Yellow Tail Pinot Noir

I tried the Yellow Tail Pinot Noir at my friends' Christmas Party last week and it was really good. Great flavor, light but not watered down, kind of berry-ish.

The Melting Pot

Location: The Melting Pot, Framingham, MA
Meal: Dinner, a celebration

For those of you who don't know, The Melting Pot is a fondue restaurant, not a place where people of all ethnicities have settled in harmony. Everything on the menu, except the salad, is supposed to be dipped in a hot sauce, whether it's sweet or savory.

Because there were 5 of us, we decided to get two of the "Big Night Out" option. This option is designed to serve 2, and you get 2 salads, 1 cheese fondue, 1 meat selection (there are three options), and a dessert selection. I passed on the salad, since I'd had one for lunch, but rumor has it, they were delicious.

The cheese course was tasty. We got the cheddar and the santa fe cheeses. The neat thing about the Melting Pot is that the waitress creates all of the dips at the table. She brought grated cheese, added the beer base and the cheese to the pot, stirred it up until it was all melted, and then added flavors like garlic and jalapeno. The cheese pot was a hit with the whole table. We mostly ate the tortillas and bread that came with it. I was the first to have a bread castaway in the cheese, and it led to veggie and meat castaways in the following courses.

At this point, we were all pretty much full, but then the meat courses came out. We chose one with mushrooms, potatoes, chicken, steak and ravioli, and another with all that plus shellfish (shrimp and 2 lobster tails). The meat came out raw and we cooked it in pots of almost-boiling broth, flavored with burgundy wine. The broth was really good. The wine added a nice full flavor.

The table pretty much all agreed that the best part of the meat course was the beef rubbed with a portabello paste. The mushrooms and potatoes were also delicious. There was a sour cream based sauce that went very well with the mushrooms.

A couple of years ago, Buffalo Girl and I went to a fondue restaurant in Montreal. We'd never had fondue in a restaurant and did not know what to expect. At that place, the meat was shaved very thin, and it cooked in less than a minute. It was easy to tell when it was cooked. At the Melting Pot, the meat came in chunks, and it made me nervous. Undercooked chicken is not something I want to eat, but overcooked chicken is also unappetizing. It was hard to tell when the chicken was done and the lighting was dim so it wasn't necessarily possible by looking. A few times, the steak was left in for the suggested 3 minutes and came out pretty rare. Some people might like that. I don't love it.

Moving on to dessert. (full yet?! I was.) Plus, we'd already been at the restaurant for almost 2 hours and we were all getting kind of antsy.) We ordered 2 different chocolates, milk chocolate with peanut butter and oreo cookie (dark chocolate, my favorite). The dipping snacks were bite-size versions of cheesecake, brownies, strawberries, bananas, and some other things I can't remember now. All good, but a little sweet, and too much after the first 3 courses.

Prices are pretty high at this place. The Big Night Out ranges from $84 - $92 (approx) and that does not include drinks or choosing specialty broths. I think I would share one Big Night Out with 3 people, depending on how hungry we were. I would also like to go back for just apps and drinks. One note: Beer selection sucked. Pretty much your standard clear beers and Sam Adams.

Linguine's (II)

Location: Linguine's, Marlboro, MA
Meal: Lunch (takeout)

Linguine's has a really good tuna sub. The basics: Tuna, lettuce, tomato, onion, on a sub roll that is kind of chewy and has cornmeal on the crust. The tuna is really fresh, just enough mayo, and delicately seasoned. I did add some pepper and little salt, but it wasn't really necessary. Price: $4.95. The sub is probably about a foot long, and they cut it in half. I actually shared it with a friend because a whole sub is usually too much for me to eat at once. Not that I don't but then I'm really full.

Snack Time!

I'd rather buy a big jar of applesauce and pack it in a reusable Tupperware container, instead of buying single serving snacks. Last week, though, I received a big box of free stuff from Rachael Ray magazine and their advertisers. One of the snacks was Mott's Blueberry Applesauce. This snack was delicious. The blueberry flavor was really prominent and since the ingredience only included apples and blueberries, and a little citric acid, it wasn't overly fake-sweet. I might have to get more of these sometime.

