Oh yeah, O Ya! (A foodie dream)

A couple weeks ago, JR’s college roommate and the best man at our wedding, AWE(some), was in from L.A. and took us out to dinner to celebrate our 1 year anniversary. The evening resulted in the best foodie experience of my life (and that is saying something!)

AWE gave us the choice of where we wanted to go. It’s impossible for me to choose, so I bailed and gave back 3 restaurant names that I have been wanting to try. He decided on O Ya, and I was excited, but had I an inkling of what I was getting into, I would have been jumping up and down and hollering with joy.

I found out about O Ya when they were written up in F&W as one of the top restaurants in Boston. I got nervous though, when I asked a couple of my co-workers who know the Boston restaurant scene and they hadn’t heard of it. I figured we would just hope for the best, and if it wasn’t great, we would have a good time just being together.

AWE called on Tuesday before our Thursday date and was only able to get a reservation for 9:30. He actually was on the phone with the restaurant when the LA earthquake hit and had to hang up and call back. It resulted in us getting Kevin Garnett style treatment at the restaurant as the owner and a couple of the staff came out to shake his hand.

Once we saw the restaurant we knew we were in for something special. It’s on a side street near South Station and is pretty much the only thing on the street. There is a small sign and a tall wooden door. It’s very unassuming but you can tell that a lot of thought has gone into the presentation of everything from the moment you walk through the door. The building was actually an old fire station, and the tall ceilings and Asian influenced decorations work together to create an intimate atmosphere. It also doesn’t hurt that the place sits maybe 30 people.

We were offered a couple different seating choices, since we were there a little early. We held out for the corner spot at the long sushi bar, and boy was it worth it. From that vantage, we got to watch 3 artists behind the counter prepare some of the most beautiful food I have ever seen.


The menu was a bit overwhelming, but the waitress was very used to dealing with people like us and provided a pen so that we could mark the items we wanted. The food is served tapas style, and they recommend 12-16 plates per person. We ordered in a couple rounds and everything we got came with 3 pieces of perfectly crafted bite-sized-heaven and a explanation of what it was from the waitress.

I wish I had photos of the food, but I didn’t bother trying because the lighting would not have allowed, and also it could never convey the flavor, and textures, and tastes that were done so well. They have a chefs menu ($150-180), which we didn’t do, but which I fully intend to within the very near future. If you have a special occasion and want something amazing, O Ya is a must.

A Perfect Sandwich

I don't know what makes a perfect sandwich. I guess it depends a lot on the quality and proportion of the ingredients, but I know that 9 times out of 10 when I make sandwiches, I am not satisfied. Generally they have too much turkey, or not enough jelly, or the bread is too crunchy and hurts the roof of my mouth. In any case, sandwiches have gotten a bad reputation in my kitchen and I tend to not make them very often. Until recently.

The other evening I wasn't feeling top notch and was just hanging out at home reading and catching up on some relaxing. For dinner, all I could think about was a perfect grilled cheese sandwich. By perfect, I mean the kind of grilled cheese where the outside is a little crunchy and very buttery and the inside is warm gooey cheesy goodness. I headed over to the Whole Foods and picked up some German style whole wheat bread, a hunk of gruyere (a nice nutty cheese that is AMAZING for sandwiches) and a beautiful tomato.


I put that panini maker to work and within minutes had a gorgeous sandwich for dinner. It was so amazing. I had it with some fresh fruit, a pickle and some of this fantastic Mild Yellow Swedish mustard that JB brought me a couple weeks ago. The stuff is like no other mustard you have ever had and I want to drink it from a spoon.

I am also searching for a killer egg sandwich. I try something new at least once a week, but generally it includes good bread, two fried eggs, some kind of special cheese, fresh herbs and a spread (pesto, mustard, cranberry sauce, olive oil, the list goes on.) The desire for this sandwich comes from a couple places.

First, the movie Spanglish featured Thomas Keller's BLT Fried Egg and Cheese Sandwich which rewound to watch Adam Sandler make 3 or 4 times while I drooled. It was written up in Food & Wine about a year ago and I tried to make it one night while Jared was away. It was not all I had hoped for, although the F&W photo still makes me drool, and thus I started on the search for the perfect egg sandwich.


The second inspiration is the Jerusalem Egg Sandwich from the Andala Coffee House just up the street from us. A couple months after we moved here, I started going to Andala every Wednesday morning for a networking event. My first or second time, someone ordered this sandwich, and I have been in love with it ever since. It's a scintillating combination of eggs, parsley and tomatoes wrapped in a toasted Mediterranean pita that I would recommend to anyone.


My egg sandwiches are good, but this one has me coming back week after week and nothing I have made has accomplished that yet. I'll keep trying but if you have a great sandwich recipe that you want to share, please send it along.

4 Quick and Dirty Reviews

Since moving to Bean-town we have started going out to dinner significantly less. I think this is in part because it’s so easy to cook in our kitchen that I want to do it all the time. I also think it’s because the restaurants aren’t quite as accessible as in NYC. In Boston you can go out to eat at very nice places, you just have to think about it in advance. In NYC we would walk out our door and find a place down the street, and it wasn’t always great, but there were so many of them to choose from.

With that said, we have gone out a couple of times to a couple different places that I though I would tell you about.

Sibling Rivalry
We went to Sibling Rivalry with TC and JW for dinner after going to see some art in the South End. The restaurant has two Chefs and two menus. The Chefs are brothers and they pick ingredients and then each do a menu item based on that ingredient. It’s a unique approach that lends to a lot of sharing. We had fantastic service and the food was amazing. The only critique is that we had a reservation but were not seated until 25 minutes after. It seemed from the crowd in the bar that this was standard and they wanted to ensure you had just enough time for a couple drinks before being seated.

Rangzen
I met EB for lunch at Rangzen one Saturday morning. I wasn’t sure what to expect because I had never tried Tibetian food before. Someone had said to me “it’s a cross between Chinese and Indian” which made a lot of sense and sounded good. The restaurant is very cozy and off to one side had a fairly large buffet. We grabbed our plates and started filling them up. There was lots of fruit and salads, some tempura vegetables, a great chicken curry with rice and a Tofu and broccoli dish that I loved. There was also some excellent chai tea with milk. We had 3 or 4 plates of food and stayed 3 hours until they shut down all for 8$ a piece. All in all, a great place to grab lunch.http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Harvest
Harvest was written up in Food & Wine’s 2008 Go List. It’s a large restaurant in Harvard square with a beautiful back patio. JR and I went there to celebrate my birthday last week and of all the places I have gone in Boston, this was probably the biggest disappointment. Don’t get me wrong, we had some great food. My salad was excellent and JR had an excellent pork entrée, but the service was so-so and they sat us in the crowded bar although there were seats in the dining room. I would probably give it another shot except it was awfully expensive for what it was.

Gaslight Brasserie du Coin
Gaslight made me decide to give French Bistros another shot. We went here with a group of friends to celebrate my birthday. The choice was made by JR and my friends and was a surprise to me, and boy did they do a good job. We had a wonderful table that wasn’t too big for 7, but also wasn’t too small. Our waitress was the perfect combination of attentive but not pushy and she was super helpful answering our questions. I ordered a steak with caramelized shallots which was served with a side of fries. After making a comment about not liking fries, I wolfed down the whole thing, including every single little skinny perfectly salted fry. The steak was the best I have had in a long time and the caramelized shallots were perfection. The price was totally reasonable and I would go back in a heart beat.