Carol C.'s Profile

It can be a bit of a mad house in here, when lines are disorderly at best.  I prefer the cannoli at Modern Pastry, but the marzipan is far better here.  Other pastry items seem to come in more variety at Mike's, and were very good.

Best cannoli I've ever had!  Previous experiences are Wholly Cannoli in Worcester and Mike's Pastry.  The chocolate truffles are quite impressive, but the marzipan was so-so.  The other pastries I had were very good.

I recently visited Tasca after joining their mailing list.  They do not require you to be on their mailing list to get their midweek specials (lately $16 for 3 course meals, fantastic!), but they let you know what will be coming up the next week in the email, which is pretty nice.  For the 3 course meals, the appetizers were all appropriately individually sized, the entrees were larger than I had expected for the price, and the desserts were normal individual sizes.  The appetizers were quite good.  The entrees were amazing.  The creamed spinach that came with my grilled beef top filet steak au jus over scallion mashed potatoes were...incredible.  So were the carrots not listed in the dish, the mashed potatoes, and the beef.  Everyone else really liked their food as well, with another person getting the Morrocan lemon chicken breast  dish and another getting the veal dish.  

The flan is eggier than I was hoping it would be, but then again that may be normal for flans, I haven't had one in years.  The desserts were overall pretty good.

We also got a couple of tapas dishes.  The bread was very useful in mopping up after the garlic shrimp were gone from the skillet, and the goat cheese fritters were delightful.  

Nothing we ate here was any worse than "good."  But really it was only the entrees that were truly great, which is why I'm giving this a 4 instead of a 5.

Oh, and apparently their sangria is excellent.  I didn't partake, but the other people in my party all really enjoyed it.

I like their sushi.  I prefer it to the other sushi restaurants in this area because I like the flavors here a little better (I think they do spicy rolls better, in particular) and it's a little cheaper.  They don't always serve a bonus appetizer when you go in, but they have doubled our appetizer orders often enough that I think it's reasonable to include in this review.  

The House Bento is big and also has a lot of different things, most cooked, if you're bringing along someone and would like to introduce them to eating raw fish.

The lunch deals are a good value if you're able to go for lunch.

Tried Four Burgers out yesterday after getting a 50% off deal from BuyWithMe with a friend.  The milkshake was a milkshake, the pop (ok, you New Englanders, "soda") was still what it normally is (but in glass glasses, which is nice) and I guess the final thing that was merely just normal was the chocolate chip cookie sample they had out there.  The brownie sample was EXCELLENT (thus, I'm sure, indicating that the brownies were) as were the fries.  The fries are $1.50 for a generous single serving (probably at least a fast food large size, if not more).  We got them half and half sweet potato and regular, and they were both quite exceptionally great.  The burgers (we had beef cheeseburgers) were very good burgers.  Just...for beef burgers we figured they were a bit overpriced.  Perhaps the more exotic type burgers, which are not much higher in price than the beef burgers, are a better deal.  Overall, the experience was quite good, and an EXCEPTIONAL deal for 50% off.  And it's not too horrible for full price from time-to-time, I'd say.

UPDATE: Went again recently and paid full price.  Took my parents, who were in town.  They were very impressed with the cooked-to-order burgers, even though the restaurant switched the cheeses between the two burgers.  Still really good.  My dad appreciated getting a beer.  My wallet didn't really appreciate that the burger prices went up by 25 cents per on a price I already thought was a bit high, but they are really pretty good.

The pizza is good.  We tried a large pepperoni and a large margherita pizza to stick with the basics.  They were good.  You can watch them make your pizza, and a lot of the other pizzas looked equally good as they were being made.  

That is not to say the pizza is the best pizza I've ever had.  I would say it's comparable value with a chain restaurant, if you're willing to sacrifice some quality for lower price by going with a chain pizza place.  

Also, they didn't notice our foodler order in the printer for half an hour, so it ended up taking a total of about 50 minutes from the time the order went in to getting the pizza (we chose to pick it up), even though it only took them 15 minutes to make the order when they got it.  Moral: order by phone.

Split the Caprese salad, had the pesto with shrimp gnocchi and a glass of chianti.  It was all very good.  The service was good, too.  The entree size was quite reasonably large.  

The dining room is rather small, so if you have a larger party I would probably call ahead.

I also went during Restaurant Week, after one of my friends mentioned the fantastic meal they'd had at the NYC location a short time before.  I had the clam chowder, Kona Encrusted dry-aged Sirloin, and the caramel gelato with chocolate syrup.  The sides (mashed potatoes and creamed spinach) were served family style.

The clam chowder was boring clam chowder.  I figured "ok, whatever, it's a steak house, not a seafood restaurant."  I was looking forward to the sirloin since I'd never had a dry-aged steak before.  While the seasoning and light meat sauce on the plate were better than your mid-priced chain steakhouse, the meat itself was not.  It probably only makes it to the 75th percentile in taste and texture for sirloins that I've consumed and likely 95th percentile for price.  I had a bite of my friend's filet mignon, and that was much better, but still probably only in the 75th percentile for taste and texture when compared to my other filet mignon experiences.  The mashed potatoes were average, and the creamed spinach had a spice involved that ruined them for me.  The caramel gelato didn't really feel like gelato, it was more like regular caramel ice cream, and not very good caramel ice cream.  Far better can be gotten at Bon Bon, a few blocks south on Mass Ave.  

So...at the price of $42 for the entire meal (33.09+tip+tax), I feel like I could've gotten a similar quality for probably $30ish just by going to Longhorn Steakhouse and then hitting up an ice cream parlor.  For their regular prices I definitely would not visit.  

The beef was good (as I said, above average, just not great), and there was nothing completely bad about the experience, just nothing that wowed me.

They're a bit overpriced and REALLY SLOW on the takeout orders but the reubens (of which I've had probably at least 20 over the 4 years of being in Worcester) are very good and the rest of the menu isn't bad, either.

Boomers is really good.  I love their homemade pita chips and probably tried the majority of their sub/wrap menu due to living nearby and being on the WPI swim team (which mostly ordered from Boomers for away meets while I was there) for 4 years.  Their reubens are very good.