North Street Grille, Boston

On my recent trip to Boston, I met up with a college friend for brunch.  She let me choose the venue, so I did my research, and eagerly settled on North Street Grill, in the North End of Boston.  I love brunch, and their brunch menu sounded amazing.  Protip: they serve brunch not only on Saturday and Sunday, but on Thursday and Friday too!

Anyway, back to that menu.  They have all the brunch classic egg dishes, including omelets of every variety and eggs benedict with smoked salmon, crab cakes, lobster, or even stuffed inside french toast.  But I had eyes for only one they: they offer pancakes and french toast in more flavors than you can possibly imagine.  Seriously.  To say I had issues picking a dish is an understatement.  How do you decide between "chocolate fantasy", peanut butter and chocolate, raspberry and cream cheese, strawberry and nutella, banana bourbon, peanut butter and fluff, strawberry shortcake, and even cinnamon roll french toast?  And then there are pancakes too!  And of course, lunch offerings of sandwiches and salads.  But who picks lunch items at brunch?

North Street Grille is also open for dinner, but my visit was obviously targeted for brunch.

North Street Grille is a fairly small establishment, with bar seating, a few booths, and mostly small tables for 2, once of which we were able to snag after a short wait.  The line to get in was long, but I had read the advice to call ahead to get on the waiting list, which I did as soon as I got off the T.

The service was generally ok, although I did have to ask several times for water and coffee refills.  I was amused at the end of the meal, when the bill was presented to me on an Android tablet.  This wouldn't have been too novel in the Bay Area, but I was surprised to see it in Boston.

Maple Waffle Martini. Blueberry Muffin Martini.  $10 each.

I wasn't intending to get a cocktail before noon, but the brunch cocktail list didn't just have standard bloody marys and mimosas.  The list was too tempting to resist, including ones named after breakfast items, like muffins and waffles.

Kristin went for the "Blueberry Muffin Martini", with cake vodka, muddled blueberries, and ginger ale.  The server told us it wasn't too sweet because of the ginger ale, but neither of us really tasted ginger ale in it.  I also didn't really taste blueberry or cake.  Just vodka.  It was a bit of a punch in the face for breakfast, and way too alcoholic tasting for me, so I'm glad it wasn't my selection.

I went for the "maple waffle martini", made with Bailey's, and topped with bacon.  Yes, bacon.  In my cocktail.  Go big or go home.

A gimmick?  Potentially, but in this case, actually, no.  It was insanely good.  The bacon was crazy crispy.  How on earth did they keep it crispy inside the drink?  I have no idea.  There was also a ton of bacon.  Some was floating on top, and there was plenty more throughout.  I kinda think there were several full slices of bacon inside my drink.  Protein to go with my sugar, right? 

Contrasting with the salty bacon was the sweet Bailey's, very creamy.  This was not a light drink, obviously, as it was full of cream and bacon, but man it was good.  The salty bacon prevented it from being too sweet.  I'd certainly get it again.

$10 each for fancy cocktails seemed a bit fitting.

I also enjoyed a cup of decaf coffee, advertised as bottomless.  While perhaps true, I had to ask for refills constantly, as no one seemed to notice my cup going empty.  It was fine decaf, not really interesting, and for $3.50, a bit high for generic, pre-brewed coffee.

Complimentary Banana Bread, Butter.

I read about how diners receive banana bread upon being seated, and was looking forward to it; however we did not.  I saw the banana bread being delivered to all the tables around us, distributed along with the menus.  But we had our menus, and no banana bread.  I thought that perhaps it would arrive with our drinks.  It did not.  I thought it would arrive after we ordered our main dishes.  It did not.  So finally, I asked about it.  Our server said she'd bring it right out.  She also said she'd refill my empty coffee.  Neither happened.

Finally, our main dishes arrived.  At that point, my coffee was refilled (when I asked yet again), and the banana bread was brought out.  I'm still confused why we received it so late, when literally every other table got it right when they sat down.