Fun colorful packaging



Wonderful purply color

Bagel Time

Location: Bagel Time, Park Ave, Worcester, MA
Meal: Breakfast (late to work!)

There's a reason Bagel Time wins best bagels each year. They're awesome. The bagels are dense, boiled bagels with a shiny crust. I always get a spinach garlic bagel and last week, I had the scallion bacon cream cheese. Full fat. YUM. It's best when the bagel is still warm from the toaster.

They also have decent coffee but I don't know what kind it is. Only thing is, they use paper cups and the coffee is really hot and they don't have those extra cardboard pieces to slip around. So, remember to grab extra napkins.

Bagel Time is a once in a while place for me because eating that much cream cheese at once can't be good for me, and $5 for breakfast is a little much to make it a daily habit.

Mmm Mangorita

Location: Naked Fish, Westboro, MA (it's a small chain, though)
Meal: Drinks only

When hearing I was heading out to the Naked Fish for drinks, my friend the margarita connoisseur recommended their mango margarita. I went for it and it was delicious. The drink is called a Mangorita and is in the Specialty Drinks section of the drink menu. Ingredients were Sauza Gold, mango puree, lime juice and Grand Marnier. It came in a festive bowl shaped stem glass with a sugared rim, on ice. The mango puree was thick but not too pulpy, and I couldn't even taste the tequila. Though, there was definitely some in there. (I had some food so don't be concerned about that.)

They have lots of other drinks that sound good too. My friend got a mango Mai Tai, and loved it. There was dark rum floating on the top and she didn't realize until she bit into the cherry and realized it had been soaking in rum.

I also like the bar at the Naked Fish. It's sufficiently dark, with nice lighting and sweet leather chairs and couches. Really comfortable. I've eaten dinner there before and the food's really good. Kind of pricey - better to go on the corporate card.

Archer Farms Ginger Beer

Target has an exclusive brand, Archer Farms. I've had some hits and misses with this brand. The ginger beer soda is in the middle. It has some pretty good ginger flavor, but I don't think it's as good as Shweppes ginger ale - not enough crispiness or bubbles or something. I have one bottle left from a 6 pack, so I'm going to try to mix it with some liquor. It will probably hold up, maybe better than ginger ale.

Finder's Pub

Finders Pub is the only place around here that serves their meals on Fiestaware. I think it adds a nice homey feel to an already comfortable and good-eatin' restaurant.

Tonight, I had the Bud Light draft. It's a steal at $1.95/pint. I also ordered the baked haddock dinner. It came with a very large piece of haddock, perfectly cooked, with a light topping of bread crumbs that were appropriately crispy. I chose the mashed potatoes as a side. They were delicious, and had little bits of potato skin in them, so I knew they were real. The pat of butter I added made the experience even more decadent. The vegetable side was mixed vegetables: broccoli, parsnips, carrots, green beans, cauliflower. They were pretty awful - unflavored (I chose not to add the butter provided), and kind of soft and I guess overcooked. But I ate them because they're good for me.

My dining companions, Buffalo Girl and Steak and Potatoes, had the BLT on white with fries and the Sirloin Tips and Tomatoes Salad. The BLT was okay, a little dry. The sirloin salad was very good. It looked good from where I was sitting. Romaine lettuce and spring greens, very red plum tomatoes, onions, gorgonzola cheese, and steak tips. S and P chose blue cheese dressing and was very happy with his meal. His only complaint was the tips were cooked more than he'd like. He ordered medium-rare and they weren't rare enough.

Johnny Rockets

Location: Johnny Rockets, Burlington Mall, MA
Meal: Late night dinner.

