L'Espalier

Today Louis got us reservations for the 10-course tasting menu at L'Espalier for lunch. The menu changes with the season and unfortunately my attention-span is too short to remember the names of all 10 courses, but I will try my best to relay them accurately:

The amuse bouche was a cheese eclair and corn-bread bite with tiny dollop of whipped butter:

The butter that was served with our bread were shaped like Hershey's kisses:

 The soup course was light with a corn-like flavor and bed of caviar at the bottom:

 Oyster:

 Lobster bisque:

 Foie gras with kumquat:

 Palate cleanser of champagne ice with Matcha crumbs and Chantilly cream:

Sole and sea scallops:

 Beef terrine with sausage:

Cheese platter - from left to right:
1. Fourme D' Ambert
2. Tarentaise (my favorite): very nutty and sweet
3. Brother's Walk
4. Weston Wheel
5. Ribiola A Tres Latti

 The cheeses were paired with fig-bread and honey:

The most exciting part of the day was immediately before dessert, when one of the elderly gentleman at the table next to us took a fall, striking his head against the wall. His wife doesn't know the meaning of the word "calm," so she managed to create quite a fiasco. Fortunately the restaurant wasn't particularly busy at the time, AND the old fellow was quite feisty and appeared to be clinically stable. Louis and I - being the humanitarians that we are - helped the fellow up, and after he was seated at our table to await the EMS, we were relocated to finish the rest of our meal


 The first dessert was a citrus gelato with tapioca and white chocolate:

 The second dessert was a pumpkin flavored custard-cake with vanilla ice cream:

By the end of the meal, Louis was feeling as light-headed as the old fellow who fell, but fortunately the elevator had a chair:

Overall rating: 8/10


774 Boylston Street,
Boston, MA 02199

Flour

A few months back I was killing free time by browsing the cookbook section at Barnes and Noble (not because I do any real cooking or baking, but because I like looking at the pretty pictures of food), and came across a book called Flour - written by Joanne Chang: founder of Flour Bakery as well as the popular Boston Asian-fusion restaurant Meyers and Chang (co-founded with her husband who makes up the "Meyers" portion of "Meyers and Chang").

Needless to say, after staring at the pictures of delicious pastries, cookies, cakes, and tarts, I HAD to visit the bakery. There are now three locations - one downtown, one in Cambridge, and one in the South End.  I stopped by the downtown location on the way to NYC shortly after discovering it's existence, but given the time crunch I only got a croissant to-go.


Today however,  there was time for some of the girls and I to stop by the Cambridge location for casual brunch, so that we could sample more of what they have to offer.


Christina opted for the smoked salmon and arugula sandwich:

Ameeka ordered the grilled Portobello melt with fresh mozzarella, roasted tomatoes, and basil pesto:

I was still feeling a bit whoosy from too many Chambord-and-pineapples and Lemon-drops from last night, so rather than getting both a savory AND sweet dish (which I was sorely tempted but too nauseous to do), I limited myself to just a serving of the blueberry bread pudding instead. Even though I thought I was being moderate in my selection, I was still unable to finish the whole thing since bread pudding is a heavy dish regardless

 Ammara chose the apple cinnamon french toast: 

Mautin ordered the grilled chicken sandwich (not pictured) and vanilla cream doughnut :

While Ammara's french toast was a bit disappointing and my bread pudding was a bit tooo dense, everything else was good - especially the doughnut which gave Mautin a food-gasm


During brunch Christina pointed out that I rarely include photographs of people in my blog. As she stated: "You say that you're eating with other people in all of your posts, but there's never any proof.  How do we know that you're not just pigging out alone??" 

Sooooo included next are a few photos of my brunch companions: 

 

Overall rating: 6.5/10


Central Square 190 Mass. Ave.
Cambridge MA 02139

Shanghai Gate

Tonight Louis and I decided to go to his favorite (Boston) Chinese restaurant for dinner: Shanghai Gate. Having recently just come back from Taiwan, you'd think that he'd be all Chinese-food'ed-out, but luckily he wasn't, especially since I'm of the opinion that soup dumplings are the perfect meal for snowy days like today.

When you really sit down and consider it,  you come to the realization that there are approx 2.5 billion people in the world who eat Chinese food for every meal of all 365 days of the year, so maybe Chinese-food'ed-out is a condition that my people are immune to.

Regardless, for starters we got the Shanghai soup dumplings: (these dumplings were stingy on the soup, but fantastic in flavor. The skin was a bit thick, but the filling was very yummy)

...and the "Lion's Head" beef meatball: this meatball was the size of my fist, so one was definitely enough to share

Louis was super hungry, so we also got the winter melon soup: (the soup had little bacon slices that were the best part)

For entrees we ordered the Shanghai fish slices: white fish marinated in wine and stir-fried with ginger and wood-ear mushrooms. This was probably my favorite dish of the night. The wine sauce had a hint of sweet, and the aroma of the wine was very much present, but without being overpowering

as well as the sauteed string beans:

In the end we had so much food that there were plenty of left-overs for both Louis' lunch and dinner tomorrow. While they're usually quite generous with portion sizes, Chinese restaurants unfortunately aren't great about desserts, so when I got home I had to satisfy myself with grocery store sugar cookies instead


Overall rating: 7/10


204 Harvard Avenue
Allston, MA 02134