pete "-rman (check out channel 9!)" k.'s Profile

A-Ok is my ranking here. Went at primetime on a Friday night, with a larger crowd. A few of us formed a satellite crowd and hung out at the bar. Very good beers on tap (namely Stone Brewing, and local winner Haverill), more good beers in bottles. Very much enjoyed the local Haverill Homerun APA. Bartender was very accomodating for some that wanted "special" drinks that were not on the menu.

The menu seemed short. Decent selecitons but not much in there that screamed "eat me". Good bread with dipping oil to start. Went with a burger.. 10oz burger, mind you. It was indeed gigantic, but very well cooked (med rare) and the right consistency. I usually shy away from restaurant burgers as they are rarely made well - usually overpacked and dense. Fries were good.

Wait service was ok at the table. Can't expect anything outstanding for a big group like we had.  Something just didn't click for me here. Was it the price? Was it the decor that didn't match the crowd? The menu? Prices? I really cannot say. It just wasn't.. great.

Fried Clams.
Lobster Chowder.
Lobster Rolls (hot and cold).
Veal/Tuna Tartar Sandwich.

DANG. Party of 3 went on a rainy Saturday for a late (2pm) lunch. Would have gotten some oysters but just could not avoid the other menu offerings.  The fried clams were the best I have ever eaten, and perhaps ever will. Light coating, and practically.. fluffy.. meat. Amazing. These were not your bottom of the barrel clams. The lobster chowder was incredible - with a thick blended veggie base to not overdo you with heavy cream. Local (Verril Farm) ingredients were noticeably fresh.

After reading much praise of the lobster rolls, each of those had to be done. So as not to have a duplicate meal, I went with the roasted veal/tartar sandwich. Hot lobster roll - its just like eating a lobster with butter, without any effort. My preference is cold - and it was every bit as delicious, with just the right amount (not much!) of mayo. The rolls were of course a great match - not lame Wonder bread - Neptune's toasty brioche is THE winner here.

The veal/tuna exceeded every one of my excpectations. Served on fantastic thick toasty bread, the sandwich was piled high with meat. The cucumber salad and mustard are in there, but only really noticeable when you start chowing down. The coolness and spice work in an amazing way with the crazy fresh tuna and warm, tender roast veal.

The sandwiches are all full meals - while served with some delicious fries (really great, dark, crunchy, with skin and nicely seasoned), the sandwiches were filling enough that no one finished their fries.

Great service, never pushy and always there to top off your water. I will be back.. and I will be sending many others along.

First of all - what's with the website music? Talk about a turnoff..

Interesting menu, but I don't really understand the concept here. Rather than a 'theme' of foods its just a bunch of unrelated items.

The beer selection for a "cool" restaurant - terrible. Typical selection of weak beers you'll find in any common bar in Boston. The wine list is also very unimpressive. And seeing a 'menu section' for 'mojitos' is always a bummer. There is ONE type of mojito, and these other flavored things are  abominations.

Food sampled: steak and cheese spring rolls, baked goat cheese, kobe meatball sliders, hot dog mac n cheese, tenderloin flatbread, duck flatbread.

The spring rolls were greasier than greasy, but had some nice flavor. Meatball sliders - served on brioche which was nice, and were tender meatballs. Kobe beef? Maybe, but grinding up Kobe beef is not exactly the intention of that cow. The baked goat cheese was served with some tomato sauce and toasts. The sauce was weak, the cheese was bland, and the toasts were clearly not a decent bread. Soggy and flavorless (come on, add some butter or olive oil if you are going to use crappy bread!).

The duck "flatbread" with gouda.. was surprisingly boring. The dough is uninspired and soft. Hard to pick up any flavor on the duck or 'gouda' if that is even what the cheese was - looks like they rely on the compote to give flavor.

The tenderloin flatbread was leaps better than the duck one, however, the boring dough still hurts the potentially decent dish.

The mac and cheese - for the price? Silly. Decent cheesy sauce on noodles with a few additions (here, Pearl hot dogs). Not exciting and hard to believe more than a couple dollars of ingredients went into the dish.

I hate to judge a restaurant by its beer selection and website music - but in this case I was dead on.

