Category: FoodPrint-Boston

FoodPrint-Boston: Stella

Restaurant:
Stella

Address:
1525 Washington St
Boston, MA 02118
b/t Mystic St & Brookline St in South End

Category:
Italian

Average:
$40/person

Review:
This is an unexpected dining experience I had in Boston. After my awful visit to Boston’s South end Giacomo’s, I decided to find a restaurant nearby to had dinner with my friends. Stella was the one that we picked based on its relatively decent review in the south end area.

When we arrived at this restaurant, we were seated immediately even without a reservation. This was pretty unusual for a restaurant on Sunday night. The inside decoration was very modern and neat. It looked pretty nice but lacked the authentic Italian element. The service there was very satisfying and all waiters were very passionate.

We ordered Seafood Risotto to share with each other. This dish was very nicely arranged and served. However, after tasting it, I had to say that this was pretty disappointing. The sour flavor from tomato was too strong, which almost completely covered the flavor from mussels and fish. Risotto was too soft and watery and made this whole dish more like a soup.

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In addition, I ordered Braised Short Rib for my entree. This was a pizza with short rib on top. The appearance of this dish was not quite attractive but its taste totally surprised me. The short rib was well cooked and had a sweet flavor. But only the sweet rib couldn’t make it an amazing dish. The most surprising part was the bitterness came from kale, which matched really well with the sweetness from its rib. The combination of sweetness and bitterness really enriched the layers of flavor in this dish. Even though the bread was a little overcooked, I would still say this is a pretty nice dish.IMG_1468

In general, Stella is a decent restaurant with a lot of space for improvement.

FoodPrint-Boston: Legal Sea Foods(Prudential Center)

Restaurant: 
Legal Sea Foods

Address:
Prudential Center
800 Boylston St
Boston, MA 02199
Back Bay

Category:
Seafood

Average:
$45/person

Review:
Summer is always a good time to enjoy seafood. As I spent the summer in coastal city Boston, there was no way that I would miss seafood there.

Legal Sea Foods is the first seafood restaurant I explored in Boston. I tried this one first because some friends of mine introduced me here. As a chain seafood restaurant, Legal Sea Foods offered me a decent lobster meal, which really surprised me based on my low expectation and past horrible experience with chain seafood restaurant.

We tried two dishes from the menu. The first one was Baked Stuffed Lobster for two (about 2 lb). Based on the menu, the lobster was from crisp, cold North Atlantic waters, which did not matter that much to me since I have no clue where produced the best lobster. Anyway, the lobster was served with a small cup of butter. The stuffing of this lobster was definitely the most amazing lobster stuffing I have evert had. In the lobster, scallop, shrimp and buttery crackers magically mingled together with the help of cheese. The taste was absolutely amazing. However, if I have to name one weakness, I had to say that the stuffing of this lobster put lobster itself to a minor role, which kinda made this dish more about the stuffing but not about lobster.

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However, after a fairly satisfying lobster dish, comes a disappointing Nutty Faroe Island Salmon. This is my first time trying the combination of almond and salmon and I have to say that the result is not promising. Almond was sliced and put on salmon. Even though the  slight hint of lemon did improve the taste of salmon, I have to say that in my opinion, nuts don’t go well with salmon in this way. The spinach was decent but the mushroom ravioli had a weird taste in the sour sauce and I couldn’t even finish tho dish.

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In general, if you just come to Boston and don’t know where has the best seafood or you don’t want to wait in line for over one hour, Legal Sea Foods offers you a decent lobster dish and a not so disappointing meal.