Rebecca S.'s Profile

I've been getting brunch at City Girl for years, and I appreciate the fact that they have savory but non-eggy offerings. Yesterday I got the baked thyme and ricotta on foccacia, and a nice salad (in addition to their brunch menu you can order many things from their lunch/dinner menu) -- delicious!

The coffee is good, and refills constant.  Their service is warm and efficient.  It's a small space and chances are you'll end up waiting a bit for a table at brunch time,  but the wait won't be too long.  Fresh ingredients, and reasonable prices.  City Girl is great!

Noir is a relatively small space and can easily get crowded, but if you get lucky and it's not packed, it's an excellent choice for an evening of drinks and light grazing.  The staff are on top of things without being intrusive, the music interesting but not deafening, making relaxed conversation across a small table feasible. We got a couple of appetizers -- the artichoke and parmesan dip was very satisfying.  I enjoyed Noir's perfectly concocted Red Hooks (cousin of my favorite, Rob Roy) while my companion sipped Torontos.  

Great night.  Good for dates or small groups.

Although most people go to Sabra Grill for the falafel, hummus, spanakopita, and other Lebanese/Mediterranean standards, I most frequently go for their delicious lentil soup.  It's hearty and filling, strewn with diced potatoes, chopped kale, and suffused with a delicate lemon flavor.  And it's very reasonably priced.

It's not easy to find good soup in Harvard Square, but I can always count on Sabra for deliciously satisfying soup.

Their falafel is good too!

I am not a gym person.  In fact I'm kind of an anti-gym person.  But it seemed possible that lubricating cocktails could lessen the stark tedium of mindless gym equipment -- and it had been far too long since I'd last been able to attend a Yelp Elite Event!  I had a great time.

The Rain vodka cocktails were interesting and by and large delicious.  I especially liked The Circuit.  Bonnie's pepper jelly hors d'oeuvres were delectably simple bites.  And the Codeblue "recovery drink" girls converted me. I got to take the last can home with me!  Hee hee!  Yes folks, even at a gym the most memorable things for me were edible.

I did really like the helix exercise machine that gives your thighs and butt a good workout -- it was strangely fun, and those would be the parts of my body that need working out!  The weird vibrating machine that mimicked riding a Harley made me feel like a concussion was imminent (of course I'd had a couple of cocktails by then).

Leighann, as ever, was pitch-perfect in her attire.  I loved the retro workout gear some of the Yelpers were sporting.  The girl with the pearls was super cute!

Another great Yelp Elite event -- thanks, Leighann!  And I've gotta say, I'm a lightweight when it comes to drinking, and yet I woke up this morning feeling fine after several cocktails.  Perhaps I have the can of Codeblue that I drank to thank!

A serendipitous mistake, a friend and I stopped in at Coda after checking out Revolution Sports with the Yelp crew.  Another Yelper had mentioned having a fantastic meal at Coppa, which I misremembered as Coda as we walked past.  Otherwise we'd have gone to Douzo a little further down the street.

But we were so glad we went to Coda.  Can't say enough good things about this place:  we entered the small, crowded room without reservations, needless to say.  A large group of people was waiting for accommodation, but upon realizing that we were just two the staff quickly found us seats first at the bar, and then at a barside table.  Service throughout was swift, helpful, warm and unobtrusive.  Eleventy stars for their staff!

Food was top-notch too:  we shared a duck confit appetizer that was delectable in texture and flavor -- perfectly crispy skin, rich, moist meat, served on a bed of farro (nutty grain) and orange-cranberry chutney.  This was a substantial appetizer, had I eaten it alone it would have more than sufficed as a meal.  The steak frites was splendid:  ordered and served medium rare, the steak was tender, seared on the outside, and flavored with a subtle marinade that enhanced rather than distracted from the rich flavor of the meat. Fries were excellent and it also came with a small arugula salad nicely (and lightly) dressed.  The kale side dish we ordered was also very tasty.  We were stuffed -- couldn't finish all the good food and couldn't even consider getting dessert.

All that food + one cocktail (the grapefruit press, recommended by our server) amounted to a tab of less than $50.  

Let's review the pros:  great staff, great food, great prices.  What else could we mention?  The music!  Someone with a savvy ear chose an excellent Friday night mix that ran the gamut from the Pixies to Jay-Z to Squeeze to Spoon with some old-time country songs thrown in.  

Great place all around.  Thanks, Coda!

Huh, Tupelo.

One of these stars is for the service, which was warmly efficient and accommodating of an infant and toddler at brunch time.  And they kept the coffee refills coming. Kudos to the staff.

I had the fried chicken and waffle.  The waffle was fine, and was served with a whipped maple bourbon butter that wasn't too heavy (I usually skip butter on pancakes and waffles).  The fried chicken was crisp and while not the plumpest pieces of chicken I've ever been served, well-prepared all the same. The batter seasoning had a sweetness that I didn't particularly care for.

I don't tend to salivate at the thought of southern/soul food, and that remains unchanged after my brunch at Tupelo.  Would I recommend it?  Sure, if you've got a hankering for mildly flavored food that's heavy on the fat and sugar.   Just not my thing, I guess.