Update - TRUFFLES. Now moving beyond just cakes, JCakes makes beautiful and delicious truffles for that special occasion. Hand made and filled with a lighter center than your ordinary truffle.. almost like a buttercream icing substance. Wow. Just.. wow.

51 Lincoln was the destination for a Valentine's dinner with my girlfriend. Not that I care for Vday, it was more of an excuse to eat a fancy meal. We had been once before, however it was after a very long day and before the restaurant redid their bar - to be honest I don't remember it much, aside from it being good.

This time around I had flowers delivered from FlowerPetal via Opentable - on a side note, what a fantastic service! The restaurant had them ready for me and the hostess gave a wink to ensure everything was handled properly - fantastic.

We were seated downstairs, a beautifully built room with old barn planks, huge wine rack and a nice fire on the wall mounted flat panel TV (which really gave a warming effect). There were a few tables, nicely spaced apart so no one felt crowded at all.

The food was outstanding. The bread basket was stupidly good - a variety of awesome breads, one being the "best cornbread I have ever eaten". Apps - the ceasar salad with homemade croutons was served as whole romaine leaves and even some anchovies on top. I had the calamari with an asian flare - two homemade sauces that I could have eaten with a spoon.

Dinner was a steak for each of us. My tenderloin with polenta fries will live in my memory for a long time. Kim's flat iron steak was great, but sadly, did not come close to my ridiculously buttery tenderloin. Dessert.. a very tough choice.. Kim picked out the creme brulee, which was a great selection. I debated between homemade ice cream and homemade cookies (with a shot of milk). I consulted our waiter who said "both" - of course... cookies and ice cream, how did I not think of it! Good god, the cookies were fantastic. Hot and melty, they were not toll house. The 'nilla ice cream countered them nicely, and the shot of milk was just the right amount.

Great service - did not feel rushed at all. Everything came out very well-timed with a great presentation. Great wines and beers, too - I want to go back for a more 'casual' evening when I don't try to eat everything in site in a gluttonous glory of gourmet greed.

Yeah, I was mildly uncomfortable by the time we got home - I ate more than i would at Thanksgiving - and man, was it worth it.

In the end - the "casual air, fancy food" setup is near perfection. 51 Lincoln came very close to my 'ultimate' dining establishment, Lumiere.. but not 'quite' there.  The one thing that does beat Lumiere here is the beer. 51 Lincoln shows you that "its okay" to drink beer with a high end meal - as they have some high end beers. Something I'd love to see catch on!

Cafe Nicholas is.. good. Not great, not excellent. I have skipped it many, many times in favor of Bills for sandwiches, and Sweet Tomatoes for pizza. There is NO beating ST's for pizza, so I won't even touch that subject.

Had some lunch there last week - Kim and I both had a different "baguetini" and each was very good. Better than Bills - a great 'hot sandwich' option for lunch. Certainly worth trying again for a quick, local bite - I'd go back over Bills to sample a few more menu items.

Hit them up for dinner later in the week.. we used the online ordering system which.. was not great. It provides you a confirmation number and says to call them for status. Why not just call the order in, in the first place.. so we had to guess at a pick up time.

Got their "baked lasagna" and "italian calzone". The lasagna was not very inspiring - sloppily thrown together and pretty weak in the flavor dept. Cheap mozz on top, too - hard to tell that this was even "baked" to be honest. The calzone was better - but still fairly disappointing. I don't love their dough - and this really should have just been a sandwich. Not much calzoney about this other than it was meat wrapped in dough. Good meats, but something was missing.

I'd go back for a lunch - sammiches.. but the entrees were pretty weak.

This is a great concept, and run very well to boot! I've driven by the shop many times but never had a chance to walk in to check things out. Charlie has needed a bath of late, so this weekend's main activity turned out to be BYOD.

Walking in I was very impressed with the selection of toys and general 'gear' for dogs. It is a clean, spacious store. The staff is apparently used to people walking in without a clue as to what goes on.. and was very helpful. My girlfriend and I wandered up to the counter and just kinda said "uh, how does this all work?"  - we got a very good rundown form Kate, who walked us through the product offerings. She brought us to a tub for Charlie, provided towels, aprons, and plenty of tips on making the experience easy for everyone (dog included).

There was a constant flow of people and dogs, and all the traffic was handelled professionally with no wait time that I could see.  Tubs are wiped down and cleaned immediately after a bath.

