The Table at Season to Taste Review

The Table at Season to Taste: Wonderful addition to Cambridge restaurants

Overall rating: 90

Food rating: 92

Season to Taste is a catering company in Cambridge, and two months ago they opened a small restaurant at their location called The Table. The chef is Carl Dooley, who was chef de cuisine at Craigie on Main and is apparently well known by people who watched this season of Top Chef (I wasn't one of them, so we went in with expectations based only on a number of recent good reviews).

The space is small but pleasant. There are seats at tables for 16 people, and another four seats at a bar looking into the open kitchen (this part is similar to the setup at Momofuku Ko) where we were seated. There is also room for a few people to stand and eat "snacks" and drink wine, beer, or cider; they do not have a full bar selection.

The space is a little loud (mostly by choice -- they have music playing loudly) but it was possible to talk without much problem. There were six people working there, three on food and three on everything else, all of whom were very friendly. These included Carl Dooley, another chef, and a cook.

We arrived a few minutes early for our reservation, and they seemed to be trying to coordinate our service with the other two people at the bar seating, who arrived a bit later. As a result, although we got wine, we did not receive any food or bread for more than 35 minutes. Seems like the sort of problem, though, that will get sorted out over time by this new restaurant.

The wine selection is fairly small, and we got wines by the glass that were okay but overpriced. This and the initial wait were really the only disappointing aspects of the meal.

The Table offers only a $65 prix fixe four course meal with two choices for each course. There were two of us, so we ordered to get eight different dishes and shared each course.

The amuse bouche was a bass sashimi with some kimchi that had a great aroma and was wonderful. At the same time the amuse came, we got bread (toasted semolina bread) that was good, with "house-cured butter", which turned out to be butter which they had cured with cheese rinds that gave it a sweet, cheesy taste that was very interesting.

The first course had a salad of grilled squid in citrus with pistachios and mint. It was aromatic and perfectly prepared. I'm not a big fan of squid, but this was great. The other first course plate was a terrine of foie gras with prunes, mustard and duck breast served with toast. This, also, was delicious.

The second course had a plate of roasted sweet potato with an oxtail ragu. This was good, but not great; the flavors weren't that well balanced. The other plate was a mussel and fregola stew that was incredibly good -- probably the best of the dishes along with the amuse.

Sitting at the bar, we watched an error with our own plates for the third course. The couple siting next to us had both ordered hake, while we got one hake and one chicken dish. The cook prepped as if the other couple had also split their orders, and they were served before us. They pointed out the error, which meant one of them had the correct dish and one a chicken instead of the hake. So the chef took the hake that would have been served to us, and swapped it for the chicken. This left them with two chicken dishes and no ability to serve us until a hake dish was prepared. So the chef sent one chicken dish to the back (presumably to be eaten by the staff later?), and unplated one chicken and put it in the oven to hold it warm. A hake dish was prepared in about 4 minutes, and then the chicken was replated, the hake was plated, and we were served both. As this went on we wondered whether it would lead to overcooked chicken, but the chicken was perfect.

The chicken dish was chicken thigh with grated green apple and cabbage and was delicious. It included cockscomb, which I was thinking/hoping was a name for some vegetable, and which, on the plate, my wife interpreted as an oddly textured mushroom, but was in fact from a chicken and was perfectly tasty. The hake was in a butternut squash curry with raisins and almonds. The hake was perfectly cooked, but the curry overwhelmed the flavors of the fish, so this, like the sweet potato plate, was a bit unbalanced.

The desserts had a citrus pavlova with lemon curd and grapefruit-Campari sorbet that was both beautiful (a perfectly smooth meringue with whipped cream inside it) and delicious. There was also a dark chocolate marquise that was very good with some excellent coffee ice cream.

Overall, this enters the scene as one of the best restaurants in Boston. I don't know of a similar place in the area where you are so intimate with the chefs, so it's also a unique dining experience for Boston. Carl Dooley seems friendly and approachable compared to some of the other chefs I've encountered at comparable restaurants in the area, and though he was clearly irritated with the error I described above, he held his cool and kept a pleasant atmosphere for the kitchen and the guests.

The price of $65 per person is reasonable for what you get. The wines made the overall cost of dinner seem a bit high. Either a lower price for those wines or better wine for the same price would have made the entire meal appropriately priced.

I'm a bit concerned what it will be like trying to get reservations down the road, but once it's possible to get in we will certainly be back.

Little Big Diner Review

Little Big Diner: Asian-inspired food in Newton Center

Overall rating: 76

Food rating: 80

Little Big Diner is little, but it isn't really a diner in any common sense of the word. This recently-opened restaurant from the Sycamore folks mainly serves ramen and rice bowls, along with a few appetizers. The overall menu is quite small. A few reviews have called this "Asian fusion", but that's really no more accurate than it would be for Strip-T's. And, more so than for Strip-T's, much of the food at Little Big Diner is fairly Asian, more than being American food with Asian flavors.

