At the beginning of the year, Whisk took over Fazenda Coffee Roasters in JP. It’s conveniently located across the street from the Forest Hills train station.

Whisk is run by chefs Jeremy Kean and Philip Kruta. The duo were the first to take over Wink and Nod, before Bread and Salt and Akinto. I originally met Jeremy at the Roosters event where he provided delicious snacks. The team currently puts out delicious donuts in the morning and tasty offerings for lunch. They are working on an evening option, and until they figure things out, they are hosting supper club pop ups. While Kean and Kruta hold down the back of the house, Kean’s sister Rebecca has taken on the front of the house as the restaurant’s GM.

Tonight we were attending a WHISK-y, ramen and blues event.

The watermelon salad was a must – with summer coming to a close, I want to eat all the watermelon I can! This was a hyper local salad, with everything in it coming from farms not more than 40 miles away. It’s topped with Thatcher ricotta, blue basil, husk tomatoes, and flowers. This dish is what summer should taste like.

Ben’s Wild Ramen mixed things up with tomato broth as the base, wild sorel, wild mushrooms and sunflower paste.

We also had the 20 day NY burger with lion’s mane gravy, preserved ramp and kimchee served with a side of french fries.

While I’m not really an oyster kind of gal, these Island Creek oysters with cucumber, raspberyy and wild onion not only looked amazing but were quite tasty!

For dessert we had a mint chocolate chip donut – I was prepared not to like it as I’m not a mint kind of gal, but it was surprisingly delicious! I loved the chocolate crumbles on top and the mint was subtle.

My favorite of the night was a peach donut with sesame seeds and a roasted peach on top. Not only is this an amazing presentation, but the flavor was top notch.

The restaurant has a lot of seating and they continue to brew Fazenda coffee during the daytime.

The band for the evening was a little more bluegrass than jazz, but they had a great set while we were eating.

So of course, it’s a small world, and the drummer/trumpet player was Mike Greenstein, and we went to high school together. Take a listen below!

Whisk at Fazenda

3710 Washington Street, Jamaica Plain, MA

Check out their Facebook page here.

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JP is under rated. There are so many great little shops and neighborhood restaurants that most Bostonians don’t even know about. Canto 6 is one of JP’s best kept secrets. (Although, they were voted Best of Boston 2007)

Canto 6. Ring a bell? From Dante’s Divine Comedy, the 6th canto of the Inferno is where Dante puts the food obsessed, the gluttons. The bakery says, “Our Canto 6 is a salute to food: the devilishly good, the indulgent, and of course, the divine”.

I love this place. It has a really home-y vibe to it and the baked goods are delicious. When I think of this place, I imagine that it’s like when you are away at school and your mom sends you home made baked goods and you get all nostalgic for home. I say imagine here because my mom can’t bake for her life, so I have no idea what that actually feels like…but if she could bake, this is what I imagine it would be like.

Located across the street from a police station, Canto is a real neighborhood kind of place. There are about 10 seats in the place and on a weekend afternoon, they can be hard to come by.I suggest getting there early before all the good stuff is gone! Oh wait, I take that back, because if you go early, the good stuff might be gone when I get there…so go late, go late go late! They have a menu on their website, but they have other things that vary daily. This past time we had a pear ginger pastry and a piece of chocolate walnut banana bread.

I am never disappointed when I come here. Everything is fresh and flavorful. The service is friendly, what else could you ask for? I love love loved the banana bread. Maybe because I love banana bread in general, but this one was just so moist with a nice crust on the outside, the nuts gave it a nice crunch and the chocolate, well how can chocolate in something be bad?

The fruit desserts here are always good, they have had raspberry squares which I love, fruit tarts, you really can’t go wrong here.  I am quite partial to the monkey bread-cinnamon and sugar gooey goodness. They also serve sandwiches and have bread from Clear Flour bakery in Brookline. They have this dessert called the Bostok (I’ve never seen it anywhere else), a slice of brioche with orange blossom water syrup and home made frangipane, which I would try is I were an orange lover…

So go and discover Jamaica Plain, and stop in for a sweet treat at Canto 6- or don’t, so there will be more for the rest of us!

Canto 6

3346 Washington Street Jamaica Plain

617-983-8688

www.canto6bakery.com

Mon-Fri 7:30am-5pm; Sat-Sun 8am-5pm

Update: March 2010

We have a pistachio shortbread cookie. It doesn’t taste very pistachio or shortbread-like but it is fantastic. It’s thin and has a nice crisp on the outside but is soft on the inside. It’s buttery and sugary!

We also get an apple blackberry tart. The crumb topping is delicious. I’m not really a berry pie kind of gal…and I barely tasted the apple. It reminded me more of a mixed berry tart…so not my favorite.

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