The "hair dryer room" was the only thing needing improvement here. Obviously most dogs are going to be freaked out by the machines - but the setup of the room seemed to reverberate more extra noise. The staff did help show how to make the machines a bit less noisy - but as soon as 2 are running it gets to be nerve wracking for the dogs.  There is a fair amount of hair flying around too, which I am not sure how to remedy besides maybe having an exhaust fan or something. After a little time Charlie settled down but really was never too pleased with the hair dryers.

Checkout is a breeze, once you can get your dog away from all the cool toys in the store. Great people and great pricing - the bathing/drying is nice and cheap. Nail clipping is offered too, for only $9, which is definitely worth it to me.

I drove past it for a while and though "how could this survive?". I belong to the gym down the street, and like many, it has its own spin classes. Granted I can almost never make it there in time (they are scheduled at inconvenient times) but the option is there.

My girlfriend signed up for Spynergy one day and pulled me in for the following week - you can "bring a friend for free" which is a nice promotional deal they offer.

Well - I am impressed. Michelle (teaches the Thursday night classes) is great! She keeps her eye on everyone and 'motivates' you if you are falling behind or attempting to take it easy.

The bikes are all in great condition and the place is loaded with fans to keep things cool. The BHAC 'spinning room' gets unbelievably hot and has no ventilation. Towels-a-plenty are available free, too.

They have a nice online scheduling system, so all you do is sign a sheet when you arrive. Parking can be annoying if you are running late, but usually you can find a diagonal spot on the other side of Washington St.

I'll update if I have any other instructors.. but Michelle is worth going to - she is cool, knowledgeable, upbeat and generally  plays modern music.

This is a solid local tavern - I put off visiting for quite some time, I'm not sure why. I suppose because I'd never 'seen' it - as others mention there's no sign! Fyi its right across the street from Athans.. in between the hardware store and eyeglasses place.

Busy, but not annoying-faniuel-hall-bar-busy..  you definitely will be bumping elbows and getting cozy with friends and strangers alike at the bar.

Good beers on tap and very good service. They are happy to transfer a bar tab to your table and are very lax about it all - a great thing about those neighborhood places.

Great fried pickles (I see now that I have two reviews in a row mentioning fried pickles.. hellooo good trend).. stacked neatly as an appetizer. Must say I was a bit disappointed in the steak frites. It was a fine example of the dish, for sure, but I believe I ordered it with too high of expecations and an inability to acutally pick a meal. It was between this and a burger, and honestly, the I found the price of the burger a bit disheartening. I feel that the steak was very tender, but could have used a bit more deglazing goodness, and a touch more accurate cooking. The fries were great.. and service was fairly relaxed despite a very busy night.

I will say.. the steak frites from Lumiere has forever ruined the meal from me. I don't think it can get ANY better - so it is really my fault for a semi-disappointing meal at WST. I will go back though, and have something more appropriate.

Stopped here in October on the way up to Lake George for a late lunch.

Charlie the dog was with us, and despite having a deck, they couldn't allow dogs (VT law). The hostess/manager was very kind though, and allowed us to park in a "no parking" zone so the car was in the shade. She was very sympathetic to the situation which was a nice surprise.

The restaurant was very nice, with big open 'lodge' stylings. Felt like it should have been in Montana or something! Set next to Summit Pond, which previously mentioned was ripe with wildlife, its a pretty beautiful setup especially in October when the mountain's foliage fires up.

First off, they had some great local beers which is always a good touch. Nothing like walking into a great looking place only to find total crap on tap. The servers were all very friendly. And.. the food was great, sorry to disagree with the first reviewer! The menu is great pub/comfort food overall.

Started with the "dill chips".. which are FRIED PICKLES.. and holy crap - I'd go back just for those. I am attaching a pic, to prove such a thing exists. I had the brisket sandwich and loved it. I was particularly impressed that the meat (all uh, 4 pounds of it) had a true smoke ring - I am a BBQ snob and look for things like that. It was more meat than one person needs - but tasty enough that you just might down it all. The slaw was also quite satisfactory. Delicious, crunchy homemade potato chips finish the package.

I will certainly be back. I'd say its a 4 star place, but with the homemade chips, and the fantastical fried pickles.. they earn that 5th star with merit.