James Hook and Co Visited 9/28/2018 4 Forks

James Hook and Co  15-17 Northern Ave., Boston, MA 02110

I was in Boston for a partner event and of course you can't go to Boston without getting a lobster roll.  It was a bit challenging because I was really only there for 24 hours and most of the time I was at a partner sponsored event so there wasn't much time to skip out to eat.  But Farzana and I managed to squeeze in 1 lobster roll in the morning before our 12pm flight.  Yes,  I had lobster at 10am but it was definitely worth it. 

We calculated that if we made it to James Hook right when it opened at 10am and ordered right away, we could still make it to the airport in time for our flight.  If I had more time (and if it wasn't before lunch time),  I would definitely have stayed longer and ordered a lot more food.  It's not really a restaurant but more of a seafood market that serves up a few eat-in dishes.  I could spend all day eating lobster, shrimp, chowder, clams and everything else they had there but I was on a mission for the lobster roll.  It's $20 and it's extremely  simple - huge chunks of lobster lightly dressed with mayo and nothing else.  It's served in a hot dog bun - not a potato bun which I docked .5 fork for (personal preference) but overall it was a really solid and tasty roll.   You could definitely taste the fresh lobster meat and it was a good mix of tail and claw. 

When we started to leave at 11am, it was already starting to get busy.  For this price point and for the other variety of food, I could definitely see myself coming here fairly often if I lived in the area. 

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Figs Visited 7/12/2013 3 Forks

Figs   42 Charles St., (between Chestnut St & Mount Vernon St), Boston, MA 02114

For some reason, I've never really had any interest in going to any Todd English restaurants before but when Lav mentioned that this place had really good pizza, I was willing to give his restaurant a try.  While his restaurant in NYC, Olives, is in the swanky W Hotel, this one in Boston was a pretty low key, informal restaurant.  The restaurant is in this incredibly cute and charming part of Boston and while I would never actually move to Boston, this neighborhood did kind of capture my heart that morning.  I had just had a pretty filling breakfast, so I opted to go a bit lighter and get the spinach salad  ($11).  But of course my eyes started to linger and I saw that they had clam chowder ($9) on special.  Now since I was in Boston, I felt like I had to get the clam chowder, even though I wanted a "light" lunch.  Meanwhile, Lav and Eric split a pizza which was half Bianco and half Crispy Eggplant ($18.50).   

My spinach salad came with heirloom tomatoes, avocado, feta cheese and a vinaigrette dressing.  It was a good basic standard salad but I should have asked for the dressing on the side as it was a bit too heavy on the dressing.  I'm pretty sure it was probably one of those salads that seemed healthy at first but if you read the calorie count you would pass out.  But what really did me in was the soup.  My one pet peeve about the soup was that it was served in an enormous bowl.  I mean it almost took up the entire side of my table and when I put my spoon in the bowl I realized how shallow the actual bowl was.  It was just kind of annoying to have a giant soup bowl and a giant salad plate in front of me as it made it pretty difficult to maneuver around the table.  They would have been better off putting the bowl in a small deeper bowl to save space and it would have been presented better.   I had been hoping that since I was in New England that I would be blown away by the chow-da.  But it really wasn't that great.  It was very heavy on the bacon and I didn't really get a lot of clam or potato and it was actually a bit on the thin side.  It just didn't seem like what a good clam chowder should be: thick, chunky and full of big pieces of clam and potato.  I almost prefer the Campbell's Chunky Soup version to this one.  I didn't try the pizza in the restaurant but by the time we got to New Hampshire I was starving and warmed up a couple slices of the leftover pizza.  The Bianco side consisted of fresh mozzarella, sweet onions, tomatoes, arugula, extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar and the crispy eggplant side had tomato sauce, sliced eggplant, mozzarella, whipped ricotta and basil.  The pie and crust was of the thin square version and was still pretty nice and crunchy despite having lots of ingredients piled on top of it.  I actually didn't have a specific preference for either of the pizzas as they were both pretty good.  The ingredients were all very fresh and while it wasn't as good as the pizza at Roberta's, it totally hit the spot despite having been in our car for almost 3 hours.  If I were to end up at Figs again, I would skip the soup, opt for the pizza to share and if I did order a salad, ask for the dressing on the side.  Total bill:  $15/pp with tax and tip. 

