upstairs again; tomatoes at craigie; a new find

this year, upstairs on the square must have a new chef, because the food is a lot more exciting and adventurous than it usually is. it also appears to be suffering a bit business-wise, even though the food is better than it has ever been; so i’m doing my part towards the country’s economic recovery by having had lunch twice at upstairs in the past two weeks. the first time wasn’t particularly worth talking about – a clam chowder that tasted mostly of creme fraiche and a fish sandwich on too-thick bread – but the second time was really quite wonderful. i went with my mother and sister, and we had:

• chilled yellow tomato soup with a hint of scotch bonnet; crouton of wild salmon and avocado tartare
• antipasti of lourdes’ mozzarella; peach and sweet summer pepper relish
• lemon tagliatelle; chiogga beets & greens, lobster knuckles, sauteed cod cheeks
• bbq pork piadina sandwich; giardiniera of farmer’s market vegetables, crisp onion strings
• cheeseburger on a potato roll; gruyere, niman ranch bacon, cucumber pickles
• market fruit galette; candied almonds
• crema catalana; cinnamon & orange, pecan shortbread cookies

the tomato soup was absolutely delicious – i often find tomatoes to be too sweet, but these were sweet and plenty tart. the addition of the scotch bonnet is also quite wonderful – adding a crucial bit of warming heat to the cold soup. the avocado was delicious, but unnecessary.

i had the bbq pork sandwich as my main course – it was also quite good. it turns out that a piadina is a sort of italian flatbread, slightly thicker than a tortilla; this one was corn-based. the bbq pork was great – a lot of bbq flavor, a bit of char – and i think that it may have been cooking in the grill we saw right at the entrance to the restaurant, as the smoke from the grill matched the smoky flavor in the pork. the giardiniera, which is an actual name for an italian side dish that is a fancy name for pickled vegetables, was forgettable and a bit too vinegary for my tastes. the crisp onion strings were absolutely delicious – very lightly battered, razor-thin slices of onion – basically, ephemeral bits of onion essence.

i had a bite of my sister’s lemon tagliatelle, which is fresh, house-made pasta. not as delicious as the lobster dish i had a few weeks ago, but still quite good. i also had a bite of my mother’s burger, and i may have to amend my decision to name craigie’s burger as the best burger around here. i’ve had the upstairs burger before, but long ago enough that craigie had replaced it in my esteem. however, now that i’ve had each burger within a week of each other, i can safely compare them. while it was worth the wait for the tomato in craigie’s burger, the upstairs burger actually tasted beefier and more satisfying. the upstairs burger also earns some brownie points with its inclusion of homemade mayo for the burger or fries (mayo with my fries is one food-related affection that i’ve developed in my grown-up-adult phase of life). i also prefer upstairs’ thick-cut fries over the shoestring fries at craigie, although this time, at least craigie had regular potato fries (i am not a fan of sweet potato fries). there is just no way to effectively eat shoestring fries; it robs you of both a high rate of potato consumption (a debatable loss), but more importantly, of the satisfaction of chewing a mouthful of potato. and that is definitely a crime.

unfortunately, although the first and second courses were delicious, dessert was disappointing. i generally caution against dessert at upstairs, unless you choose the butterscotch pudding, which is absolutely wonderful. both desserts were clunkers – the galette wasn’t sweetened enough (and i’m pretty sensitive to overly sweet desserts), its crust was completely soggy, and it came topped with whipped cream that was whipped almost to the point of being butter. i really wanted to send it back, but i never know what the etiquette is for that type of thing. the crema catalana was better – it was basically a spiced creme brulee, and the shortbread cookies were good, but it was overall an average dessert.

as a side note, exciting news! i have now been to craigie enough times that i apparently am a trusted enough customer that they don’t require me to secure my reservations with a credit card. i’m moderately flattered.

***

also last week, i did restaurant week lunch with my sister at asana, which is in the mandarin oriental hotel on boylston. the entrance is unmarked as far as i could see, both from the street entrance and from the hotel entrance; much as it may denote high levels of cool, i am not a huge fan of such displays. luckily, the food was wonderful, and the decor is quite nice design-wise – simple, with accents of texture and volume.

per the restaurant week menu, we had the following (the simplicity of the way the menu is worded masks some of the preparation techniques):