Ohhhh I really wish I liked Souper Roll Up Cafe.  It's the kind of place I *want* to like -- it's humble, clean, and in East Cambridge.  The people who run it are *lovely*.

But whenever I've gotten soup from them I've had the impression that they use flour or cornstarch as a thickener, with a resulting texture that gives the impression that it came from a can -- even if it didn't.  I haven't visited too many times, because each time I get something I think, "oh dear, so promising, I wish it didn't feel like Campbell's in my mouth."  Such was the case with the broccoli-dill soup I had last week.

This could just be a matter of taste.  My mom fed us homemade soups throughout the winter, and I occasionally make soups myself.  If I want to thicken a soup I might add some pureed potato, which increases the density of a soup without giving it that suspiciously smooth quality.  Your soup preferences might be different from mine, and if so you might appreciate Souper Cafe more than I do.

Fugakyu is all right.  Actually, for sushi in Boston it's above average ... but that's not saying much (by the way, why in this Center of Seafood is good sushi so hard to come by?).

I can't complain about the quality of Fugakyu's sushi, although it is on the pricey side so there shouldn't be any complaints on that front.  I don't know ... there is something insipid about the place that fails to rouse my enthusiasm.  Maybe the atmosphere is a little too kitschy, Japanese-for-white-people.  Maybe I'm just grouchy today.  

I was there most recently a couple of nights ago and had a perfectly tasty caterpillar roll, some fine pieces of salmon sushi, and a neat-o special maki with sweet potato and grilled pineapple.  

I don't get out to Coolidge Corner very often, but when I do Fugakyu is where I like to go.  So I recommend it.  But I don't know that I'd make a special trip just for Fugakyu.  

Yeah ... I am a bit grouchy today.

NaCl Alert:  Avoid this place if you have high blood pressure.

FIRST, some good points:  they're making much better use of the space than their predecessor did.  The small room is cozy, elegant and inviting, without feeling cramped.

And the waitstaff were very warm and friendly (so friendly in fact that, when my friend commented on the arrival of the proprietor of a beloved local ice-cream shop, our server cut herself off mid-sentence to rush over to greet him.  Then returned promptly to sheepishly take our orders).

BUT the food missed the mark, entirely.  We ordered 2 dishes from the specials board, and two dishes from the main menu.  The overwhelming flavor of all was salt.  And I'm usually the first person to say "would you please pass the salt?"  One of my favorite sweets is Dutch double-salt licorice.  But this food was so salty that I woke up this morning feeling dehydrated. If they were located in New York City Michael Bloomberg would cite them as justification for his campaign to regulate the amount of salt restaurants use.  

Moreover the kale and rutabaga vegetable dish and the crispy pork loin special were badly cooked.  The kale dish was unique in that, rather than tasting of too much salt, it was overwhelmed with lemon juice -- yet strangely too dry!  A little bit like eating paper.  The pork loin was super salty and dry. My friend kindly ate most of the smoked pork meatball soup that I'd ordered (and disliked), letting me eat most of the beef noodle soup that he'd ordered -- he's nice like that.  The pieces of beef were very tender.

The handmade noodles in both soups were lovely -- great texture and flavor.  Definitely could have used more noodles in both dishes, and less super-salty broth.  The quality of the meats and vegetables was rendered irrelevant, their flavors invisible beneath all the salt.

They have a small but well chosen list of teas.  Same goes for their beer list, and they have some interesting-sounding cocktails and juices.

MIGHT IT IMPROVE? After they'd cleared the table, a woman who might have been the manager seemed to discern that we hadn't been impressed with the food, and came over to solicit our feedback.  My friend is fearless about giving polite, pointed criticism if he's not pleased with the food or service he receives, so when asked he laid out the complaints that I've listed here. She took notes and seemed genuinely grateful for the feedback, explaining that they've only been open for a few weeks and are still tweaking things.  I hope so!  

I'm going to give them a few months before trying again, to see if they've improved.  Since it's on my daily circuit I can picture myself stopping in at some point to try the butternut squash and pork dumplings that sounded delicious. But I wouldn't recommend North by Northeast at this point, and I certainly wouldn't advise making a special trip to the outskirts of Inman Square just to try them.  If that changes, I'll let you know!

I went last week with a friend to see The Donkey Show, somewhat doubtful after the other ART participatory drama, "Sleep No More," but having heard great things from friends who like to dance.

And I looooove to dance.

Where Sleep No More (with admittedly stunning sets) is an intellectually lazy pastiche of "Macbeth" and Hitchcock's "Rebecca" thrown together by someone who seems to have only read the cliff notes of the two sources, The Donkey Show is a clever, very engaging mash-up of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Saturday Night Fever."  The beefy bouncers at the door were straight outta Queens, "How ya doin' ladies?" The well-selected dance songs were accessible 70's classics (mercifully Abba-free) that invited everyone to get down with the dishy go-go boy sprites.  The action in Oberon's club centers on the preening antics of his strip-tease queen, Tytania.  Transferring this Elizabethan story from the forest to a disco club works -- the same spirit of mad, lecherous, gender-bending revelry prevails.  

If you want to watch the action from the sidelines, you can buy tickets that come with seats ... but why would you do that?