that I can’t cook all that well or that she just knows that I don’t know where the produce section is in the market, she’s a good friend to come to my rescue. But to be honest, there are recipes in the cookbook that even I could make, by myself no less! This one for “Decadent Brussels Sprouts” has 5 ingredients and takes about 10 minutes to make. Easy right?
So basically Leah came over and cooked and I watched (ok, I did the sausage and peeled the apples too) and ate the final product. So here is the recipe:
Ingredients:
1 lb of Brussels Sprouts
1 lb of sausage
2 large apples
1 small white onion
1 head of garlic
Instructions:
Finely chop Brussels sprouts, onion, apples and garlic. Sauté Brussels sprouts over medium heat in a slightly greased pan. After 2-3 minutes, add onion. After onion appears translucent, add apples garlic and sausage. Remove from heat once sausage is no longer pink.
We modified the recipe slightly. We cooked the sprouts, onions, apple and garlic in one pan and then cooked the sausage up separately – combining them after the sausage was fully cooked. We also added salt and pepper to the mix. The recipe turned out FANTASTIC. We ate it for lunch, two helpings (hey its veggies right?!?). It had all the right things going on: sweet fro the apples, salty from the sausage – I thought that if you wanted to kick it up a notch you could add some red pepper flake, and Leah thought it might be nice to add a little acid to it… next time!
Boston Public Market is a year round farmer’s market in Government Center. The cookbook showcases ingredients that you can find at the market, and is broken down by season, which I think is brilliant. The recipes range from the simple: salads, pestos, grilled cheese sandwiches and Brussels sprouts to things that are a little more complex like: kandy spice pumpkin pie, Shepherd’s Pie, Honey Glazed Hake with Roasted Local Parsnips and mulled darkened turkey. You can purchase a copy of the cookbook at the info desk at the Boston Public Market for $20.
Disclaimer: I was provided a complimentary copy of the Boston Public Market Seasonal Cookbook for a review. All opinions are my own.
For more information on the Boston Public Market, check out their website here.
Tags: government center, market, recipe, vegetables
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January 17, 2017 Za
It was a dark and rainy afternoon and we had just been to a memorial service. For a gloomy day that meant we definitely needed carbs on carbs. We were in need of some serious comfort food, so we stopped into Za for a bite to eat. They have a location in Cambridge that I had been to years ago and really liked and they have a sister restaurant, EVOO. Za is a neighborhood pizza spot that uses farm fresh ingredients to make unique pizza combinations. Leah goes for something with salad on top…which I can’t even comprehend. At least there’s pepperoni on it, so I guess we can still be friends.
I get the mac and cheese pizza ($10.50), the definition of carb on carb comfort food. It has elbow macaroni, caramelized onion, cream sauce, four cheeses and toasted bread crumbs on top. Surprisingly not heavy and while the pizzas are 10″, on a bad day, you could certainly polish one of these off in one sitting. They have a number of specialty pizzas but you can also make your own with toppings like: black forest ham, kalamata olives, house made bread n’ butter pickled jalapeños, housemade Niman Ranch sausage, NH smokehouse bacon and pickled hot cherry peppers.
We didn’t have room for dessert, but they have some yummy sounding options: flourless hazelnut brown butter brownies, chocolate goat cheesecake, lemon tart with raspberries, chai tea creme brûlée, bourbon pedal pie, and a buttermilk wanna cotta with raspberry crush.
We were there at an in-between meals hour, so it wasn’t all that crowded. For peak times, they do offer call ahead seating or you can grab a pizza for take out. Service was excellent, our server was friendly and a little bit sassy (in a good way).
There is street parking available.
Za
138 Massachusetts Ave., Arlington, MA
http://zarestaurant.com/arlington
Tags: arlington, casual dining, pizza, restaurant, take out
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January 12, 2017 Tom’s Bao Bao
Leah and I met for lunch in Harvard Square to try out Tom’s Bao Bao. I love me some dumplings so I was in heaven. We walked in and spent a good ten minutes just staring awkwardly at the people behind the glass making the dumplings (and taking videos of them). All of the buns are made by hand and each employee is trained to steam and fold them. The restaurant has limited seating in the back by the register, but don’t worry, you can always do take out. They had 6 bao on the menu with one additional seasonal special.