Anyway, the banana bread was crazy moist.  I'm not really one for banana bread, but I admit, this was good banana bread.  But since I had hot pancakes in front of me, I wasn't too excited for the banana bread at that point.  It would have been nice to munch on while we were waiting.

Single Cookie Dough Pancake, $5.

As I mentioned, North Street Grille offers pancakes and french toast in more varieties than you can possibly imagine.  Deciding between french toast or pancakes was my first hurdle, but after careful deliberation, I picked pancakes.  Then I had to narrow in on a flavor.  I ruled out all of the basic ones just with fruit (blueberry, banana, triple berry, strawberry), the slightly more interesting fruit ones (cranberry walnut, banana nut, apple cinnamon with apple butter), and those with chocolate (chocolate chip, chunky monkey).  Then I was left with the fun ones: cookie dough.  Cannoli.  Boston Cream.  Cinnamon Roll.  Oh my.

I asked for descriptions of each.  The cinnamon roll ones were topped with icing, which I thought might be a be too sweet for breakfast.  I wanted sweet pancakes, but perhaps I didn't need to go quite sooo overboard, even though the waitress told me they were amazing.  This concern of being just a bit too over the top also ruled out the Boston cream pancakes (a layered stack with Boston Cream filling between the layers, topped with chocolate ganache) and the cannoli pancakes (layered with cannoli filling, with crumbled cannoli shell).  Which left ... cookie dough pancakes.  I was inspired from my Dunkin' Donuts Cookie Dough iced coffee from the day before, so, I went for it.

The pancake was very large, hard to tell given the photo, but that was a normal size plate.  The base dough was fairly standard, buttermilk, but not particularly flavorful.  And ... yes, it had chunks of cookie dough baked in.

I know this doesn't sound like a great endorsement so far, but, it was a very well executed pancake.  The outside was absolutely perfectly crispy.  Golden on both sides.  And, it was served with real maple syrup of course.  I enjoyed my pancake, but I'd probably pick another kind next time, as there are far too many to explore.  North Street Grille has proven that they have the basic cooking technique down, which gives me great hope about all of the other varieties.

Specialty pancakes are available as a stack of 3 for $10-11, or as singles for $5 each.  Since I had already had a first breakfast before meeting my friend for brunch, I went for just a single.  I really liked that they allowed you to still get speciality pancakes as singles, many places only offer their speciality ones as full stacks, with only plain pancakes as singles.  $5 for a giant pancake seemed fine, although obviously the $10 price for 3 is a better deal, if you want a full stack.  If I was hungrier, I'd probably just pick two different kinds and mix and match.  Or one pancake and one french toast, so I could best of both worlds!

Next time!

Crab Cake Eggs Benedict / home fries with caramelized onions, roasted peppers and cheese.  $17.

My friend went for a savory option, not tempted by the decadent pancakes.  She ordered the crab cake benedict, normally served with a dijon hollandaise, but she opted for the regular hollandaise instead, as she doesn't like mustard.  The crab cakes benedict also normally comes with plain home fries, but our server casually asked if she would like cheese, peppers, and onions on top, which she gladly agreed to (because, who wouldn't?)  She didn't mention the $3 extra charge.

My friend generously offered to let me try everything.  The english muffins were nicely toasted, standard muffins.  The hollandaise also fairly standard, a bit thick.  The eggs were nicely poached.  Those parts were all well executed, but not anything out of the ordinary for a good brunch place.  The crab cakes were far more interesting than either of us expected, insanely zesty.

As for the home fries, the potatoes were crispy, but too oily for my taste.  The melted cheese and onions and peppers were a nice touch, but the cheese was kinda congealed by the time it reached our table.

Overall, good, but not my sort of dish.  When do I ever order eggs?

$17 seemed a bit high, but $3 of that was the upsell on the hash browns, and the crab cakes were each a decent size, so not unreasonable.

