Tag: Boston Cocktail Club

YVONNE’S

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Yvonne’s

2 Winter Place (Downtown Crossing)

Those of you who follow our imbibement-motivated wanderings through our delicious city and its surrounds may have wondered what happened to the December BCC meeting. Well, we were simply waiting to finally get a reservation at our most recent destination.

Yes, it takes a month. Well, for normal folk. And you kind of get why when you get there. Down a dark alley near Downtown Crossing, there glows a beacon: A dayglo sign with sexy script emerges from the wall high above, illuminating the crowd of expensive coats and unbelievably smooth hair below. They’ve made the play for that feel of exclusivity fairly well, opting for a doored lobby over a velvet rope. But the hosts number many and you can only hope that on your very best days in your hottest of hot pants you are maybe-sort-of-almost as attractive as they are.

The interior of Yvonne’s is a mashup of snobbish blue-blood wood paneling, dazzling candelabra, tawdry wall art, and visually appealing staff in snug white shirts and suspenders. You immediately feel like being naughty. And the cocktails encourage the instinct—the 1989 (yes, shoutout to TS) provided champagne infused with vodka, which sounds like a terrible idea if you think long enough about it. But Yvonne’s is a place where they try to make sure you DON’T think. At least not for too long, or for too hard.

The music is loud and clubby. Paired with the cocktails, you immediately get that buzzy happy feeling and really don’t mind that you can’t hear anything. The host who seated us had to ask thrice. But he was delightfully patient. Our waitress gave us a smiley 10-minute chat of which we only heard “takes 45 minutes” and then spent the time we might have been perusing our menus trying to decipher what that could have meant. The bar was backed up? The apps would be slow? The burlesque show that was most certainly going to begin on the big table next to us any moment now?

We ordered Yvonne’s “sharing plates” (aka Tapas/small plates) and honest-to-goodness they were freaking fantastic. The buttermilk hush puppies and crispy tater cubes vied for our attention, each delighting in their own way. The Kentucky prosciutto toast was generous with the carnivore in mind with a hidden spread of beer cheese and pickled onion that altogether made us go “OH!” We opted for a stone-fired pita upon recommendation of the waitress (or so we think), and the KFC (Korean fried chicken, kimchee, gruyere) was a fantastic combo with perfect balance—a feat not often accomplished on anything that resembles “personal pan land.” And oh god, the seared brussel sprouts! Our table believes that brussel sprouts get a bad rap, but in their Yvonne’s outfit, they had to be cute enough for the hatiest of haters. Pepper sauce, garlic walnuts, and feta were like pasties and panties that made the dish just delish. The only share we might not reshare were the chicken and quinoa meatballs. They drove us to our water glasses with their salty innards (a theme in this column, it would seem).

Our meal was well matched in our beverage selections, with a fabulous Gruner Veltliner and Bantam Rojo cider winning the raves. So why, you may ask in the midst of all this ra-ra-ra, doesn’t Yvonne’s get 5 Cocks, our much-sought-after prize that has not yet been awarded in all of our booze-soaked foodie adventures?

You’d think in a place so sexy and decadent the desserts would seal the deal, but ours were a bust. We ordered one of each of their Tasty Treats (full disclosure, the small fare, not the main desserts) and found them all very pretty but when it came down to getting down…disappointing—lingerie full of ice cream. And they don’t have decaf.

It wasn’t just the shallow sweeties, really…the “scene” is intoxicating, indeed, but the tables are too close (even when the Secretary of State is sitting in one nearby), and it is like eating in the middle of a dance floor. You’re surrounded by beautiful people, and one might even kiss you or grab you on the bottom, and that feels great in the moment, but in the morning, you’ll likely wake up and realize you never DID catch his name. Do you go back to that dance floor and look for that happy place again? Sure you do. It will always be effing fun…but not quite the perfect night.