So of course we tried one of each:
Juicy Pork ($3.25): pork, scallion, ginger, shaoxing wine
Curry Beef ($3.75): beef, potato, carrot, mild curry
Chicken ($3.50): chicken, cabbage, carrot, bean sauce
Seasonal Lobster (market)
Vegetarian ($3.50): bok choy, shiitake, smoked tofu
Sweet Potato ($3): sweet potato, orange zest
Seasonal Braised Pork and Apple ($4)
The buns are a bit doughy but we liked every one that we tried. My favorites were the juicy pork (the meat was so flavorful) and the sweet potato (it tasted like dessert – although I think I missed the orange zest flavor in there). The steam buns are reasonably priced for their size, you could definitely make a meal out of one or two (we were definitely pushing it with 3.5 buns each).
Tom’s Bao Bao
84 Winthrop Street, Cambridge
Tags: asian, casual dining, dumplings, harvard square, takeout
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January 10, 2017 Luke’s Lobster
Three of us headed over to Luke’s Lobster for lunch before our little field trip to Eataly. We showed up right before the lunch rush and boy did it fill up fast. I had first been introduced to Luke’s Lobster when I was in New York. (See another post here.) They have two locations in Boston, one in Back Bay near the BPL, where we went, and one in DTX. You order at the register and they call out your number when your order is ready – service is pretty speedy. They have their own blueberry lemonade (tastes heavy on the honey flavor) and chocolate chip cookies from the South End Buttery.
We decided to get the Noah’s Ark for 2 ($46) which includes two 1/2 lobster rolls, two 1/2 crab rolls, two 1/2 shrimp rolls, four crab claws, two drinks and two chips or 2 slaws and pickles. We order the lobster bisque and the clam chowder as well. Let’s start with the good: the soups. LOVED the clam chowder and the bisque, creamy but not too thick, and packed with flavor. We gobbled these up quickly! Great on one of these cool winter days we have been having. Now the not so good: we may have just caught them on a bad day. The rolls were seasoned, but they were watery (you couldn’t really get the flavor of the actual seafood). The buns were soggy under the meat so it was hard to enjoy them. I remember the rolls being a bit better when I was in NYC. For $46 I had hoped for a little more for my money. Willing to try them out again though at some point in the future to see if we indeed just caught them at a down moment.
Luke’s Lobster
75 Exeter Street, Boston, MA
Tags: back bay, casual dining, clam chowder, lobster roll, restaurant, seafood
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January 6, 2017 Juniper
The ladies and I had been dying to try out Juniper in Wellesley. I love Sweet Basil in Needham and Juniper is Dave Becker’s second venture, a Mediterranean restaurant that opened in 2014. In addition to being a restaurant owner, Becker is also a potter. He makes unique dinnerware that is used in both Sweet Basil and at Juniper.
We start with the roasted cauliflower salad ($13) curry vinaigrette, arugula, spiced chickpeas, olives, toasted pine nuts and red onion (pictured top right). I love roasted cauliflower, it had a rich, warm flavor. A perfect start to our meal.
(Pictured left) They have a nice selection of dips and spreads (served with yummy flatbread), you can order them for $6 each or 3 for $15: muhummara (red pepper and walnut), matbucha (tomato, red bell peppers, garlic and chili pepper), tzatsiki (yogurt, cucumber and garlic), hummus (chick peas, tahini, olive oil), skordalia (potato and garlic), and baba ghanouj (eggplant and tahina).
(Pictured bottom right) I HAD to try the lamb bolognese ($16) saffron pasta, roasted tomato sauce, chili oil and yogurt. A totally different flavor profile than traditional bolognese, but every bit as tasty. This dish has comfort food written all over it, perfect for cold New England days.
The restaurants generally only open for dinner service on Sundays. This Sunday, January 8th, for one day only, they will be opening their doors for brunch with a special guest chef, Avi Shemtov, of The Chubby Chickpea. He will be preparing a Middle Eastern-inspired brunch, including his signature Shakshuka from 11:30am – 2:30pm. Call the restaurant for reservations. If you can’t make it in for this special pop up, make sure to try it out for lunch or dinner at another time, the food was delicious.
Service was excellent, we were there for a weekday lunch. Parking is on street at meters.
Juniper
13 Central Street, Wellesley, MA
http://www.juniperwellesley.com
Tags: bolognese, casual dining, mediterranean, wellesley
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January 5, 2017 Meatball Kitchen
Meatball Kitchen is one of the newer restaurants in the Natick Collection. Located in the old Sel de la Terre the space, the restaurant is divided into two areas, the front bar area pictured above and the main dining room in back. The bar is bright and airy with high ceilings and a glass wall that faces the mall (great for people watching) as a opposed to the dining room that is a little more intimate and has a warm glow to it.
We arrive just before the lunch rush and sit at a great table towards the back – perfect for a larger sized group. The restaurant has a second location in Wilbraham, MA.
The casual eatery serves Italian comfort food with something on the menu for everyone – even vegetarians and vegans!