Photo Credit: Yelp

Oleana Visited 7/11/2013 4.5 Forks

Oleana - 134 Hampshire St, Cambridge, MA 02139

I had heard a lot about Oleana from Lav and Eric enroute to New Hampshire, so I was pretty excited to give it a try.  Even though it received tons of raves reviews, I wasn't going in with really high expectations since I had never heard of it before. But I was totally in love with our dinner there and it was worth the crazy drive up there.  I was pretty surprised at how completely packed it was given that it was 9pm on a Thursday night.  Even though we had a reservation, but still had to wait about 20 minutes, which in relation to a NYC wait was totally ok. 

The menu here is Mediterranean, vegetarian friend and heavy on the flavor and spices.  While I wasn't starving when I got there (I totally blame the gigantic Auntie Ann's pretzel I had at the rest stop), my eyes definitely got big from all the yummy sounding dishes they had.  They have a LOT of tapas style entries as well as large sized entrees.  For starters, we all split the whipped feta with sweet and hot peppers ($5), saganaki ($10), and the sultan's delight ($13) and for my entree I got the hanger steak with a feta and chickpea salad ($29).  The one thing that disappointed me was the fact that they didn't have a Greek salad on the menu because I was totally in the mood for a good solid salad.  But luckily the rest of the dishes were so delicious that it didn't make me miss that the salad wasn't on the menu.  The whipped feta was amazing.  It had the strong flavor of the feta but with a nice combination of the roasted peppers to give it a sweet flavor.  It was whipped so smoothly that it almost had a butter-like consistency.  The saganaki was also fabulous and served with ouzo, sesame and really delicious grilled figs.  But my favorite appetizer was the sultan's delight which was tamarind glazed beef served with a smokey eggplant puree.  The beef was melt in your mouth and almost like a short rib in texture and consistency.  The puree was also spot on and had a very subtle smokey flavor that wasn't overwhelming but add a great touch to the dish.  I was pretty full at this point but I had to leave room for the hanger steak.  I am always a sucker for really good steak and this one absolutely did not disappoint.  It was good perfectly medium rare, closer on the rare side with a beautiful juicy red center.  The "salad" that came with it was more of a sauteed of peppers, onions,  some feta and chickpeas.  I could have done without it or just less of it because by the time I got to the bottom of it, there was a puddle of oil in the bowl that made it a bit unappetizing.  I had a taste of Eric's trout spanakopita ($24) and it was a nice blend of fish, spinach, avocado and roe.  It was bit heavy on the phyllo dough but otherwise it was a pretty unique dish that I haven't seen anywhere.  I didn't try any of Lav's dishes but she raved about the spinach falafel ($12), the walnut muhammara ($11) but mentioned that the corn and kohlarbi ($8) was lacking in flavor and a bit bland and her least favorite dish of the night.  We really decided to make it an overly decadent meal and got 2 desserts.  I totally apologize but I can't really remember what we got but I just remembered that one of them was too heavy the basil flavor and didn't seem right for a dessert.  

All in all, the food here had fabulous and strong flavors and it was most likely due to all the spices used in the dishes.  Eric actually had the cookbook for the restaurant and we tried to make a few of the dishes the following night (fairly successfully but still not as good as the restaurant) and the key to all the dishes were all these unique spices.  I know my friends were nervous about taking me here for dinner but they didn't have anything to worry about at all.  I've always said that I think Greek/Mediterranean food is like a sleeper hit - very unassuming but always a winner - and Oleana is no exception.  I would be more than happy to see a branch in the NYC area soon.  Total bill: $75/pp with tax, tip and wine