• heirloom tomato and lemongrass soup; watermelon, flowers
• ahi tuna sashimi; wasabi greens, yuzu vinaigrette, squid cracker
• bento box; asian bbq beef, sticky rice, wakame salad, steamed pork dumplings
• atlantic salmon; mizuna, citrus, mint, basil, sake vinaigrette
• grand marnier parfait; marinated raspberries
• jivara chocolate tart; roasted banana ice cream

i was slightly underwhelmed by the tomato soup that i had, although this is more due to my cultural conception of what a tomato soup should be. this tomato soup was more of a tomato consomme, in which the tomato juice is extracted from pulped tomatoes. it wasn’t like v8 tomato juice – rather, the consomme is to v8 as fresh orange juice is to oj from a carton. it has a wonderfully fresh, delicate flavor, but i think my liking for florals in my food is pretty limited, so i was less a fan of this soup. (the two notable floral concoctions i’ve had were the lemonade from cafe baraka, which has rosewater in it, and the floral scent-infused sea bass chowder i had at alinea.)

the tuna sashimi that my sister had was really delicious – a good balance of ingredients in addition to very good tuna. as usual, no ability here to taste yuzu.

main courses were really good – the salmon i had was seared on one side, skin-on on the other side. the sear was very well done technically – the salmon was perfectly cooked, the sear perfectly crispy. the salmon was unadorned, really, save for the grapefruit – grapefruit with seafood is a favorite combination. i can’t remember what salmon is usually paired with at restaurants, but it seemed to me that mashed potatoes and salad were slightly out of the ordinary. it was a well-orchestrated trio – the mashed potatoes were similar to the salmon in richness, while the mix of arugula and mint acted as a refreshing foil to that richness. it’s not often that one gets mint in a salad, instead of as a garnish or in a pesto, and i was somewhat surprised to find that it pairs so well with arugula – the peppery flavor of the arugula and the coolness of the mint are well-balanced. i did also have a dumpling and a bit of beef from my sister’s bento box, which were good and excellent, respectively. the beef was very complex in flavor, the spices balancing out the sweetness of the sauce. you could also tell that the way the beef had been cooked in the sauce was a distinctively asian preparation, not unlike char siu pork – it wasn’t beef in sauce, but rather, the sauce had been reduced and the beef seared and cooked in it for some time.

it seems rare to me that restaurants do both sweet and savory well, but the desserts here were really impressive. i find that it’s more difficult to find good places for dessert in the boston area than for dinner, so it’s great to find a place that does everything well. the parfait that i had came in four small cylinders laid on a plate like logs, their tops scattered with a smattering of raspberries that had a sheen of some kind of “marinade” (like a syrupy reduction of sugar or wine), and a traditional caramelized-sugar tuile. the cylinders were the “grand marnier parfait” and tasted like a semifreddo, but firmer – as if it had been firmed with whatever the molecular gastronomy types use to solidify frozen things. the end result was that throughout eating the dessert, it didn’t melt, still tasted cold, and had the slightest bit of chew to what appeared to be a soft ice cream. well, it was delicious – just a very simple preparation to end an excellent lunch. my sister’s dessert was equally good – the jivara, i believe, corresponds to a specific blend of valrhona chocolate; both tart (of the dense, flourless-chocolate-cake ilk) and the banana ice cream were great.

in addition to lunch, we had a couple of tonics – i can’t quite remember what they had in them, but they are wonderful, simple yet complex concoctions. it’s the sort of non-alcoholic tonic that makes you feel like you’re just as appreciated as someone who’s drinking an alcoholic cocktail (plus, it was lunch on a weekday).

the service here is also pretty good – inobstrusive, but attentive. it’s the type of place that’s the dressy, hostess-pulls-out-your-chair-for-you type place – the high-end type of place that is welcome but atypical for the casualness of life in boston. i’m pretty sure that the last place where my chair was pulled out for me was per se in new york. the dining room has well-lit high ceilings, and the high-end finishes of the decor and silverware really make you feel like you’re in a luxurious setting. then again, the sumptuousness of a weekday three-course, two-hour lunch certainly contributed to its air of luxury, too… (for those of you who are always conscious of food portions, the portions here are generally spot on – not too much, not too little, erring on the side of slightly generous (especially for lunch).)

i remain somewhat amazed by the discovery of a new place that’s so good – simple, adventurous, delicious. i’m pretty hard to impress, food-wise, but i was impressed; it’s rare that a new place is so good. i often feel belittled at nice restaurants because i appear to be young or inexperienced in the realm of good food, but the service here is fairly unpretentious. it was pretty empty at lunch on a friday afternoon – about a third of the dining room was occupied – so the scene when it’s busy might be off-putting, as it seems like it’s an upscale/hip enough place to attract the correspondingly pretentious crowd. however, on this day – a beautiful sunny day – it was quiet and relaxing.