Pictured top right and moving clockwise: spiedini alla Romana ($9.95) fried mozzarella sandwich with anchovy butter; cheesecake balls ($6.95) served with chocolate, caramel and strawberry sauce; the mbk sampler ($17.95) 6 balls (beef, classic, chicken, pork, veggie and vegan) and 6 sauces (tomato, far diablo, pesto, alfredo, nano’s san marzano tomato sauce, and truffle parmesan); fried Brussels sprouts ($8.95) served with bacon butter and fried shallots; and the buffalo chicken balls.
The meatballs were pretty tasty, although I’m not sure I can trust a vegan “meatball” ;). I did like the option of the sampler, I always want to try one of everything! The cheesecake balls were good, but nothing to write home about. The Brussels were probably the table favorite with the buffalo chicken meatballs as a close second. The chicken meatballs had a really nice texture to them. Service was decent for the lunch rush. Great place to go with kids and a nice addition to the current choices at the mall.
Meatball Kitchen
Natick Collection – 1245 Worcester Street, Natick, MA
See their website here.
Tags: casual dining, italian, meatballs, natick, pasta, restaurant, takeout, vegan, vegetarian
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January 3, 2017 Neiman Marcus Cafe
Nancy, Kim, Leah and I headed out to the Neiman Marcus Cafe for a “company holiday party”. Nestled away on the second floor of Neiman Marcus in the Natick Collection, this cafe is a private little oasis. In fact, I never knew it was there until Kim told me we MUST go. We are greeted by the manager, Hans. He’s old school and the customer service is top notch (we would expect nothing less at Neiman’s!). Every meal starts out with a little shot of the most delicious chicken broth you have ever had, and for some reason, it feels so luxurious. Next, popovers. I could stop there, but I won’t. Two words: strawberry butter. Yup, AMAZING! The menu has a little bit of this and a little bit of that: seasonal soups and salads, sandwiches, quiche and burgers. I have the Cafe Burger ($17): white cheddar, crispy fried onion rings, applewood smoked bacon and roasted garlic aioli, served with a side of truffle fries. It’s a days worth of calories in one meal, but it’s the holidays and I’m treating myself (I’m worth it!). It’s a delicious burger – perfectly cooked and there’s just something delicious about the bun (bonus points that it didn’t get soggy). Don’t get me started on the truffle fries – thin and crisp, perfectly salty and delicious.
Neiman Marcus Cafe
2nd Floor: 310 Speen Street, Natick, MA
See their website here.
You may be wondering what the photo on the left is. While we were celebrating, we were also toasting a friend, Flo, who we lost very suddenly. We couldn’t believe the news that she had passed, we were just on a trip with her a month ago to the North Fork. Florence was an amazing woman, a good friend and a PR dynamo. She was a joy to be around and she will be missed. Here’s to you Flo!
Tags: burger, casual dining, natick collection, restaurant
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December 31, 2016 Daikanyama
When you have little ones at home, sometimes it’s hard to rally and do simple things like get out to the mall. The holiday season snuck up on me this year. I cringed when I saw the Christmas decorations going up in October and then BAM, Thanksgiving, Christmas, oh wait, it’s NYE! I was behind on my shopping and needed to get out to the mall and pick up a few things. Cue rockstar girlfriends who help you at the mall with your kids and then go out to lunch so you an feel like you have rejoined civilization! We headed over to the Chestnut Hill mall and decided to try out Daikanyama, the sushi restaurant in Bloomingdales. There were so many of us that we were able to sit in this cute little room in the front of the restaurant and close the doors so as not to bother other customers dining there.
The gyoza ($7) were a little well done for me personally, but the filling was still tasty. We loved the shrimp shumai ($6) that we ordered for the table. All the sushi was fresh and delicious – plated perfectly. Daikanyama offers specialty rolls such as the sunny maki with pumpkin tempura, avocado, yuzu tobikko, chef’s special yuzu sauce and raspberries ($8.25), the green dragon with spicy yellowtail topped with avocado ($8.95) and the autumn maki with shrimp tempura and enoki mushrooms topped with torched white fish and mango finished with a spicy teriyaki sauce ($13.95).
There are other options if you aren’t interested in sushi: delicious salads: seaweed, tofu and tomato, friend calamari or a lobster avocado option; soups: miso, robin sushi, spicy lobster miso or akadashi; udon, tempura or katsu. They have delicious specialty drinks, both alcoholic and non alcoholic. Service was friendly and attentive.
Daikanyama
225 Boylston Street, Newton, MA
Check out the menu here.
Tags: casual dining, chestnut hill, restaurant, sushi
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