Photo Credit: Yelp

Friendly Toast Visited 3/4/2012 3.5 Forks

Friendly Toast 1 Kendall Sq., Bldg 300, Cambridge, MA 02139

As someone who doesn't have kids, I consider "brunch" time to start at the earliest at 11:30AM if not later.  But when you have kids, you can't wait that long.  I was visiting my friend who had 2 kids, so when she suggested breakfast/brunch, I had no idea that it meant going out at 8:30AM.  It actually wasn't too bad getting up that early.  But I thought that meant that any restaurant we go to would be totally empty.  Imagine my surprise that when we reached The Friendly Toast around 8:45AM that it was completely packed.  It was fully of other families and surprisingly lots of students (it's near MIT).  I remember being a college student and not getting up until noon, but I guess these MIT students are super motivated. :)

The inside of the restaurant is extremely quirky, fun, and just crazy but in a good way.  It's like a 50's diner on crack...there's tons of kitchy toys and posters all over the restaurant.  The kids get these weird coloring pages to go with their theme (Kavi got a page with these people in an accelerator machine).  The menu is also crazy and bizarre but in an awesome way.  There are probably 50 different items that range from a standard pancakes, waffles, and make your own omelette to a scramble with cheddar, avocado, black beans and salsa, coconut pancakes, and green eggs and ham.  I wanted to try a bunch of things but decided to go with a standard eggs benedict because I just haven't had a good benedict in years and thought this would be a great place.  I was super excited for our food but then we waited and waited for a really long time.  This is where I had to dock 1/2 fork.

By the time our food came out, half of the table was on the verge of a breakdown.  Finally when our food came, we pretty demolished our food in 15 minutes.  The benedict was solid: served on a nicely toasted english muffin, two well poached eggs (one was poached slightly better than another), 2 big slices of ham and then covered in hollandaise sauce.   So nothing out of the ordinary.   The ham was a bit salty but I guess that's pretty much how ham usually is.  The ham was sliced like it was hacked off a Christmas ham, so there wasn't a whole lot of "elegance" to it, but hey, I wouldn't rate this place based on aesthetics.  The homefries were pretty big chunks of potato and while they were fine, I thought that they could have been a bit more "mashed up" instead of roasted potato-like.  I didn't try Nima or Dave's food but they both looked interesting and fun.  Dave got the Ole Miss which toast topped with sausage, mashed sweet potatoes, scrambled eggs and a mango sour cream (cool sounding right?) and Nima got the "special" huevos rancheros which was a huevos rancheros served in a tortilla and topped with corn, olives and salsa.  The pancake Kavi got was about the size of a tire.  All in all, this place was totally fun to go but the slow service and the constantly crowded-ness is what knocked it down 1/2 fork.  Total bill: ~$40 total.

Photo Credit: Yelp

Bergamot Visited 3/3/2012 3 Forks

Bergamot 118 Beacon St., Somerville, MA 02143

Full disclosure about this review:  I had terrible congestion during this meal and couldn't taste anything, so it's pretty hard for me to give an accurate review and I feel bad about that...But none the less, I will write about what I can.

My first impression of this place was that we were younger than most people in the restaurant by 10-15 years, but I guess in this area most people are professors or faculty members and the students more or less can't really afford to eat out so they go elsewhere.  The waitress was very helpful and tried to guide us through the drink list.  I wasn't a huge fan of their cocktail list but decided to try the Calla Lily based on  her recommendation ($10).  It turned out  to be way to girly of a drink and super low on alcohol, so I wasn't a huge fan of it.  Meanwhile Nima got this super strong drink called the Bijou which was the complete opposite of my drink: manly and very heavy on the alcohol.   Menu-wise, it was 2 pages with about 5-6 dishes each.  The cuisine was your standard "fancy" American food.  I had noticed some specials on the blackboard in the back but the waitress didn't tell us about all of them, only the appetizer (so I wonder if the other ones were sold out).  For food, we split the home-made charcuterie ($14) plate and the butternut squash cavetelli ($12).  For my main, I got the grilled skirt steak ($28) - I thought it was a bit weird that she didn't ask how I liked my steak, although usually skirt steak usually (and it did) come medium rare.  For some reason when I think of a charcuterie plate, I think of a meat plate with thinly sliced meats like prosciutto and such but this was a variety of mousse-like meat products like pate, pork tarine, some other kind of meat made into a smooth textured format, and then some small cuts of sausage.  If you get squeamish about "smooth" meat, I wouldn't recommend this dish but if you are ok with it, it was quite good and they were all super flavorful without tasting gamey or weird.  As for the pasta appetizer, you could definitely tell that the pasta was fresh and homemade and it was served in a thick butternut squash butter sauce.

