Hungry Mother Review

Overall rating: 93

Food rating: 95

Hungry Mother: Small menu of excellent food

Hungry Mother recently won the Globe Munch Madness. Hard to know how much that is influenced by restaurants promoting themselves, but Hungry Mother has great food and certainly deserves to be in the top tier of any ranking of Boston-area restaurants.

We've been there several times, and the food is generally wonderful. I've noticed a few people commenting that the corn bread isn't that great, and that was our experience as well, which is surprising since typically it's easy to make really tasty corn bread. That, though, isn't a great way to judge a restaurant as a whole. [Update from 6/2013 visit: the corn bread was spectacular, served with delicious sorghum butter. I asked whether the recipe had changed, and they said it hadn't. This corn bread was completely different from what we had eaten previously, so I'm not sure what happened -- perhaps we got some cornbread special by mistake. In any case, I take back my prior negative comments about the corn bread!]

Although the food is "Southern", it's not really similar to any particular cuisine I've eaten in the south or anywhere else. On our most recent visit, we got two appetizers. The first, mussels in a saffron aioli mustard sauce sauce was as good a preparation of mussels as I've ever eaten. The second was a special: an open faced smoked turkey sandwich with bacon that was also delicious. For a main course, we both got the rib eye steak with a romesco sauce and this, too, was wonderful and perfectly cooked medium rare as ordered. A couple of mixed drinks were nicely made as well.

For dessert, we got the buttermilk chess pie, which was good, and the chocolate and olive oil cake, which was okay but nothing special. Overall, the desserts were below the quality of the rest of the meal. We've had desserts at Hungry Mother on previous visits that were better, but overall desserts don't seem to be their strong suit.

The waitstaff was pleasant and efficient, and our waiter was helpful in making suggestions about various options. With some notice, the restaurant will pick up tickets for you for a movie at the Kendall Square Cinema. All in all a great place to have dinner in Cambridge.