We went there for the first time last night for dinner. They do not take reservations or call-ahead, but when you arrive take your cell phone number so you can wander elsewhere in Newton Center. The wait was about 70 minutes.

The space is small, cramped, and loud with pulsing music. The wait staff were young, friendly, and welcoming, and reasonably helpful in selecting dishes. We were seated near the door (hard not to be), and so it was drafty on a cold night, whenever anyone entered or left.

We ordered a "Hawaiian Style Burger" appetizer that was really very good. Steamed dumplings were fine and had a somewhat unusual spice mixture, but weren't anything remarkable. The spicy miso ramen had very tasty corn and spiced ground pork. I'm in no sense a connoisseur of ramen, but the noodles seemed very standard to what you  might get in a noodle dish at any Asian/Chinese restaurant, and the dish as a whole wasn't really very spicy. The big bowl (rice bowl) with chicken was fine as well, but also less interesting that it might have been.

We ordered a cold sake that was recommended and was good.

The meal came to $63 before tip, so a reasonably inexpensive dinner.

Overall, the lack of reservations, noise, draftiness, and cramped space means we're unlikely to go back very often unless the food gets substantially better. Strip T's is somewhat less cramped and less noisy, and the food is better. That said, the owners' nearby restaurant Sycamore has improved more since it opened than any other restaurant I've encountered, and so I hope they accomplish the same with Little Big Diner.

The Bench Review

The Bench: Surprisingly good

Overall rating: 84

Food rating: 84

The Bench lists itself on its web page as "Vermont Comfort Food", which makes it an unusual restaurant to review on this blog. We were in Stowe for a ski trip and came here one night, and then came back the next night just to get drinks and small plates.

From the outside, it has a typical Stowe-overpriced-pub look -- not particularly inviting. Inside is quite different. It's spacious with lots of wood, an open kitchen with a large wood fire, and is set up nicely to accommodate families or people returning from the slopes.

The Bench seems to have opened about 18 months ago. Over two nights there we had several different drinks, all of which were excellent. These included a vodka and ginger beer concoction, a vodka drink with roasted pear liqueur, a take-off on a margarita, and a Whistle Pig bourbon variation on an old fashioned.

Maple butternut squash soup is a fairly common soup in Stowe, but this one was delicious and pretty different, with lots of unusual flavors, and topped with pumpkin seeds. A warm sweet potato salad was excellent, with feta melting from the warmth over kale and topped with additional sweet potato chips. Mussels fra diavolo was delicious as was scallops with a curried cauliflower puree. Asparagus wrapped in prosciutto was tasty. Buffalo wings were very good but not great. Also very good but not great were a lamb burger and the house hamburger. We did not eat any real main entrees, but they have them and they sound interesting.

A wood-fired served-in-the-pan chocolate chip cookie was an excellent dessert but too large for three of us.

The service was warm and welcoming, with the wait staff knowledgeable and helpful in making choices and accommodating requests. Prices were quite reasonable for Stowe.

All in all, this is a remarkably good restaurant for the price in Stowe, and we hope they maintain their quality, ambiance, and value in the future -- a hard thing to do in a tourist town.

Il Capriccio Review

Il Capriccio: A restaurant in decline

Overall rating: 78

Food rating: 75

Il Capriccio, like La Campania, provided a chance to eat Italian food in Waltham that was as good as all but the very best restaurants in the North End. It was expensive but elegant and had a number of signature dishes, such as their porcini mushroom souffle, that were spectacularly good. It was a place we would go for anniversaries, birthdays, and other celebrations, and to take visiting family out for a great meal.

I hadn't been there in a couple of years. My last visit was with a large group and the food was only okay, but it was hard to judge given the difficulties in serving such a group at once.

This week I went again, and was sorry to find that the food and atmosphere have both declined.

Service was pleasant but inattentive. For instance, we had to ask for bread to be served, though when it came was perfectly decent crusty bread served with good olive oil.

A glass of pinot grigio was fair at best, though admittedly not very expensive. An appetizer of Gorgonzola and pear ravioli was overly salty, overly rich, unbalanced (there was no taste of pear), and overall very mediocre. For a main, I had the chicken schnitzel, which was also oversalted, had a mustard sauce that overwhelmed the dish a bit, and was only okay.

You can get food of this quality or better at Sweet Basil or Fiorella's, both for less money. The atmosphere isn't as elegant at either of these, but Il Capriccio is feeling worn and tired. It's no longer a place I could imagine taking someone for a marvelous romantic dinner, either for the food or for the atmosphere. I'm sad about that.