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Dunkin' Donuts - Seasonal Specials

Reviews of both iced and hot seasonal specials have been merged into my main Dunkin' Donuts drink review and baked goods review.

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Fisher's Popcorn

It is no secret that I like snacks.  I love to much on things, particularly popcorn.  Bonus points for sweet popcorn.

So while the rest of my office quickly tires of the tins of popcorn that show up from clients around the holidays, I am overjoyed, and eagerly devour the neglected tins.

1/2 Gallon Fisher's Popcorn. $12.

Fisher's is a small family business in Ocean City, MD.  They've been making popcorn, and specializing in caramel corn, since 1937.  They make a slew of other flavors, including a savory Old Bay flavor, and an Old Bay caramel corn, which I think sounds more fascinating than actually tasty.

Caramel Corn.

I tried the classic caramel corn.

It was super sticky, and many of the kernels stuck together in clumps or mini popcorn balls.  I don't consider this a bad thing necessarily, but it definitely made for sticky fingers.

The popcorn wasn't crispy, so it almost seemed a bit stale, but there was so much caramel that it didn't really matter.  I appreciated how well coated the kernels were.

Like most caramel corn, it got even better when I froze it, as it got crispier.  I'm still partial to the caramel corn I get from Munchery, but I did quite enjoy this, and would gladly consume more.

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Bamboo Asia

A while ago, I attended an event catered by Bamboo Asia.  The food was far better than I expected, so I decided to return to the physical store to give it another chance.  As I mentioned in my previous review, I've actually been before, but everything looked so unappealing that I left without trying anything.  But if Bamboo Asia can pull off decent catering, I decided perhaps looks were deceiving.

Bamboo Asia offers 3 cuisines: Vietnamese, Indian, and Japanese.   Each occupies its own distinct section of the store, in a layout that is a bit confusing at first, as they each has its own line to order and its own register.  I'm not sure what would happen if you wanted a Vietnamese spring roll and a Japanese mochi dessert ... would you have to go through both lines and pay separately?

At the catered event, I tried dishes from the Vietnamese and Indian parts of the menu, so this time, I went Japanese to start.  I still wasn't feeling brave enough to get the sushi, so I just went for sides and dessert ... because I'm willing to try dessert just about anywhere.

It turns out, I should have listened to my initial impressions and instincts.  The food wasn't good.  The staff was completely un-organized, rang people up for the wrong items, prepared orders for dine-in that were to-go, etc.  That said, the worker who prepared my little bowl of seaweed salad was very friendly, and even told me he gave me "a little extra".  Aww, thanks!  And, they accept PayPal mobile as payment, which is my new favorite way to pay on my phone these days.

But ... I don't think I'll be returning.

Seaweed Salad.  $2.95.

I was really craving seaweed salad.  When I ordered it, the guy fetched a big bag full out of the fridge, cut it open, and dished me up some.  Clearly, not something they make fresh in store, but I still had hope.

It wasn't good.  Yes, there were multiple types of seaweed.  There was light sauce.  There were sesame seeds.  But ... something just tasted quite off.  I can't put my finger on it, but it really just wasn't a good flavor.

$2.95 is a fine price for a small side salad, although places like Onigilly offer it for only $1.84, where it is actually good.

Red Bean Mochi.  $1.49.

I wanted to satisfy my sweet tooth too, so I grabbed a mochi at last minute, also from the Japanese area.  Some pieces were labelled with the flavor, some weren't.  I asked what kind this was, and the person behind the counter didn't know.  I hoped it was taro, based on the slightly purplish color, but alas, I think it was red bean.

It was unremarkable mochi.  Soft-ish, not much flavor.  I'm guessing they don't make their own mochi either.  Meh.

Anjou's Laddoo. $1.95.

I wanted another dessert, since I wasn't into the mochi.  This one came from the Indian section, the only other choice that day, labeled "Anjou's Laddo".