Sadly when my entree came out, my congestion had gotten worse.   By the time I got my steak, I think I had about a 20% breathing ability.  I thought a skirt steak was usually a thinner cut of meat, but this cut was actually pretty thick (although not as thick as a real filet or chop).  Luckily the meat was cooked medium rare, which was great and it was served on a bed of polenta, beef and tomato raguot and cremini mushrooms.  Now I have a huge fan of polenta and this wasn't super creamy but mixed together with the ragout and mushrooms, it was a good compliment to the steak.  Even though I couldn't taste much, I must have liked it, because I ate the entire dish!  Nima got the red snapper and she said it was light and delicious and Dave had also gotten the skirt steak.   For dessert, we got the chocolate cremeux ($9) which came with olive oil ice cream.  Again, I had zero taste buds for this so I can't say much, but nothing about it wow'd me too much.

All in all, this was a very pleasant and "adult" restaurant and I did enjoy the food.  I just wish that the menu had a bit more variety, atmosphere was bit less serious, and a better cocktail list.  Total bill: $67/pp with tip and tax.

Photo credit: Bakingmehungry.com     

Flour Bakery Visited 3/3/2012 4 Forks

Flour Bakery 190 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139

I have been to Boston before but I will admit that I haven't been to Cambridge before.  All I know about Cambridge is that it's home to Harvard and MIT, so I was expecting lots of dorks (and I say that with true love).  What I didn't know was that it was home to a lot of crunchy granola, hippie types.  So I was shocked when Nima introduced me to Flour Bakery.  The menu sounded great and there were lots of healthy options.  They tell you what's vegan friendly, nut free, gluten free, etc and if you hadn't told me, I would have thought I was somewhere in California.  I kind of secretly loved it. 


I got the smoked turkey sandwich with cranberry chutney and vermont cheddar cheese ($9.25) but lots of other sandwiches sounded super amazing including the one Nima got, the lamb sandwich with tomato chutney and goat cheese.  I had a really hard time deciding and thought that turkey was the "healthy" option since I knew that we were going to split a sticky bun.  Flour is also famous for their baked goods, especially the sticky bun.  But I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I said yes.


The thing about Flour is that it's always crowded and it's hard to find a seat but luckily we were standing right next to a group that was leaving the communal table.  As we start to sit down, I just had to take note of the group sitting next to us.  Now, I am not trying to be stereotypical and love all sorts of people, but these kids looked so much like the nerds from the Big Bang Theory that it was painful.  They all had terrible haircuts, giant glasses and no sense of style.  And then you listened to them and they were talking about exponents and mean averages. Bless their heart and it kind of brought a smile to my face for some reason.  Hey, I'm sure in 3 years they will all be running the world.  Now on to the food... The bread was super soft and the turkey and cheese were really healthy tasting.  The cranberry chutney just sealed the deal and made it taste like the perfect after Thanksgiving Day sandwich.  I also had a bite of Nima's lamb sandwich and it was also amazing.  The lamb was super super tasty (not tough) and just very tender with each bite.  She got it toasted and I wish I had gotten mine toasted too.  On to the sticky bun...oh, my.  I don't even know what to say.  It was so super sweet I literally thought that I was going to develop 10 cavities on site.  Now I love sweets but this was really just too much for me.  I'm glad we split one, but I would have preferred to split 1/4 of one.   But if you like sweet gooey baked goods, this is your dish!


This place really gave me a new perspective on the Cambridge scene.  I really liked this place a lot and wished that there was something like it closer to me (although I do live in Brooklyn, so I have no doubt something like this does exist).  Too bad my friend is moving from Cambridge soon, otherwise I would say I would definitely be back.  But I highly recommend it to anyone who lives in that area or is thinking of visiting Boston-area.  Total bill: $10/pp.

photo credit: Yelp