Ten Tables (Cambridge) Bar Menu

Nuts, Olives, and Pickles

I'm still a long way away from being completely unpacked. Thankfully, my new place is starting to look like a real home, not just a storage facility for boxes.

It's surprisingly different living here.

Our old place faced a major road. We had completely gotten used to the background roar of subways, constant hum of city buses, and occasional shouts from the slightly inebriated spilling out of nearby bars.  It gave the neighborhood character; in some ways, we never felt alone.

Our new place is on a leafy residential street which is super quiet.  I couldn't get over the eerie silence that first night. It felt like I was camping in the woods, even though I was less than a 10-minute walk away from Harvard Square.

Another difference? We have less restaurants close by. Whereas before we could walk just one minute to our favorite local haunt, now we have no restaurants on our residential street.  Help! What to do?

Why hello, Ten Tables!  I didn't see you tucked inside that residential complex right on Craigie Street.

I'm so glad you decided just recently to add a bar and also a bar menu. The timing could not be more perfect for our move into the neighborhood.

Equinox Farm Baby Dandelion Greens with Crispy House-smoked Pork Belly, Hazelnuts & Pickled Ramp Vinaigrette

I first met David Punch at (of all places) the bar at Bergamot. David Punch is the co-owner and executive chef at Ten Tables Cambridge. The day we visited, he had just opened up the new bar and was introducing the bar menu in the form of a fun little six-course tasting menu. Of course we were curious to see what it had.

We began with a nice assortment of classic bar treats with an upscale twist (pictured at topb of post). The olives were delicious (I loved the variety), and both the seasoned nuts and pickles were house-made. The second course - pork belly dandelion greens salad (pictured above) - was also fantastic. The pork belly was cooked perfectly, and I really enjoyed the textural interplay between the crisp greens, crunchy hazelnuts, and juicy charred pork belly.

Blue Crab Beignets with Spicy Remoulade Sauce & Lemon
These little beignets were Dave's creative interpretation of a crab cake, and we both liked it a lot.

Prosciutto wrapper melon
Dave sent these out as a free mezzo - a sort of palate cleanser that came in between courses.

Vermont Rabbit Meatballs with Fava Beans, Ricotta Dumplings, Garlic Chives & Pistachio
These meatballs were hearty and flavorful, with a deep, meaty sauce that went perfectly with the house-made ricotta dumplings.

Artisanal Cheese Board with Cherry Jam & Toast 
The cheese board was fun, and later we found out that Dave got some of these at Formaggio Kitchen, the famous cheese shop that Julia Child loved (and which is also now in my hood!)

Sticky Apricot Pudding with Vanilla Creme Fraiche 
We absolutely fell in love with this dessert. It was dense, rich, and had a wonderful deep, caramelized flavor. It was a perfect way to end such a great meal.

I am definitely looking forward to visiting this place more now that it's a quick stroll from my new home. The food is excellent, and the prices are not too bad. It's a popular place though, so don't be surprised if you are unable to get a reservation on a Friday or Saturday night. It's pretty hard to find parking in the surrounding neighborhoods (it's all residential permit parking), although they do have a small parking lot right in front.

I will always miss my old haunt (which was so convenient and so close).  However, I am thrilled there is such an excellent place that's still so close. 

Ten Tables

5 Craigie Circle

Cambridge, MA 02138

Pho Hoa

I've been missing out all these years.

I'd always heard from my sister (and my brother-in-law, among others) that the best Vietnamese food in Boston is in Dorchester. I guess for one reason or another, I've mostly kept to my microcosm here - Cambridge, with bits of the North End, downtown, and occasional jaunts to the suburbs. Heck, the South End even feels too far away even though there's tons of interesting restaurants there.

Thankfully, thankfully, my sister decided to take the entire family down to Dorchester after her graduation to try some Vietnamese food from her favorite haunts.

Yes, I know this is a chain, but  . . . wow! Fresh ingredients, very reasonable prices, and a brand new, beautiful space. It's no surprise that Pho Hoa grew as quickly as it did.


Pho Hoa is a chain of Vietnamese restaurants that started in California and is now all over the world. They have locations all over Asia (Korea, Philippines, Singapore, Macau), in Canada, and spread throughout the US (Georgia, California, Boston, and Utah, just to name a few). The restaurants are franchises but all have similar menus and philosophies ("health conscious choice").

We were immediately impressed with the freshness of the ingredients. You won't see any limp bean sprouts or tired vegetables here. My brother-in-law also noted that they carry the more unusual rau ngò gai, or thorny coriander or sawtooth herb alongside your more typical Thai basil and bean sprouts.