I'm not really sure who Anjou is.  And actually, I wasn't familiar with laddoo, but ... dessert!

Laddoo is apparently an Indian sweet, almost like a cookie.  I really wanted to like it.  The spicing was good, predominately cardamom.  But the item itself was basically just a dry ball of coconut.  Like a  macaroon, but not moist.  It offered nothing.  I wouldn't get again.

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First Class, Virgin America, SFO-BOS

This post has been consolidated into my other Virgin America First Class reviews.  Please go read it there instead!

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Melons Catering and Events

For the past several years, Melons Catering and Events has catered my annual company holiday party.  These are large events, with ~1500 attendees, so certainly not any easy job for any caterer.  And you know how I tend to feel about catering ...

Every year, they do entirely different menus.  Two years ago, it was downright incredible.  One room at the venue was a special seafood room, where they served seared scallops that rivaled those of most restaurants.  Using their tiny little catering facilities.  I honestly have no idea how they pulled it off, but I was absolutely blown away.  They also always set up a dessert room, and many of the items featured there have been particularly notable.  Of course, I never took photos or notes before, so I don't have any real details to share on my past events.

So this year, when I heard that Melons was catering our party again, I was excited.  I took photos.  I was ready to write a glowing blog post.  But ...  there was little to glow about with the main food options.  Some of it was menu choice, as there was no extravagant seafood room this year (although there was a sushi bar, which was decent), but mostly, the hot food just really wasn't good, and perhaps most tragically, the desserts were all lackluster as well.

Melons has done a great job in the past though, so I'm hopeful that next time will be better ...

Charcuterie.

I was excited to walk in to the first room and discover a whole charcuterie table.  The perfect place to start, particularly alongside my glass of mediocre red wine, and the lineup was quite impressive.

Melons cures all of the meat in house, using products from Stone Valley Farms.  There were several salami-style items that were all fine, including pork fennel salami, coppa, lonza, and prosciutto.  The prosciutto was the most memorable, and I genuinely enjoyed it, particularly slathered with a little mustard, of which there were several choices.

But the star of the lineup was the duck liver mousse (and not just because it reminded me of foie gras!).  It had the perfect consistency and flavor, not too livery.  I went back many times throughout the night for more and more of this.  Once I tried all of the desserts, and was not satisfied by any, I may or may not have come back for more of the mousse as my quasi-dessert.  Winning item of the night.

The charcuterie station was completed by housemade focaccia and breadsticks, wild mushroom salad, chick pea and olive salad, and roasted peppers, none of which I tried.

Nigiri Sushi Bar.

The next room we entered featured a sushi bar.  Now this looked promising, particularly given how much I enjoyed the seafood offerings the previous year, it seemed possible that they would have decent quality product.

But, catering sushi?  The shelf life of sushi is on the order of minutes, how could they possibly do sushi hours before and have it be good?  They couldn't and knew that, so the sushi was actually being prepared behind the bar by a line of chefs, it hadn't been sitting around for hours.

There was a decent line up of nigiri including unagi, hamachi, salmon, octopus, and two types of tuna.

I tried all but the unagi, and they were all fine, not incredible obviously, but good enough, and the product was decent quality.

However, the fish was a bit warm.  They obviously weren't in a climate controlled area, and were working with what they had, but there is something off putting about warm fish, and it certainly changed the texture.

The sushi was served with wasabi, ginger, and soy sauce, as you'd hope, but there were no dipping cups for the soy sauce, so you had to dump soy sauce on each piece of fish from the big vat as you served yourself, and this just didn't work well.

But for massive party catering?  Not bad.

Assorted Sushi Rolls.

There were also pre-made sushi rolls.

One entire tray was California rolls, which turned out to be a good thing.  Of all the sushi, it turned out to be my favorite, it tasted fairly fresh, and wasn't overly coated in mayo or anything.

