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Type: Bistro
Hours: Monday-Thursday 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Friday-Saturday 11 a.m.-10 p.m.
Good Choices: Portobello mushroom appetizer; fried shrimp appetizer; Caesar
salad; linguine with clam sauce; chicken piccata; lobster ravioli; seafood risotto.
Credit Cards: All cards
Access: Street-level entrance; no wheelchair access to restroom.
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CAFE AMANTE
347 Main St., Woburn
(781) 721-1555
Restaurant reviewed 11/20/97 by Bob MacDonald
It was a dark and stormy night, and we were going into this restaurant blind, an operation the most intrepid of eaters dreads. All we had to go on was a yellow Post-it note someone had left on the desk with Cafe Amante's name, address, and hours. From the outside the Woburn cafe did not look impressive, a hole in the wall more suitable for turning out doughnuts and somehow resembling a cafeteria. Inside, however, were smiling faces and rich aromas, the atmosphere of a bistro. We decided to stay, in the nick of time, grabbing a table just before another party arrived.
As neighboring diners sipped their wine, the waitress asked our beverage preference: soda, coffee, tea, bottled water. Cafe Amante is a bring-your-own-alcohol place, so it was back into the wind and rain in search of what my friend Harry calls adult beverages. Come prepared and save
yourself a trip.
Settling back in, we turned to the appetizers and soon knew why there were
so many happy faces around us. Slices of grilled portobello mushrooms (a special at $8.95) topped with two asparagus spears had been marinated in balsamic vinegar, giving this meaty, overgrown crimini an even more steak-like flavor.
Batter-fried shrimp (another special at $9.95) were crisp and dry on the outside, cooked just enough, and came with a marinara dipping sauce you wanted to eat with a spoon for its chunks of sweet plum tomato and nubbins of garlic.
Accompanying the appetizers were crusty slices of bread served with a rosemary-infused olive oil.
The Caesar salad has spawned a lot of variations of late, some of them laudable, others hardly fit to be called Caesars. Cafe Amante's (a special for $3.50) sticks close to the original, a nicely garlicky dressing of their own with each leaf of romaine being perfectly coated without getting wilted. In
addition to croutons, there were small garlic toasts. One of our tasters proclaimed it the best Caesar she'd ever tasted.
Linguine Vongole ($8.95) was described as having clams, garlic, oil, and tomato, leading us to think it was a red sauce, not our favorite with clams. The tomatoes were used judiciously, however, chunks that did not coat the pasta. Six tender littlenecks topped the dish. We prefer more whole and/or chopped clams, but this was, after all, billed as a pasta dish and remained true to the traditions of Italy, where they don't drown the pasta in sauce.
If more seafood is what you want, risotto ai fruiti di mare ($10.95) is a mouthful -- creamy arborio rice with lots of clams, mussels, and tender little rings of squid.
Chicken piccata ($9.95) was appealingly browned while remaining moist and tender, and the capers, lemon, butter, and white wine were in proportions that allowed the contrasting flavors to work well together.
Lobster ravioli is a dish that frequently disappoints by lacking close enough association with the lobster, as if maybe the lobster just walked by as it was being prepared. Cafe Amante's version, for $10.95, is hands-down the best we have ever tasted, good meaty raviolis with hearty lobster flavor in a creamy sauce with little chunks of tomatoes.
Tiramisu ($3.50) is brought in from Boston's North End and provided a perfect finish for all this: light and moist without becoming soggy. And Caf� Amante added one more pleasantry that shows this restaurant cares. Contrary to what some people think, restaurants don't know when they're being reviewed by this column, so we receive no special treatment. But the management insisted on deducting the price of the appetizers from our bill, simply because on a busy and confusing night, we had to use tumblers as there were no clean wine glasses. Cafe Amante plans to expand soon and deserves to.
Tips & hits
