Delux - Love it!

Location: Delux
100 Chandler Street, Boston, MA
Meal: Dinner, Saturday night

My friend M and I went out for dinner on Saturday night. We had plans for a couple of weeks and I was excited to get together with her as it had been a while, and I always enjoy going out in Boston. We knew we wanted to go somewhere casual, and on the reasonably-priced side, so I did some research on Boston.com/Cheap Eats. Delux sounded pretty good. The South End is getting to be more of a destination, and the scenery in some sections is nice, lots of trees and brownstones.
The restaurant is on the corner of a street, and is a long, fairly narrow room. The front has about 10 tables, and the bar runs along the left side, back half of the room. We waited only about 5 minutes for a seat, and ended up sitting at that table for about 4 hours! And nobody hassled us to leave. It was great.

Atmosphere: dark lighting, lots of Elvis memorabilia, record album covers paper the walls. Casual, fun, funky. I hear they have outdoor seating in the nice weather.

Food: Delicious. M and I split the special app salad: Pear, arugula, endive, in a balsamic vinaigrette. It was really good. The arugula was a little stemmy, but still, tasted good. Plenty to share. For my entree, I got the grilled cheese with portabella mushrooms, red peppers, and cheese on sourdough. It also came with coleslaw. The crust on the grilled cheese was unbelievably crispy - not soggy at all, definitely made by an experienced chef. The cole slaw was delicious, and seemed to be obviously freshly made. There was the standard cabbage, but there was also red onion, which added a nice tang.

M got pumpkin ravioli with a nutmeggy cream sauce. She ate the entire plateful, with the exception of the one ravioli she gave me. I loved it. There was plenty of pumpkin filling, the pasta was very tender, and the sauce was a perfect complement.

Beer: They have 3 beers on tap: Guinness, Pilsner Urquell, and Tremont ale. I started with a Tremont ale. It was nice and cold, but I moved to Pilsner after one, because I didn't want to fill up on beer. I've never had it - it was good - sweet flavor that I was not expecting.

Overall, this was a great place for dinner. I think that there are probably times where you have to wait a while for a table, but we got there kind of late, around 9, so we must have missed the crowds. The menu changes every 6 weeks, so we plan to go back!