Bún Gà Nướng
Grilled chicken with vermicelli, pickled carrots and daikon, beansprouts, and peanuts. You toss this together with a fish-sauce based broth. Absolutely delicious.

Bún Thịt Nướng Chả Giò

Pork, pork skin, and tiny spring rolls on top of vermicelli.

Bryan got a RAW(!) beef noodle pho, something he had never seen in Boston up to this point.

Essentially, they give you raw slices of prime beef, which you just dip into the hot soup!

Bryan loves rare meat, so he was thrilled.

For dessert, they had ice cream from Christina's on the menu! Yes - we are talking about the uber famous ice cream shop in Cambridge. Of course, we were thrilled. I tried the green tea ice cream and it was definitely much better than what you typically get at an Asian restaurant.

I had a lot of fun at Pho Hoa and I would definitely return. There is another location in Chinatown, which I have not tried. I'm hoping it's just as good as this one. I hate to say it, but Pho Hoa has replaced Le's & Pho Pasteur as my favorite pho place in Boston (though Le's still holds a special place in my heart just because it's so close to home and is such a great cheap dining option in Harvard Square!)
 
This post is part of a larger series dedicated to my sister, Patricia, and describes meals we had when my parents came to town for her graduation. Other posts in this series:

Joyful Garden
Moves and Changes 


Pho Hoa
1370 Dorchester Ave
Dorchester, MA 02122

Joyful Garden

This post is part of a larger series dedicated to my sister, Patricia, and describes meals we had when my parents came to town for her graduation.

You would never ever have expected to find good Chinese food here. I mean, really . . . we're inside a very ordinary-looking hotel/inn. The front lobby reminds me of an extended stay suite, with dated furniture, tired wallpaper, and a bright neon green sign that screams "Joyful Garden!"

How would anyone ever think of coming here - much less dine here?

And then you peer in a little bit closer. Surprise! The place is teeming with Chinese people? Large round tables are filled with Grandmas, kids, and people of all ages engrossed in lively conversation. Cantonese can be heard all over the place.

Could it be? A secret Chinese haven inside of a Days Inn in the middle of Brighton, Massachusetts?


The first clue in support of authenticity is the all-Chinese menu. My sister was dying to come back here with my parents because she couldn't read the menu the first time she came. Sadly, she was stuck with the English menu, with lovely choices such as Sweet & Sour Pork, Chicken Lettuce Wraps, and General Gau's Chicken. The Chinese menu is quite different, with exotic ingredients such as sauteed frog legs ("spring chicken" as they call it), a plethora of lobster dishes (I don't even see lobster on the English language menu), and great value "banquet" type multi-course meals where you can get set menus for 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10 people ($29.95, $59.99, $98.88, $168, and $199.99 respectively).

Because we had a big table of people, we ordered the 10 person meal but substituted a few of the dishes to suit our personal tastes (i.e. my sister's tastes since this was her graduation meal!)

We began with this interesting soup - "Fish Maw Soup with Crab." Fish maw is actually the air bladder of a fish, and has a soft, spongy texture. If you didn't know what it was, you might think you were eating some kind of interesting sea plant. Bryan and I love this soup, though the texture may be an acquired taste! The soup here was decent, though we thought the same soup at Victoria Seafood was more flavorful.

The next dish was interesting as well - baby bok choy, Shitake mushrooms, and dried bamboo hearts. The texture of the bamboo hearts was also spongy, and definitely reminded me of fish maw (except that it was vegetarian and a significantly finer). I liked how it soaked up all the flavorful umami of the mushrooms and others.

I've always loved these fried taro nests, and this one was classic. The dish was decent - the seafood wasn't the highest quality, but overall it was alright.

When I'm to lazy to make my own golden pan fried noodles at home, I can find them at most Cantonese restaurants. These noodles came with a flavorful sauce and were nicely crispy.

I love the idea of a crab sauce over spinach - ingenious! This is one of my favorite dishes, and I thought they did a reasonable job executing it.

Pi Pa Tofu is another favorite of mine - these are essentially fried balls of minced shrimp and tofu. We weren't sure if there was actually shrimp in this one, but it was still pretty tasty, though maybe not the best I've ever had.

This simple steamed fish with ginger and scallions was quite good. It all comes down to freshness, and the fish here tasted sweet, clean, and delicious.

My sister loves these sweet, red spare ribs (jin du pai gu), so we swapped out another dish for this one. It's not one of my favorite dishes (half the time at restaurants I don't even touch it when it's ordered). However, I tried a bite, and it was alright.

