bex77

Two restaurant questions for you:

Check out my list of ten places I want to try and where I've been recently.

A. any opinion on the new places?

B. any of your favorites not on my lists?

The best food was the two pound boiled lobster at Yankee Lobster Eatery. But there were a lot of close seconds!

NEW PLACES I WANT TO TRY
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My sweet sister organized some theater peeps to help me continue my birthday celebrations on Sunday evening with an amazing visit to the newest restaurant in Davis Square, The Foundry. They opened last Monday evening on Elm Street, the main drag, after months of anticipation. So we broke our rule about not trying a restaurant in their first week.

http://www.foundryonelm.com/

What a happening place! There were beautiful blond men flanking the door, big windows open to the street, and it was packed on a Sunday night just after 6 pm. They poured a huge amount of money into the renovation... very spiffy. Loved the use of antiqued mirrors to broaden the room.

It felt like "everyone" was there. Someone said Natalie Portman was sitting at the bar! We knew the people at the table next to us, and the people two tables over, and the beloved manager of the Somerville Theater was at the table next to them! It was fun to table-hop and hug. The manager came over and we gave out our theater business cards and inquired about the deal on renting the performance space underneath. That will come later...maybe summer next year? They have an interesting business model... sounds more like Landsdowne Street than Elm Street.

I am not one for alcohol, but my companions oohed and aahed over their cocktails, wines and beers on tap.

There is a large menu - wide range of prices and options from soup to hazelnuts - raw bar, steak frites, flatbread pizza, salads, burgers and more. As others have said, the food is fine. Not fabulous.
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Fun place to see and be seen. Festive. Not my usual scene. And loud. So I am unlikely to go there often. Though many of their daily specials are tempting. We'll see. But it was definitely worth a try to see what everyone has been talking about.

Go to Al Fresco!

Looking for dinner around Davis tonight, we drove by the packed Highland Kitchen, and Posto with a line out the door, and ended up around the corner at the little Italian storefront, Al Fresco. We went there a lot when it first opened a couple of years ago, but hadn't been back in a long time. It is still wonderful!

It's on Highland Ave., on the corner near Kickass Cupcakes and When Pigs Fly Breads. The dining room is charming with large windows, dark wood tables and chairs, candles etc.

http://alfrescodelivery.com/menu.html

You can also get delivery from through Foodler.com. The food is very tasty, presented beautifully, and had creative mixtures of ingredients. The waitress is very personable and friendly. The prices seem very reasonable, especially with the quality of the meals.

To start you off, they bring out free bread with two dipping choices - olive oil or a spicy red paste. Both were tasty. We've tried these items:

Appetizer: Bruschetta 4 slices for $7.95

Entrees: $12.95 - $14.95
The portions are good sized, served on platters or large bowls.

Chicken risotto with mushrooms, zucchini
Tri-color tortelleni with prosciutto cotto and mushrooms in light cream sauce
Veal Alfresco - apricots, raisins, pine nuts in a cherry wine sauce with roasted veggies $14.95

Total bill for 3 people - only $51! Wow. It's a great place for a low-key dinner close to home.

I've been on a lobster kick. I pine for it all time, but I can go months without eating it. And then suddenly I have to eat it! Lobster is cheap right now, luckily.

My sweet sister made lobster for dinner on Monday. She got it from Carey's Catch in Lexington, just up Mass. Ave. from the Arlington Trader Joe's. She served clam chowder, corn on the cob and steamed lobster. Yum. My husband mentioned this dinner at a rehearsal (he missed dinner for the rehearsal!) and folks said they'd love to go out for lobster. So we drove up to Gloucester last night to our favorite place - LOBSTA LAND! It's easy to find - you can see it from Rte 128. Get off at Exit 12 and go around to the left.

Lobsta Land sounds like a dive, a fish shack etc. but it is NOT. It is an amazing restaurant, with a real chef. Sure, they have fried shrimp and clam chowder. But they also have a HUGE menu with items like seafood risotto, scallops satay, Szechuan Peppercorn Crusted Ahi Tuna With Ponzu-Lime Vinaigrette, and amazing specials that combine elements of Italian, Asian and modern cooking with the freshest seafood around. It is definitely the kind of place where you should not make up your mind on what to order before looking at the specials.

http://www.lobstalandrestaurant.com/home.html

We had a lovely table looking out over the marsh at sunset.

I got to taste lots of dishes last night:
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This may have been one of the best meals I've eaten...great view, great food, great conversation...and LOBSTER!

We tried Moulton's Seafood tonight. It's not far from Davis Square and Tufts, tucked back in a residential area off Boston Ave. I'd heard about it for years, and was glad to see it for myself.

