Oleana, Cambridge

Another business trip.  Another absolutely packed itinerary of mostly work, but also, of course, some group dining.  Because, bonding.  And yup, another set of notes meticulously taken, ambitious plans of writing up my review as soon as I had a free moment, and ... trip over, time elapsed, notes lost.  Sigh.

So here I have yet another mostly only photo review, of a HUGE group dining feast at the highly recommended Oleana, a modern Mediterranean restaurant in Cambridge.

I do remember being a bit put off at the start.  Since we had a large group, a standard set menu was required, but the server never asked about allergies (and I have a severe one, and yup, it was on the menu), nor did they ask about any dietary restrictions (we had vegetarians, a vegan, and one gluten-free, and there were no vegetarian nor vegan main dishes).  I guess we were expected to just deal with it, and eat what we could?

The pacing of the meal never felt right, some courses coming on top of each other, others taking agonizingly long.  Oleana just didn't seem that well organized to handle large groups, which was a surprise, given that they seemed to specialized in family style dining.

Part of our Feast!

Due to our large group size, we had a set menu.  It consisted of 12+ courses, a ridiculous feast.  It was way, way, way too much food, even for our hungry table.

I was a bit heartbroken when I read the menu we'd be having.  I knew that Oleana mostly serves a different style of cuisine than I tend to like, as Mediterranean isn't really my thing (its too ... uh ... healthy? Not enough butter and cheese!), and many ingredients I don't care for, but, the regular menu had some items I was looking forward to nonetheless.  And ... our set menu had none those items, instead, it was a mix of their very classic signature dishes.  

I still tried to keep an open mind, and approach the meal as a forced excuse outside my comfort zone, and, I trusted that people love this restaurant so much, that perhaps I'd finally find a preparation of lamb, feta, olives, carrots, yogurts, beets, tahini, etc that I liked?  I tried it all.  And overall?  Meh.  Just not really my thing.

Menu for the Day.

The set menu was waiting for us on the table.  The 12 dishes were arranged into a grouping of 3 cold meze, another 3 meze (2 hot), 2 entrees, 2 sides, and 2 desserts.  Note that these were not choices, e.g., it wasn't a choice between lamb or fish for the entree, rather, we all received full portions of each item.  It was way, way, way too much food, which everyone commented on before we were even halfway through.

The lineup read:

Family-Style Meze 

• Whipped Feta / Sweet and Hot Peppers.
• Kalamata Olive / Carrots, Za’atar.
• Cacik / Spring Peas, Cucumber, Spinach, Garlic Yogurt, Mint.

• Spinach Falafel / Tahini Sauce, Beet Yogurt, Cress.
• Farm Lettuce / Cucumber, Melon, Sungolds, Shanklish, Lemon Vinaigrette.
• Basturma Dumplings / Yellow Tomato, Fig, Arugula.

Family-Style Entree

• Hake / Spicy Red Pepper Chraimeh Sauce, Broccolini, Phyllo Chip.
• Lamb Borek / Syrian Spiced Lentils, Garlic Scape Pesto, Plum.
• Flattened Potatoes / Lemon, Oregano.
• Dark Leafy Greens with Toum.

Family-Style Dessert

• Baked Alaska / Coconut Ice Cream and Passion Fruit Caramel. 
• Turkish-Style Profiteroles / Brown Butter Crème, Sesame Caramel, Cashew and Halva.

Drinks

We all started with interesting cocktails, before moving on to wine with the main meal.  The cocktails were nice pairings with the mezze in particular.

The Isla. $12.

"Bitter Orange & Herbs, Cocchi Americano, Angostura, Mint."

I remember thinking the cocktail was the best part of the meal.

Meze

Meze is the heart of the menu at Oleana.  From the extensive meze lineup on the regular menu (21 items!), I really wanted to try four of them: the octopus saganaki, the moussaka, the Sultan's delight, and the kohlrabi tian.  There were a few others I was interested in as second choices as well.  

Our selection contained one of my second tier choices (basturma dumplings), but none of the ones I really wanted, and the other 5 were all things I had no interest in.

Complimentary Bread.

All tables start with complimentary bread, a spiced, spongy, focaccia like bread.

My companions immediately regretted filling up on any of this, given how much was to come.

Oil.

The bread came with a decent quality olive oil for dipping.

Cacik / Spring Peas, Cucumber, Spinach, Garlic Yogurt, Mint.

Kalamata Olive / Carrots, Za’atar.

Whipped Feta / Sweet and Hot Peppers.

Spinach Falafel / Tahini Sauce, Beet Yogurt, Cress.

Farm Lettuce / Cucumber, Melon, Sungolds, Shanklish, Lemon Vinaigrette.

Basturma Dumplings / Yellow Tomato, Fig, Arugula.

Entrees

Entrees fared a bit better, we were given two.  The regular menu has 6 options, I was interested in either of the fish preparations, so I was happy to see one of them.  Our other forced selection was the one I really didn't want (lamb).  Vegetarians and vegans had no main dish on the set menu, and mostly just filled up on mezze.

Lamb Borek / Syrian Spiced Lentils, Garlic Scape Pesto, Plum.

Hake / Spicy Red Pepper Chraimeh Sauce, Broccolini, Phyllo Chip.

Sides

The regular menu has only 2 side dishes, and we received them both.  These I could care less about, neither interesting in any way.

Dark Leafy Greens with Toum.

I didn't taste the garlic in the toum, the only thing I thought might be interesting here.

 Flattened Potatoes / Lemon, Oregano.

Dessert

And finally, dessert.  My favorite course. 

The menu has 6 options, one of which I really, really wanted to try (palace bread), and a few others that sounded interesting (trilece with sorrece grainte and pistachio cream, a sun butter ice cream sundae), plus a signature baked alaska and the least interesting sounding option, profiteroles.  Of course, the ones I wanted were not selected for us.

 Turkish-Style Profiteroles / Brown Butter Crème, Sesame Caramel, Cashew and Halva.

Baked Alaska / Coconut Ice Cream and Passion Fruit Caramel.