The other platter contained a mix of spicy tuna, unagi, tempura shrimp, and veggie rolls.  The spicy tuna was also tasty enough, but the fish was a somewhat grey color, which scared me a bit.

[ No Photo ]

Italian and French Buffets.

There were also two themed buffets: Italian or French.  I somehow lost the photos.

The buffets annoyed me.  They were buffets, but, you couldn't serve yourself, instead, they had staff there to add items to your plate.  I wanted to try a little bit of everything, but it was impossible to communicate that I truly just wanted a little dollop of each dish so I could try everything, and then come back for more of something if I liked it.  No matter what language I used, I got giant scoops of everything.

The French offerings had two salads, a good enough basic frisee salad with nicely crispy bacon bits (and an optional poached egg), and a fairly tasty celery root and carrot slaw.  Hard to go wrong with bacon and mayonnaise.  The hot offerings were not as successful.  The gratin potatoes were completely undercooked and basically raw, so even large amounts of cream and cheese couldn't save them.  The beef looked dried out and awful, so I didn't even try it, and I never like quiche, so I skipped that too.  I was sad, since I love French cuisine, and there was potential here, but there weren't even delicious sauces to try!

The menu for the Italian section was no better.  The main entrees were pork and rock cod, both of which I actively dislike (seriously, you want to hear me rant sometime ... ask me about rock cod.  I don't think it is possible for rock cod to be tasty).  I also skipped the fried stuffed olives, since they clearly weren't freshly fried.  Since it was an Italian station, it obviously had pasta, and I did try those.  The first had rubbery baby shrimp in a vary banal red sauce.  Meh.  The other was a vegetarian option, that just tasted really strange, and was crazy mushy.  I didn't want to finish a single bite of this, not even for exploratory purposes.

The buffets were clearly not the way to go, and after the awful pasta and the undercooked gratin, I was too disheartened to try anything else, and just went back to the sushi and charcuterie to eat enough "real food" that I could move on to dessert.

Desserts.

As I mentioned, the previous years always had impressive dessert rooms.  While I am fairly picky about food, dessert is the area where my standards do lower.  Enough cream, butter, and sugar and I'm generally happy enough.  But ... nothing here came close to satisfying.

On the left is carrot cake bites.  They were fairly dry and flavorless, topped with a tiny insufficient dollop of cream cheese frosting.  Seriously, carrot cake is ALL about cream cheese frosting, who thinks that a dot of it is enough?

Next was tiramisu, that clearly didn't set right.  As it was spooned onto my place it ran all over the place like melted ice cream.  I didn't mind the runnyness exactly, except that it also didn't taste like anything.  No mascarpone flavor, no coffee flavor, nothing.  Just runny whiteness.

In the back were tiny espresso panna cotta.  Panna cotta is always a favorite of mine.  This had a good consistency unlike the poor tiramisu, and it was topped with good enough whipped cream, and did taste a little like espresso, so, it wasn't bad, but it also wasn't particularly good.

The best was cheesecake, with a sweet, buttery, crunchy crust, and a creamy interior.  It was topped with booze stewed dried fruits, which I wasn't a fan of, but the cheesecake itself was decent.  Not earth shattering, and I wasn't even tempted to get a second piece, but, good enough.

More Desserts.

There was also a pear pâte de fruit, topped with a dollop of cheese and a nut, which I skipped.  Yes, gasp, I skipped a dessert.

And last, a chocolate gateau.  It had a mediocre base chocolate cake layer and a decently creamy chocolate pudding layer.  It was served with a sauce they ladled over the top, that was cloyingly sweet.  Like, unpalatable sweet.  And I like sweet!  The sauce also had little chunks of banana, which were quite good, but I didn't understand the sauce at all.  I'm normally a sauce girl, and a fan of having a hot component with my dessert, but this just didn't make any sense.

Last year's dessert lineup was much, much better, as there were multiple items that I couldn't stop going back for more and more of, and this year, I didn't bother with seconds of anything.

