110 Grill is the newest restaurant to open in Wayland, giving the town a much needed addition option for dinner on the south side of town. We arrive early and the place is starting to get crowded with families with young children. The kids menu is pretty good – for $7 you get your choice of grilled or fried chicken tenders, pasta with butter or mac and cheese, a cheese quesadilla, a burger, fried cod or a grilled cheese. It comes with your choice of carrots and celery, cucumbers, or seasonal vegetables. As a side, you can choose from French fries, white rice or sweet potato fries. For dessert, choose from sliced apples, a bowl of berries or a scoop of vanilla ice cream. While yes, pasta with a side of French fries might not be traditional, my son loved it.

110 Grill offers a good selection on their menu, with appetizers like: tempura shrimp, crispy fried pickle chips, a spinach dip bread bowl or poutine. Entrees include items like: cuban swordfish, shrimp scampi, steak tips, chicken pesto pasta, a pulled pork sandwich and a vegetarian stir fry. Above was the short rib special one night which was a bit on the pricey side, but tasty.

The jambalaya is no longer on the menu, as it rotates, but it was also quite tasty. Appetizers range from $7-$15 and entrees start at $12 for a sandwich and can go up for about $30 for a steak.

For dessert we tried the Oreo brownie sundae ($7) that was a warmed brownie topped with vanilla bean ice cream and housemade hot fudge. It was finished off with some whipped cream and crushed Oreos. Pretty good if I do say so.

110 Grill has locations in Berlin, Chelmsford, Hopkington, Leominster, Nashua (NH), Rochester (NH) and Wayland. They are expanding to Braintree, Haverhill, Marlboro, Fall River, Stratham (NH), Worcester and Wrentham in 2017/2018.

Sign up for their loyalty program: for ever $110 you spend on food and non alcoholic drinks you receive a $10 reward (every $1 spent = 1 point). Stop in on Mondays and earn double points.

110 Grill

171 Commonwealth Road, Wayland, MA

www.110grill.com

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Porto is a new Mediterranean restaurant that serves a modern take on seafood. The team behind this new hot spot are Jody Adams, Eric Papachristos and Sean Griffing (they are also the team behind Trade).

I love everything about this place from the moment I walk in, from the artwork on the walls to the summer beach cottage feel, right down to the blue tiles in the entryway.

Leah and I are doing some research for our Toasts and Bowls posts that went up earlier this week. We are lucky enough to run into Jody, who is just popping by, and we chat with her a bit before our meal comes.

The lunch menu is filled with delicious sounding plates: lobster roll, a fried oyster roll, grilled arctic char salad or a roasted half chicken to name a few. We went with the grilled avocado toast, topped with ricotta, red pepper and these addictive honey pistachios. This is a really nice twist on avocado toast, the grilled avocado makes this dish special. Very light and clean, filling – but in a good way.

Next up, we tried the Anson Mills faro verde grain bowl served with eggplant, broccoli, pomegranate and a perfectly cooked soft egg. The eggplant was delicious and while this bowl on paper sounds too healthy for my liking, it was quite tasty.

Service was excellent. They have a great bar – perfect for a glass of wine at the end of the day and some people watching. They also recently opened their patio, so make sure to stop by and check that out when the weather is finally warm for more than 20 minutes! Aren’t you ready for the rain and cold to go away? Is it summer yet?!?

Porto

Ring Road, Boston, MA

www.porto-boston.com

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My old intern Sarah and I met up at Trade for dinner, a great place to catch up over good for. We started with the avocado ($7) that came with a mango tamarind chutney and peanuts. While I love guacamole, it can get a bit boring – so I love this dish that serves avocado up in a new way. There’s a lot going on here, the creamy avocado, the crunchy peanuts, the brightness of the mango – it all comes together in this dish nicely.

I have mixed emotions about lettuce wraps in general and you MUST have the perfect pieces of lettuce to make them work. These pork belly ones ($12), served with ginger, cabbage and peanut did not disappoint The lettuce stayed in tact for the whole time and the asian flavors was delicious.

They have a great selection of flatbreads, the dough is just perfect. We had the soppressata ($16) topped with garlic oil, ricotta and tomatoes.

The Taza chocolate cake ($8) is intense. The small sliver of cake is so rich and dense that you need the ice cream to break things up little. The fresh fruit is also a nice addition to cut through all that chocolate. This is pure gluttony on a dish!

And how can you pass up warm doughnuts ($8)? These were served with a side of berry jam, a perfect way to end the meal.

Trade

540 Atlantic Avenue, Boston, MA

http://trade-boston.com/

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We continued our evening over at Les Zygomates – for part 1 of our progressive dinner, click here. Les Zygomates is open for lunch and dinner and has $1 oysters, Mondays 4pm-9:45pm, Tuesday-Friday 4pm-7pm. On Tuesday – Saturday nights they have live jazz during the evening.

Les Zygomates’ wine list is impressive and at any given time they have 40-50 wines available by the glass.