General Thoughts
Overall, Joyful Garden is a surprising oasis on this stretch of Soldiers Field Road. I would have never expected to find pretty good Cantonese food in such a unique place.  Word of mouth seems to be what brings the hoard of Chinese people here.

It's not my favorite Cantonese restaurant in Boston, but it's definitely authentic and pretty solid. They have nice banquet packages that are reasonably priced and generously portioned. It's a great place for large groups because they have all those big round tables plus there's plenty of parking. I can't comment on the food off the English menu because I've never tried it.

Just make sure you order from the Chinese menu! Bring a friend who can read Chinese or try blindly ordering one of the banquet set menus and be pleasantly surprised!

Joyful Garden
234 Soldiers Field Rd
Brighton, MA 02135

Easy Homemade Mochi

mochi (n) a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous flour pounded into a paste and molded into shape (source: Wikipedia)

I've always had a weakness for the chewy texture of rice cakes. It doesn't really matter what form these  rice cakes take. I'm just as happy chewing on savory stir-fried Chinese rice cakes (chao nian gao) as I am snacking on sweet Japanese mochi.

The traditional method for making mochi is time-consuming and labor intensive. First glutinous (or sweet) rice is manually ground, soaked, and then steamed. This mound of cooked rice is then pounded vigorously for 10 minutes until it becomes one big, sticky mass. Finally, this mass is hand-kneaded until it becomes the desired texture.

It's no wonder virtually no one in America makes mochi at home.

Thankfully, with the help of modern technology, there are much easier ways of making mochi at home. I've chosen to even skip the pounding step. Although it yields a mochi that is less dense, it's still sweet, chewy, and quite enjoyable.

Hard to beat for just 15 minutes of work. :)

Easy Homemade Mochi
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup Mochiko (glutinous rice) flour
1-2 T sugar (optional)

Mix together water, flour, and sugar in a microwave safe bowl.  Cover tightly with plastic wrap and microwave on high for about 2 minutes.  The previously liquid mixture should be solid now. Typically the plastic wrap will expand while heating (creating a bubble on top of the container) and then it will shrink and become concave once you take it out (due to the rapid cooling air inside the container).

Remove from microwave and let cool.

Be careful when removing the plastic wrap! The steam is very hot!

I like to use a glass Pyrex container with plastic wrap for microwaving because I know it will retain the moisture inside. I once tried making it with a plastic lid and I think too much moisture was lost, resulting in a hard, rubbery mochi. Of course, I'm sure some of you (me included!) feel a little nervous about microwaving with plastic wrap. If you have a microwave-safe lid that seals, I would definitely try that. At the end of the day, you just need to make sure no moisture escapes!

You can now scoop out your desired size and cover with potato starch, peanut sugar, kinako (roasted soy bean flour), coconut flakes, or cocoa powder.

Alternatively, take out the entire piece and cut up into squares with a knife.

That's it!

You can easily make peanut sugar with a mini-food processor. Just put plain, dry-roasted peanuts and sugar in a food processor and pulse until it becomes a powder. I never actually measure, but I try to eye ball a ratio roughly 1:1 by volume.

Alternatively, you can grind peanuts and sugar in a mortar and pestle by hand, the way my mom used to do it when we were growing up!

If you are ambitious, you can try making mochi sushi!

Check out my posts on how to make mochi nigiri and mochi maki rolls. These are super cute, and not too hard to make! They work great for parties. :)

Thelonious Monkfish

I'm so ignorant when it comes to my knowledge of jazz musicians. That's exactly why when I first saw that the new restaurant in Central Square was going to be called Thelonious Monkfish, I thought the founders were out of their minds.

Then I found out that Thelonious Monk was actually a really famous jazz musician.

Ahhh! - the fish symbol with the musical staff makes sooo much more sense now!

I've felt for a long time that there's been a dearth of good Asian restaurants in Cambridge, especially Central and Harvard Square. So, when Thelonious Monkfish opened with the promise of reasonably priced sushi and Southeast Asian food, I definitely wanted to check it out right away.

Satchmo Roll
spicy tuna, poached shrimp, yellowtail in cucumber wrap with ponzu sauce ($13.95)

I stopped by for lunch with a friend a couple weeks after the restaurant had opened. By that point, positive Yelp reviews had made the place quite popular, and it was packed right at noon on a Tuesday. I had to wait about 10-15 minutes before I could be seated. You could tell the staff was a bit harried, still not accustomed to dealing with such heavy crowds.

Temper Tantrum Maki
tuna, cucumber, scallions & chili sauce $6.50

We decided to try the sushi, since that's something that's really hard to find in Central Square. I ordered the chirashi while my friend got the Temper Tantrum Maki. We shared the Satchmo Roll, since that looked interesting as well.