First of all, let me say that going to Johnny Rockets after 10 pm on a Friday night is probably not the best idea. It left the service a little lacking, but overall, it was a decent experience. I think that they were pretty much done for the night and we happened in after a marathon shopping event. There were about 2 other parties there, and the waiter seemed to be pretty new. He was really nice, though, and as attentive as he was able to be.

There were 2 of us, and we both ordered cheeseburgers and cherry Cokes. I got the half onion rings/half fries. My friend got just fries.

The burgers came out separately from the fries. I guess they cook the burgers out back, and the fries are made out front, behind the counter. So there was kind of a lag between when I got my fries/rings and when my friend got her fries. Once we had all the food on the table, we realized that we could have shared a small order of fries and have still been totally full. As it was, we barely made a dent in the sides. I ate the entire burger, though. It was good, and cooked as I requested (medium).

You get these neat little paper dipping bowls that you can put the ketchup in. They also have something called "red red sauce", which is a ketchup-based sauce for fries and burgers. I can't figure out what else is in it. It was okay but I didn't put it on my burger. Burgers come with mustard and mayonnaise. Love it.

It's a good place to go for a table-service meal that is reasonably priced in the mall. The decor is flashy.

Another cool thing is they have straw dispensers on each table, and the waiter pulled up the top so we could each grab a straw when he brought our Cokes.

Muffin

Location: The Bean Counter, Highland Street, Worcester, MA
Meal: Breakfast

I was running late today so I didn't have time to make breakfast. I decided to swing by the Bean Counter and pick up a coffee and hopefully a sinfully delicious pastry. I usually go for the chocolate croissant, and those are always delicious. Today, they were all out of croissants. There was a customer giving the cashier some feedback on that very fact. Nice feedback, but it had probably been going on for quite a while before I got there, and I think the girl working was holding her patience very well.

I settled on a muffin, and while I'd like to give it a thumbs up, today, it was a half-thumb. The muffin was raspberry lemon, and the flavor was very raspberry and lemon, but the muffin was definitely overcooked. The top was hard-ish and chewy, there was melted sugar and other sticky stuff all over the outside of the muffin paper, and the muffin inside the paper had a thick overcooked crust. The center was really good - if only it was all cooked just enough, instead of too much.

The coffee was good- Kenya AA with milk. Smooth, creamy, not bitter, and very hot.

Tony's Pizza

Location: Tony's Pizza, Sutton, Route 146
Meal: Dinner (around 5:30 pm on a Friday)

After a shopping trip in Providence, Buffalo Girl, Mom, and I headed home. We stopped by Tony's Pizza for some dinner. This place was crazy busy. It was dinnertime so we expected it to be a little crowded. It was a madhouse, what with takeout orders being picked up, numbers being called over the loudspeaker, and lots of hungry people waiting for their food by the counter. We ordered pretty quickly, 3 fish and chips, a Greek salad, and 3 small sodas. They also serve beer and wine here. We found a good sized booth by the window. The only downside was that it was right beneath a speaker, and the volume was kind of loud.

Our food came out very quickly - around 10 minutes, which was great. We'd just gotten our sodas.

Each fish and chips order came with 2 large pieces of fish. The batter was thin and pretty tasty. The plate was piled with french fries, way too many to eat. They were not my favorite kind of fries, they were not smooth. But, they were hot and crispy. I ate one piece of fish, and too many fries. Then, Buffalo Girl and I dug into the salad. We were stuffed, though, so couldn't eat as much as we'd like. The salad was very good. You have to be sure to ask for Greek dressing (it's Ken's), otherwise you will get Italian. Lots of feta, tomatoes, I think iceberg lettuce, kalamata olives, purple onions.

I liked it at Tony's. The food was good, the price was right, and it was a good stopping point on the way home from RI.

Crapsto's Part Deux

You know what was really funny though? Mom thought that the greek dressing was soup, but really weird looking soup. Because it came in a ramekin with a spoon!! If they were going to do it that way, it should have come in something like a creamer or a cruet or something. Not a ramekin!

