Marliave Restaurant Week

Imagine yourself coming home after work on a Friday night. You plop down on the couch next to your partner in crime. "What do you want to do for dinner?" "I dunno, what do you want to do?" Imagine that this conversation gets played out over and over again over a period of 30 minutes. Sad. I know. But sometimes when you've live in a place long enough, you get so bored with everything and this includes meal options.

Luckily I remembered that a friend on Twitter had recently tweeted about her RW meal at Marliave and I've heard good things about it from my partner in crime as well. Typically, I avoid restaurants during RW because I've never had a stellar experience. The quality of the meal is average to sucky and the quality of the service really blows too. Infact, the service is why I avoid RW all together. When I go out to eat, I'd rather not be viewed with unveiled distain. I get it though. You get the odd assortment of people coming to your fine dining establishments acting like they're rock stars when infact all they are are a bunch of hacks. We sometimes get people like that in my shop as well and let me tell you, serving them is not pleasant. It's not about the cost of the meal but it's more about a certain mentality that seems to go with it at times too. So I can't imagine having to work RW for 2 weeks twice each year.

So after 30 minutes of our played out convo on the couch, I checked Open Table and saw that we could book a reservation for 9pm. Perfect. It gave us enough time to get ready and hope on the T. I decided it was time to bust out my new Manolos (see above!) and take them for a test drive. Luckily I didn't have to do much walking because walking in these shoes was not easy at all. It wasn't that they're painful but because they are so high, they pitch me forward a little too far. So walking because an interesting endeavor. I'll have to figure out how to exactly "fix" the situation with my shoes because I love them so much and refuse NOT to wear them. If I had to chose my true loves in life, I'd list: food, premium denim, insanely expensive lingerie, make-up, E and stupid expensive shoes (not in that order but close to).

Slowly, very very slowly (due to my heels) we made it to Marliave. Luckily we got there by 9pm. I have to say that I thought it was odd that I was able to get a last minute reservation on a Friday night so easily.

Hmm...sadly, E and I should have taken it as an indication of what we should expect. I was going to write up an entire review of our meal but E beat me to the punch and already did a fantastic write up here. I'll let you read her take on it because she use to work in the restaurant industry and her observations seem so keenly on point with Marliave.

Here's the thing. I wanted to like it so much. I'd heard so many wonderful things about it and their RW menu was beyond expressive in its number of offerings. But what I got to experience didn't feel like Marliave in its prime at all. Even the space felt a bit run down and not looked after too caringly. The food was decent but the attention to the experience overall wasn't good. Perhaps it can be best summed with my dessert that came to my table looking like a giant boob. I suddenly felt like E had gotten me a gag dessert from Sweet Nothings.

However it was fun to try Marliave. Although I won't be jumping at the suggestion, I'd definitely give it another shot at some point. Besides any excuse I get to show off my expensive shoe collection is always good by me!

Sage

This past Monday night, I had plans to attend the Boston Magazine Best of Boston Dining Party. It was happening really close to the shop and was easy enough for me to make a quick visit. Who am I to say no to free drinks and food?

Actually, as I've gotten older, I've gotten less enamored with such events. A lot of times, the drinks are horrible, the food is mediocre and sparse. The crowd doesn't seem very interesting. Mostly moochers and "style writers" of Boston who all think a little too highly of their selves and their opinions. Not really my scene.

So as I was waiting for Elizabeth to arrive so we could go to this shin dig, I started to think more and more about how I really didn't want to go. What I wanted was a quiet evening with the woman I love. E arrived and was cranky about having to get thru all the Red Sox traffic to get to me. So our fate was decided. Bail on the party and find a nice, quiet place for dinner together.

We headed off to the South End and decided to try out Sage. Elizabeth's friend D.. from Brix had given her the recommendation and said it as his favorite gnocchi in town. That was absolutely worth seeking out!

To our delight, most of the restaurants in the South End on a Monday were ghost towns. We really could have had our pick of any of the places that are typically hard to get into. But Sage was our destination.

We arrived and it was very, very quiet. We both quickly noticed that Sage didn't look all that different from Umbra, the restaurant that was in the space before it became Sage. I didn't mind the lack of decor change because I always liked the space plus it had cork floors which E was delighted to discover when she walked acrossed the dining room in search of the bathroom We decided to sit at the bar and let Vanessa take care of us.

I had had a fairly tough day and was ready for a nice cocktail. I would have loved an Eastern Standard Boxcar but alas. However, Vanessa was game for trying to make one for me. It was a fine attempt and one I very much appreciated. However the vodka tonic I ordered later was a bit better. I did notice that they had Hangar One vodka and that got me really excited. Very few place in this city carry Hangar One and I'm a big fan. Usually I take it as a good sign if such a thing is sitting on the bar. E has a different test...a specific brand of cognac that she loves.

We placed our order and bread with an odd little tomato, olive oil mix came with it. It resembled and tasted like gazpacho but I think it was meant to used with the bread. The bread was standard issue Italian focaccia, which I happen to love, and so I thought the bread was great on its own. No odd gazpacho needed.

E ordered us a cured meat, pickled veg and cheese appetizer to start. The cheese included was only a parm reggiano and E wanted to swap it for an interesting sounding asiago. The cheese sub didn't happen and we didn't want to cause a problem so we ate the cheese that arrived. But Vanessa went and got us a little slice of the Asiago to try. It was lovely. I liked the starte quite a bit. But I found the pickled eggplant to be the most compelling part of the dish. I think the eggplant hadn't been cooked. It was thinly sliced and picked. Since I love all things pickled, I loved the eggplant. It was a nice way to begin.

I ordered two appetizers as my main. I got the duck confit panino and a mixed greens with blue cheese salad. The duck was indeed appetizer size, but it was quite good. The bread was very buttery and golden and the duck was pretty plentiful in those tiny little triangles of bread. It also came with a watercress and pear salad, so I had plenty of roughage that evening.

E's gnocchi with rabbit came and it was amazing! It was everything a gnocchi has to be. Tender, light as air and fluffy. She was kinda enough to give me a bite and I instantly wished I had ordered the gnocchi.

We ate with us pretty much being the only people at the bar. It was a lovely way to dine. We had a competent and attentive bartender, the game on the TV and each other....Oh, and the gnocchi. It was perfect.

And considering my crappy Boston dining experiences, it was just what I needed. Sage very well might become our date place. So if you ever want to see us, stop by Sage on a Monday night, you'll probably spot us there :)