In a kitchen short on space, a chef turns out cuisine long on ambition
Type: Seafood, Eclectic
Prices: Appetizers and salads $6.95-$9.95; entrees $14.95- $21.95; no desserts
Good choices: Caesar salad; spinach and watercress salad; upland cress and arugula salad; smoked trout, salmon, and mussel plate; Maine and New Zealand mussels and cockles; grilled Maine black pearl salmon; roast ed half-chicken; grilled baby-back ribs; sauteed tiger shrimp and sea scallops.
Hours: Mon. 6:30-10 p.m.; Tues.-Sat. 6-10 p.m.; Sun. 6-9 p.m. Reservations for parties of 6 or more.
Credit cards: American Express, MasterCard, and Visa.
Access: Five steps up to the dining room.
GREEN STREET GRILL
280 Green Street, Cambridge
(617) 876-1655
Restaurant reviewed 03/12/98 by Sheryl Julian
Green Street Grill could look great. But that would require a very large crew of contractors, electricians to light the dining room properly, painters to remove those unsightly primary colors and bathe the walls in something pleasing - pineapple yellow, perhaps, to match the sunny, hot, Caribbean-style food? Then they'd have to buy chairs that fit real fannies.
This dining room, whose access is through Charlie's Tap Jazz Club, might be called funky - if it were an inch clever. But it's simply not a nice enough room to showcase John Levins's ambitious and adventurous food. And prices hover around the mid to high-teens. Dinner for two, in this establishment, costs at least $50.
But I would go back. And perhaps someday, Levins might have a better forum for his talent. Obviously, he, too, must have wondered about this. He left Green Street in 1993 and returned two years ago. He had been there since 1987 after stints at the Harvest and the old Rebecca's.
During his sabbatical, Levins opened The Melting Pot in Syracuse, returned to his native Nevis in the Caribbean for half a year, cooked around Boston and began a little catering company. He kept the company, called Something Savory, which he runs with Jodi Auerbach. ``Eventually I'd like to make a better go of it,'' he says.
Levins returned to a Grill that he says was suffering, which is why owner John Clifford asked him to come back. This is how Levins explains it. Clifford undoubtedly begged Levins to return and one hopes the chef played his cards right. (By that I mean bank card.)
You have to wonder, as you walk by his minuscule kitchen, making your way from the bar to the dining room, how Levins manages. ``People stop me in the street and ask that,'' he says with a laugh.
It's his attitude. He looks so happy. He's in there slinging food and guzzling water from a half-gallon container, and he's one of those men who always seems like he's about to burst into laughter.
The menu at Green Street is tropical cooking mixed with a little French. The French part is mostly in technique, the tropical is a fiery approach to the palate.
The fire didn't hit the black Maine mussels, green New Zealand mussels, and cockles, which were steamed in Bass Ale - but that was all the better. Nothing should have affected this deep sea-bottom taste, enchanced by garlic, caramelized onions, and tomatoes.
Salads weren't hot either, but were beautifully composed. Levins likes to add little oddments like cat-tail hearts, similar to hearts of palm, but not as crunchy. Those were in the spinach and watercress salad, with long strips of buffalo mozzarella. Pickled milkweed pods arrived in a salad of upland cress, red oak, and arugula. Milkweed looks like giant caper berries, but the pickling isn't as piquant. The Caesar boasted homemade croutons and big leaves of lettuce, along with a bold lemon-garlic dressing.
A trio of smoked foods - trout, salmon, and mussels - arrived with a pickled onion relish and a horseradish creme fraiche. Carberry's bread is in the baskets and although their French bread lacks character, the denser breads are perfect for the rich, slightly oily, smoky foods.
Levins's restraint stops at the appetizers. All who venture forth need beer, many water refills, and piles of paper napkins (unless, of course, the dining room acquires cloth napkins).
Grilled baby-back ribs, with a sweet-sour barbecue sauce, were extremely hot, luscious, smoky, finger-licking good. They made you want to eat the bones. Like many of the main courses, they arrived with red beans and rice.
An Anaheim pepper sauce, with fresh herbs and red wine, coated a roasted, peppered half-chicken, which was succulent, perfect with beets on the side.
The relish that accompanied moist, grilled mahi-mahi contained all that makes Levins's food sing: pineapple, mango, papaya, bell peppers, onions, jalapeno, cilantro, tequila, and lime. Maine salmon was a little hot and sweet from warm tropical fruits, chili pepper, and white wine. That's an example of his tropical and French hands at work.
He gave shrimp and scallops an injection of orange, with several citrus juices, several bell peppers, and tomatoes, served over chunks of pumpkin and lentil rice.
We sent back a gumbo, which was hot, but someone in the kitchen had tipped the salt shaker into it. After passing it around the table, with no volunteers to trade a meal for the gumbo, back it went. A wild Texan hog came as replacement, which was overcooked. Levins says it's chewy meat and it can be dry.
Green Street offers no desserts. ``Have you seen our kitchen?'' asked the waitress.
We had indeed.
One last memo to the management: Please don't turn the coffee pots on before the diners arrive. It permeates the room with burnt-coffee smell and it's one more insult to John Levins's sumptuous food.
Tips & hits