The Golden Arches

Saturday late dinner

After a nearly fruitless Christmas shopping excursion Steak and Potatoes and I emerged from the mall just before closing time. It was too late to go out for a full service dinner so we decided to swing through McDonald's and pick up something unhealthy but tasty. As usual, we chose our meals from the dollar menu. One McChicken sandwich (recommended by Dairyqueen), two double cheeseburgers, a fruit and yogurt parfait, and two small fries.
When we pulled up to the cashier we were told that the fries would be three minutes and if we'd like to park he would bring our entire order over to us. After ten minutes a polite and apologetic teen brought us our food and told us he had upped our fries to larges because of the long wait.
Bonus!
The parfait was not bad. The strawberries were quite flavorful but the blueberries ( I think they were blueberries) had zero taste.

Overall it was a fairly routine trip to McDonald's. Low cost, good taste, moderate guilt.

Crapsto's

Location: Christo's Restaurant, Stafford Street, Worcester
Meal: Dinner, Saturday evening

Dinner at Christo's was an altogether bad experience. I'm going to just list all the terrible things that happened.

• The service was horrendous. We were basically ignored for a good portion of the evening. It took almost an hour to get our entrees. We were provided with 2 drink servings; you know, firsts and seconds. The wait staff was made up of about 4 college age girls, and an older woman who seemed to be in charge. Except that she didn't seem to mind that the wait staff was, for the majority of the time, leaning on the waitress counter, chin in hand, slack-jawed and blank-stared.
• We never got the extra napkins we asked for, so took some off the next table. The table was NEVER cleared. We were surrounded by dirty, empty dishes and glasses for a good 40 minutes after we finished eating.
  
• We were never asked if we wanted dessert. We didn't. But they should have asked.
  
• We sat for at least 20 minutes waiting for a waitress to come by to see if we wanted the check. Then we waited another 20 to get it after we asked for it. When we got it, there was an 18% gratuity added on. For shame, Christo's. Just because we had a large party, we weren't going to tip for shitty service. The waitress took it off. But really now. How rude. We tipped about 10% and even that seemed wrong.
  
• Almost all of the specials were seafood-based. There were at least 30 seafood casserole type entrees. Apparently, they were trying to use it up before it went bad.
• Out of the 7 seafood entrees, they mixed up 5 of them. The waitress claimed she wasn't very good at telling the seafood entrees apart. The she laughed. Yeah, real funny. One of our entrees was actually given to another table, so that person was the only one who got hot food because they put a rush on a re-do. I had the haddock. it was kind of rubbery. I also had the greek grean beans. The beans were the consistency of a shoelace and there were way too many tomatoes. They were basically gross.
• One of us ordered the monte christo but said, just turkey please. They also put in ham, and forgot the maple syrup.
• The greek salad was just an insult. It was as if the chef said: "To make salad, remove all green leaves from a head of iceberg. Chop up the yellow center and place on plate. Add a miniscule amount of the rest of the ingredients. Serve with super long green onions or scallions or whatever. Dressing goes in a ramekin with a spoon." Nice. Why wouldn't you do the same for the maple syrup? That came in a plastic to go cup with a cover.
• Prices were way too high for what we got. Entrees were around 13. The scallop casserole had about 5 scallops, the small ones.
  
• The saddest part was, this was to celebrate a birthday, and the waitress knew it was a birthday celebration and obviously didn't care. The memory is just painful. I hope next year's is better.
  

The Aegean

Location: The Aegean, Framingham, MA
Meal: Dinner

The Aegean is in a new location on Route 30 in Framingham, behind Shopper's World. A friend and I tried to go there on a weekend night, at the height of dinner hour, and the wait was over an hour and a half. This time, we tried on a Thursday night.

The inside is beautiful. The space is very large, and has an open floor plan with 2 levels. We were seated on the second level, at a two-person table that was next to a curved wall that looked over on the lower level. We were right in the middle of the restaurant, with a view of the whole room. The table was set very nicely, and the bathrooms were really nice, and very clean.

