A healthy move from JP to Brookline
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Can a natural foods restaurant with an almost-cult following move from a funky 40-seat spot in Jamaica Plain to a much more upscale space that's twice as large and still prosper?
Seemingly without missing a beat.
On a recent Friday night, we waited 10 rows deep in the entryway of the Five Seasons Restaurant for about an hour for a table. Yes, Friday is a busy night. But even so, the devotees of Five Seasons, which in September moved to Washington Square in Brookline, are faithful, really faithful.
Stephen, Rob, and John Pell opened the JP Five Seasons in 1982 after coming to Boston to study macrobiotics with the famed Michio Kushi. Over the years, the restaurant's at-first strictly vegetarian cuisine altered to meet the demands of customers and commerce, admitting seafood and the occasional chicken breast to the menu. But the thrust of Five Seasons, now owned by Stephen Pell and Jim Hinsman (who are also the chefs), remains the same - mostly vegetarian, no red meat, little dairy, and scrupulous adherence to the ideals of fresh and organic.
The dining world has changed, though, and it's now possible to find vegetarian dishes on almost every menu - sometimes even elaborate gourmet five-course vegetarian degustation menus. So why dine here?
For some, there's little question. As two vegetarian friends say almost in unison one evening as we begin to study the menu, ``I feel so safe here.'' As a vegetable-loving but not vegetarian diner, I found the fish dishes appealing and agree that the explicitness of the menu - if any dairy, eggs, or whatever is used, it's clearly stated - reduces tension that sometimes occurs when some in the party are vegan and some not. However, the seasonings seem clumsy at times, too pronounced in some dishes and too muted or dull in others.
The dining experience here is quite a leap from the previous cramped quarters - Five Seasons now luxuriates in space, lots of light wood, a handsome bar area, and artsy light fixtures. There's a full selection of organic wines and beers, juices and smoothies, and a thoroughly uptown feel to the place. The food, however, hews to tradition. Carrots, purple cabbage, bits of tofu and watercress, all carefully arranged in sections, peek from folds of a tightly wrapped nori roll. Fried just enough to crisp the edges, the tofu nori rolls are brightly flavored and refreshing. Five Seasons does Japanese restaurants one better with miso soup enlivened by the crunch of vegetables.
As one would expect, salads here are bountiful and fresh. The only drawback to the array of greens and vegetables is that each salad is festooned with such a large amount of finely shredded purple onions that the odor seems to pervade the whole dining room; I preferred one with seaweed that neutralized the onions.
Frying is certainly not avoided in Five Seasons cooking. Although the fear of meat and dairy has been eclipsed in today's health food culture by the fear of fat, here frying is used properly. None of the fried dishes tastes even remotely greasy or heavy. Vegetable tempura has a light, almost lacy crust over the lightly steamed vegetables, a nice contrast; however, the dish needed more seasoning or thicker dipping sauce that adheres better to the tempura. French-fried yams are wonderful, the slightly musky sweetness of the vegetable so appealing in its crispy-edged state that one wonders why anyone would want plain old French fries again.
Ethnic foods are a natural fit for a vegetarian restaurant - so many cultures have no choice but to go meatless. Five Seasons' Mexican delight combines black bean enchiladas, guacamole, brown rice, and homemade corn chips into a satisfying meal. The mix of so many filling elements could have used a leavening of a frill of greens or tomatoes or a more assertive salsa, but the corn chips were great.
There is no lack of assertiveness in the Szechuan-style tofu and brown rice, the chili-laced sauce perking up slices of squash, carrots, green beans, asparagus, and tomatoes. The only oddity about the dish is that it seemed light on the pan-fried tofu on one visit. Maybe some of the soybean curd migrated over to the panfried noodles with watercress, scallions, and tofu, which has plenty.
Five Seasons offers specials that change weekly, usually the major fish and chicken offerings plus some main course vegetarian dishes. Roasted red peppers stuffed with a creamy tofu and served with a cashew sauce are delicious, a good reason to eat one's vegetables. Textural interplay, sometimes missing in the cuisine here, is very appealing in this combination of the soft tofu against the firm red pepper and the slightly chunky sauce.
A mustard-honey coated salmon dish features a truly generous cut of delicious fish for $16. However, the balance of sweet-fleshed fish against the sauce is marred by too much mustard, making the tastes too sharp instead of mingled sweet-hot. A chicken breast with barbecue sauce is too dry one evening, so that even the tangy sauce doesn't help. And although I'd have to say the autumn seitan stew with root vegetables is probably good for me, it's so earnestly heavy that I can't quite warm up to it. Maybe seitan, a marinated wheat gluten, is just not for me.
Since no dairy or eggs are used in baking, the desserts can be unusual here, at least in texture. A chocolate hazelnut cake is much too dry. A pineapple bread pudding is shaped into a flat pie shape and is quite good, the pineapple and a mango coulis giving the pudding-like mixture much flavor. Maple pear crumble one evening and an apple raisin one also flavored with maple are really more like granola, good for our vegan eater with the tofu whipped topping.
Pell, in a phone interview, says that the restaurant's clientele has broadened since the move, now about half strict vegetarian and half not. ``Basically, it's the same people who shop at Bread & Circus,'' he comments. Understandably. Five Seasons is a health-food restaurant for these times.