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THE GALLOWS

TheGallows

The Gallows

1395 Washington Street (South End)

Let’s just start by saying that The Gallows is the perfect friend with benefits. The place looks great and you like it enough to hook up whenever you need to get some (in this case fried food) but you know you could never live with each other on a regular basis.

Our November meeting commenced as usual with drinks in the bar area, which was not an unpleasantly packed, flannel-encased sausagefest…perhaps also telling, considering the pork-heavy Gallows dinner menu. The restaurant seats your party when you’ve all finally found parking (no small feat on Washington), and we had a great banquette table facing the massive Ouija-Board Wall—it felt private and roomy while allowing for a great view when we chose to look beyond our plates. Above us flew what might be the most diverting aspect of the decor: hundreds of suspended toy bats, which honestly add appeal and whimsy where you might not expect it (like that friend with bennies spontaneously holding your hand as you cross the street).

With a handful of BCC members claiming French Canadian lineage, the poutine was a highly desirable feature, and we went whole hog with the Out of Control “Chef’s Debauchery” option. The OOC poutine changes according to the whims of the kitchen wizards (or witches, if we want to hold close to The Gallows theme), and we chose to be surprised. What arrived was admittedly a great opening move: a massive mound of the required fries and cheese curd but lusciously laden with decadent slabs of duck that was deliciously done and Padron peppers, aka “Spanish Roulette.” The claim here is that some of these peppers are mild while others contain the fire of hell. We BCC members all like a good bite every now and again, so we divvied up the score and dove in. While none of us were rewarded with that so-bad-its-good burn, the peppers were still damn tasty and the perfect complement to the poutine plate. It was, all members agreed (“Quebecers,” too), hands down the best dish of the night.

Because we are greedy when it comes to drink, food, and love, we fondled our fries, ordered more drinks, and bellied up: The Scotch Egg was tastily prepared on an addictive fried, pork-sausage crust. While the Fried Green Tomatoes with prosciutto were flavorful, they too were (obviously) fried, and we could be said to have not found the fontina and aioli drizzle the most appealing aspect of our first-course foreplay. Chipotle Sweet Potato came paired with “bruleed” (aka toasted) fluff and curried pecans, and while the seasoning was not one any of us complained about, it did feel like eating cookies in bed, before dinner. A bit bad, but not in the best way. The Moules Frites were quite pleasing with lively flavors of fennel and peppers. What not to order? The Steak Bomb Pierogies. An overly salty fried (yes, again) disaster. We left several on the plate to be cleared. (Not our tendency…I mentioned that greed thing.)

There comes a time when you’re ready to stop fooling around and get serious, and we made that move boldly, going with the Franken-Burger for the table. While I don’t know that our server was thrilled with our penchant for sharing, it’s a good thing we did, because this baby (even divvied up into sixths) nailed us all to the booth: burger patty + bacon + pulled pork + fried chicken thigh + foie gras aioli = sigh, roll over, and fall contentedly asleep. (Note the amount of salt in the burger would require a midnight wake-up and emergency glass of water.) Agreeing on a side salad instead of fries, we then made the errant, several-drinks-in call to order “one more thing” and it was a disappointing mound of new potatoes masquerading as Patatas Bravas. We’ll admit to being over the potato by then, but the dish’s complete lack of, well, anything interesting, made it a table decoration and little more.

We finished the evening with the one dessert offered, billed as the “Stoner’s Delight,” and certainly living up to that standard. Chocolate, fluff, peanutbutter, bananas…it was familiar and comforting and tasted just as you expected. This, the restaurant’s vibe, the satisfactory although unremarkable service, and the poutine, left us happy enough to FWB The Gallows number, knowing there will surely be a night we’ll dial again.

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cock-rating-3.5

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Meju

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Meju

243 Elm Street (Somerville)

 

Our first BCC meeting where minutes were officially kept. We should begin by indicating the choice of Meju was predominantly related to its proximity to the Somerville Theater where the BCC was venturing apres eats to view Straight Outta Compton (yes, it’s good).