Dipping oil and a selection of breads came out quickly. Delicious! The oil was very flavorful and the bread was delicious - pita and another type of bread. I ordered a class of Greek red wine, a Pinot Noir, I think, and my companion ordered a Greek white wine. Both were delicious. I wish I could remember the names of them but the meal was about a month ago and I didn't take notes. Now, I carry a notepad.

I ordered the chicken gyro dinner; my companion ordered the lamb gyro dinner. The came disassembled on an oval plate - a row of tzatziki, a mound of chicken or lamb, and a mound of vegetables (lettuce, tomato, onion). The chicken was nicely seasoned and the tzatziki was wonderful. The lamb gyro also got rave reviews. There was enough for me to take leftovers home and have a second meal.

We shared a dessert, galaktobouriko, which is a custard filling with filo dough crusts and honey. It was delicious and tasted just like my grandmother used to make. They served it with cinnamon and whipped cream but I like it served simply, with a glass of milk or cup of tea.

The Aegean is a good destination for a nice dinner. Prices are in the medium to high range, but the gyros were actually not too pricey, about $13 each. Just try to get there early on the weekend.

Great Greek Salad

Location: Leo's T Bird Pizza, Chandler Street, Worcester
Meal: Lunch, Sunday

I've been to Leo's a few times over the past several years - it seems that I always go there with one particular friend. Every time I go, it's always good, and the folks who work there are always super friendly. This time, both I and my dining partner ordered the Greek salad. This was a great salad. It was really big, so big I couldn't finish it. My friend could, but she's eating for two. There's plenty of feta, good kalamata olives (pits in, yay!) and it comes with 4 large slices of very soft pita bread. The best part, though, is the dressing. It's creamy and tangy, and the menu says it's homemade.

P.S. They also have the Coffee News, so it's cool to dine in alone.

A Dunkariffic Experience

Location: Dunkin Donuts Drivethrough, Grafton St, Worcester

DD Employee: I'll be right with you...I'll be right with you... One minute

[3 minute wait]

DDE: Ok, what can I get for you? (Lots of water running, clinking of metal on metal, and many conversations in the background)

Us: Small gingerbread latte, no whipped cream.
DDE: Anything else?
I've changed my mind so:
Us: Actually, please add the whipped cream.
DDE: Okay.
Us: Also, a medium half coffee, half hot chocolate.
DDE: That's basically a dunkaccino.
Us: No, I just want regular coffee, not the cappuccino coffee.
[Lots of back and forth, until finally, we drive up to the window.]

Here's where it gets interesting. One DDE takes our money, and returns with our change. Another employee altogether delivers my gingerbread latte, but forgot the whipped cream. He quickly returns with the modified drink, and kind of looks at us. We ask where the coffee/cocoa is.

DDE: Oh, that's right. (because it's been all of 3 minutes since we ordered)

He returns quickly with the coffee/cocoa, and pleasantly asks how my latte is. We chat about whether it's coffee or syrup (it's syrup with caramel and gingerbread flavoring), and then, drive off, laughing. The funniest part was that the DDE was checking in on us as if we were dining in. It was the slowest drive through experience, but not unpleasant.

Friendly's

Location: Friendly's, Tatnuck Square, Worcester, MA
Meal: Lunch, weekday

When you go to Friendly's, you pretty much know what you're getting. The food quality is consistent, the fries have been good since high school, and they've even added some decent healthy options. The other thing is, now that friends and family are having children, it's a good place to go that has reasonably priced food for kids and grown-ups, and this place actually likes having the kids there.

On a recent visit, I got the Tuna Roll (tuna, cheese, and lettuce), on light rye, with fries, and a Sprite. I was disappointed by the lack of ginger ale on the menu, but the Sprite was good. The only feedback I have on my meal is the tuna could have used some seasoning, like salt and pepper. I had to rush out and couldn't stick around for dessert, which was quite a disappointment.

Service was good. The waiter was attentive and called the second-youngest member of our party "the youngster". So cute.