For our main course of the progressive dinner we had the choice between a pistachio crusted striped bass, served with roasted potato, sautéed kale, caramelized onions in a lemon brown butter sauce or what I chose, the beef flat iron rossini. The steak was cooked a perfect medium rare and was served with pomme puree, wild mushrooms, foie gras, truffle and madeira. The wine pairing for the striped bass was a 2013 Chateau La Dame Blanche from Bordeaux and the pairing for the steak was a 2010 Chateau Trill, a Grenache/Syrah blend, from France.The steak was impressive in size, by this point in the meal I was already full and ended up taking most of it home. To me, there is nothing better than a steak and mushroom flavor combination.

For dessert there was a choice of a vanilla creme brûlée, a chilled chocolate cake and what I chose, the poached apple Napoleon. The dessert was delicious, light as air with a taste of honey – such a perfect fall choice.

The art in both Les Zygomates and Bel Ari is by Janice Eve Dale. The art is from Dale’s “In the Garden Series” and is in sync with the re-design of the interior.

Disclaimer: I was invited to be a guest at Bel Ari and Les Zygomates. My meal was provided complimentary. All opinions are my own.

Les Zygomates

129 South Street, Boston, MA

http://winebar129.com

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Last week I was invited to check out Del Frisco’s Grille in Chestnut Hill.

Del Frisco’s Grille is the more casual counterpart to their other properties, the Double Eagle Steakhouses. The space is modern and the large windows let in a lot of natural light. They have a great room in the back for private parties and there is a huge parking lot out back, so you have none of the hassles the city.

Del Frisco’s Grille has introduced a new lunch menu, where you can “grab a pair” for just $12. You can have a personal size flatbread, half of a chicken avocado wrap, half of a Bahn Mi or 2 fish tacos served with your choice of a mixed greens salad, Caesar salad or cup of soup. If you can’t make it in for a sit down lunch, call in your order and you can pick it up! It’s only a few dollars more than that “other” place where you can “pick two” and the food is much better quality!

We start our lunch off right with Del Frisco’s signature drink, the VIP. It’s Hawaiian pineapple infused clementine vodka ($10.50) and it is dangerously delicious. It is delightfully sweet and you can barely tell there is alcohol in it!

First up, Eric, the General Manager brings us the guacamole ($10). I love tons of garlic in my guacamole, so I wished this had a little more kick to it, but it was great with the corn tortillas!

These lollipop chicken wings ($12) were one of my favorite things on the menu. They are served buffalo style and served with an avocado ranch dressing. They make the chicken easy to pick up- you’re a long way from those dark sports bar, sauce all over your fingers and face wings you get at other places!

The Asian street tacos ($10.50) were next – BBQ pork, picked daikon and carrot, cucumber (which was a really nice addition), cilantro and chiles. I love the flavors here, a little zippy!

The spicy pork meatball flatbread ($13.50) was another favorite of mine. It was topped with roasted tomato sauce, banana peppers, fresh mozzarella and house made ricotta. The banana peppers really added a little extra something something to the dish and I loved the creaminess

The chopped chicken and farm greens salad ($13) was next out of the kitchen. It came with chicken, tomato, carrot, roasted pine nuts, blue cheese and a dijon mustard vinaigrette. I usually avoid any salad with blue cheese – I feel like most of them just taste like a huge chunk of blue cheese. This salad however had a very subtle blue cheese flavor that didn’t over power the salad. That’s a compliment in my book!!

The burrata salad ($12.50) was probably the prettiest dish of the afternoon, just look at the presentation! The burrata was delicious, perfect consistency, not too firm and not too runny! And the tomatoes were also perfectly firm, theres nothing worse than a squishy tomato.

It’s hard to find good fish tacos in New England. That being said, these fish tacos ($13.50) were pretty darn tasty. The haddock was perfectly cooked and it was nice a light – the dish came with a side of roasted tomato salsa and topped with a corn – jicama slaw. Pictured above is the grab a pair lunch option – with a Caesar salad as the side.

Check out a close up of those delicious tacos!

At this point, I was so full, I was sure they were going to have to roll me out! The next dish was the chicken avocado wrap ($12.50) that came with smoked bacon, lettuce and a chipotle aioli. And let’s talk about those house made potato chips – I bet you can’t eat just one! They are light as air, crips and just the right amount of saltiness to make them dream-worthy.

The side salad that came with the chicken avocado wrap was topped with tomatoes, carrots and bacon!!

Now I know what you’re thinking, what, no chocolate dessert? They have one, but we went with something a little outside the box. The butterscotch caramel pudding is the perfect size for sharing, with each person getting two or three bites of this dessert! The whole thing is topped with sea salt flakes, when you get a spoonful of the sweet with the salty, it is amazing.

And we ended our meal the way we started it, with a delicious drink. The adult milkshake ($11) is the perfect dessert, made with Nocello walnut liquor, creme de cacao, chocolate liquor and vanilla ice cream with a cherry on top!!

Disclaimer: I was invited as a guest of Del Frisco’s Grille. Lunch was provided complimentary. All opinions are my own.

Del Frisco’s Grille

33 Boylston Street, Chestnut Hill, MA

http://delfriscosgrille.com/

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