Meju (formerly Mickey Ds for all you Davis Square folk) was fairly empty when we arrived at 6:45 pm (yes, cutting it close to our 8 pm showtime), and the host’s exuberance as he sat us made us think we might be the first and only customers. But that (reassuringly) wasn’t the case, and by the time we were finishing our meals, the entire cool interior was packed.

This place has a good selection of cocktails (kind of a requirement in any Boston eatery these days), and the Citron Gin Sparkler was quite tasty. The Thai Basil Gimlet was a little herby, and some of us thought it tasted more like an appetizer than a drink.

We got our Korean food on, sharing the spicy pork bulgogi buns, beef galbi short ribs buns, and the shrimp steamed dumplings. The buns were all you’d want to imagine them to be–the short rib version, in particular, garnered praise from our table. We might skip the dumplings next time. Bibimbap (tofu and beef) was a hit, and the Mandoo soup is certainly something I’d go back for–plus, they ask you how you want it (love it when they do that!) Go ahead and fire it up. We found the heat the perfect level of excitation (a mild flush to the cheeks versus dripping with sweat).

The mushroom jabchae is perhaps the biggest loser on this night. We won’t go into detail as regards this denunciation.

Our waitress was friendly and attentive, as were the backwaiters and bussers. The only irritation came when we wanted more drinks…and were left wanting for quite some time. When they finally came we had to pound them to get to our movie. None of us shy away from that but we would have, on this occasion, preferred a gentler goodnight.

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Ribelle

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Ribelle

1665 Beacon Street (Brookline)

We love, love, loved the interior of Ribelle. If a room’s aesthetics has any impact on your ultimate enjoyment of what you are about to experience (as far as food is concerned), this one does not disappoint. From the menus clipped to cardboard cut from wine cases to the rustic-meets-urban servingware, it all tread the line of pleasing…just right.

In July we found our way to Brookline, and due to our rather circuitous route there, were extremely pleased to discover that Ribelle makes ordering wine easy on its guests–you pick a number from a list of rather wittily rendered descriptions and then each bottle is presented at your table: Et voila! You didn’t have ponder regions or vintages or stumble over names or varietals in front of your friends. It sounds silly in the retelling but we promise it is perfectly satisfying in the moment. And the service in this case was perhaps the best of our BCC experiences yet. Our waiter was attentive and friendly (and perfectly capable of pronouncing the actual names of the wines we immediately chose to imbibe).

Our Ribelle experience again predated BCC minutes, so we cannot share the exact dishes we consumed. In general, we found our selection of shared first courses interesting, but there wasn’t an “oh, OH” experience in the bunch. I believe a duck liver pate pleased us most. We then shared two pasta dishes–served in large, simple bowls and significant enough in size to split between four. And here, yes, was the reason to return (besides the visual appeal of our surroundings and the wine list): They were fantastic.

Sadly, it was a case of going one more round when we’d already had our thrill of the evening: The dessert wines chosen didn’t please and the dessert itself paled in comparison to its pasta predecessors. Ribelle, so cool in so many ways, couldn’t quite close the deal.

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Sarma

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Sarma

249 Pearl Street (Somerville)

Some of us were experienced in the ways of Sarma, and so we knew, before beginning, not to fall prey to the restaurant’s ritualistic palate tease. (A danger to both body and wallet.) We steeled ourselves at our June meeting, ordering only a few menu dishes for the table (they are all worth trying), fully prepared for the endless parade of delectable little “extras” to prance by, knowing each and every one could be ours (for a price). And that fried chicken? Worth staying up (or waking up) for, every single time.

There also was a dessert-type concoction that involved hot caramel. Need we say more?

The service was not fawning at Sarma; they didn’t neglect us either. The hosts, servers, and bartenders were businesslike and fairly efficient, which honestly seemed somewhat out of touch with the intimacy of the food they served.

Overall, our night at Sarma pleased us, and even if we ended up pushing our taste-bud boundaries a bit and left unsure of where we stood with the staff, we are perfectly ready to go back and see what comes next.

cock-rating-3.5

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