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Type: Contemporary American
Prices: Appetizers and salads $3.75-$7.95; pasta $13.95-$16.95; entrees $13.95-$26.95; desserts $5.95.
Good choices Corn-fried oysters, tomato and grilled corn salsa; shrimp steamed in beer; pasta with artichokes and mushrooms; duck breast with Asian greens; grilled pork loin with ancho glaze; pumpkin cheesecake.
Hours: Lunch, Mon.-Sat. 11:30 a.m.-4 p.m.; dinner, Mon.-Sat. 5-9:30 p.m.; cafe menu, Mon.-Sat. 4-10:30 p.m.
Reservations accepted. Smoking in bar area only.
Credit cards: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Diners, Carte Blanc.
Access: Fully accessible.
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KEVIN'S AT THE HERITAGE
1495 Hancock Street, Quincy
(617) 328-7000
Restaurant reviewed 12/17/98 by Alison Arnett
The dining room at Kevin's is full tonight, many tables occupied by businesspeople discussing sales and deals, laughing riotously as they cut into big steaks, then greeting those at the adjoining tables as they leave. In the back room, older couples, obviously celebrating, share desserts and conversation.
Our waitress, gracious and attentive, refills wine glasses and discreetly replaces silverware, fields our questions and inquires whether we like our dinners. The salad greens are crisp and fresh. Chesapeake striped bass is lovely, moist, and flavorful, flanked by asparagus and roasted potatoes, with a simple but sophisticated sauce. The wine list offers interesting choices in a range of prices.
That this is a nice place with some excellent food is not so surprising in this era of restaurant mania. The unusual element is the location _ along the long stretch of Hancock Street in Quincy where beauty shops and nail salons flank curtain stores, and the restaurants tend to be Irish-style pubs and coffee shops. The South Shore is not known for culinary bounty, but in another culinary bounty, but in another trend of the late '90s, restaurateurs are beginning to match up the cuisine to the customers. And the suburbs are where the customers are.
Kevin Cadigan, a North Quincy native who had been a manager at Jimmy's Harborside in Boston for 20 years, took that into consideration when he opened his restaurant a year and a half ago. His chef, Lisa Lee, previously cooked at the Black Cow in Hamilton, another popular suburban restaurant.
Lee is nothing if not ambitious. The menu lists 16 appetizers and salads, and even more entrees plus a long list of specials hat change nightly. Each plate is bountiful, the appetizers especially elaborate. The sauces tend to be rich and creamy; the spices strong on a few Southwestern-influenced dishes.
The appetizers can be startling on a first visit because they're so large. Six big shrimp steamed in beer are curled around the edges of a basket with a pot of tomato-laced remoulade sauce and lots of salad greens, a simple but very good dish. Lee says she loves anything hot and spicy. Her appetizer of corn-fried oysters makes that spectacularly apparent in its accompanying salsa of tomato, grilled corn, and cilantro on a charred poblano pepper and a cilantro-flecked dipping sauce. Both are delightfully hot, boosting the flavor of the lightly crusted oysters.
Even the salads here are large enough for two, the classically dressed Caesar and one with romaine and roasted vegetables being especially good.
The changing specials menu means that the fish goes by what's good at the market that day. One evening, the striped bass in a silken beurre blanc tastes refreshingly of the sea with just a little tomato salad and some asparagus. with it. Another evening, halibut steamed with green beans, carrots, and other vegetables gains depth from a creamy sauce. Cioppino, a seafood stew, is bursting with every possible shellfish _ mussels, clams, squid, scallops, a couple of shrimp plus white fish. The broth laced with a rouille touched with chilies is vibrantly garlicky. The stew is flavorful; only Only the presentation is disappointing, a little clumsy as though the contents of the pot were just tossed onto the plate.
Lee says that in addition to the perennially popular steak, the duck breast on her winter specials list is a particular favorite. Deservedly so, for the duck, dusted with five-spice powder and grilled, is delicious in a deep, winey sauce along with steamed pea tendrils and jasmine rice. I especially like the pork loin, brushed with an ancho chile and honey glaze before grilling. With an apple chutney _ also punched up with a little chile chilies as well as onions and red pepper _ and a cheese-covered sweet potato gratin, the pork makes a festive and deeply satisfying dish.
Nothing is as telling about a restaurant as the way special requests are treated. One evening, a vegetarian dining companion consults with the waiter about how to style a meatless meal from several appetizers. A few minutes after leaving with the order, he returns to say the chef can make a special pasta entree for her. The dish turns out to be much more than a meat substitute _ farfalle with olives and capers, artichoke hearts, mushrooms and tomatoes in a very light sauce touched with a little cream. It's so good that all the meat eaters are dipping in for a taste.
Not every dish worked well. Crab cakes are described as deep-fried; they are, and the result is a little like hockey pucks. A Moroccan-style chicken breast with spicy sausage and sauteed peppers and zucchini is pallid, showing Lee may not have as much affinity for that end of the spice spectrum as she does for Southwestern flavors. And the lobster ravioli in an appetizer are rubbery, a disadvantage even an exceedingly rich and creamy sauce can't mask.
The desserts fall into the sweet and gooey category: an elaborate chocolate hazelnut cake, a rich pumpkin cheesecake, a tiramisu with a little too much gelatin in the mousse layer. They satisfy the craving for fillip at the end of the meal, but need another element of texture _ possibly crunch _ to balance the sweetness and richness.
There's a sense of caring at Kevin's that goes from the food to the service, even to the way a manager or even the owner greets customers and takes coats and wet umbrellas at the door. This is obviously a restaurant handled with care, and that translates into a happy dining experience.
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