They don't have a web site, so I patched together info about them from Yelp, a Boston Globe review and a random menu site.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/moultons-seafood-restaurant-medford

http://www.boston.com/dining/globe_review/1495/

http://www.takeouttonight.com/menus/massachusetts/medford/02155/moulton's%20seafood%20restaurant_7813966466/lunch-dinner/index.html
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This place reminds me a lot of Court House Seafood in East Cambridge...a little bigger and fancier with a waiter instead of a counter, but the same great fresh seafood, neighborhood regulars, and reasonable prices.

We tried Yak & Yeti tonight, the new Nepali/Indian restaurant in Ball Square. It's a nice addition to that area.

They do not serve yak or yeti. :) You can see their menu with prices and some nice photos at http://www.yakandyeticafe.com/

They have a couple of pages of Nepali items, then an entire Indian menu.

They've done a great job of classing up the space - spare, modern, with an incredible mountain mural.

We were the only people in the place at 5:30 pm. So the service was a bit hover-like, but that is common with a new place that isn't crowded. We had a very pleasant waitress who offered suggestions and seemed suprised that we knew the Indian menu.

They give you free pappadam (lentil crisps) to start.
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We got in and out in just an hour.

I don't think this place will usurp our favorite Indian place (India Palace in Union Square) but it is a fine option, with good food, priced in the same range as others of its kind, with good service. If folks want to go, I won't mind going back.

The entire family went out for brunch with Mom. She loves it when we all get together. My older sister made the reservation, and my younger sister chauffeured the parents, so I just had to show up and make conversation. Nine of us met up at Highland Kitchen, the Southern food place in Somerville on Highland Ave. I had a fierce virgin bloody mary, then hush puppies, and finally biscuits and sausage gravy with eggs. It went really well - good food, good service. And Dad paid!

What a gorgeous day! My mom was busy with a rummage sale at her church today. So I went up there to poke around and ending up buying a lamp! Then went off to see my Dad who was batching it at home. He was watching "The Phantom Gourmet," a local restaurant review show. It was their "Hall of Fame" show where they recap the best places to eat. One of them was Jasper White's "Summer Shack" which I have heard about but never tried. Dad decided he wanted to go. I warned him that it's pricy, and offered to take him to his favorite clam shack at the beach, but he had made up his mind.

So we toddled off to Alewife to try out the Shack.
http://www.summershackrestaurant.com/index.asp

It has a big parking lot, but it is right next to the Red Line T stop, so I would avoid heavy commuter times.

The place has a split personality. The atmosphere and decor is very casual, but much of the food and prices are much more upscale.
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So overall it was fine, but I don't need to go back. If someone else is paying and dying to go, I wouldn't object. If you're going for plain seafood, Court House Seafood on Cambridge Street is better for less than half the price. And if you want to overpay, go to the Dolphin or Legal Seafood instead. At least the atmosphere matches the food and prices in those places.

Boston.com can use our help cleaning up their restaurant list.

I was looking for a Chinese restaurant in Cambridge yesterday...I couldn't remember the name. So I checked the listings on Boston.com and found that nearly half the places they list are no longer in business. I wrote to tell them, to check that my way was the right way to let them know, and that they would actually update the listings. They replied with

"Thank you for the information. By all means, do let us know if
you come across a restaurant or establishment that is no longer
in business. We try to maintain our site to reflect accurate
information, but, often times restaurants do not notify us when
they have closed. We will update our listings for the three
restaurants you have forwarded after we confirm that they have
indeed closed.

Are you affiliated with any of these places?

Thanks for your help, and for using Boston.com.

Regards,"

I checked several other listings, and noticed that the pattern was the same...many places that are closed, sometimes listing three places at the same address that has turned over in the past 5 years or so.

So if you have a few minutes, follow these clicks, check out the listings and let Boston.com know if you see places that are no more, especially if you are familiar with areas beyond Cambridge/Somerville.

1) http://boston.com
2) Things To Do (on the right center of the banner at the top)
3) Restaurants (on the left under banner) then
4) Pick a sort that makes sense to you (on the left) such as cuisine or city, or one then the other
5) If you see several that you know are closed, go to the lower left, click on "Contact us" and write them an email. That button pulls in the URL you were viewing so they can easily track back.

If you only see one, or want to go right to one you know is closed, there's a link in the lower right of each specific listing that says "report an error with this listing" and it takes you to the same email form.

If you want to reply here so we don't duplicate efforts, that'd be great, but not essential.

Thanks for helping make these listings more accurate and useful.

Today was a busy day!

1) We checked out of the hotel in Maryland,
2) had an elegant brunch with friends,
3) stopped in to see another family, then
4) partied with a group of Doctor Who fans, and finally
5) drove up the NJ to watch the Oscars. Whew!
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So the Oscars are rolling along...great to see the two films of the few I saw last year in the theater (Star Trek and Young Victoria) get something.