Chirashi
assorted sashimi on a bed of seasoned rice $12.95

Honestly, the sushi was rather underwhelming. The Satchmo Roll was bland (the fish itself didn't have much flavor), and the workmanship in the maki was a bit sloppy. The chirashi was average - I guess for only $12.95 I shouldn't expect something amazing, but I didn't really enjoy my meal that much. My friend enjoyed her Temper Tantrum Maki, so I'm guessing at least the chili sauce added some flavor to the otherwise bland fish.

Drunken Noodles $10.95
flat rice noodles, onions, green beans, basil leaves, and hot peppers stir-fried with your choice of chicken, beef, pork, tofu or shrimp

On a more positive note, I ordered a bunch of their Southeast Asian dishes for take out another evening. The menu had a wide variety of choices, so I tried several curries as well as classics such as Pad Thai, Drunken Noodles, and Rad Na.


Chicken Green Curry $10.95
I was actually quite pleased with our food. The delivery came right on time (I ordered using Seamlessweb), and the food was pretty enjoyable. The dishes were well-seasoned and flavorful yet not too salty nor greasy.

Glass Noodle Pad Thai
cellophane noodles stir-fried with egg, chicken, shrimp, crushed peanuts, bean sprouts, lime juice, & tamarind juice

I had invited a group of 5 people over, and everyone seemed to really enjoy the food. The curry coconut-based sauce was so good that one of my guests asked to take it home to eat with rice, even though all the meat and veggies were essentially gone!


Beef Red Curry $12.95
The prices are quite reasonable, and a pretty good value considering the ambiance of the restaurant, the location, and the type of food.

Clover Honey Pork Rad Na
wide flat noodles are pan-fried till lightly caramelized with clover honey marinated pork, carrot, egg, chinese kale & served in a mild gravy 
This dish intrigued me because it sounded interesting. Check out that super wide noodle!


Overall Initial Thoughts
I'm pretty happy about this new Asian fusion addition to Central Square. The area definitely could use more Asian food, and Thelonious Monkfish fits the bill as a pleasant sit-down restaurant with reasonably-priced food. Based on my initial experiences, I'd probably skip the sushi and instead opt for one of the Thai dishes. Having said that, I think my opinion is still premature. I've had other friends visit the restaurant and speak rather positively about the sushi. I'll probably go back and give the sushi one more try before making just drastic decisions. :)

Thelonious Monkfish
524 Massachusetts Ave
Cambridge, MA 02139

Machu Picchu Charcoal Chicken & Grill

Fried plantains

Same food, half the price?
Years ago my family visited San Francisco as tourists for the first time. We did all the classic touristy things: walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, ride the famous trolley, and marvel at the sheer size of the biggest Chinatown in the US.

We found a fantastic hole-in-the-wall restaurant with simple formica tables, super bright fluorescent lights, and incredible food. The best part? It was super cheap.

One our second day there, the waiter told us that a much fancier Chinese restaurant upstairs served exactly same food but charged twice as much. Of course, the decor and service upstairs were much nicer, but the food was identical. In fact, it came out of the same kitchen.

We chuckled, feeling like we had found some amazing secret about which the clueless, duped tourists upstairs had no clue.

In reality, we never did confirm or validate the waiter's statement. He played to our instinctive values - the desire to get a good deal.

Whenever a successful (and expensive) restaurant opens a more casual joint with the same trade name, people tend to get excited (think Jean George or Daniel Boulud), thinking that they can get something amazing for much cheaper.


Yucca Fries

The owners of Macchu Picchu Charcoal Chicken & Grill began with a highly successful Peruvian restaurant in Union Square (also called Macchu Picchu). After moving that restaurant to a bigger space, they opened up a simple, casual rotisserie at the old location.

Peruvian Chicken

Their namesake dish, of course, is the Peruvian chicken, which costs $15.99 for a whole chicken. It's marinated for 24 hours in their secret blend of spices and then cooked over charcoal. It's juicy, flavorful, and definitely quite enjoyable.

We only got take-out, so I can't comment much on the ambiance of the restaurant or the service. Nevertheless, the chicken is definitely very good, as well as the classic fried plantains and the yucca fries.

Classic Peruvian cookies called Alfajores - these were filled with caramel and were absolutely delicious.

I hope to someday return to try the larger, sit-down restaurant, which has a much bigger menu, full bar, and takes reservations. Until then, I'm perfectly happy relishing in the memories of the simple yet delicious menu items at the more casual counterpart down the street.

Machu Picchu
307 Somerville Ave
Somerville, MA 02143