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Nestlé Candy

The Nestlé empire is rather insane.  They have 8,000 brands ranging from baby food to frozen food and basically everything in-between   If you start paying attention, you'd be shocked to see how many companies are owned by Nestlé.

Anyway, when Halloween rolled around, I got a chance to try some of their candy, for the first time in years.  For some reason, everywhere I went was giving out candy this year, although most were giving out Hershey products, which I previously reviewed.  You'll note that I called it candy, rather than chocolate, because honestly, there isn't a whole lot of cocoa going on here ...

Butterfingers

Butterfinger Mini.

"Crispety crunchety, peanut-buttery candy."

Tasting notes: The notes I wrote described this as "crispy crunchy caramely peanut buttery center" coated with milk chocolate.  I was a bit blown away when I later read their description on the website, and it was a near-match!  The filling was a really unnatural orange color.  It was all low quality, but a pretty tasty combo.

[ Crappy milk chocolate, sweet crunchy center, not awesome, but not bad. ] [ I do love the crunchy sweet center, but, overall, it is actually too sweet for me to just want to eat.  Perfect as a froyo topping. ]

Butterfinger Peanut Butter Cup.

"The classic peanut butter cup was missing something…until now. The combination of creamy milk chocolate, smooth peanut butter and the perfect dose of BUTTERFINGER took the cup to a whole ‘nother level."

My first thought was, "woah, they make peanut butter cups?"  My next thought, as I opened the package was, "where is the outer wrapper?" as it was naked inside the package, like pretty much any other candy bar, but for some reason, Reece's has trained me to expect a wrapper.  And very quickly, all those thoughts were replaced with, "what?  Square?  You can't have a square cup!"

So clearly, I went into this with expectations.

Butterfinger Peanut Butter Cup: Inside.

The milk chocolate was mild and very creamy.  The inside was brighter orange than a regular peanut butter, more like, well, a butterfinger.  The filling was a bit like crunchy peanut butter, and I liked the texture, but it didn't have enough peanut butter taste for my liking.  Sorry, but I prefer a regular pb cup, or a regular Butterfinger, but I do see what they are going for here.

I still don't know why it was square ... with rounded corners, very 2.0 of it.

Baby Ruth Mini.

Tasting notes: chocolate/caramel flavored nougat (the soft, slightly chewy kind) makes up most of the bar, topped with a VERY thin layer of thicker caramel, then layer of peanuts, covered in milk chocolate.  Decent combination of textures, but the is caramel barely noticeable, and it is made from clearly low quality nuts and chocolate.

Baby Ruth: Inside.

One bar I tried had no nougat!  It was just thick caramel, peanuts, and chocolate coating.  The peanuts and chocolate were nice enough, and the caramel had a nice chew, but, this didn't seem quite right.

Subsequent tasting notes:

[ Milk chocolate is clearly low quality, but the whole thing is sweet and kinda enjoyable, peanuts are nice. ] [ Same lower end milk chocolate, chewyish caramel nougat, plentiful peanuts that actually taste like peanuts, very sweet overall, not bad. ] [ Caramel very chewy, entire thing very sweet, like the crunch from the peanuts. ] [ Very sweet nougat filling, not enough peanuts, peanuts not evenly distributed so many bites had none.  Chocolate isn't even really chocolate, just sweet too. ] [ Meh, the only good part is the peanuts. ]

Golden Rough.

This is from their Australian division, a chocolate disk with coconut flakes.  The chocolate was just cheap milk chocolate, studded with lots of coconut flakes.  I didn't really care for this, even though I wanted to like it, because I do like both chocolate and coconut.

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Bit-O-Honey: Tasting notes: sweet, not very flavorful.  Didn't really think it represented "honey" very well.

Nestlé Crunch: "Creamy milk chocolate and light airy crispies".  Tasting notes: Is the chocolate actually "creamy"?  No.  Is the chocolate good at all?  No.  But I do enjoy the crunch!

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